Page 24 of Locked & Loaded

“Well,” he says after a pause, his voice careful, barely above a whisper, “I could kiss you. If you’d like to try it out.”

My heart stops. Actually stops, for one stupid second, and then kicks back in at twice the speed, pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it from his bunk.

“Yeah,” I say, too fast. “I’d be okay with that. If it’s not weird for you,” I add quickly.

He doesn’t answer that part. Instead, he says, “Come here.”

Two words, and my pulse goes even wilder.

I watch as he shifts on his bunk, scooting over toward the wall. The narrow mattress barely has room for one hockey player, let alone two, but he presses his back against the wall and leaves a space beside him.

He waits.

I sit up on my bunk and swing my legs over the edge, then stand. My mouth is dry, and my hands feel shaky. The floor is cold under my bare feet as I cross the gap and stop beside his bunk, looking down at him. In the dim light, his face is all shadows and angles.

He pulls the sheet back, and I climb onto the bunk.

It’s even narrower than it looks. My chest and knees press against his immediately, and there’s almost nowhere to put my arm except across his hip or pinned awkwardly to my side. I settle for the latter.

Rodriguez doesn’t move. He’s just watching me, and the tension between us makes it hard to breathe normally.

“Hi,” I say.

It comes out stupidly soft, nothing like my voice usually sounds.

“Hi,” he says back, his voice quiet.

We’re close enough that I can feel his breath against my cheek, warm and a little ragged.

I don’t move. Neither does he.

His eyes drop to my mouth. Mine drop to his.

Then his hand comes to my chest, light, just resting there, his palm warm through the fabric of my sweatshirt. He’s giving me a chance to pull back, a door I can walk through if I want out.

But I don’t want out.

I lean in. His mouth meets mine, and it’s not careful. It’s not tentative or questioning or any of the things I thought a first kiss with a man might be. It’s hot from the first second, Rodriguez’s lips moving against mine, his hand sliding from my chest to the back of my neck as he pulls me in, and my body responds like it already knows how to do this.

His mouth is soft, warm, tasting faintly of cigarette smoke and mint gum. His tongue slides against mine, and I groan into his mouth, the sound low, involuntary, because Jesus Christ, this is not what I expected. I expected to feel clumsy, wrong, like I was trying something foreign. Instead, it feels like finding a sixth sense I didn’t know I had.

I press into him, one hand gripping his thigh. He makes a noise—part gasp, part groan—and his fingers tighten in my hair, pulling just enough that the sting of it goes straight to my cock.

Fuck.

I kiss him harder. His mouth opens for me, and his free hand finds my waist under the sweatshirt, palm cold against the skin of my stomach. I hiss at the contact.

That small touch wrecks whatever restraint I have left. I lean closer, chasing more of him, and the narrow bunk leaves us tangled together—his knee between mine, my hips pressed to his.

That’s when I feel him, hard against my thigh, and the realization hits me like a shot of tequila.

Chris Rodriguez is hard. For me. After one kiss.

I rock my hips, and he gasps into my mouth, ragged, shocked, like he can’t believe this is happening.

I can’t either.

But my body doesn’t care. My cock is hard enough to hurt, trapped beneath my shorts. I grind again, slower this time, and he groans, his head falling back against the wall.