Page 65 of Melting the Ice

But instead of turning in the direction of Dean’s room, he went into the kitchen.

A nice cold drink. That was what he needed. Or maybe to hold an ice pack to his crotch and cool himself down once and for all.

But as soon as he walked into the dimly lit kitchen, he stopped in his tracks.

“Fuck me,” Brody muttered under his breath.

Dean was in the kitchen, in front of the open refrigerator, only wearing a pair of tight black boxer briefs clinging to his shapely ass and his muscled thighs. His arms were braced on each side of the open door and his back was a fucking work of art, all smooth rippling muscle.

He turned.

His hair was still damp from his shower, and there was at least two days of thick black scruff dusting his jaw.

He looked wild and rough and Brodyburned. His body so hot, it was amazing his bare feet didn’t sizzle against the linoleum.

So much for cooling down.

Dean’s gaze swept over him, head to toe, and not for the first time, Brody swore that he wasn’t the only one currently suffering from this standoff. Because that was what ithadto be, right? Brody couldn’t possibly be the only one feeling this way. Caught between desire and restraint.

Then Dean pushed off from the fridge and prowled closer. Brody’s breath caught in his chest as he stopped right in front of him.

Neither of them had said a word yet. Brody because words had permanently dried up. Dean . . .well, it wasn’t like he was a man of many words, anyway.

“You’re bruised,” Dean finally said, voice low and rough. Reaching out, Brody swore he wasn’t fucking breathing as hegently traced the edges of the bruise on the curve of his torso that he’d gotten during the last game, when one of the opposing players had shoved him a little too hard into the boards.

“Uh, yeah,” Brody said, barely managing to unstick his tongue.

Saying something brilliant and/or witty was a fucking pipe dream, especially with Dean touching him like that.

“Does it hurt?”

He’d already established there was no blood in his goddamn brain, and so it wasn’t all that much of a shock when he laid out the blunt truth. “No, that’s not really what hurts.”

A dark eyebrow quirked upward. “Yeah?” Dean asked. He was close enough that it would be so easy to just reach up andtake. But Brody had enough of his mind left that he wasn’t going to do it if he wasn’t positive Dean wanted it, too. They were friends, now, after all, and he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to go around kissing your friends, uninvited.

But that gentle, purposeful touch sure as hellfeltlike an invitation.

Tilting his head back, Brody took in those light green eyes. Piercing and intense. It felt like they could see all the way through him. Through all his pretenses. All his bullshit.

And pretending he didn’t want Dean was a fuckingtonof bullshit.

“You gonna tell me what hurts?” Dean asked again. His lips curled up into a knowing grin.

Brody took a deep breath and then another. Every bit of the air smelled like Dean.Feltlike Dean. “Every bit of me, every second I don’t do this,” he said and settled a hand on all that bunched muscle on Dean’s shoulder.

Their lips met at the same time.

If the first time had been a hesitant experiment, this was a conflagration, burning out of control from the first brush of their mouths together.

Brody knew whathewanted, and it was pretty damn clear Dean wanted the same thing. At least now that his mouth was on Brody’s and he was kissing him fiercely, tongue slipping into his mouth, hands curled around Brody’s waist, digging into his skin like he wanted to leave his own marks.

They stumbled across the little kitchen and Brody’s hip hit the edge of the back counter as he panted into Dean’s mouth, trying to give as good as he was getting.

It was the wildest kiss he’d ever had, full of intense longing, and Brody realized, with a hard clanging realization, that he hadn’t been the only one wanting this. Craving this.

He pulled his mouth off Dean’s, breathless. Dean’s chest was rising and falling just as hard as Brody’s own. “Why didn’t you say?”

Dean chuckled, but he didn’t look upset. In fact he looked . . .

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