Page 31 of Save the Game

“Can I ask you an invasive personal question?” He says, voice low and private.

“Yikes,” I remark, and he smiles at me, head turned to the side facing me and leaned against the wall. “Sure, go ahead.”

“You don’t like your arms being held down—noted. Can you tell me what else you don’t like, if there is anything?”

“Oh my god, Luke,” I laugh, blushing, slightly.

“Here, I’ll go first. I don’t like…” He stops, evidently thinking hard. “Okay, so there isn’t anything I don’t like. But it’s important to me that I know what you want, and what you’re comfortable with. I know conversations like this are awkward as fuck, but can you just humor me? Please?”

“All right,” I agree, looking away from him and over at my poster of Sidney Crosby. Nope, doesn’t make it any less awkward. I raise my eyes to the ceiling, and talk to it instead. “I guess I don’t know, really. It’s been a little bit since I’ve…been with someone.”

“Mm,” he hums, and his hand tightens slightly on my leg. “Gentle or rough?”

“Gentle,” I answer immediately, eyes still on the ceiling. I have no idea what Luke is looking at, but I feel like it might be my face given the way my skin is tingling.

“Top or bottom?”

“Both.”

“Spit or swallow?”

“For you? Swallow,” I say, and laugh when he groans.

“Rimming.”

“Sure.”

“Giving or receiving?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never done either. But I’m not opposed to trying. How many of these questions do you have lined up?”

“I’m the one asking the questions,” he scolds, nudging me with his shoulder. “Fingering—yes or no?”

“Yes. Definitely yes. Is this some weird form of foreplay you employ, or are you just getting me excited for nothing?” I ask, finally lowering my eyes and looking at him. His face is already turned toward mine, as I knew it would be.

“Luke’s Safe Sex Questionnaire. Should have done it the other night, but you had me all worked up.”

I laugh, shaking my head. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this level of attraction to someone: heart pounding, nervous jitters, and that constant, throbbing ache in my pelvis. He’s just so easy to be with—smiling and making me laugh, flirting and calling me Maxy, which nobody in my life has called me. I know he doesn’t belong to me, but I can’t help but feel that if someone were to be created specifically for me, they’d look and act a whole lot like Luke.

“Is the Grouch going to come storming in here and shoot me if I kiss you?” He asks, nodding toward the closed door.

“Nope. He’s gone. Won’t be back until morning.”

Luke’s eyebrows flick upward. “Morning,” he drawls. “You don’t say.”

Reaching over, he runs a finger along my hairline and over the crown of my ear until his hand is cupping my cheek. He’s no longer looking at my eyes, but tracing paths over my face and down my throat. By the time his gaze returns to mine, it feels like he’d done that with his tongue, not his eyes. There is a pressure mounting in my chest, and I think that if he doesn’t kiss me soon, I’m probably going to die.

Or you could kiss him, idiot, I remind myself, and then do just that. Closing the distance, I press my lips to his and immediately slide my tongue inside. Mirroring him, I slide my fingers into his hair and around the back of his head. I’m so full of the smell and feel and taste of him, I don’t even remember to be nervous. I deepen the kiss, gulping great breaths of him like I’m a man starved of oxygen. He groans when I catch his lip between my teeth, gently.

“Has anybody ever told you that you can kiss,” he breathes, coasting his mouth away from mine and along the line of my jaw.

“Yeah?” I ask, ridiculously pleased by his praise.

“Yeah. What do you say we keep going, huh? You need to keep those skills up.”

Laughing, I hook my thumb under his jaw and direct his face back up so I can kiss him again. Abandoning his hair, I move my hand down until I locate the hem of his shirt; the moment my fingers touch his stomach, the heat in my abdomen turns to a full-blown wildfire. It shouldn’t be possible to want somebody this badly; it’s not survivable.

He lets me explore, but doesn’t move to do the same. Every now and then he pulls his mouth from mine and kisses down my neck, but he leaves his hand against my face and the other on my leg. When my own fingers creep toward the soft waistband of his joggers, he murmurs into hollow of my throat.

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