“Done,” I said, standing up and beginning to soap up my front half. My cock had jumped to attention and swollen to half of its potential size, so I quickly turned away. I felt the spray of water as he rinsed, and then he tapped my shoulder to let me know he was ready for the soap.
“Close your eyes,” he said, beginning to shampoo my hair. He’d done his own so I was taken aback when he massaged my hair and built lather. I felt something against my back, when he leaned forward to reach the top of my head. If both of his hands were sudsing my scalp, what was tapping on my ass? “Rinse,” he ordered, guiding my head to the nozzle.
Once I’d rinsed my hair, he brought his hands to the sides of my neck and across my shoulders, gently massaging as he disbursed soap. He hadn’t backed up an inch and I felt his erection pressing against my cheeks. “Your back is lean yet powerful,” he said, speaking into my right ear. “You’re very attractive, Blake,” he added, bringing his hands to my ass cheeks and dragging the bar over my mounds. “May I?” he asked, running his finger down my ass crack until he touched my opening with a soapy finger, not waiting for approval.
I flinched and moved away. “Umm, I’ll wash there,” I said, not truly wanting to shut him down if he was in fact making a move on me. I’d felt unattractive for months so my reaction was instinctual and came from the shame of letting myself get so malnourished.
Dirk placed his hands on my hips and turned me around. I kept my eyes above his waist but I could see the outline of his cock peripherally. I wanted to drop to my knees and relieve him of the obvious need he was displaying, but fear kept me transfixed on his face. “One more minute,” he whispered.
“I’m done…I think,” I mumbled, our eyes locked. Was I?
“You are a beautiful man,” he stated.
“I’m too thin,” I responded, crossing my arms and trying to hide the fact.
“Slightly. Maybe,” he agreed. “But you’re still very attractive, Blake. You do see that, right?”
I continued to stare into eyes that had me thinking I could drown at any moment. I needed a lifeline and quickly. “No one has told me that in quite some time, is all,” I confessed.
“That’s a shame because I would tell you that every single day if given the chance.”
His words had me hypnotized, and I found myself both shivering in anxiety as well as in excitement. Dirk reached for my hands and brought them apart and to his chest. His warm smile was melting an iceberg of hurt from the past twelve months. There were those months of grief after Mark died, and then another year before that of living under the suspicion that my guy was cheating on me. Not a good past couple of years for sure.
And then the water immediately went ice cold. “Fuck!” I yelped, jumping back and out of the spray while Dirk scrambled to turn off the flow. Whatever fire had been happening for a moment got doused in an instant.
We stood on the wet concrete, both naked, and simply stared at each other, ignoring the room’s temperature and our own modesty. What seemed like hours was seconds, and then Dirk reached for the two fluffy towels we’d brought down with us. “Come here,” he whispered, holding the towel open and having zero concern for his own warmth. I stepped into his arms and let him towel me dry, moving when he manipulated me, a willing body in a dance he led.
I remained still in the middle of the room and let my mind drift to another period as Dirk took his time making sure every inch of my body was dry. I’d been happy once. There had been love in my life once upon a time, and I’d wanted so badly to feel exactly like this again. Cared for. Loved.
Why had I allowed myself to die when Mark had?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Dirk
The warmer rain from Seattle and the Puget Sound below had finally encountered the mountains as the wet clouds fought their way toward eastern Washington. They wouldn’t make it over these heights and that was why the east side of the Cascades, the other half of the state, was arid and dry.
“The rain is sure coming down,” Blake observed, carefully avoiding being too close to the windows so he could manage to keep the illusion he wasn’t fourteen stories high. “This is the Memorial Day weekend I’m used to.”
“More stew?” I asked, reaching for his bowl in case he said yes. “We’ve got lots,” I added, trying to encourage him to eat more yet not making too big a deal of it.
“I’ve already had two huge bowlfuls,” he argued.
“I’m about to have my fourth so what’s your excuse?”
“Twist my arm,” he laughed, grinning at me. “You’re quite the chef, Cadet Dirk.”
“I’m my only cooking source out here for three months, so I was forced to learn how to cook.”
“And how do you get the ingredients way out here?” he asked.
“Once every two weeks I order via computer and someone drops the stuff off at the trailhead, texting me that the food is there so bears don’t help themselves,” I explained.
“I don’t like bears,” Blake said.
“Heights, cold, and now bears,” I stated. “But hiking deep into forests that offer all three of those things, you do like?”
“Shut up and get me more stew, pretty boy.”
I took the bowl from his hand. “You think I’m pretty?” I asked, doing my best to create my prettiest pose and smiling at him. “Boys don’t normally refer to me as pretty.”
