Naked and Enough

"Do you need help?" He asked and stepped closer—he didn't recoil from me in disgust despite my ogling him lecherously. He lifted the bottom of my hoody, coaxing me to remove it. "The night air is cold; the sooner we're bare, the sooner we can get in the warm water, Nate." 

Hayashi had made a neat pile out of his clothes and begun a pile of my own next to it, starting with my hoodie. I flinched when he reached for the fly of my cargo pants. "Wait, no!" I yelped. "I—I can do it." 

Without a protest, he pulled his hands back, squatted before me, and began to take off my shoes. I hadn't had time to put socks on in the rush to leave the Charm's nest. How he touched my feet was gentle and attentive; everything he did was purposeful and ritual. Meanwhile, I hesitated, letting my cargo pants drop from my hips, painfully aware that I wasn't as flaccid as he was. The tension in my shoulders and chest was building as I began to pant in fearful anticipation. 

"Nate?" He spoke my name softly when he stood up and met my eyes. "I've seen you naked before." Hayashi reasoned. I knew he meant to comfort me, but given my current state, I was suddenly overcome with the need to know if he'd been aware of my erection the night he'd so kindly shaved my face.

"Why haven't you been to the Charm's for dinner the last couple' days?" 

"The head night guard is a contracted Demon, and his earthside term ended, so he left for his hellside respite. I've been pulling double shifts at the depot." He explained simply and smiled. My shoulders relaxed as I sighed, relieved, "I'll wait in the water." 

Hayashi collected his canvas bag from the Jeep's truckbed and turned away. Pulling the band from his hair, he fell down his back, shy of his naked ass. I swallowed hard, watching his glutes flex as he strode over the chalky ground toward the hot spring. Leaving his canvas bag on dry land, he descended into the steaming water and rested near the edge. Remaining with his back to me, he spared me the humiliation of undressing under his gaze. 

The waxing gibbous Goddess peeped out from the copious cover of nimbus clouds, gleaming. Her sparkling luminescence never failed to pull my lupine heart and eye. Looking up at her, I calmed, and when I finally tore my eyes away, I left my clothes behind on the truckbed and made my way over to the water. 

Hayashi looked my way, roused by the sploshing my entrance into the spring made. He hadn't given me a chance to get above thigh depth, and noticeably, his eyes lingered on the part of my body I'd most wanted to hide. I stumbled clumsily over the bedrock in my attempt to submerge myself quickly. 

"Skittish puppy." He repeated, the same as earlier and grinned. 

Hayashi resumed his relaxation and rested his back against the smooth rock that made the bank. His black hair slayed out into the water around his shoulders, like seaweed, and through the steam, I watched his face while his eyes remained closed. 

Surrendering to the warm calmness of the hot spring, I inhaled a lung full of the mineral-rich steam and sighed it back out as I submerged my shoulders. Gathering a pool into my palms, I rubbed the water into my face and smoothed my hands back through my hair to dampen it. This was truly one of the best baths I'd ever taken, and I was grateful that he'd brought me here. The tension in my body melted away. The moon passed behind another cloud, the wind shifted the pines, and far off, the hooting of a barred owl echoed through the clearing.  

"Do I make you nervous?" Hayashi asked, ending the silence, and my tension returned, stabbing like a knife. 

There was nowhere to escape. Even if I left the spring, I didn't know my way back to the Compound without him. Momentarily, I pondered going to sit back in the Jeep, but then I'd have looked like a child. It seemed that the only thing left to do was be honest… to a degree, at least.

"I've lost my bearings when it comes to people." I began, keeping my eyes fixed on the surface of the water in front of me. "Since I'm no longer the Alpha of my pack or Alison's husband, I don't know who I am anymore."

"You are just Nathaniel like you've always been, and that's all, and that's enough." Hayashi's words were gentle and kind and caused my lips to tremble. Perhaps it was the steam making my eyes water.