Page 108 of The Play

Neal Fisher had said that he felt like Grant had proven so far that he was a man of honor and a quality owner and that he wouldn’t do anything inappropriate, so maybe his private life should stay private.

But then Brees had started to play devil’s advocate—and that was all Grant had watched before Deacon appeared.

“I thought you were going to the bar tonight, with the guys,” Grant said.

“I did. I stopped by.” Deacon hesitated. Gave him another kiss. Longer, slower, this time. Sweeter, too. “But it wasn’t where I really wanted to be.”

“Oh.” Grant was undeniably pleased, leaning into Deacon’s bigger body. “What did you want to do?” he asked. “I could order in—”

But Deacon didn’t let him get another word out. Just kissed him, fiercely and possessively, and Grant could only sink into it, because it was all he wanted, too.

Much later, when his breath had finally slowed and they’d cleaned up, cuddling back into bed like they’d done this a hundred times, not only a handful, Deacon took in Grant, his sharp green eyes now soft and lazy, and said, “Carter called me out, right before I left.”

“Hmmm?” Grant stretched, and even though he’d just been satisfied, a flicker of want pulsed through him.

Before the last few weeks, he’d have sworn that Grant wasn’t a distraction. And he wasn’t, still—not exactly, anyway. But it was something more, too. A fire burning under his skin that only Grant could quench.

He could focus on something else, but it was still there, all the time, and he was always aware of it.

Part of him was always desperate to reach for what he wanted.

“Carter told me I was whipped,” Deacon said. Not even angry about it. He’d willingly admit to being owned by the way a single touch of Grant’s quieted that wanting.

He didn’t know how he’d lived without it all these months.

All these years.

“Well, he’d know these days.” Grant’s voice was wry.

“He would.”

“I wasn’t ever expecting that my wild child wide receiver would settle down, happily. Especially not with the guy we hired to straighten him out.”

“You gotta give Ian credit, he did it,” Deacon said, chuckling dryly.

“He sure did.”

Deacon hesitated. “You know, I gotta tell you the truth. Yeah, I wanted to see you, but I didn’t just leave the Pirate’s Booty ’cause of that.”

“What happened?” Grant sounded more alert now. Almost worried. Deacon regretted bringing it up, but he’d needed to know.

“Nothing major. Nothing like last time. Just . . .I got so fucking tired of people asking me what was going on. Strangers. People I didn’t even know. Thinking they could stick their noses into our business.”

Grant settled down against him, his palm flat against Deacon’s chest.

“Darcy says it’s because they’re surprised—and happy, I guess—to learn I’m not just a machine with a brain, but a man. They’d never seen me that way before, and that’s why they’re so interested.”

“A machine with a brain, huh?” That was weird to Deacon, because he’d always seen Grant as a man. Even from the first moment, when he’d sat across from him in the old musty library on campus, hoping that he wouldn’t fail statistics.

“You disagree?”

“No. But I also think this is pretty big news. People like to hear about a romantic story.”

He could feel Grant grinning against him. “That what we are, a romantic story?” Grant wondered.

“Well, we’re definitely not a sad one.”

“Not even after all this?”

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