He laughed, clear and bright, a beautiful sound.
“I definitely went too long without sucking cock,” he said.
“You’re a natural.”
“Well, it was fucking hot,” he said, nodding down at his own cock, which was very hard through the fabric.
“Believe me, you’re not leaving this tent until I make you come, too.”
He moaned, reaching down to palm his cock.
“When I’m back down to Earth again, you’re mine.”
The look in his eyes was pure desire and anticipation. It was one of the first times all night that he’d seemed truly caught in the moment, not worrying about the past or the future. Even if I couldn’t convince him everything was going to be okay, I could share this moment with him.
“I know you said I’m not what you expected,” he told me, “but you are everything I expected.”
I propped one arm behind my head, looking at him. “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not.”
“It’s a compliment,” he said softly, looking down at my tattoos as he stroked his fingertips across them. “You’re very… free. Free in a way I wish I was. A way I’ll never be.”
“You think so?”
“I do,” he said. He looked around, gazing out the gauzy windows and the front entrance of the tent. “You sleep in a damn tent in your gorgeous, fairy-tale beautiful gardens. You have a cool job. Nothing tying you down. You don’t care about the stuff inside your house.”
“Hey, I care about some of the stuff inside my house,” I protested.
“Like?”
“Like… my petrified wood, that I got in the redwood forests visiting California.”
“Okay,” he said. “What else?”
“Um,” I said. “I like having food in my fridge.”
He smiled. “Right. You have some wood that just happens to be inside, and you like being fed. But you’re not tied down to your belongings, that’s for damn sure.”
“I guess I’m not,” I said. “Never really thought about it that way.”
“It’s so lucky,” he said. “I care way too much about all my stuff. Every little keepsake and memento. I even store all of my receipts in a big file folder, in case I want to remember what I bought three months ago.”
“You’re full of shit.”
He shook his head. “I wish I was. I’m just saying, you’re so much freer than I am,” he continued. “I assume you go camping in this thing, too, right? Like, actual camping?”
“I go camping some weekends up in the forest.”
“Do you plan out your trips?”
“No,” I said. “I just kind of go whenever I feel like it.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Christ, if I want to go on a trip, it requires months of planning. I’ve scheduled my jerk-off sessions in my calendar before, Luke.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “That’s a joke, right?”
I wasn’t sure if he was about to laugh or cry of embarrassment.
“What does that even look like in a calendar?” I asked. “Do you write it down as ‘ten p.m.: make sure to masturbate?’”
He laughed, squeezing my arm. “Hell no. That would be far too embarrassing if anyone saw it.”
“So what, then?”
He pulled in a deep breath, shifting on the mattress. “I wrote it down as ‘personal time.’”
“Personal time,” I said. “I guess it’s the truth.”
“I’m a little addicted to my calendar.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
He gave me a little shove on the shoulder. “Hey. I’m not that predictable.”
“What?” I said. “You love crosswords. You’re not spontaneous. You want to schedule an appointment for ten minutes from now?”
He rolled his eyes. “And what would that be?”
“When I’m going to have you coming down my throat?”
He let out a little gasp, his eyes going wider. It was a fucking gorgeous sight. I loved that I could get that kind of reaction from him.
“Oh yeah?” he asked, reaching down again toward his cock.
I nodded. “What do you have scheduled for later today, anyway? Some ‘personal time?’”
I loved teasing him. He was playful as hell—another thing I never would have expected out of him. It was ridiculously cute. Ridiculously hot.
He grinned as he looked down at his little smartwatch, tapping it a few times.
“I… shit.”
He froze in place, his face going stony.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You were supposed to jerk it tonight, but instead you’re stuck here with me?”
He didn’t even answer, though. In another second he was bolting upward, standing and searching around for his clothes.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Wait. What?”
“I need to go home,” he said, finding his shirt and throwing it on quickly. Soon he was tugging on his pants, totally frantic.
I scratched my head, confused. “Okay. What’s going on? I can take you back to your car.”
“I’ll just call a cab. It’s the middle of the night. I’m not going to inconvenience you.”
I furrowed my brow at him. “You are not calling a damn cab,” I said. I got up quickly, putting on my clothes and running my fingers through my hair.