Chapter Eighteen
There are a few sensory moments in my life that stand out for the way they brought me unexpectedly to life.
When I was sixteen, there was the boy whose kiss I thought would be wet and mechanical like all the others, but by the time he pulled his puffy lips from mine, I would’ve said yes to anything he asked.
In my first year of university, there was the girl who looked down into the nonexistent gap between our bodies and whispered, “Can I?” and the thrill of anticipation was almost better than getting the very first orgasm I hadn’t given myself.
And then there’s this moment, the lamp dimming as its battery burns down and down, the white noise of fat raindrops on canvas and the steady sluice of runoff hitting damp earth.
In our private universe, the slow swipe of Lyle’s thumb against my upper arm is as shocking and sweet as a tongue between my legs, giving so much more than it should be able to.
The stillness between us makes the smallest movements more powerful than I ever could have dreamed. Simply imagining my hands drifting across his topography—it lights up my palms, the inside of my wrists, the creases of my elbows.
My nipples push hard against my oversize tank top; his knit boxers are putting on a three-dimensional show. Between the two of us, there isn’t a single body part that couldn’t be revealed in the space of one hot moment, but neither of us makes a move.
“Stellar J,” he says, his hushed voice reverberating in my throat. He brushes across and down the tender inside of my arm, where summer color fades.
His chest is warm under my hands like campfire embers: easy and mellow, with dozens of glowing nooks where you could toast a marshmallow to sweet perfection.
But when I serve him a “Lyle” in reply, his eyes flare to life with a thousand golden sparks, like someone stirred up the fire until our faces got as hot as mine feels now.
“This is…” His voice cracks. “This is what I think it is? I don’t want just tonight. I don’t want this if we don’t… if we don’t care for each other, Stellar.”
Damp curls tumble across his cheek. I tuck them behind his ear, smiling when I discover it’s slightly pointed, like he’s part elf, part giant. “I promise I’ve got your back, Lyle. Not just for the Love Boat. Not just for tonight. For everything.”
I stand up, step out of my sleeping bag, and toss it on my bed.
When I turn back, he’s sitting up, his bone pendant tucked into the notch above his sternum.
I step wide around his thighs and settle myself onto his lap, running my hands down his neck to rest them across the poetry of his collarbones.
He makes a low sound, a catch and release of breath as if I should be more mindful of how substantial I am, how much weight my body and my actions carry, and I love it.
“Not too close. Not too fast,” he says, the words tight. “I’m… if I’d known earlier, I would have… give me a minute.”
I’d give a lot to see him lose control, but I back off with my hips, moving my focus to the cord around his throat. Understated, biodegradable, and on message—it’s very Lyle. “Where’d you get this?”
“Tavish. My brother. He made it for me after…”
After his legal troubles, I’m guessing. “You’ve worn it for a long time.”
“It’s important to me.” He sends a hand down to adjust himself, and I could combust with the heat of watching him— feeling him—touch his body that way. His breath eases a bit; mine is ruined.
I fit a fingertip to the hollowed center of his pendant, trying to stay on topic. “But does it feel good to wear?” It would feel complicated to me—an earnest gift with a fraught message. Don’t forget to be peaceful, McHuge.
“Feeling good isn’t always the point.”
I thought as much. “Can I take it off?”
“It won’t get in the way.”
“It gets in your way,” I say. “It feels bad, and I want this to mean something good.” I find the knot at the back of his neck and lift it, questioning. Almost before he’s finished nodding, I have it undone, and I’m leaning into him so I can toss it at his pack.
“Fuck, you smell amazing,” he says, his nose at the corner of my jaw.
“I smell like you, after a week in your tent,” I say, and bite his earlobe. He tastes like raindrops fallen from leaves: green and wet with a touch of sweet summer.
He jerks under my fingers, and there’s a swell of something hard against my thigh before it falls away again, like a shadow of some rare beast turning under the water. I want to chase it, but I remember what he said about coaxing. About making things want to come to you, instead of forcing them.
So I let myself go soft and put my lips against the fullness of his mouth, licking into him like an invitation, letting that be all there is until we’re both trembling, necks twining as we seek every last drop of each other.
Every inhale is a gasp, every exhale a sigh.
He’s got one big hand up the front of my shirt and the other up the back, deliciously roughened fingers spread between my shoulder blades.
It’s like we’re outside the river of time, tucked into a safe eddy while history goes on without us, and it’s impossible to say which of us is more responsible for the wet spot on the front of his shorts.
He lets go of the breast he’s been palming, the nipple tucked between two fingers, and I whimper, disappointed. His handprint feels cool and lonely on my skin.
“Come back.”
“I will.” He reaches over to the far side of his bed, coming up with a square package between his finger and thumb. His hand shakes as I reach for the condom.
“Did you get this from the first aid kit?”
“You saw those, huh?”
“I’m the camp doctor, Lyle. I went through the kit my first day here. Two dozen condoms is twenty-four more than the Red Cross recommends, by the way.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I didn’t want to presume everyone was monogamous and prepared. It seemed like a good idea to have options available.”
“Did it seem like a good idea to have options in our tent? Were you feeling pretty sure of me?”
“No.” He looks down, golden eyelashes fanned against copper freckles. “But I was hoping.”
Ah, the way he says hoping , like it hasn’t been half an hour or a day and a half or two weeks. In his voice, there’s a whole year. There might be forever.
My heart slams hard, once, like it skipped a beat. Skipped a year.
“I’m trying not to rush things, but this condom should go on soon.
Being this close to you… there are probably some swimmers escaping.
Or so my high school sex ed teacher always said.
” A smile hooks one corner of his mouth, which is pinkened from kissing me.
He’s so comfortable in his body, so secure in the idea that what’s happening doesn’t have to be perfect. I can’t help but feel easy, too.
“I can put that on.” Beads of moisture break out across my chest at the mental picture.
“Better not,” he says, his hands urging me off his lap. “Maybe next time.”
Nobody shucks their shorts with the natural ease of Lyle McHugh, I discover.
He doesn’t pull in his sweet stomach or flex his glorious chest or make a joke to ease the tension, just fists himself and adjusts before tearing open the package.
It’s like he was born to be naked, and clothes are a convention he adopts to make other people comfortable.
“Have you by any chance lived in a nudist colony?”
“I wouldn’t say I lived there. It was more like a short-term residency.”
I laugh because it’s delightful, and because of course he did, and because he’s rolled the condom on with two quick movements, which gives me a lingering clench between my legs. “Very nice,” I say, admiring.
“If you’re worried about…” He makes a vague gesture, having apparently hit the limit of his comfort. “I won’t, uh, jackhammer or anything.”
“Lyle,” I say sternly. “I’ve seen you naked before. And do not make me explain the powers of the human vagina, given a considerate partner and a decent amount of foreplay. I am a doctor, you know.”
He gives a full-throated shout of laughter with that special low tone caressing the last notes. I don’t have an exhibitionist kink, but would I like everyone to hear how I made him laugh? Yes. Yes, I would.
He comes back to bed, stretches out, and pulls me on top. Heat shimmers in my blood, tingling against the cool air as I strip off my shirt. He blinks like a teenager who just undid his first bra, reaching up to palm my small breasts and smiling when I gasp.
“I’m very thankful this happened while we still have light,” he murmurs, his gaze loving me up and down. His fingers stroke the barely-there curve of my waist, his thumb circling the dip of my navel as he hefts my legs across the splayed length of his own heavily muscled thighs.
In his blown pupils and half-mast eyelids, I see exactly how thankful he is.
I feel it too, sinking into the safety of him, the beauty of him, the care that wraps around me, sweet and hot like spun sugar, daring me to burn my tongue.
He’s in no rush to move on, making sure he hits every sweet spot again and again until I’m aching for him.
Everywhere he’s not touching me, my skin tightens with need.
“By ‘decent amount,’ I didn’t mean ‘until I die,’” I pant, leaning down to kiss him.
“What did you mean, then?”
I intend to answer, but all that comes out is a sound of surprise, because he’s fixed his fingers across my leg and has slid his thumb inside my underwear, his ring dark against the pale crease of my thigh.
His touch makes me forget everything I know about anatomy, replacing it with the instinct to push back against the gorgeous pressure.
“What was… what is that ?”
He laughs and does some kind of sliding, beckoning finger movement that jolts me like lightning. “Oh,” I say, shocked, the word so nakedly hungry I’m almost embarrassed.