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I started slowly, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in, and watched his face shift through pleasure and want and something that looked dangerously close to something more. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, his legs around my waist, and he pulled me deeper, harder, faster.

I gave him what he needed.

“Max,” he breathed against my neck, and hearing my name like that, in his voice, with his body wrapped around mine, was better than any trophy I’d ever won.

I shifted the angle slightly and felt him gasp, felt his nails dig into my shoulders, and I did it again, aiming for that spot, chasing the sounds he made like they were the only thing keeping me alive.

His hand came up to grip my hair, pulling my head back so he could kiss me, and it was sloppy and desperate and perfect. I could feel the tension building in him, could feel the way his muscles tightened, and I slowed my pace deliberately, wanting to draw this out, wanting to feel every second of having him like this.

“Don’t stop,” he said, and there was a note of panic in it, like he thought I might leave him hanging, might choose distance over this.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised, and I meant it. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

I sped up, matching the rhythm he was asking for with his body, and when he came, it was with a gasp of my name and a full-body clench that pulled me over the edge right after him.

I buried my face in his neck and let myself feel it all—the pleasure, the release, the overwhelming sense of rightness that came with finally, finally having what I’d been denying myself for so long.

Afterward, we lay tangled together in the dark, and I didn’t try to pull away. His hand rested on my chest, right over my heart, and I covered it with my own, anchoring it there like I could keep him in place through sheer force of will.

“We need to talk,” he said quietly, and I could hear the fear underneath it, the part of him that was waiting for me to disappear now that I’d gotten what I wanted.

“I know,” I said, and moved to slip out and clean up.

“Don’t,” he said again, softer this time, almost broken. “Don’t let me go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him, and I meant it more than I’d meant anything in my entire life.

I cleaned up as quickly as I could and climbed straight back into bed, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight.

We stayed like that for a long time, tangled together in the Vegas darkness, and I felt his breathing gradually even out as he drifted off to sleep. I followed him under, my hand splayed across his chest, and for the first time in fifteen years, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to choose between loving him and keeping him safe.

Maybe I could do both.

Chapter five

Penalty Box - The area where a player serves time after being assessed certain penalties

Ash

I woke to the sound of Max’s phone vibrating against the nightstand, insistent and demanding. The noise cut through the soft peace of the morning, and I felt Max tense beside me before he even moved. His arm was still around my waist, and for just a second before he reached for the phone, he pulled me closer like he didn’t want to let go.

I watched him through half-closed eyes as he checked the screen, and I saw the exact moment something shifted in his face. His jaw tightened, and his free hand clenched into a fist against the mattress.

“Yeah,” he said into the phone, his voice carefully neutral in a way that immediately put me on alert. “When?”

I couldn’t hear what the person was saying on the other end, but I could hear the urgency in it, the rapid-fire words that made Max sit up slowly as the sheet fell away from his chest. I noticed the marks I’d left there, the scratches and hickeys, and something twisted in my stomach.

“Send me everything,” Max said. “I want to see it before anyone else does.”

He hung up and sat there for a long moment, phone still in his hand as he stared at nothing. I pushed myself up on my elbows, suddenly very aware of my own nakedness, of how vulnerable I was lying there while something clearly terrible was happening in the real world outside this room.

“Max?”

He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was different, stripped of the tenderness from last night and replaced with something harder, more controlled. “Melanie broke into my apartment. Got pictures. She’s sold a story to the tabloids.”

The words didn’t make sense at first. Then they did, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

“Pictures of what?” I asked, even though I thought I already knew.