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While Xander sucked on the edge of my earlobe and whispered unintelligible words, I ran my palm across the sparse trail of hair leading from his navel to his waistband and dipped below to find the head of his cock pushing out of the top of his boxer briefs. I slid my hand inside to grasp his length, but instead of feeling him arch up into my touch the way I would have expected, I felt his entire body stiffen.
I lifted my head up and locked eyes with him. His were wide with shock and everything that followed seemed to happen in slow motion.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled, scrambling back away from me until running into the side of the tent and almost capsizing it. The poles snapped back into their proper position when he stopped moving, and he had to put his hand up to support the nylon shell above him.
His eyes were crazy, and his free hand flew up to cover his mouth.
“I-I…,” I stammered. “We… we were kissing, and you—”
“Out,” he demanded in a low voice dripping with hatred. “Get the fuck out of my tent.”
“But Xander—”
“Fine, then I’ll go,” he bit out, moving toward the tent flap.
“No, I’ll go,” I said quickly, not wanting to kick him out of his own tent in the middle of the night. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely manage the zipper. When I looked back at Xander, I saw him run his hands through his hair, reminding me that I’d had my own fingers in his gorgeous long hair only moments before. Would I ever get to touch it again? Not likely.
His eyes narrowed as he glared at me, and I felt my face burn with humiliation.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered before turning to leave. And fuck if I wasn’t sorry for those being the only words I seemed able to say to him anymore.
Chapter 9
Xander
I’m sorry.
Bennett’s words from the night before kept echoing in my brain. Words I thought I’d heard him mumble when he’d turned away from me the night my dad had died. Words I wasn’t sure I’d ever believe coming out of his goddamned mouth again.
I tightened the top rope anchors, making them secure around a giant tree trunk at the top of the crag for the rock climbing workshop I was giving in a few minutes. Aiden and Bennett were doing another one of their team-building exercises with the boys several hundred yards away while I secured our climb and prepped the harnesses.
We’d spent the morning hiking over Fury Pass to Merry Flats. The wildflower-filled meadow between Mt. Fury and Woodland Rise was one of my favorite places to camp. When we’d come over the pass to the meadow, several of the boys had burst out singing, skipping and twirling like the von Trapp kids from The Sound of Music. By the time we’d reached the campsite on the far side of the meadow, there’d been more songs stuck in my head than I could count.
Bennett must have read my mind because he’d looked over at me with a nervous smile when one kid in particular had belted out Do-Re-Mi, a song Bennett knew drove me up the fucking wall.
I’d bit my tongue to keep from smiling back at him. God, I missed our inside jokes— having someone who could read my mind and know exactly what I was thinking sometimes. The entire time we’d been on the trail that morning, I’d recalled the feel of his hands on my skin the night before, his mouth on mine, and the hot puffs of breath against my neck.
After I’d kicked him out of the tent, my dick had been rock hard— a granite spike that had refused to go down, regardless of how pissed I’d been at Bennett for sneaking into my tent while I was asleep.
Finally, after cursing at myself for ten minutes, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from jacking off to the memory of that fucking kiss. Bennett’s taste, his tongue sliding against mine, and my desire to flip him over and pound into him had kept me from being able to fall asleep peacefully. Just once— just once I wanted to feel what it would be like to slide my cock into his tight body and fucking own him.
I shuddered at the thought and wanted to kick myself again. Jesus, why couldn’t I stop obsessing over him?
I finished tying the knots and triple-checking the top ropes before climbing back down the small rock face to the ground below. Bennett and Aiden brought the group over to the base of the wall and began helping the first few kids get on helmets as I landed softly beside them.
One kid, a tall, dark-skinned boy named Calvin, who I guessed to be around seventeen with several tattoos on his arms, and black gauges in his ears, looked at me with a smirk on his face. “Aww, man. We were hoping you’d fall and bust your ass.”
