Page 69 of Home Ice

He didn’t roll me over, but he continued to rock his body against me, and he stroked our cocks, his hand pinned between us. Then he cracked his head on the headboard.

It wasn’t a tap. It was a full, ringing knock, wood on skull. He dropped onto his forearms with a grunt.

“That’s walnut,” I said.

Rafe rolled slightly to the side, pressed his face against my shoulder, and laughed. It came up from his belly, loud, with no guardrails.

I couldn’t stop myself. I laughed too. We lay there tangled up and laughing in the streetlight, his heart hammering against mine.

“You built that,” he said.

“Every joint’s hand-cut.”

He lifted his head, and I looked at him. Rafe was back, and when he kissed me this time it was slow, learning about our connection.

“Can I?” he asked as he slid his tongue down my neck.

I shuddered. “Yes.”

He placed kisses down across my collarbone and onto my chest. I reached for his cock and began to stroke it.

He watched my hand move, and then he watched my face, back and forth, seeing everything. He touched me in return with a calloused palm and no technique at all. It undid me more than skill would have. It was Rafe, and he was mine.

I stroked him, slow and deliberate. He lost his grip on me and rolled his head back into the pillow. His hips rose to follow the rhythm of my strokes.

His breathing turned ragged. He was close already. “Slower,” he said. “I don’t want it over fast.”

My hand slowed. “Okay,” I said. “Slower.”

I gave him exactly what he wanted, long and unhurried. I eased off every time he got close, until he was trembling and laughing, reaching up and gripping the slats of the headboard.

When I finally pushed him over the edge, he reached up and grabbed a fistful of my hair while he shot and his body shook. The sounds were primal: gasps and low rumbles from deep in his chest.

After, he lay stunned while his breathing came back. Then he reached for me. His grip was a little clumsy, but he was determined. It didn’t take long. I came, whispering “Rafe” with a ridiculous grin on my face. He held me through all of it.

His breathing turned long and even, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he spoke.

“They weren’t mad about the lie.” The words were slow and deliberate. “That part I could’ve—everybody understood the lie, kind of. It was more like they were mad about—“ He reached out and touched my chest. “They thought they knew me yesterday. Today, they thought I was a different guy.”

A few seconds later, he fell asleep. His arm lay heavy across my body.

I didn’t sleep at first. I lay there and looked across the room at the bookshelf I built at twenty-three. It stood against the far wall.

The most desirable man I’d ever kissed was asleep on my shoulder. He was a professional athlete, more talented than most in his league, and he was so handsome it stopped my breath.

He slept like he’d finally been allowed to rest after working nonstop for twenty years. The story about him that everyone else thought they knew wasn’t there. It couldn’t find its way in between us.

Chapter seventeen

Rafe

Istopped behind a salt truck, and while I sat there, I remembered the headboard.

It wasn’t the crack on the skull. It was the part after, when I’d reached up and held onto the slats because I needed something to hold on to. The wood had been smooth under my fingers. It was hand-planed. Even then, with everything else going on, my brain paused to check the finish.

The salt truck moved, and I followed it through the intersection.

My phone sat in the console. It had been buzzing all morning. It was likely Hal, Mark, the team chat, and Mom, plus everybody else trying to carry me through the worst week of my life on my behalf.