Page 271 of Worthy

Damien was done setting up the tent and was busy digging a hole in the ground for our fire pit. And that was all great and fine, except that he’d sweated enough in the summer heat from exertion that his white T-shirt had a huge, wet V spot down the middle of this chest, sticking to his shredded muscles and rendering the fabric almost see-through. On his back, the same was the case.

I licked my lips, then dropped the canister of water by the newly made pit. Instead of drooling over his flexing muscles, I decided to gather rocks from the area.

“Atta boy,” Damien said thoughtlessly as I unloaded several medium sized rocks near him. He lifted his gaze to my face with a deadly handsome grin. I wasn’t sure which made him grin; his own humor or my flushed, scarlet face. I had rarely been praised for anything in my life. Least of all by the one I’d lusted after for so long. In essence, I was the most uninteresting, indistinguishable, and ordinary person you could come across.

But it was the use of ‘boy’ that did it to me on a whole different level. Coming from Damien’s sharp, curly lips, that word was enough to rock me where I stood.

“Where’s Tanner?” he asked, long after he had returned his attention to the pit. During that time, I had done nothing but stare, mesmerized by the sight before me. A bead of sweat was slowly sliding down Damien’s dusty blond hair, glistening with wetness, and tracing a path down his smooth neck. I found myself wondering which way it would go, whether it would be absorbed by the collar of his T-shirt or trickle around his neck and perhaps even reach his chest.

Fuck. My. Life. Damien glanced up and I felt needles prickling all over my skin. “Er, the pier. He’s having a moment.”

Damien snorted and shook his head. “A spiritual moment?”

“Kinda,” I said, sticking to friendly banter as I always had. “You’d think it’s the first sunset he’s ever seen.”

Damien laughed out loud and began to prop up rocks around the pit. “We’d better leave him to it.”

I knelt on the opposite side and joined in, stacking rocks until we formed a circle. Then, we stacked more on top, just to be safe.

Tanner showed up behind me a while later. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there while my ass was perched over the fire pit like a bird on a branch, but he chuckled at something and made me incredibly aware of how I had been positioned all along. Not that I minded bending over. Hell no; I’d done plenty of that in all my failed attempts at distraction throughout our time at college. But I wasn’t the biggest fan of being seen as little more than a punchline.

The thing about a tightly knit group of friends was that we had rarely shied away from dirty teasing. Boys who had pretty much grown up together tended to play with fire. Getting my ass slapped by any one of my friends wasn’t such an unusual occurrence.

So, when I felt something slash and smash against my ass, I rolled my eyes in mock protest while my heart leaped and begged for more. Except, when I turned that gaze of feigned irritation, I discovered what it had been. Tanner stood, topless, lean and shiny, with a wet T-shirt in his hands, which had been the spanking device he’d used.

“Do you mind?” I asked, faking annoyance.

Tanner’s T-shirt wasn’t the only thing wet; his hair dripped, seemingly longer now that it was wet and sticking to his head, as were his cargo shorts and feet. He’d been smart enough—or bothered enough by the weight of his hiking boots—to have changed into flip-flops.

“Lemme guess,” Damien said lazily, humor never far from his voice. “You stared directly at the sun, looked away, realized you blinded yourself, and tripped into the lake.”

Tanner laughed. “You know it, buddy.”

“Remind me never to take you into the wilderness again,” Damien said.

Tanner’s smile grew bigger, his pearly white teeth almost shining. “If you two want some time alone, I’ll leave,” he said with a wink.

I rolled my eyes again and placed the final rock in position. The sun was descending, and we required firewood, but Damien had already begun to collect it. “As a matter of fact, we’ll leave you alone,” he declared, motioning to me. “Come on, we need wood.” As soon as Damien spoke, Tanner drew in a sharp breath of air, but Damien glared at him. “Don’t say a word, or I swear you’ll end up back in that lake.”

Tanner laughed even louder and proceeded to peel his cargo shorts off his legs. Before he stepped out of them, half-bent, he shook his head vigorously and sprayed excess water all over us.

Damien grumbled, but his amusement was unmistakable as he took hold of my elbow and practically dragged me away from Tanner. “Firewood, then,” he said, his determination evident.

As I followed, I glanced over my shoulder, and discovered Tanner in nothing but his wet underwear, rummaging through his huge camping backpack. I looked ahead to where Damien was heading down the slope and around a bend and followed. But just before I turned around after him, I looked back, and saw what my heart desired more than words could describe.

Tanner had taken his boxer-briefs off. Though he was facing away, his legs were spread to let the breeze dry him slowly, and there was no mistaking the heavy balls beneath that peachy ass.

My entire body tensed and my pants grew tighter than I cared to admit at this age. I should have been well over lusting like a virgin, but I wasn’t. And the years had taught me to avoid shared showers with the people I secretly desired, so this sight was a unique one.

I forced myself to keep moving and to look away. It was the only decent thing, even if the object of my current bout of desire hardly cared about decency. I knew Tanner well enough to be sure he didn’t mind people seeing him to the fullest. It had only always been me who had looked away.

“Elliot?” Damien’s voice drifted in from a distance.

“Huh?” I turned to face Damien’s slightly furrowed brow.

He smiled and shook his head. “Jesus, you’ve got it bad,” he said.

My ears were ringing. “What?”

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