Distracting and good. It felt good to want someone again. Even it if was confusing, it was exciting, too.
The hot water began to wake me up a little, but it did nothing to ease my throbbing erection. I’d woken up from another dream about Dawson—couldn’t remember the details, beyond the intoxicating feeling of his hands traveling over my body, and the heat of his kiss.
I braced one hand on the cool tile and wrapped my other hand hard around my cock. The relief was immediate, and I sighed heavily as I jerked myself off slowly.
Immediately my mind drifted to fantasies of Dawson, combinations of our one night together and our most recent kiss and the dreams I’d been having. I imagined him in the shower with me—I’d pin him to the tile just like this, with his chest to the wall, his stance wide so I could run my hands over his muscular ass. I imagined pressing my chest to the broad expanse of his back, then letting my hands roam over his chest.
During our night (or, more accurately, morning) together, he’d made these sounds. Deep rumbling moans, gasps, stuttering breaths. Those sounds featured prominently in my dreams, and I wanted to hear them again. I wanted to slide my cock in between his cheeks and tease him like that, just touch him and kiss his neck and fuck my cock in between his cheeks but not inside him. Wanted to make him fall apart under me and beg for it.
I groaned, stroking my cock harder as I imagined it. Dawson was so confident and capable, and more than a little hotheaded, and watching him lose his composure was intoxicating.
I imagined the tight heat of his body against mine, his stuttering breaths, the salty taste of his sweat against my lips as I kissed his neck. It didn’t take long until my orgasm was curling tight in my gut, and I groaned as I came in long stripes against the tile of the shower.
I sighed and straightened up. The orgasm had cleared my head—and thank God for that. I was scheduled to work as Dawson’s chaperone today, and admittedly, I wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d been giving me a wide berth since that non-date at Pepper’s. I hadn’t been trying to avoid him, but we were both busy when he was on-site, and I wasn’t exactly falling over myself to try to explain the call he seemed so weird about.
I didn’t think I had anything I needed to explain. He was clearly making assumptions, and I wanted him to own up to them and just ask me. It’s not like I was keeping secrets, and even though we’d both opened up to each other, he didn’t know a whole lot about my work with AA, and I hadn’t had a lot of time to guide him through the details and make him feel better about my admittedly abrupt departure.
I’d gotten a call from my sponsee that night, simple as that. Bryan was just a year younger than me, and he was pretty early in his sobriety. He didn’t call for in-person assistance lightly, so when he asked for it, I knew he really, really needed it. Part of my role as his sponsor was to provide that support, and so I’d hurried home and ridden over to Elkin Lake. Bryan hadn’t really been close to relapsing once I got there—I had faith he could’ve ridden the urges out—but I knew from experience that having a friend to talk to when it got really hard, a friend who understood how hard it was, could make the experience a lot easier.
And of course I couldn’t tell Dawson all that—it wasn’t my story to tell. Trust was the foundation of the relationship between a sponsor and their sponsee, and I wasn’t going to break the confidentiality, even if it hurt to hear Dawson’s assumptions, that I’d tossed him aside for another hookup, or whatever it was he thought I’d done.
I climbed out of the shower, feeling simultaneously refreshed and a little confused. Dawson made me feel that way a lot.
I got dressed quickly. Coffee helped. Then I hopped on my bike and rode the short distance to Elkin Lake, letting the brisk fall air clear my head even more as I mentally shifted into enforcer mode. Regardless of my own complicated feelings for Dawson and what’d gone down between us, I had to put the club first.
The shift wasn’t going to be easy, though.
Chaperoning shifts was often extremely boring. Especially one like this, where Dawson had a job to do, and I was there mostly as a precautionary measure. Today his task looked pretty dull, a lot of hauling lumber into the cabin and working on something at the base of the foundation, leaning over on his knees.
I leaned back in my camping chair, set up near the jobsite, and tried to return my attention to the novel in my lap. But then a few hours of my shift had passed, and I’d read maybe ten pages of the book, and retained even less. I’d read a paragraph or two, and then my attention would drift back to Dawson. I couldn’t help it—he looked gorgeous like this, focused on the work and glistening with sweat despite the chilly day. He’d tossed his flannel aside and was working in a tight white t-shirt with his toolbelt hanging heavily on him, and the muscles in his forearm stood out whenever he squeezed the nail-gun.
“Hey, hey,” Eli’s familiar voice rang out. “Working hard or hardly working?”
I grimaced at being caught staring, and slammed my novel shut in my lap. Luckily, I was seated far away enough from the jobsite, and Dawson was focused enough on the work, that he didn’t seem to notice the three guys stroll up to bother me. Eli was walking with Dante and Logan, with Gretel walking politely at Logan’s side. She was a really well-trained dog at this point, nearly grown, and she waited for me to extend a hand before she trotted forward so I could scratch her behind her floppy ears.
“I’m working,” I said defensively.
“Staring, more like it,” Dante said with a grin.
Logan flicked Dante in the arm with an eyeroll. Ever since Logan had started working occasionally in the bakery keeping Heath company, he and Dante had become good friends—and Tru was especially happy to lose a few of those early morning shifts.
“So what?” Logan said. Logan, at least, made sure his voice was low enough that it wouldn’t catch Dawson’s attention. “I don’t see a problem. Dawson’s been keeping his nose clean since that incident at Ballast.” He glanced over to the jobsite, where Dawson was currently cursing to himself as he wrestled with a join near the foundation of the cabin. “I think you should go for it. He’s hot.”
“I was under the impression that you were straight,” Dante said carefully, peering at me. “And not exactly looking.”
“So was I,” I said with a noncommittal shrug.
“So that was a date a few weeks ago,” Eli said with a victorious grin. “I knew it.”
“You have a thing for him?” Dante asked, eyes sparkling. “Interested in batting for the other team?”
He looked a little too excited about this development. So much of this situation made me feel like a teenager again. But I wasn’t as naïve as the guys thought. So, in a fit of impulsivity, I shrugged again and said, “Well, we did sleep together.”
“What!”
“You what?”
“When?”
The commotion made Dawson finally look up with a curious furrow in his brow. I felt my cheeks heat under his gaze—he was so handsome, with his hair stuck to his temples with sweat and his mouth open slightly in confusion.
I waved him off, and he went back to work.
“Chill out,” I muttered through the guys through clenched teeth.