Chapter 4

I was ready to be all grumpy about it, to hand out some sass, stir things up the way I liked to do. One time at Christmas, Jonah and I had been so drunk, we went to nice neighborhoods, tromping along carefully shoveled sidewalks to pick fights with inflatable Santas and reindeers until the plastic shapes burst a hole and the electric pumps forced air into air.

The cops had come, as they always did, but we skedaddled to a back alley where I’d parked Olive and roared out of that fine neighborhood before they could catch us.

Now, though, I didn’t imagine Alex would appreciate hearing about anything so boisterous and alcohol-induced, so I kept my big mouth shut about the Santas we’d decked, and the black socks from when I was a kid that I wore for years, until they finally wore out, being a bunch of holes.

I always wear a lot of black, sure, but my socks are always any other color, white, gray, candy cane striped. Rainbow, even, if I was in a jocular mood.

“She’s all right now, though,” I said, remembering some of my manners.

“Yes,” he said, taking a swallow of beer, as if relieved that this was so. “This is my first chance to see her. Lottie was told to rest a lot and there were just complications so I’ve only seen pictures of Baby Ginny—” He paused to look at me, his face flushed from the warmth of the bar (or at least until someone opened the door) and the effects of the beer. “I also broke up with my boyfriend a few months back—he cheated on me—so my head wasn’t on straight. I was a mess.”

“How are you now?” I asked, my brain tracking on the fact that he had once had a boyfriend and now he was free. And no, I didn’t wink at him, but there was a wink in my voice. “Still messy?”

He laughed, again a delightful low burry laugh that made me want to grab him and just hold on until that warm sweetness was soaked all into me.

His eyes sparkled as he looked at me, as if he knew how he was affecting me (it certainly wasn’t the beer), and was teasing me. Or maybe he was unsure what might be on offer. Or maybe he was trying to say no, but gently.

Around that time—but of course, an interruption—the waitress said our table was ready. As she led us into the small restaurant with its glossy wood floors and soft candlelight level lighting, the gentleness offset with swags of evergreen along the wood-panelled walls, I asked her, “Does your store sell warm boots?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “It just has basic supplies, maybe some sweatshirts and hats. But no boots.”

She pointed us to a small booth that had high backs and cushioned bench seats covered in plaid cloth. I slid in and Alex slid across from me.

“Thanks for asking,” he said. “You were right. My feet are freezing.”

“We can take care of that later,” I said, with visions of kneeling before him to take off his fancy leather shoes and thin socks and warming his bare feet against my bare belly.

Yeah, I’d lift up my t-shirt, and pull his foot close and, as I cupped his bare foot to me, I’d look at him and let my wants shine through my eyes.

Jonah always said my eyes gave me away. So if this guy was soft-hearted for hearth and home, and reeling from a bad breakup, then I could be his rebound guy. I’d be willing, just so, yeah, we could have a roll in the hay and afterward I wouldn’t have to sleep alone.

Yeah, he’d be using me, but I’d be using him right back, and it would all even out, eventually. The trick was getting him there.

With my sights set on getting him into bed, I was a charming dinner guest. I used my napkin. I didn’t drink too much, only a few beers more, and I didn’t eat as much of the wonderful roast chicken as I wanted because, I tell you what, I cannot fuck on a full stomach. While I wondered if I should get a to-go box, I got to watch him eat.

He was a bit dainty about it, as if he’d never gone hungry a day in his life and stuffing his face wasn’t on his event horizon. He used his napkin on his glistening and lush mouth, and took small sips of his second beer (he only ever had two), and kept his mouth closed as he chewed.

Alex was a real charmer, definitely from good stock. Compared to me, he was a prince, while I was a dullard in a herd of nobodies.

I got two to-go boxes. One had most of my roast chicken and French fries. The other had a huge slice of carrot cake, for afters.

As we argued over who would pay (maybe he didn’t realize I had a super duper powerful credit card in my wallet), I started to have my doubts that he would actually sleep with me, even if there was only one bed.

As we slogged back across the parking lot to Cabin 7, trudging over ice while a starlight black sky blew cold air across our faces, I continued to doubt that I would be successful at getting him in that bed to do anything other than sleep.

When we got back to the cabin, Alex opened it and, to our mutual surprise, someone on staff had come by to build a small fire.

There was a note. You can let the fire go out by simply not adding any wood to the kindling. Or you can add a log or two and enjoy .

I looked at the river rock fireplace, and yes, there were a handful of kindling sticks sporting small flames that might soon go out if the fire wasn’t built up.

I handed the to-go boxes to Alex to put away and threw off my blue fleece jacket to kneel down and add another log from the curved basket that held them. My time coming on weekends to Farthingdale Valley had taught me some things, and one of them was how to build and maintain a fire, and my neck and arms and face were soon feeling the warmth of that fire.

As I knelt there, watching the flames grow, I wiped my hands on my black jeans as the air warmed around me. I felt Alex come up and stand right behind me.

Had we been anywhere else, and had he been anywhere else, every part of me would have been on high alert. But the cabin was cozy, and he was Alex, and there was nothing to fear.

“Are your feet still freezing?” I asked without looking back. He could say yes or no or that he was going to take off his shoes and put on fresh socks. He could do anything he wanted.

“I wish they had boots,” he said. “I never thought to bring any because there’s everything I need at my family’s place.”

“They have a place in Steamboat?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. People as rich as Alex seemed to be usually had a summer place and a winter place, in addition to a regular house. Multiples of things, when they only ever needed one, whether it was houses or dining rooms.

“Yes,” he said after a bit of a pause. “They do.”

He moved away and sat on the couch, and in the back of my mind, I figured he was taking off his shoes here, in the living room, rather than the small bedroom so he could leave the damp shoes in the boot tray. And that was so he didn’t track dampness through the house.

Another rich person thing, something I’d never cared about until I met Royce. Until Jonah had met Royce, that is, and I got dragged along into a new level of self-care and fussiness.

“Let me help you,” I said, turning around, still on my knees.

The small couch was only a little ways away from the fireplace, and warm air wafted over my back as I looked up at him. He’d taken off his city coat and was struggling with wet laces on those stupid thin leather city shoes.

“Let me,” I said, a little more firmly now because maybe this was the first time in his whole grown life where someone had told him what to do.

I was pleased and maybe a little surprised when he leaned back and lifted his hands in a way that maybe said he was giving in, but I took my chance and started unlacing his shoes. Perfectly normal thing to do, one man to another, alone in a cabin on a snowy mountainside.

But I didn’t stop there. After I slid off his thin leather shoes and pretty much threw them behind me, I pulled off his damp thin socks.

My fingers told me the socks were woolen and that if they weren’t laid out properly to dry, they might crumple and be ruined forever. Too bad. My focus was on his icy feet, red with cold. He had a little bit of hair along his big toe, like a Hobbit wannabe, and his feet were big. Size eleven? Twelve? Strong ankles, too.

I took his right foot between my two hands and bend to blow warm air across it. He tried to jerk his foot away, but I was too fast and quick, and before he could stop me, I’d lifted my t-shirt and placed the sole of his foot against my belly.

It was like placing a brick of ice there, but I kept his foot there until his foot warmed up and felt less like ice, and was looking down until I looked up from beneath my lashes, in the most flirty way I knew how.

His shoulders went down, like he was relaxing into the moment, a full stomach, one of his feet warm at last. There was nowhere for us to go, and nothing to do but sit in front of the river rock fireplace while the flames danced orange and gold, warming the whole room.

I figured if he pulled his foot away, or got up or anything but just stay where he was, I’d stop what I was doing and we could pretend nothing had happened. I’d eat my leftovers, take a long hot shower, take a glimpse out at the snow from an open doorway, maybe watch a little TV on the very small Smart TV that was flush against the wall above the fireplace, and call it a day.

But maybe I’d been a very good boy that year, in spite of everything. How do I know that? I knew it because Alex shifted his other foot closer to me, so I took care of that one, too. And when both his feet were warm, I crawled up his body. I was basically all up in his personal space, taking command by kissing him on the nose, you know, in an utterly irresistible way.

If he’d pushed me away or drew back or anything like that, I would have stopped. I don’t go where I’m not wanted, but I’m pretty daring, and he was too pretty for me not to at least try.

“What are you doing, Beck?” he asked, murmuring against my mouth as I kissed him.

I paused, my hands clasping his face as I straddled his thighs, and basically held him my captive.

“I’m doing you , Alex,” I said, utterly deadpan.

He laughed low in his throat like he got the joke. And maybe he was totally willing for me to be his rebound guy because he leaned into the kisses I gave him. Then, with his hands on my hips, he pulled me closer, all that lovely friction building up between us as my thighs clasped his hips. Yeah, our dicks were just that close and he was as hard as a rock, and rocked back and forth a bit, just to let him know how aware of him I was.

“How is this going to look in the morning, Beck?” he asked, looking up at me, his cheeks flushed, his blue eyes bright.

Maybe he was seriously concerned, or maybe he was trying to be stern. I have no idea. Just that the burry lowness of his voice echoed in a ripple up my spine, a swirl in my belly, an echoing twitch from my cock, as if to demand that I move a whole lot faster.

“Don’t know,” I said, equally low. “Don’t care.”

Any concerns he had could wait until morning, and I aimed to make sure he was damn good and distracted. So I distracted him. I leaned close and kissed his nose, and his forehead, and then his lovely mouth. He opened up to me, responding like a man parched from days in the desert. Sighing as he kissed me, like I was the only thing that could quench his thirst.

Yeah, sure, I was about to go on in a poetic vein when he turned, dislodging me from his lap to toss me onto the small couch. It was too small, so I banged my head on the arm, and flailed about, trying to keep from breaking my neck.

His response was to haul me up and over his shoulder, to march me into the small bedroom, and flop me on the bed. Much better. More room to fuck in. That was always the best way. He peeled off his shirt, right over his head, and fuck the buttons that popped off, unable to take the strain. He peeled my shirt off too, and it ripped, but that was okay by me.

This activity of disrobing continued until we were naked and free, tumbling beneath the soft sheets, the blankets having slithered onto the floor. We got warm, pretty quickly, and he was not shy, no, not at all. His head was between my thighs, and he had me screaming real quick, the heat of his tongue, his mouth, making me come faster than I ever had in my life.

But I didn’t rest, I turned that favor right around, giving him special treatment, kissing him, one hand on his cock, my middle finger jammed up his ass as far as it would go until I found that nubbin of pleasure and pressed and released, pressed and released. I did this until he shattered in my arms with a kind of cry that was half surprise, half pleasure.

Then he collapsed on me, all billion pounds of him, gloriously sweaty and rumple-haired and just lovely. He kissed me then, pushing away the bedclothes from my face (how did they get like that? No idea) and kissed me good and hard, sighing into my mouth, pushing my sweat-damp hair from my forehead.

I sighed and sighed, and then he kissed his way down my front to latch onto my spent cock and sort of love on it with long, slow sucks that gently pulled the last bits of pleasure out of me.

Then I fell asleep in his arms with a big ole smile on my face.