Page 33 of Hot Streak

Millie shrugged. “He swore you knew about it, Connor. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s all good. It’s . . .” Connor took a deep breath. “It’s good.”

He was back in the bar.

Naked.

But when Connor glanced around wildly, worried that someone might see him like this, there wasn’t anyone.

He was alone, the neon beer signs pulsing forlornly above the mirrored shelves of bottles.

“Shit,” he said out loud as he peered behind the bar, searching for a lost and found T-shirt or sweatshirt he could use to cover up, but there was nothing.

He tried grasping for what Jackson had told him before.

Own it. Be proud. Walk out there like you stroll into the Strike Zone. Like everyone wants a fucking piece of you.

But he was still fucking naked. He could see a hundred versions of him reflecting in those mirrors behind the bar. Jackson was right; there wasn’t anyone who wouldn’t look at him and keep fucking looking. There was his tall, slim tan form, muscles bunching in all the right places, eyes surprisingly dark in the dim light, hair glinting pink and then purple and then blue from the neon lights.

Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone in the reflection.

There was someone else there. Connor lost the battle; flinched, anyway.

Except it wasn’t just anyone. It was . . .

Connor inhaled sharply.

It was Jackson.

But this time—for better or for worse; Connor wasn’t sure which—he wasn’t naked.

Nope. He was fully clothed. In a T-shirt and jeans, sleeves straining against his ripped biceps, just like he’d been dressed tonight.

His gaze was just as intent as it had been, right before Connor had left. Run away. You fucking ran away.

He stepped closer to Connor, and this time when he reached out, he didn’t dissolve in a haze. Instead, he sharpened, every edge of him defined against the shadowy background, more real and immediate than anything else around him.

The bar dissolved, and it was just the two of them in the dark, Jackson’s fingers on his shoulder, a replica of all the just-friendly touches he’d given him over the last few weeks, but this felt different. Intent. Purposeful.

Connor’s heart raced wildly. He knew what he wanted. He could lean in. Discover what those full lips and all that scruff felt like against his own. All he had to do was reach out and take it . . .

He hesitated forever, Jackson not speaking. Not even moving. Like he knew Connor had to be the one to close the distance between them.

But just when he was going to, just when he’d nearly almost decided to say fuck it and just do it, Jackson vanished, melting away before Connor’s eyes.

Connor woke with a gasp.

Flopped back in bed and tried to catch his breath.

Out of fucking breath from a dream.

He couldn’t even call it a sex dream—though his dick would probably argue differently, right now—because they’d barely touched each other.

Connor had wanted to, though.

And undeniably, there’d been that intense, coaxing look in Jackson’s dark eyes. Like he wanted him to, too.

Like it was all he wanted.

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