Page 96 of Untouchable

"Thanks," Harp says gently when the urgent pounding in his body slows to a loud but ignorable background roar.

* * *

The temperature is instantly unbearable,especially considering that Parker’s barefoot and essentially half-naked, but he doesn’t want to move. There’s something sweet and lovely about the moment, about being wrapped in Harp’s arms, feeling the other man’s heartbeat, feeling the scrape of his facial hair against the back of Parker’s neck.

Parker will take anything, he realizes, that Harp is willing to give him—sex, or just kissing, or even just his heat, standing in the chill and the moonlight, wrapped up in one another.

“O-okay,” Parker says after a moment, when his teeth begin to chatter. “W-we can still take it slow if you want, but I gotta go inside—”

"Oh my God, you moron," Harp says fondly, squeezing and shielding Parker as Harp maneuvers him back inside. "My brain was getting so little blood, I forgot I'd gotten you half naked."

Parker finds he doesn’t even mind Harp calling him a moron—he says it so affectionately it almost sounds like a pet name, unlike when his sisters pelted him with the epithet growing up. He sighs with relief when they’re back inside and the dry heat of the cabin envelopes him.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen and turns around to look at Harp. It’s funny, he realizes—he’s not the one that wanted to stop, but he’d ended up being the one enforcing the break. He’s not even quite sure why Harp wants him to stop. He just knows that there’s no way in hell he’s letting Harp think that Parker is anything but 100% into this.

But maybe a break is good, because Parker realizes it doesn’t feel like he’s taken a proper breath since Harp first started raining praise on him while they were on the couch, and he’s pretty sure he’s halfway to cardiac arrest. It’s too much and not enough all at once—after months of longing, pining, and confusion, Harp is here, Harp wants him, Harp feels the same way.

Maybe a chance to catch his breath is a good idea.

"Are you hungry?" Harp offers and then laughs. "Christ, I'm a broken record. I don't know. I just want to take care of you every time I look at you too long. You're really about to understand the full depth of what a creep I am."

Parker smiles crookedly.

“I’m okay for now, I think,” he says. “And… I don’t think you’re a creep. You keep saying that, but you’re not. I’m—I’m not very good at this kind of thing, I think. Like, um… I’m not used to someone wanting to do that.”

He shifts from foot to foot, his feet still burning from the cold. The words feel lame even as they’re coming out of his mouth, but the truth is that Parker has no idea how to respond to such open flattery. Cole had never showered praise or affection on him like this, and he glances down at his feet, suddenly awkward.

“That probably sounds pretty pathetic,” he says, blushing furiously. “But, uh, if—if I seem… I dunno, whatever—” He makes a vague hand gesture. “It’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because it’s… new. And weird. But not bad weird. Just weird.”

Parker laughs at himself. “That probably didn’t make any sense.”

He clears his throat.

“So, what now?” Parker asks, almost shyly, looking up at Harp through his lashes.

* * *

Harp could listento Parker ramble on about anything. He sighs as they circle back to the point. Harp had been hoping Parker would be hungry again so he would have an excuse to do something with his hands for a few minutes, to sort out his brain.

"We can do whatever you want," Harp offers. "I just think we needed to take a break."

"A break? From—"

"Yes," Harp says seriously. He wants to tell the truth, but it's so fucking... awkward to talk about himself, to try and internalize that the way he feels about Parker could possibly be anything but a source of shame. He tries his best to steel himself. This is a concept he needs to communicate, if he's going to hold himself to it.

"Parker, I really want you, and when you kiss me, I don't trust myself to..." Harp rubs the back of his neck.

How do you communicate 'Kissing you makes me feel like I might die if I don't fuck you immediately' in a way that isn't... completely predatory?

"It's been a long time for me. And I don't trust myself to just kiss you right now. And I don't trust that we should do anything more than just kissing until you've gone down off the mountain and had some time to think about what you want from me."

Parker cocks his head, his brow furrowed.

“But I do know what I want from you,” he says. “And, honestly I’ve known for a while. I just was… trying to forget it because… I thought you weren’t interested. But, like, if you want to fuck me and I want you to fuck me, what’s the harm?”

Harp squeezes his eyes shut and massages the bridge of his nose. Christ, this would've been easier fifteen years ago before the inside of Harp's head was so wrecked—because on some level, he wants to believe Parker that anything more than kissing would still be harmless.

That's exactly the way that Harp used to think, though, and he'd seen firsthand what the harm was, in the end, when you followed impulses without looking forward, too.

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