Page 62 of Sapphire Spring

It was a confession. It was proof laid out all over Naser’sravaged body.

Mason crumpled down onto Naser like a sleeping bear, takinghim into a slick and sweaty embrace.

And Naser, struggling to breathe deeply, waited for thedelirious fever to break. Waited for the cold, reckless reality of what they’ddone to press in on all sides, for Mason’s embrace to turn sweaty andoppressive. Instead, the deep hunger inside him had only intensified in thewake of his orgasm, as if nothing could vent it. Submission and a desire to befuckedoften tailed each other, but they were differentanimals with varying appetites. The second could turn you into a growling beastto rival the most aggressive top. That’s how he felt now, and at the verymoment when he should have felt spent.

“What happened to fucking the cum out of me?” Naserwhispered.

“That’s next.”

Next.Three hours and then some and still going, apparently.Maybe the minute the clothes had come off, Mason had reset the clock.

Silence fell, and when Naser turned his head, Mason wasstaring back at him with one uncovered eye. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

“Excuse me?”

“This morning, when I was out for a run, I was wonderingwhat your face would look like right before I kissed you, and the answer isbeautiful.”

A kiss in this position would be an awkward misfire, soNaser crawled up onto Mason and pressed their mouths together, hoping their liplock channeled every tremor ofstill-quakingandunaddressed hunger inside of him.

They finally broke, Mason’s hands gently gripping the sidesof Naser’s face.

“Shower,” Mason said, “together this time.” And then theywere stumbling toward the bathroom together, much like they’d stumbled acrossthe threshold to the bedroom earlier. Mason’s hands were silky and warm andpowerful. He soaped the crack of Naser’s ass by running one hand after theother through it from top to bottom, his fingers moving like the long bristlesof a brush. Naser kissed the stone wall as he groaned.

Then a high, sharp chime sounded from the bedroom. “Shit,”Mason whispered.

Suddenly, Naser was alone. Behind him, Mason was graspingfor a towel, leaving Naser under the spray, wondering if the awkward, frostypost-sex moment he’d been fearing had finally arrived.

19

Cookies, thereminder said.

Mason had phrased it simply, worried the alert might pop upwhen he was in the presence of his father or Chadwick, or anyone else for thatmatter. He sure as hell didn’t want the wordsRemember to bring cookiesto the AA meetingflashing across his home screen in public.

“Shit,” he whispered again.

Forty-five minutes until the meeting, and it was atwenty-minute drive from his house. And he’d forgotten about it entirely, evenafter Shirley’s reminder that morning.

The cookies were baked, from a recipe he’d downloaded offthe Internet that week and managed not to ruin. It was maybe the second thinghe’d baked in his life, and the first not in partnership with a girl he wasdating. It helped that the directions called for covering almost the entiretyof each cookie’s surface with M&Ms.

Already, he was thinking of excuses. Then he saw the lookShirley would give him the next time she saw him if he bailed.

An idea occurred to him. A desperate idea, but maybe it wasworth a shot. He opened the app he’d been using all week to find meetings.Earlier that week, he’d memorized the codes that appeared next to each meetingname. Next to the listing, the letterCindicated the type of meetingit was.

“Dammit.”

It meant closed to non-alcoholics. The idea of bringingNaser with him wasn’t just nuts, it was out of the question.

Feeling as if there was a great weight pressing down on hisneck and shoulders, Mason wandered back into the bathroom, staring at the phonein his hand. When he finally looked up from the screen, he found Naser staringat him from under the spray, eyes vacant, arms crossed protectively over hischest. The pose of someone trying to relax but failing. Trying not to betrayhow jarring it had been to be left in the shower so abruptly. “Everythingokay?” he asked warily.

“I forgot I have to do something tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Ice in his tone, just a sliver of it, but it was there.

Mason could feel Naser’s desire to be offended losing out tosome internal monologue telling him his feelings weren’t justified, that noneof this had been planned—not the last part, anyway.

As he stood there, paralyzed by awkwardness that felt tingedby hurt, Mason craved a drink for the first time in a week—an Arctic blast of Absolutthat would blow these fears out both ears. This mile-a-minute thinking, thistrying to read deeply into every silence, had always been a part of his life,and he could see now how effectively vodka had shut it down.Obliterated—temporarily, of course—the constant sense that one misstep coulddestroy everything good in his life. That was his fear now. If he left, it wasover. He’d never see Naser Kazemi again. Except for in his dreams. And thatfear was boiling over because what they’d just done had knocked the lid off thepot. Not just the roleplayand the sex, but theintensity of it all.

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