Two weeks I’ve kept my distance. Two weeks of looking through him at practice, finding somewhere else to be, building the wall back up brick by brick after the shower because that’s what I do — I survive things by not looking directly at them. It was working.
Until right now.
“Two weeks,” Rhys says. He’s kept track of the time just like I have. Two weeks of pure torture. For both of us.
I keep my back to him. Jersey. Helmet. I can do this.
Focus.
Whatever weird game we’ve been playing, I’m done. We’ve both been tormenting the other for no reason. I’ve been losing my mind lately, not acting like myself, and I’m over it.
“Nash.” Something about my name in his mouth makes my hands stop moving. I turn around slowly.
Six-two of sweat-slick muscle packed tight under gear that strains at every seam, jersey clinging to the cut of his chest,forearms corded and gleaming. His hair is damp, curling at the edges of his helmet cage, and those eyes, black and endless, are locked on me like I'm the only oxygen left in the room.
Looking at me like he can taste every filthy thought I've had about him these last two weeks.
He reaches into his mouth. Unhurried. Intimate. His teeth scrape plastic as he works his mouthguard free, and the wet pop when it clears his lip goes straight to my gut. He holds it there between us, dangling from two fingers, pearled with his spit.
Still warm. Still wet.
Stillhis.
I stare at it. Look up at him. Back at it.
I don't understand what's happening, but my body does. My pulse hammers in my wrists, my throat, my cock, everywhere stupid. I'm glued to where I'm standing, fully entranced in whatever spell he has me under right now. Mesmerized. Owned before he's even touched me.
He prowls toward me.
I should step back. I know I should step back, but my feet don't receive the message. He closes the distance until I can feel the heat radiating through all his gear, until I can see the exact dark of his eyes, the way his breath is coming faster than it should be. Until there is nowhere to look that isn'thim.
I literally can't think right now.
I just feel.
Just his fingers at my mouth and his eyes on mine and the crowd screaming somewhere beyond these walls like a different world entirely. All I can hear is my own heartbeat, pounding in my chest. I'm confused, but I want it anyway. I want it so badly it scares me how quickly I can forget about the hate between us, the history, the everything. I don’t know what this thing between us is anymore. I just know neither of us canleave it alone.
"Open for me," he says, thumb brushing my lips.
His voice does something to my spine.
He makes me forget all the noise in my head.
Every single disciplined, controlled, careful part of me screamsdon't.
I open anyway.
His hand comes up. Slow. Careful.
Giving me every opportunity to stop it.
I don't stop it.
He presses it—still warm from his mouth—against my bottom lip. The touch short-circuits everything. Every coherent thought, every carefully constructed reason this is a bad idea, every wall I've spent two weeks rebuilding—gone.
His thumb lingers, tracing the seam of my lips where they close around the plastic, his touch is light, and I can feel the roughness of his calluses. His eyes drop to my mouth. Come back up.
He tastes like peppermint.
