Pitching Tents

by Mari Thorne

  Pitching Tents

  Mari Thorne

  Copyright © 2020 by Mari Thorne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Chelsea Austin

  Created with Vellum

  Author’s Notes

  I wrote the opening chapters of this book in a rooftop tent on an overland trip in Death Valley National Park. I loved being able to take inspiration from my trip to make something cute, fun, and sexy.

  Special thanks to my husband for putting up with my obsession and to my best friend Stephanie for encouraging me every step of the way. This book would not have happened without either of you.

  If you would like an opportunity to sign up for Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of my future releases, there is more information at the end of this book.

  Contents

  1. Sean

  2. Alan

  3. Sean

  4. Alan

  5. Sean

  6. Alan

  7. Sean

  8. Alan

  9. Sean

  10. Alan

  11. Sean

  12. Alan

  13. Sean

  14. Alan

  15. Sean

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Stalk Me!

  About Mari

  1

  Sean

  Alan threw my bag into the back of his yellow Jeep, grinning from ear-to-ear. “I’m so excited you finally agreed to join me!”

  “Yeah,” I gave him my most enthusiastic smile, trying to breathe past the fluttering, anxious energy in my chest. He seemed happier than he’d been in a while, and I didn’t want to spoil the mood. “I’m glad I’m finally able to do this with you. It’s been a long time coming.”

  He finished loading everything in the back, strapping our bags and supplies down so they wouldn’t bounce around too much. “After this, you’ll see. I won’t have to beg you anymore, you’ll be the one dragging me out here. Maybe in a Jeep of your own!”

  “We’ll see about that,” I chuckled. I never understood Alan’s enthusiasm for off-roading. How much fun could driving around on dusty, unpaved roads be? And camping. Three days without cell service or a shower seemed like an awful idea, but Alan had begged me to go on a trip with him. I couldn’t say no to that adorable face of his. Where my best friend was concerned, I’d follow him to Hell if that’s where he wanted to go.

  “That’s everything, let’s hit the road.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine while I contemplated saying goodbye to an actual toilet one last time. “Sean? You coming or are you just gonna stand there?” My dick twitched in my pants when he said my name and I groaned inwardly. This was going to be a long three days.

  “Yeah, coming.”

  “You are excited about this, right?” Alan’s blue eyes narrowed in concern after I hoisted myself up into his stupidly tall vehicle.

  “Of course!” I said a little too loudly and winced, “I’m just nervous.”

  He ran a hand through his blond hair and slid a pair of sunglasses on. “Good. I mean, I’m glad you’re excited, hopefully you won’t be so nervous once we get out there. It’ll be fun.”

  Oh, I will be, but not for the reasons you think. Alan Simmons had been my best friend since we were kids. I’m not sure when my crush on him started, but once we hit puberty, it blossomed into a major problem. Cut to high school and I was jerkin' it to fantasies of him daily while we both dated the hottest girls in school. Yeah, Alan was straight, and I’d locked myself in the closet and thrown away the key a long time ago.

  I’d gotten good at hiding my attraction for Alan. Sometimes he made it difficult. Like every now and then he would pat me on the ass, like in our old baseball days. Playful touches and jabs like that always sent a jolt of electricity straight to my dick. I’d laugh it off while trying to think of anything but where I really wanted those hands.

  “How are things with you and Julia?” Alan asked, his tone casual but guarded.

  I’d been dreading this question. I couldn’t get too mad at him. Julia and I hadn’t been super serious, for obvious reasons, but Alan had a habit of stealing my girlfriends. The guy was so comfortable with everything we shared that he was okay with sharing girlfriends too. And, well, once you went to Alan, you didn’t go back to Sean.

  I shrugged, “It’s over, she liked you more.”

  “No way, you two seemed so good together.” Then you came along. No one can resist your charms. Not even me.

  “You can keep her,” I offered. It would be so much easier if he settled into a long-term relationship. Maybe then I could get over him. But he never stuck with a girl for long; we had that in common too.

  “Nah, she was kind of boring to be honest,” he gave me that lopsided grin of his that had charmed me since grade school. “You can do better.”

  “Ah, so that’s what you were doing, then?” I teased.

  “What?”

  “Helping me move on to someone better.”

  He hesitated, then cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the road, “Always. You deserve someone special, Sean. Don’t settle.”

  The mood and conversation lightened after that. It’d been a few weeks since we’d gotten some quality time together. We often played video games or watched movies together when we had free nights. But I’d been traveling a lot for work recently and he’d been busy at the office. “When did we become boring adults?” he asked.

  “Boring adults don’t have a different girl in their bed every night, you’re doing fine.”

  “True,” he chuckled, “I should stop hanging out with old men like you.”

  “I’m six months younger than you!” I protested and crossed my arms over my chest in a huff.

  “Maybe if you came out with me more, you’d seem younger.” he raised an eyebrow at me.

  I shook my head. Not that I didn’t want to go out to the bars with Alan. If I could, I’d spend every minute of my life with him. But that was the problem. It wasn’t healthy to be that close to the man who would never feel the same way about me as I felt about him. The more time I spent with him, the worse it would be. One day he’d fall in love with a girl and get married and have kids and I’d have nothing. I couldn’t let myself fall down that hole.

  We spent the rest of the drive catching each other up on how our families were doing and discussed our plans for the rest of the year. Alan wanted me to go hunting with him again like we did every year, so we sorted out dates for opening weekend of deer season.

  It wasn’t too far of a drive. A few hours took us down some back roads and onto the trail he had in mind. He pulled the map up on his phone mounted to the dash and grinned at me. “This is where it gets fun.” He shifted the Jeep into four-wheel-drive and we started up the trail.

  At first, it was just a dirt road. A little bumpy, but nothing crazy. Then we started climbing in elevation. Large rocks filled the trail, and a sign warned us that only high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles could make it.

  “What if something breaks?” I held onto the passenger grab handle so hard my knuckles were white. “What if we flip over?” There was nothing stopping us from rolling off the side of the mountain other than his driving ability and gravity. At that moment, when I could literally see my impending death, I didn’t trust the laws of physics.

  “Calm down, this isn’t even that extreme,” his tire rolled over a large rock and the whole vehicle lurched to the right. I looked out the window and saw nothing but the thousand-foot drop.
>
  “I don’t believe you,” I shrank into my seat and double-checked my seatbelt. Adrenaline surged through my body. “You didn’t tell me it would be this scary!”

  He laughed and steered the Jeep into a primitive campsite, with enormous boulders and pine trees and a fire ring. “This will do for tonight, don’t you think?”

  I nodded and jumped out, my hands shaking and my legs feeling like jelly. I didn’t quite fall to my knees and kiss the ground, but I almost did. At least that was over for the day. I closed my eyes and inhaled the fresh, pine-scented air. The temperature was cooler up here, and I wrapped my hoodie around myself tighter. I ventured over to the rock Alan stood on, admiring the view of the mountains and trees.

  “There’s a hiking trail that’ll take us down to the river. After we set up camp, we can catch some fish for dinner.”

  I gave him an apprehensive look.

  “Don’t worry, I packed other food too. I remember how bad you are at fishing.”

  “Like you’re much better,” I grumbled. We’d both been in Boy Scouts together; his track record for living off the land was about as dismal as mine. “You caught one tiny fish on that camping trip we went on in middle school. You were so proud of it until they told you we couldn’t eat it. Didn’t you cry?”

  “Shut up,” he shoved me playfully and went back to unload our gear. “Help me with the tent.”

  The tent was some fancy thing attached to the top of his Jeep. We unzipped the top, and he pulled a ladder down and flipped it outward, the tent springing up like an orange pop-up book. He climbed up inside and attached metal poles to the windows to hold them up while I staked down the rain fly. At least the bears would have to work for their meal if they got hungry for human.

  I climbed up the ladder into the tent with an armload of pillows and blankets. Pressing my hand into the memory foam mattress that covered the bottom of the rooftop tent, I watched him work. “It’s… cozy.”

  “It’s a three-person tent, it’ll be fine for the two of us.” He sprawled out on the mattress like a starfish to illustrate his point.

  “Sure, and when it gets cold tonight, we can snuggle for warmth.” I said it jokingly, but it’d been a private fantasy of mine since he’d invited me on this trip. The shared bed was the premier attraction.

  He rolled his eyes, “I’ve got that covered too. It’ll be plenty warm tonight. I brought a thick blanket and I have a heater and battery.”

  “But I was looking forward to snuggling,” I protested. “It’s your fault I’m not in bed with Julia right now.” I climbed the rest of the way into the tent and he sat up to make room for me.

  “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to ruin things between you two.”

  “It’s okay, you’re right. She wasn’t right for me. I guess if it’s between you and her, I’d rather have you keeping me warm.” What I couldn’t tell him was that there’d been no passion between me and Julia, and there never would have been. Most girls realized quickly that a relationship with me would go nowhere.

  “I’ll do my best to keep you toasty,” he threw his arm around me and I had to fight the urge to lean into the gesture. It was all too familiar, that pang in my gut. How much I wanted to turn and wrap my arms around him and never let go. And in an instant, it was over. He pulled away, cleared his throat, and said, “Let’s finish up, we want to catch our dinner before it gets dark, right?”

  After we finished setting up camp, he grabbed a pair of fishing poles and some bait out of the back of the Jeep. We grabbed a few beers and hiked down to the water. It was cold and clear, and even though we could see the fish, we failed to catch anything. Giving up, we trudged back up to our campsite a couple hours later as the sun sank below the horizon.

  Alan built a fire, and I dug through his supplies until I found the metal roasting forks. Once the fire was crackling happily, we roasted hot dogs and had a few more beers. It was warm next to the fire, the beers and Alan’s presence making me feel light. We roasted marshmallows and caught them on fire, not even bothering to make s’mores. We laughed and joked until we were both so tired and tipsy we worried we wouldn’t be able to climb up the tent’s ladder. He doused the fire with a bucket of water and we made our way into the tent, zipping up the windows to keep our warmth in and the cold out. The space heater he’d brought warmed the tent up as promised. I snuggled under the blanket and fell asleep, full, drunk, and happy. Maybe camping wasn’t so bad.

  I cracked my eyes open, the first tinges of daylight making the inside of the tent glow a soft orange. In the night, the battery for the heater must have died because cold seeped into the tent. Curled up against me was Alan, shirtless and snoring lightly. His blond hair, mussed from sleep, stuck up all over his head. I wanted to run my hands through it. I craved to brush my cheek across the light stubble on his lower jaw and trace my hands over the muscles of his bare chest and abs. If I could have my way with him, I’d tease his nipples with my tongue, then my teeth, before disrobing him the rest of the way. I ached to pull his cock into my mouth and give him the best blowjob of his life.

  I sat up. I needed to piss, and the boner I had from sleeping next to the straight guy I wanted to fuck wasn’t helping with the pressure in my bladder. I pulled on my hoodie and unzipped the tent, doing my best to be quiet. Alan curled into a ball, the absence of my warm body making him shiver. I wouldn’t be long, I just need to take care of things before he woke up.

  As silently as possible, I slipped my shoes on and climbed down the ladder, following a trail that led into the trees. I didn’t need a flashlight; the sun was rising over the mountains, turning the sparse clouds pink and orange. The chilly breeze burned my cheeks and nose, but none of that made the rock-hard situation in my pajama pants abate. I reached down and adjusted myself, the contact of my hand squeezing my sensitive junk making me stumble and let out a slight moan. I couldn’t get back in that tent like this.

  Once the tent was out of sight, I leaned against a tree and put a hand down my pants, squeezing my dick to relieve the pressure already beginning to build. I’d been dreaming about Alan. It wasn’t uncommon for me to have dreams about him; I thought about him so often. But his proximity in the tent had fucked with my brain, making the dream more lurid than usual.

  He’d been sucking my dick, I remembered that part. It was one reason I’d woken up in this painful situation. I stroked myself, his name on my lips, remembering his hot, wet mouth, stretched open as he took me in all the way. I wasn’t sure what the real-life Alan was like, but Dream Alan didn’t have a gag reflex. I thrust into my hand, imagining what it would be like to have his throat at my mercy, choking him with my length.

  Sticking two fingers from my other hand into my mouth, I wet them generously before I reached behind myself. I pulled my pants down far enough so I could reach between my cheeks. The bark of the tree was rough against my back as I pressed one finger against my tight hole, breaching the entrance with a gasp and a moan. In my fantasy, Alan had one long finger plunged inside me, exploring, then a second, filling me, scissoring to stretch my hole, preparing to fuck me. Fingers were great, but not nearly as fulfilling as his cock would be.

  My finger grazed my prostate and pleasure shot down my spine. I clenched my teeth and imagined myself telling Alan that I was about to come, and he looked into my eyes and nodded, giving me the go ahead. I moaned, squeezing my eyes shut and gasping. The cold faded into the background, my anxiety about bears and falling off a mountain dissolved, and all my worries about my future and Alan’s future left as I came. Pleasure coursed through my entire body, my vision went white, my hole clenched deliciously around my fingers while I pretended they were my best friend’s dick. I pelted the tree in front of me with my semen as I gasped in the chilly morning air.

  I heard a noise and when I opened my eyes. Alan stood there, a look of shock on his face. My semen dripped down his bare chest while I stood there, my dick in one hand and two fingers buried to my knuckles in my ass.


  “Oh, fuck.”

  2

  Alan

  I woke up shivering and wrapped the blanket around myself like a burrito, rolling over to find Sean’s side of the tent empty. I groaned, the pressure in my bladder making me regret all the beers I’d had last night. Taking a piss meant I had to brave the cold. I flipped on the heater, but nothing happened. Dead battery. A quick piss, then I’d grab the backup battery and snuggle back under the covers with the heater. Also, where the fuck was Sean? Didn’t he know body heat was key to survival?

  I slipped on my shoes and climbed down the ladder, the frigid air immediately hitting my bare skin. I regretted not putting on a shirt or a hoodie, but too late now. I’d take quick a piss behind the Jeep and climb back in. But seriously, where was he? I’d expected to see him out here rebuilding the campfire or making coffee, but he was nowhere in the small clearing. Did he go back down to the river to get an early morning start on the fishing? No, both poles were still there. I relieved myself, grabbed the spare battery, and had a foot back on the tent ladder, shivering when I heard a noise in the trees to my left.

  Though I teased Sean about it, people commonly saw bears in this area. It’s why we’d locked everything even remotely food-like in bear-resistant canisters. If my best friend was wandering around alone, it was possible he’d run into something he was unprepared for. I wrapped my arms around myself and followed the noise down a short trail.

  A tree rustled, branches shivering in the icy air. Something, or someone, rubbed against the trunk. I didn’t want to call for Sean, just in case it was a wild animal, so I noiselessly crept up closer to the source of the noise, peering around the tree.