Page 70 of Line Change

He gives me one last squeeze as the car pulls to the curb, then takes his hand away before the dome light comes on.

I’m breathing too hard and angry enough that I don’t trust myself to speak.

We cross the lobby with space between us. He walks half a step ahead to the elevators, looking like the same controlled asshole who sat three stalls away checking his phone while I invented somebody else touching him.

The elevator is empty. There is a camera above the doors, so Pope stands beside me without letting our shoulders meet. The numbers change one at a time while my cock throbs against my zipper.

He doesn’t touch me in the hallway either.

I unlock my room and step inside, already turning. Pope follows me, and the latch has barely caught before he comes at me.

My back hits the door. Pope plants one hand beside my head and catches my hip with the other, filling all the space in front of me. His thigh pushes between mine, his body hard against me, and for a second I forget every reason I’m angry.

Then he lowers his mouth to mine.

If I let him kiss me, we’ll be naked before I remember any of them.

I put my palm against his chest and push him back. “We need to talk.”

20

BEN

All I want to do is bite him.

Nolan is backed against his hotel-room door with his palm planted in the middle of my chest. His mouth is still parted, and the dark material of his pants shows the thick line of his cock. My hand burns with the shape of it. I can still feel him getting harder while I stroked him in the car, trying to keep his face blank for the driver.

A mark high on his neck would do it. Everybody else could see it tomorrow and keep their hands off him without either of us having to explain why.

Instead he wants to talk.

“What?” I ask.

We’re barely a foot apart. The alcohol from the club is on his breath, but underneath it he smells like Nolan, warm skin and sweat beneath the soap from the arena showers hours ago.

“What the fuck was that?”

“What are you talking about?”

His palm presses harder when I try to close the distance. “Back there. I was dancing, Pope. It’s a club. That’s what people do.”

“You were going to kiss that woman.”

“And so what if I did?”

The answer pulls a growl up my throat. I bite it off, but Nolan’s eyes narrow. His fingers flex against my chest instead of pushing me away.

“Use your words, Benjamin.” His voice has lost everything playful. “I thought this was about you being curious. Why should you care who I fuck?”

“Are you fucking other people?”

For the first time since he stopped me, Nolan goes quiet. His eyes search my face, and each second without an answer makes the pressure behind my ribs worse.

“No,” he says.

Relief comes so fast it leaves me light-headed. “Neither am I.”

“So?”