Behind a sheer wedding curtain, time slows and old hunger wakes. Elias returns barefoot and half-buttoned, Caleb still ironed by duty, and the space between them tightens until a single yes breaks the dam.
What should be a toast becomes a reckoning, all heat and risk, with the world laughing just inches away.
The curtain breathes.
It sways in the shallow rhythm of dusk wind and distant music, its hem brushing the dark wooden floor of the estate’s great hall. Outside the sheer white veil, champagne flutes clink and laughter bursts in waves. The bride’s sister is dancing barefoot already. The groom is being hoisted into the air by college friends who still call him by his lacrosse nickname. The air smells like sweet bourbon, mown grass, sugared sweat, and roses wilting under the heat of celebration.
But back here,
behind the curtain,
it’s quiet. Dim.
And hot.
Golden evening light slants in through the tall glass windows, striking the edge of the white fabric, painting it in amber folds. Shadows ripple against it, alive, shifting like whispers. One of those shadows moves. Steps forward.
Elias.
Barefoot. Shirtless beneath an unbuttoned dress shirt, clinging with sweat to the cut of his chest. The sleeves hang off his forearms, and he doesn’t bother to adjust them. His trousers are undone. Not enough to be obvious, just enough that the top button strains and the zip’s edge dips toward heat.
His mouth is flushed. His curls are wild. His scent is wrong for a wedding. Warm cedar and salt and skin.
He leans one shoulder against the wall just inside the curtained alcove and closes his eyes. For a moment, he doesn’t move. Just breathes.
Like he’s hiding.
Like he’s waiting.
A floorboard creaks behind him. He doesn’t startle. He already knows who it is.
“I thought I saw you slip away,” Caleb says, his voice soft, neutral.
He’s in the doorway of the alcove now. Tall. Still half in the party, still polished and dutiful, the best man to the end. His tie’s a little loose, though. There’s a bead of sweat at his temple. And he’s looking, too long, at Elias’s mouth.
“You were watching me,” Elias says, without opening his eyes. Not a question.
Caleb doesn’t answer right away. The silence is thick, summer-heavy. From the other side of the curtain, a child shrieks with delight and the DJ spins into something slower. A love song.
“Someone’s gotta keep you from setting the place on fire,” Caleb says, finally.
That makes Elias smile.
“I’ve only just arrived,” he murmurs. “Give me time.”
He opens his eyes then. Looks at Caleb like he’s tasting him. He steps forward, barely, into the golden spill of light between them. The curtain stirs again, catching on the edge of Elias’s bare hip.
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Caleb says. It’s not judgement. Just surprise.
“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” Elias counters, voice low and amused.
Caleb shrugs one shoulder. Looks away. But only for a second.
The silence curls again. Something wants to bloom in it.
“You’re different,” Caleb says. Not a compliment. Not an accusation. Just... true.
Elias’s gaze flicks down. Then up. Slow. Bold. “So are you.”
Their eyes hold.
The light burns lower.
Neither of them move.
Not yet.
The light has turned honey now, thick and syruped, pouring through the glass in quiet waves. Dust dances in it, lazy and weightless. A single strand of Elias’s hair catches the light, and Caleb watches it sway against his cheek like something intimate.
He shouldn’t be here.
He shouldn’t still be here.
But he is.
Something about this alcove, this impossible hush, has caught them both in a different tempo. Outside, the wedding continues at full speed, music rising, heels clicking on flagstone, bodies swaying under string lights, but here... time is slow. Drowsy. Coiled.
Elias leans his shoulder against the window pane again. His shirt falls further open, revealing the full line of his torso, all golden skin and sharp shadows, the trail of hair disappearing into unbuttoned slacks.
He knows what Caleb is looking at. He lets him.
“I thought you’d say something first,” Elias murmurs. “Always used to, didn’t you? Little speeches about propriety. About timing.”
Caleb’s jaw tenses. His hands are in his pockets. He’s looking at Elias like he’s both a memory and a match.
“You were younger then,” Caleb says, flatly.
“I still am,” Elias replies, and then adds, wickedly, “but not too young.”
That lands between them like a spark.
They both go still. Breathing shifts. Caleb’s shoulders tighten. Elias’s lips part, just a little, just enough.
“Don’t,” Caleb says. Soft, but firm.
Elias tilts his head. “Don’t what?”
“You know.”
That makes Elias smile, slow and knowing. “That’s the problem with you,” he says. “You always think I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Don’t you?”
Elias shrugs. The silk of his open shirt brushes his hips. “Sometimes. But sometimes I just go where I’m looked at.”
Caleb’s throat moves. He doesn’t answer.
Elias steps forward. Not much. Just one bare foot slipping toward the line of shade between them. His eyes never leave Caleb’s. That same heat simmers in them, patient and bold, all appetite beneath calm skin.
“I saw the way you looked at me earlier,” Elias says. “When I got out of the car.”
“That was surprise,” Caleb replies, but it’s not convincing.
“Mmh,” Elias hums. “And now?”
Caleb doesn’t answer.
But he doesn’t look away.
He can’t.
Because Elias is standing in front of him now. Close enough to see the flecks of amber in his eyes. Close enough to smell the salt and sun still clinging to his skin.
And the curtain, white and sheer, swings lazily behind him.
If anyone were to look just right,
just lean, or glance,
they’d see everything.
Caleb’s breath is louder now. So is his heart. He looks over Elias’s shoulder, at the sway of the curtain, at the dark shapes flickering behind it.
He says, again, “This is a wedding.”
Elias leans in, his voice brushing Caleb’s mouth.
“I know.”
Elias doesn’t touch him. Not yet.
But he leans in far enough that Caleb feels it, warmth, breath, the static crackle of a body so near it rearranges the air. The scent of him, sun-soaked and salt-edged, slips around Caleb like a hand to the throat.
The curtain moves again.
Soft as a sigh.
Louder now, somehow.
Too loud.
They’re so close to the party. Just steps from the music. Just inches from the world.
And Elias smiles like he loves it.
“Say the word,” Caleb murmurs, eyes fixed to his, “and I’ll walk away.”
Elias doesn’t blink. “You’ve always wanted to say that,” he whispers. “You’ve just never meant it.”
His voice is quiet, intimate, all smoke and dare. It curls around Caleb’s ribs, slow and sure.
“You should,” Elias says, stepping in that last inch. “You should walk away. Go back out there, raise another toast, fix someone’s boutonniere, do what good men do.”
Caleb doesn’t move.
“And I’ll stay here,” Elias continues, tilting his head, “barefoot, shirt half-off, hard for you already, wondering how long you’ll last before you come back.”
He says it like poetry.
And it lands like lightning.
Caleb’s hands twitch at his sides. His jaw is locked so tight it aches. He wants to say something. Anything. A denial. A warning.
But instead, his eyes drop.
To Elias’s chest.
To the sweat glinting there.
To the flush blooming low beneath his waistband.
And his breath catches.
That’s when Elias finally touches him.
Not a grab, not a pull.
Just the backs of his fingers grazing Caleb’s knuckles. Barely there. A suggestion. A dare.
“Still quiet,” Elias murmurs. “You used to be louder.”
Caleb catches his wrist.
Not hard. Not soft. Just enough.
Elias’s lips part. He doesn’t pull away.
The curtain lifts with the breeze again, framing the light around them. A slip of world visible beyond. Bridesmaids laughing. Someone pouring another glass of prosecco. A flash of a camera.
“I’m not loud any more,” Caleb says, and his voice is like gravel.
Elias leans in until their foreheads almost touch. His voice is a breath.
“Liar.”
The brush of Elias’s skin against Caleb’s wrist shouldn’t feel like a storm.
It shouldn’t crack open the space between them, shouldn’t tilt the floor, shouldn’t shift gravity itself...
but it does.
Because it’s been years since that night they didn’t talk about.
Years since hands almost.
Since mouths nearly.
Since Caleb closed a door and Elias never knocked again.
Now they are here.
Behind a veil.
And nothing has ever felt thinner.
Caleb doesn’t let go of Elias’s wrist.
Instead, he drags it lower. A slow, deliberate path, tracing the edge of bone, the inside of skin.
Until their fingers touch.
Elias breathes out like it hurts. Like he didn’t expect him to answer.
The contact is nothing. Just knuckle to knuckle. But it’s blistering.
Elias turns his hand, palm to palm, sliding his fingers between Caleb’s. Interlacing. Holding.
He’s the one shaking now.
Caleb sees it.
And he steps in, barely, but it’s a claiming.
Now his chest brushes Elias’s. Just a breath between their bodies, not even space.
He’s close enough to feel the tension in Elias’s shoulders.
Close enough to see the way Elias’s throat moves when he swallows.
“You think this is a game,” Caleb says, voice low.
“No,” Elias whispers. “I think it’s the only real thing happening here.”
Outside, applause erupts. Someone gave a toast. Laughter follows. A piano begins to play the opening notes of something delicate. Romantic.
But neither of them look.
Caleb’s hand lifts.
He trails two fingers along Elias’s jaw. Soft, reverent. Like he’s tracing something lost.
Then down.
Across the curve of his neck.
To the collarbone, the place where Elias’s shirt parts.
His touch stops there.
But Elias’s body doesn’t.
He leans in. Brings his mouth almost to Caleb’s. Hovers.
Their breath mingles.
Their lips nearly touch.
But Caleb doesn’t close the space.
He just watches Elias’s mouth. Watches the ache flicker in his eyes.
And then, slowly, deliberately, he exhales against Elias’s lips, a warm, full-bodied breath, as if tasting what could be.
Elias’s knees shift. His hips press forward a fraction. He wants. Visibly. Desperately.
Caleb smiles, small and dangerous.
“This,” he murmurs, “isn’t over.”
There’s a moment, suspended, breathless, where the air between them thins to nothing.
Where everything feels louder.
The bass throb of the music behind the curtain.
The murmur of heels against wood.
The soft tick of a wine glass being set too hard on a table.
And beneath it all, the quietest, most urgent sound,
Elias’s breathing.
Ragged. Staggered. Full of want.
Caleb watches him.
He hasn’t touched his mouth. Not yet. He’s traced his jaw, held his wrist, let their fingers lock. But he hasn’t kissed him. Hasn’t crossed that threshold.
Not because he doesn’t want to.
Because he does.
So much it feels like heat clawing behind his ribs.
But because he knows...
the moment he does, there will be no pulling back.
So he waits. Lets it ache.
Elias, trembling slightly, leans into him. His hands slide up to Caleb’s chest, fingertips dragging over his shirt like they’re memorising it. He presses his body in close, flushed hip to thigh, stomach to stomach.
He tilts his chin up. Lips parted. Waiting.
Caleb lets him.
For a moment.
Then he moves.
Quick. Controlled.
He pushes Elias back, not roughly, but with force. One hand flat against his sternum. A slide. A claim.
Elias stumbles a step and finds the wall at his back. A gasp escapes him, not from pain, but from pleasure. Surprise.
Caleb follows.
Crowds into his space.
Their mouths are inches apart again, but he doesn’t take. Not yet. He brings one hand to Elias’s throat, not squeezing, just holding, thumb along the jawline, fingers wrapping beneath the ear.
“You’re still trouble,” Caleb says, barely above a whisper.
“And you still want it,” Elias breathes.
Outside, someone calls out a name. The sound is close. A guest wandering. A cousin, maybe. The curtain stirs violently, half-lifting.
Caleb freezes.
Elias doesn’t.
He presses his mouth to Caleb’s neck, not a kiss, but a touch. Lips against pulse.
Then he whispers, “Say yes.”
Caleb turns his head slowly. Looks down at Elias. The light from the window streaks across his cheekbone, casting half his face in shadow. His mouth is open. Wanting. Waiting.
There is no noise now.
Not in Caleb’s head.
Only the blood in his ears.
Only Elias.
Only this.
“Say yes,” he whispers again.
And Caleb does.
🔥 THIRST: SEASON ONE 🔥
The club, the bodies, the hunger. Every encounter a pulse, every story a flood.
Inside you will find an exclusive you cannot get anywhere else: Between Floors. Two men, stuck in an elevator, pressed skin to steel, the rush turning to fuck before the doors ever open.
👉 Get Thirst Season One now. Drink deep, come undone.
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