It's been a long week.
A door opens behind me.
No — I'm being pulled through one.
The noise from downstairs quickly disappears behind the closed door. Suddenly I’m in a dark bedroom, alone with who I’ve been trying to avoid.
Rhys. Arms crossed. Dark eyes absolutely furious. Looking at me like I've done something wrong. Which, I suppose from his perspective I have. I smile at him. "Something wrong, Callahan?"
Chapter 26
Rhys
Am I seriously the only one seeing through this?
"What are you trying to prove?" I poke him in the chest before I think about it — bad idea, immediately obvious, because there is nothing there but solid muscle under that white tee and the contact sends a shock through my fingers I have to actively decide to ignore.
Jamie looks at me. Completely relaxed. Amused in a way that makes my eyes twitch because Jamie Nash is never relaxed around me. Jamie flinches and goes rigid and slams things. This version — collected, arrogant, watching me like he knows exactly what he's doing and is enjoying it — I don't have a read on him and I don't like that. "Just doing what Coach said," he says, nonchalantly. "Getting to know my team."
"You haven't had a single drink." I step closer. The room is dimmed, mostly made up of our shadows, the party noise muffled through the door, just us in here with the low light and not enough space. "You're full of shit, and you want me to believe it's about bonding."
His gaze stays on mine. Still calm. "You've been watching me now, Callahan?" He lets that sit between us for a moment. "Like what you see?"
I go very still. He's bluffing. Has to be bluffing. This is the man who deleted his Grindr account the second he got home. Who punched me rather than say one real thing. Who converts everything he feels into anger because feeling it directly is toointense for him.
He's bluffing.
But if he wants to play chicken — fine.
I invented this game.
I close the remaining distance between us. Slow. Cautious. Until I can see the curve of his lips in the low light, the tic in the muscle just below his ear that gives him away even when everything else is locked up. The room is small and getting smaller and I can feel the pull of him before I'm even close enough to touch — that heat, the woodsy cologne he put on tonight, and underneath it just him. I stop close enough that neither of us can pretend this is accidental.
"You know what?" My voice drops all the way down. "Yeah." I let my eyes drag over him slowly, make sure he knows I'm doing it. "You want to get to know your teammates?" I look back up to his face. "Start with me. Get to know me, Jamie, all of me," I whisper.
Something dangerous flickers in the tightness of his jaw.
He doesn't move, though.
I bring my hand up. One finger. Press it flat to the center of his chest and drag it down slowly — feel the muscles clench underneath the fabric, the tension in it, the way his breathing changes by degrees as I go down. Waiting for the flinch. The step back. The wall. It doesn't come. He lets me go all the way down to the top of his jeans.
He stays exactly where he is, but I can feel him trembling with anticipation.
So I take it further.
Let’s play.
I lean in and press my mouth to the side of his neck — just below his jaw where his pulse is jumping — and bite down lightly. Just enough. A graze. And it moves through him — thatbreath he tries not to take, the way it catches halfway, the almost-imperceptible shudder he's suppressing with everything he has.
I don't pull back. I stay there. Right there. Let him feel it — my mouth at his throat, his pulse against my lips, both of us standing in this dark room at this party with the whole thing balanced on a rope that’s about to snap.
"Here's what I think," I say against his skin. The furnace that burns there. The salt of him. "You like losing control." I let a beat of silence stretch. "It's the thing you want most. The thing you fight hardest. Every single day." I pull back enough to look at him. Close enough that our breath mingles in the small space between our mouths. "And I'm the only one who gets it out of you."
His gaze is dark, hungry.
He’s still not moving.
I drop my eyes to his mouth for one second.
