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Shit. Or maybe that’s why he’d pulled focus back to the task at hand, not wanting to rile Barrett anymore. Shit. Shit. Had he fucked this up? What if he’d scared Ambrose off with his teasing? He’d been showing off, touching his tattoos like that, letting Ambrose stare.
Fuck. He might have overdone it.
“I can see you thinking.” Ambrose’s words were a light tease through his sudden flare of panic. “Relax, Barrett.”
Gods, he wanted to sit up and assuage his worry but Ambrose’s hand was back on his shoulder. Now the other hand on the other shoulder. And ….those were really strong fingers pressing into his muscles. Barrett groaned, making the heavy towel suction against his mouth. He plucked it away and Ambrose laughed. “We can take that off now.” The towel was gone and Barrett blinked against the light. “Hold this for me?”
He could smell the juniper and lime, heard the clink of ice, and then he had a gin and tonic in hand. “Thank you,” he said after sitting up slightly to take a few sips. “It’s perfect.”
“And thankfully not hard to mix up.”
“Where’s yours?”
“No caffeine or alcohol while doing this.” Ambrose slathered his hands in that same golden oil Barrett had seen earlier. He flexed his fingers and wiggled them at Barrett. “This isn’t dangerous but the straight razor is. And here, let’s sit you up.”
He got Barrett reclining at an angle where he could drink and not choke, but Ambrose could still reach him. “You’re gonna spoil me,” he huffed, making Ambrose smile again. He liked that smile. He liked Ambrose. Something about this man pulled Barrett forward, toward the terrifying unknown in a way that should have made him feel unsure, unsteady. Unsafe.
The opposite was true, and Barrett didn’t know what to think. But he knew how his body responded to Ambrose, how he felt around him.
Just two grouchy loners living next to each other in the middle of the wilderness. That’s how it was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to fall for the neighbor. The friend. The ally. He wasn’t supposed to want Ambrose with him; in his house, on his boat, in his bed. In his life.
When Ambrose touched his jaw with both hands, Barrett wrapped his fingers around those delicate wrists. “Wait.”
Ambrose froze immediately. “I’m sorry. What did I -”
“You and I. There’s something here.”
Ambrose frowned. “Is that a question? I thought we worked that out.”
“No, I didn’t mean that.” Barrett slid his hands up Ambrose’s arms, until the sleeves of his t-shirt got in the way but he kept pushing, kept touching. He needed this. He needed to feel Ambrose’s skin, pull him close. “This tension is good, right? You can feel it.”
He heard the effort it took for Ambrose to swallow. “From almost the minute we met.”
Fuck. Fuck. “You can’t say stuff like that and expect me to not want you even more. Fuck, Ambrose.” His fingertips were sliding over muscled shoulders but Ambrose was locked in place, staring hard at Barrett’s face. That plush set of lips was damp from where he’d licked them and it would take nothing at all to pull Ambrose down and bite and lick into that mouth.
“You look a little wild, Barrett.” Gods, Ambrose’s voice, that gorgeous tenor, was strained. And when Barrett looked down, he saw the distinct ridge of Ambrose’s erection through his black jeans.
“Like I want to eat you?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Slowly, so Ambrose could stop him at any point, Barrett pulled his touch back. Down, down, down Ambrose’s arm until he had those fingers linked with his. Then down again, together, until Ambrose could see Barrett’s intention. “Stop me and we stop.” He was breathing hard now, his brain going fuzzy, his skin too warm.
The sound Ambrose made when Barrett pulled their joined hands down a little more, over Barrett’s hard cock, made him surge up. “Fuck, Barrett.” Ambrose’s needy little growl was cut off as Barrett kissed him hard. For a moment, he feared Ambrose would pull back, but then Ambrose was climbing into his lap, straddling his waist, sliding slick hands up his chest.
Barrett felt as if he were unwinding at every touch, with every moan, and the heartbeat of want that had lain quietly in the background all night was now center stage, pounding through him. “Fuck.” He tore his mouth away, panting, and Ambrose immediately tucked his face into Barrett’s neck and began laying wet, open-mouthed kisses on his skin.
He let himselffeelAmbrose. Let himself get lost in the soft skin of his lower back, tracing the bumps of his spine. Let himself grow dizzy with every whimper and moan he pulled from the man above him.
And then there were blunt teeth in the meat of his shoulder and Barrett hissed, lurching up. “Shit. Shit. Sorry!” Ambrose immediately tried to scramble back.
Barrett didn’t have oil all over his hands, so he could hold Ambrose steady by the hips, then yank him down. He thrust up against Ambrose’s cock, making the other man whine. “Don’t apologize. This is what you do to me. You’re driving me fucking nuts, Ambrose.” He let his head fall back against the chair, the move exposing his throat. “But I also want you enough that if we keep going, I’m going to back you against a wall. And we agreed to go slow.”
Ambrose shook his head and Barrett watched, enraptured, at the sight of those messy auburn waves shifting in the light. “We did. We did.” He drew Barrett’s hand over the tent in his pants. “But this is slow.”
Barrett had to snort at that. “We’ve not even been on a date.”
“Haven’t we?” He pushed Barrett’s hand lower, his hips twitching at their joined touch. “Every Friday night for months now. I’d say that’s a goddamn record for most people.”
