Page 39 of Boy Blue
I kissed him, kissed him again, murmuring something beneath my breath I could not have translated out loud. In my heart, a warm fire had been stoked from cold ashes that I’d long ago abandoned for dead.
A sigh, his forearm over his eyes. My name on his breath, like a prayer, intoned to the air.
“Wolfe,” he said. “Wolfe.”
“Blue,” I said. I kissed his temple, tasting his sweat on my tongue.
“I’ll do the same to you,” he said.
I didn’t stop him as, on shaky colt-wobbly arms, he leaned over me, supporting himself, covering me in his shadow once more. His hand slipped beneath the waist of my sweatpants, the elastic of my briefs. Watching himself do this, mouth open as though in awe of the power of touch, of scent.
His fingers didn’t quite know what to do; his strokes jagged, uncoordinated, taking me to the edge of pleasure and then fumbling. I closed my eyes and eased into it, that sense of what we were doing. Him and me. Having come to this place, on the thin wool carpet in my cabin.
His fingers tightened around my cock, warm now, a little more steady, his breath coming hard. I opened my eyes, looking up at him, and just as I reached release, he bent and kissed me as though he’d been doing it all his life and knew just the right moment. Pleasure came in waves, his sweet scent in my lungs,his hair fanning across my cheek exactly as though his angel's wing was stroking my face.
As we lay in each other’s arms, breathing our bodies to calmness, the hard floor became more apparent to me. The hard edge of the carpet where it ended, going right across my spine. Blue’s hair was in my mouth. I smiled just the same.
Tomorrow, I would deal with that nagging feeling that was pushing to the center of my gut. For now, I wanted us off this floor and in the bed where we could cuddle—a word, a concept, so unfamiliar to me, I could hardly trace the shape around it. But I could make it happen.
“Up,” I said. “Bed.”
Normally, after an encounter in prison, a quick wash was in order. But with Blue, the taste of his kisses, the feel of his fingers on my skin, the scent of sex swirling around us, those were the marks I wanted to keep always.
I led the way, turning off lights, checking the doors and the temperature gauge. Then pulled him into the bed, between the cool sheets in the darkness, pulling the blankets up. Holding him so his head rested on my chest, tucked beneath my chin. His silky hair turning scratchy, which I could tend to with a comb. In the morning, while the world waited. Tasks and jobs and projects and all the rest of it could wait until forever.
Together our bodies made a warmth that was as steady and cozy as the fire I’d built. In a little while, when Blue was asleep, I would need to go and bank the fire, turning the flue so the heat stayed in the cabin, and the cold from outside could not get in. But for now, I breathed in time with Blue’s breaths, the steady cadence of his chest rising and falling. This was enough, for now.
CHAPTER 17
wolfe
Iwoke up, regret threading through each breath I took. If Blue couldn’t remember who he was, what right did I have to accept his advances? I needed to think, and to do that, I needed space around me, the type the cabin no longer afforded. This wasn’t Blue’s fault, but I felt too scrambled to have a decent conversation with him about it.
“Hey,” I said, easing myself from beneath the bedclothes, though moving out of that warmth was pure torture. “I need to go into town.”
“What time is it?” Blue asks, squinting up at me, the sheet and blanket drawn up to his chin. “It’s early.”
“I’m just picking up my special order,” I said, pulling on thick socks, my blue jeans, layering a Henley and flannel shirt over my t-shirt.
“Are you mad?”
I turned. Blue looked pale in the wash of early morning light, his eyes wide, taking blame on himself for something that had been blameless. Kisses shared, touches traded, my body hadn’t felt that good in a long while.
“No,” I said. “I’m going to pick up my special order at the feed and grain.”
“Are you coming back?” he asked, sitting up in bed, looking on the verge of moving to the doorway to block my going.
“Of course, I’m coming back,” I said. “I just need—” I took a deep breath. I made myself say it. Out loud, in a way that exposed a feeling I could not name, feelings whirling around inside of me. “Space. Okay? To think.”
Maybe my voice cracked as I spoke, or maybe he saw something in my face because he got out of bed and came right up to me, t-shirt rumpled, sweatpants hanging askew from his hips, a warm, luscious frame inches from my own.
I hugged him, dipping my face into the curve of his neck, inhaling his scent, filling my lungs with him.
“I’ll dress warm,” I said, as if he’d spoken words that someone who cared might say,Dress warmly.
Hurrying, I went from the bedroom, sat on the couch to lace up my boots. Put on Blue’s toque, wrapped a scarf around my neck. Zipped up my parka.
Outside, the gauge said twenty below. It was ten miles to town. I’d be fine. I pulled off the canvas that covered my snowmobile, the only vehicle that could carry me safely through those drifts along the uncleared roads.
