Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Clark

THE TREES LOOM AROUND me like curious onlookers. I put my head down, bowing under their judgmental glares. I focus instead on River’s back as he leads me down an unfamiliar trail. The path curls, and the trees swallow the faint light of the lodge house, leaving us in darkness. I stumble over a tree root I can’t see, and River turns in time to catch me.

“I’ve walked this path so much I have it memorized,” he says. “Let me help.”

He takes my hand. Or, rather, I let him take my hand. It’s warm and sure. He guides me the rest of the way down the path, until we emerge into a clearing where several tiny cabins await. The squat houses sit dark. Everyone is back at the cafeteria eating. It’s only me and River out here.

He keeps a hold of my hand all the way to the door of one of the cabins. Two steps lead up to a narrow porch. River releases me to unlock the door, then steps inside and flicks on a light. I follow him inside, and immediately the scent of incense envelops me.

I stand awkwardly just inside the door, a bathroom to my left. I follow River’s lead and pry off my shoes, then take a couple steps deeper into the cabin. It’s small, about the size of the room I share with Evan, except it contains only a single bed against one wall. That leaves space for a heap of clothing on the floor, a yoga mat and the dresser strewn with incense and ash trays and books. Normally, the clutter would irk me, but it warms this little cabin. I enjoy the evidence of River’s daily life, his casual routines, his books with grocery receipts marking the pages.

“Are you comfortable getting undressed?” River says.

He’s already peeling off his sweater. I breathe a tiny sigh of relief when I spot the T-shirt underneath, but the motion pulls it up, revealing the bare skin of his waist for a second. I stare too hard.

“Why?” I say.

“Because I want to massage you.”

“I thought we were going to work.”

“We will,” River says. “Trust me, okay? Will you take off your shirt at least? It’s better on bare skin.”

I take a breath. I’m here. For some reason. I came this far already. I might as well get a free massage out of it. Besides, I know how good River’s hands feel, and I’m weak enough to want them on my body again.

“Fine,” I say.

I unzip my jacket, but as I pull off the shirt beneath, I catch River watching me. He turns away quickly, rooting around in a bag for something. I try to brush that glance off, but my chest prickles where I knew he was looking at me, as absurd as that is.

“Would you mind getting on your stomach on the bed?” River says, his back to me as he keeps digging around. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we can do.”

I obey. What else am I going to do? I won’t say it isn’t awkward lying facedown in his bed. The sheets exhale the scent of him right into my nose as I settle with my head turned to the side.

River finally finishes his digging and approaches with a bottle in his hands. He pops it open and rubs something into his hands, but keeps the bottle nearby as he climbs onto the mattress with me. Before I can say or do anything, he’s straddling my legs, almost sitting on my thighs, his weight pressing me down. I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear him rubbing his hands together. A scent like leaves and earth and flowers makes my head light.

“I’m just going to massage you,” he says, voice lowering. “That’s all. Nothing weird.”

Can it get weirder than being shirtless on his bed? I think we’ve already sprinted right past “weird” with this private session.

I don’t respond, but River sets his hands on me anyway. He starts at my shoulders, leaning over me so he can dig his thumbs in at the base of my neck. Something pops immediately, and an involuntary noise slips past my lips.

River chuckles softly to himself, but doesn’t comment before he continues. He kneads his way across my shoulders, and at first it is just a massage, like he said, but as he goes on the motions change. He stops massaging and starts rubbing his hands up and down my back, from my waist all the way to my shoulders, big, looping circles. He presses harder at the top, wringing the tension out of me like my back is a wet towel.

“There’s so much energy trapped up here,” he says, voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s all bunched up, and it’s making everything tight.”

He leans even farther over me, putting weight behind his hands. Something cracks, just like back at that first yoga class at the cat café, except the feeling goes so much deeper this time. Whatever pops lies deep within me, and a flood of relief pours out when the muscle relents.

I don’t realize I’m groaning until it’s too late.

I try to clamp my teeth around the sound, but there’s no way River didn’t hear me with how quiet it is in his room. My shoulders feel a thousand pounds lighter, my whole back loose from that one pop.

“Don’t hold back,” River says. “You can let it out. This is a safe space.”

Normally, I’d scoff at a phrase like “safe space,” but I truly do feel safe with him. How else can I explain being shirtless on his bed, entirely at his mercy. His strong hands slide down my sides like he means to encircle my waist with his fingers. He presses the heels of his hands into my low back, and heat pools deep in my gut, a relaxation that has nothing to do with tight muscles.

River makes little circles on his way back up, moving alongside my spine.

“That’s it,” he says. “Just let that energy move around freely. It’s all bunched up. It needs to flow.”

Something is definitely flowing, but I’m scared it’s the blood flooding to my dick more than this “energy” River is intent on moving. His hands are warm and slick, and everywhere he touches sings with pleasure. I never thought a massage could be quite this enticing, but even though he sticks to the safe, professional region of my back, heat gathers in my gut like a geyser building up.

I bite at my lip, trying not to think about it. I was the one who told him he should be more professional, that what we did at the lake was inappropriate. What kind of hypocrite would I be to react right now? When River leans over me to reach my shoulders, though, the warmth of his body drapes over me. Even without his chest lying against me, the weight of his body presses me down, and his hands dig into my skin, and an ache opens up inside me like a yawning chasm.

God, I need this touch.

He goes lower again, focusing on the small of my back. His thumbs find the dimples above my ass, and while that is entirely appropriate for the circumstances, I can’t stymie the reaction it inspires.

“Can you roll over for me so we can do the front?” River says.

Oh shit .

I’m way too far gone. The second I roll over, it’ll be obvious what his hands have done to me. It’ll be painstakingly clear that I’m the one being inappropriate, not my young yoga instructor.

“It’s okay,” River says when I hesitate.

“No, it’s… I…”

“Clark, it’s okay. Your body’s reactions are normal.”

“But I said…”

“I know,” River says. “And this will still be only a massage, I promise.”

I dither, and River climbs off me. Instantly, I miss his warmth, his weight, his presence draped over me like a blanket. I roll over, ashamed as I am of the obvious tent in my pants. Even worse, I threw on sweatpants for dinner, so there’s no hiding this at all.

River says nothing. He simply gets more of the fragrant oil into his hands and straddles my thighs. It’s intensely weird having him sit so close to my dick, but he doesn’t react at all, just leans over me and gets his hands on my chest.

I suck in a deep breath as his warm hands make the same circular motions over my chest that he used on my back. He presses my shoulders back and down, and my chest gives a little pop.

“You hunch too much,” he remarks idly, and how the hell is he being so normal while all but sitting on my hard cock?

I swallow as he goes lower, all the way down to my hips. He does the same pressing thing here, not seeming to care that my cock is mere inches from his hands, and I teeter on the verge of exploding. I ache as his hands move inward, so close, yet sticking to the exposed skin just above the waistband.

I groan.

I can’t stop it, no matter how hard I bite my bottom lip. Before that incident at the lake, no one had touched me in so long I was beginning to wonder if I was asexual. My body cries out for more of River’s hands on me, more of that strong, steady touch, and no amount of rationalization is tamping it down.

“Please,” I gasp, desperate, broken, too needy for shame.

“Please what?” River says, even softer, even silkier.

I grind my teeth, eyes squeezing shut as his hands linger right above the place where I need them.

“Tell me what you want, Clark,” River pushes.

My teeth unclench with a gasp. “Touch me,” I plead. “I want you to touch me. Please. Please. ”

My hips press up at him, but I barely register the shame. I can’t remember ever needing someone so badly. If River refuses, if he keeps up that wall of professional distance, I could shatter like glass.

He doesn’t. The moment I plead, he pulls down my sweatpants, one slick hand wrapping around my cock.

The effect is intense and immediate. Even with my eyes closed, the impact of his touch blinds me. Color sparks behind my eyes. Relief and tension surge through my body, clashing somewhere in my chest. My hips jerk up at River’s hand, but he doesn’t stroke, just holds me as the shockwaves ricochet through my body.

River places his other hand beside my head, and I can tell without looking that he’s watching me, perching above me to study my face. The shame should be choking the breath out of me, but I can’t find space for it once his hand begins moving. The addition of the oil makes it even better than last time. From the start, he can stroke all the way up and down me, from base to tip and back again. He thumbs over me, playing with the head before going slowly back down me and squeezing me at the base.

“Is this what you need, Clark?” he says, words dusting my face. “Is this what you’ve been wanting?”

“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes. I need … this. You. I need you.”

A smile sneaks into his voice. “I know. I was hoping you knew too.”

A warning pings dully in the back of my mind. He knew? How did he know? Have I been so pathetically obvious? The worries swiftly drown under a moan as River pumps me harder and faster, as though he can hear my mind spinning and intends to obliterate every thought in my head.

If that’s his aim, he’s doing a damn good job. His hand works hard and fast, and my hips jerk toward his fist reflexively. The oil smooths the way, letting him put so much more vigor into this encounter than that time at the lake. The difference causes fireworks to pop behind my closed eyes. I arch onto my shoulder blades, trying to get somehow closer to him, but I have no control here. River is the one choosing this; I’m simply caught up in his web.

“Stop holding yourself back,” River says. “Give me all your sounds, all your pleasure. I want everything.”

I don’t know why, but I yearn to obey him. When he tells me to stop holding back, my moans grow louder, cluttering up his warm little cabin out in the woods. It’s like when he grabbed my wrist. Something inside me goes limp as a doll, eager to follow him, to relinquish the tight control I wear all day, to let someone else be in charge of my body.

“Oh Clark, that’s so beautiful, that’s so good,” River says. “Do you feel good?”

I could weep with how good I feel. I could scream from the tension building inside me. I want him to touch me like this forever, yet I tremble on the precipice of release.

“Clark,” he prods gently.

“Yes,” I groan. “Yes. Yes. So good. Please.”

“I know. I have you. Let yourself go.”

I do. His soft voice does it even more than his hand. When he tells me to let go, I break, coming all over his hand, all over my chest, maybe even on the bed. I arch into it, shouting at the ceiling of his cabin, shattering as he holds me and drags me softly yet insistently through it until I’m a limp heap on his bed.

When he leaves me, I shiver, eyes still shut, mind adrift on a lazy current of pleasure, but he comes back quickly, cleaning me off himself while I do nothing but lie there. In fact, I’ve done nothing but lie here the entire time.

“Shit,” I hiss, sitting up abruptly. “River, I’m sorry, I—”

He halts me with a chuckle. “Shh, Clark, do you really think I mind? I told you I wanted to help you. Thank you for letting me.”

I shake my head. I can’t say I understand, but I’m too weak at the moment to do anything about it. I simply pull my sweatpants back up and flop onto the bed. River crawls up beside me, holding me against him, and for some reason I let him. For some reason I allow that warmth to envelope me just a little longer.

It can’t last, of course. I can’t stay here. Evan would know. It would be dangerous — for River even moreso than for me. So eventually I fidget and he lets me go and I find my shirt and jacket on the floor.

River walks me the short way from his bed to his door, and I hesitate there.

“Thank you,” I say. “Truly. I … I might have needed that.”

He smiles at me. “I know. Thank you for trusting me.”

Do I? Do I trust him? I must, if I’m here, but it’s a strange sensation.

Almost as strange as the urge that encourages me to kiss him.

It’s swift. Cursory. Just a peck on the lips. A parting flicker of affection. River blinks with surprise.

“I’ll … see you around, I guess,” I say.

His smile has broadened, taking on a giddy edge. “I hope so,” he says.

That smile follows me all the way back to the lodge.