“I’ve missed… this… want… more…” he panted.
I drove down harder, gripping his hips so tight my knuckles whitened. When he came, he tried to be quiet, but a strangled cry ripped free as he arched up, my throat burning as I gagged while he filled me. He dragged me up for a kiss, messy and urgent, and I collapsed onto him, breathless, laying my full weight across his slick body, loving the way we fit together. To him it might have been nothing but sex, but to me he was my safe place, my hunger and my happiness all at once—and for a single desperate moment I wished he felt it too.
He held me close, and I buried my face in his neck, tasting the salt of his skin, kissing along the line of his throat. His arms wrapped around me so firmly it was as if he’d never let go. But we were done, weren’t we? Time to separate, me back to my side of the world, him to his, until next time—if there even was a next time. Only he shuffled to sit up, muscles rippling, taking me with him until I straddled his lap, his back pressed to the wall. Then he cradled my face, eyes fierce, mouth set like he was about to say something that would wreck me.
“We need to talk,” he began, voice rough. “No, I need to talk…”
Here it was. The speech. The part where he told me it had been one and done, that he’d fucked his anger out of his system and now he was finished. But then his forehead dropped to mine, his breath hot against my lips.
“I’m listening,” I whispered.
He sighed, the sound ragged. “I hate this,” he said.
I stiffened. “What? You hate what we’re doing here?”
“No—”
“You hated when we were away?—”
He cut me off with a bruising kiss. “Stop talking. And no. Fuck, no. I hate that it can’t be more. That you don’t want it to be more.”
I froze. “What?”
His hand pressed flat to my chest, right over my heart. “I feel so much. I missed you so much. This—” His voice cracked. “This isn’t just about sex for me.”
Before I could answer, there was a knock on the door and Brett’s voice whisper-shouted, “Time out, Tian!”
I jolted, scrambling off him. Jack helped me up, then jumped to his feet, masking everything in a second, then he tugged me close, eyes blazing. “I missed you.”
I kissed him gently. “I missed you too.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
“Look, can you get away? To talk. I’ll find a place we can go… to talk.”
Another knock. “For real, Tian,” Brett said, this time louder.
I unlocked the door. “Message me.”
He smiled then. “Yeah.”
THIRTEEN
Jack
After a board gameset in a haunted house where I was bisected with a chainsaw by Jimmy Keeney, a forward from Seattle, I wandered the hotel, trying to find somewhere nice to have a meet-up with Tian. Leaving the hotel was doable, obviously, we weren’t in lockdown, but we were in training, which meant our coach, Phil Delaney from New York, preferred if we stuck to our routines. Hockey players are creatures of habit so that was fine with me. Also sneaking out to party? Nah. The youngsters could have that bullshit. Give me a good skate, a hearty meal, and a nap before a night game. Since there were no games for us, night or day, for a few more days, I’d happily swap out a game for a cuddle and a chat with Tian.
What was proving hard was finding privacy. I returned to my room in a sulk and Starry picked it up on the moment I entered.
“You look like you lost your dog,” he said, glancing up from his e-reader to me. I liked Starry. He was about my age, maybe a few years younger, but settled. He had a wife, a two-year-old boy, and another on the way. His son had come down with strep the day before they were set to fly over, so his wife and boy were back home.
I dropped to the edge of my bed, a comfortable king on which I slept well. Finding his hazel gaze locked on me, I figured he was okay to talk to. I mean he had walked in on Tian and I going at each other like a couple of rabid vampires.
“Tian,” I opened with. He sat up a little straighter and closed his . “We have a history.”
“I sort of assumed that,” he replied with a slight smile tugging at one side of his mouth.
