Page 12 of The Uncut Wood

“Does that mean I can…?”

Gunner looked up to the ceiling and groaned. “You do realize asking is the most naïve move ever, right? It’s the opposite of game. But it’s sweet and so you to ask.”

I took that as a yes, cupped the back of his head, and pulled his face to mine.

5

At first, I was tentative, holding my breath, my lips only faintly touching his. A part of me remained unconvinced that this could be the moment I’d dreamed about for so long. My mouth had gone dry from alcohol and nervousness, but Gunner took over, parting my lips with his tongue, and I surrendered to the consummation of my hope.

I’d always fantasized he’d somehow taste like he looked, like his coloring would translate to flavors of clove, cinnamon, and ginger, but it was salt, beer, and whiskey.

My mouth bloomed for his as the kiss grew lush and tender. He hummed, sending a vibration through my heart to my cock, and I groaned. We continued trading small noises of pleasure like bits of conversation.

He pulled away to study my face and smiled. “How’s that?”

“Yeah, um…” I had to swallow before I could speak. “It’s… everything.”

Finally kissing Gunner proved worthy of all the anticipation. It was like getting to drink my emotions straight from their source.

I rushed to discover more of him, rubbing my face into his beard and down his neck. He smelled like sandalwood and pine sap with faint traces of new leather, clean sweat, and fresh sawdust. Essence of lumberjack. Beneath all that was something indescribably Gunner, both unimaginable and familiar.

This time I pulled away, needing to look at him. In the firelight, his skin glowed with shades of red oak, honey, and amber. The hairs on his body were the colors of the sun through closed eyelids when you turned your face to the sky.

He reached for my hands and held them in his lap. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh God.” That you’re the embodiment of sunshine. “I don’t know that I could find the words in a million years.”

“Now you have to tell me.”

“I can’t explain things the way you do.”

“Then show me,” he said, eyebrow cocked as if it were a dare.

I crawled onto him, tackling him there on the floor between the coffee table and the hearth. There wasn’t a bear skin rug—unless you counted him—but it still felt like a scene from a movie.

I attempted to take all the kisses he’d ever withheld, hoping there would be no end to them or that if we ever reached the bottom, we could make more.

We smiled against one another’s lips, creating the tiny breaks we needed to steal enough breath to keep the kiss going. We writhed on the floor, grinding against one another until I thought I was going to blow in my pants. Our jeans weren’t a barrier, they were a delicious filter, another layer of anticipation. This wasn’t the old fantasy of wondering if it would ever happen. It had become a heart-bursting certainty that it was happening—right here, right now.

We were becoming us.

Gunner held my face, and I caught his long red hair in my good hand, pinning him to the floor as I tried to stabilize my body gliding over his. When I started to tremble with the effort, he rolled me off him.

He crouched, panting, his eyes dark except for glints of firelight, his mouth swollen. He stood and reached to haul me up beside him.

We were momentarily distracted by what it felt like to move against each other standing up, a slow dance that needed no music. With a groan of impatient lust, he placed his hands on my shoulders and drove me backward toward the bed. He reached for the hem of his shirt and cocked his head at me. Are we doing this?

We undressed quickly, our movements in sync. It wasn’t a race this time as much as a shared urgency. Even with his body only inches from me on glorious display, I didn’t have to look down to take him in. I didn’t want to. I knew exactly what he looked like naked, but I’d never seen him look at me like this. I couldn’t take my eyes off his.

He wrapped his hand around our cocks, and we studied them together. We’d taken a ton of showers together in the bathhouse, so of course I knew Gunner was also uncut.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with a man who hadn’t declared it some kind of unwrapped prize or nasty surprise. There were still plenty of guys who would reject you outright, try to ignore it, or limit what they were willing to do because of it. I didn’t know how it was in the rest of the country—I knew it was more common in Europe—but in the Southern US, uncut men were definitely a minority. Growing up, I’d been made to feel different because of it, and when you’re young, anything that makes you different from others can become a source of shame.

A lot of the circumcised guys I’d been with had expressed a wistful regret about their lost foreskin. Some had claimed to prefer my uncut dick and proceeded to worship it. Some had known what they were doing better than others, but both skill and enthusiasm were equally welcomed.

Neither Gunner nor I had to say anything about the subject. No commentary was required. For once I didn’t feel like a curiosity. Nobody was being fetishized or gawked at. It wasn’t bizarre or weird. It was special; it was one more essential thing we shared in common.

The warmth of the fire hadn’t reached the corner of the cabin with the bed yet, so we peeled back the covers and crawled underneath them. I stretched out on my back, and Gunner covered my body with his, both of us groaning at the astonishing sensation of our bare skin finally coming together.

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