Page 91 of Hot Streak

Jackson’s hand dug into his hair and moved him faster, harder. “Trust me,” he exhaled, punctuated with a sharp groan. “That’s you.”

Connor wanted it to last longer than it had last time, but he wasn’t sure he quite made it. His orgasm hit him hard, and he shuddered above Jackson, then slumped against him, wrung out and exhausted.

“No, no,” Jackson crooned as Connor tried to summon the energy to get up and help Jackson finish. “Just lie like that, and I’m gonna get right off.”

He did, shifting Connor’s body, palming his own cock, head thrown back as he came in long ropes against Connor’s chest.

Jackson pressed another one of those tender kisses to his bicep, murmuring he was gonna clean up, and a minute later, he was back with a washcloth. After they wiped themselves down, Connor was surprised that Jackson still didn’t dismiss him from his bed. Instead, he slung an arm around Connor’s shoulders and tugged him firmly. Like he wasn’t tolerating this “near but not actually cuddling” bullshit again.

Connor smiled against his pec.

He’d never really wanted to be cuddled before, but it was nice.

They lay there like that in silence for a few minutes, before something occurred to Connor and he asked before he could swallow the question down.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been celibate since that guy, in the majors?”

Jackson chuckled. “No. Definitely not. But I’ve definitely not been with another player since then. And since players are who I’m around all day, every day, it’s been . . .well, a lot of dry spells. And breaking them, nothing big. Just quick hookups in bar bathrooms, in back alleys behind clubs. That kind of thing.”

Connor contemplated this. It wasn’t like he had a stellar history of great sex. Well, he couldn’t say it had been bad. But it hadn’t been like this, either. He’d done it because he’d wanted and needed to get off. The other person hadn’t been necessarily incidental—but who was he kidding? They really had been.

He’d never been with someone he wanted to keep touching long after he orgasmed.

“That’s sad,” Connor said softly.

“It’s reality,” Jackson said.

“Not anymore.”

This wasn’t going to be some epic love affair. Connor didn’t assume that—after all, they both kept saying they didn’t even like each other—but he could at least provide some kind of consistent hookup situation. Where they knew each other and trusted each other. And wanting each other wasn’t going to be any kind of problem, because they’d gotten off twice in the last hour, and even though for right now, the worst of his hunger was sated, it was still there, hanging around in the back of his mind, curious and intrigued.

How much more had he missed by only having sex with women before now?

Then it suddenly occurred to him that he wasn’t the only one missing something.

“There’s a lot more, isn’t there?” Connor asked cautiously.

“More?”

“We could do this a lot of kinds of ways, couldn’t we?”

Jackson laughed. “Oh yeah, darlin’, we sure could, if you wanted to.”

“I might not have, but you haven’t gotten to either, if what you said was true,” Connor pointed out.

“No,” Jackson said.

He didn’t sound unhappy about this—but he sure didn’t sound happy about it, either.

“So I guess we’re both gonna get something out of this,” Connor said.

“That,” Jackson said, exhaling a low, slow sigh, arm tightening around Connor’s shoulders, “is exactly what I’m thinking.”

Chapter 15

Sure enough, the next morning, they got the call that the game was canceled, and it seemed as if Mikey didn’t even suspect that it had been them—“kids, fucking around,” he’d muttered after he’d made the announcement at breakfast.

If he’d caught a glimpse of TJ’s smug smile and Kevin elbowing Connor in the ribs knowingly, then maybe their manager might have guessed, but he was already preoccupied, and said something about how they might as well head home early, since this was supposed to be their last game of the road trip.

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