Page 30 of Unsteady

“I thought you liked savory over sweet.”

“I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses and my heart clenches.

His hand dips into his pocket, handing me a headphone. I realize, only then, that he’s got my old pair in his ears, that he was listening to music.

“I couldn’t find mine fast enough,” he sighs.

I take the proffered earbud, letting the cord link between us even as he hands me his phone to select the music.

TEN

SADIE

He might as well have a sign plastered across his forehead saying “kiss me.”And I should be wearing one that says,“this is a horrible idea.”

None of this has gone according to my plan.

Seeing him like this, hunched over in just his sweatpants and an athletic tee stretched across the broadness of his chest. With his head in his hands, fingers scraping through the thick, unruly brown locks, and breath shuttering from the tight line of his lips.

“Make This Go On Forever” is playing in my right ear, the music of Snow Patrol kicking up intensity every few moments, only feeding the energy between us.

My previous hook-up experience has been all quick, handsy, in-the-dark moments, usually over before it really began. A personal favorite distraction when I felt so much it was seeping from my home life into everything else.

But the way Rhys is looking at me isn’t just lust—it’s that desperation I know so well, in the darker parts of my mind that close me off from everything.

The need to feel something, just to ground myself.

I have to remind myself of what this is, before I dare to touch him. To let myself be this for him. He’s a popular hockey player with a mask that must be as good as gold. I’ve seen him vulnerable, repeatedly now, and Iknowhe won’t ask outright, even as he leans in a little closer.

So, I match him, breath-for-breath, move-for-move, until his tensed forehead is pressed to my own, the sweat on his brow now cold in the chill of the room.

His breath is minty and cool as it puffs against my lips, and Iknowhow terrible this is, how much I truly should pull away, take back my headphones and dial in my focus—skate off my bubbling emotions like I usually do; but something is keeping me here, drawn to his deep well of hopelessness like a moth to a flame.

I can’t save him. Even if I wanted to, because if anyone needs saving, it’s Oliver and Liam before it’s me; and it’s definitely not my place to try and hold up the drowning hockey boy in front of me now.

He needs me.

Yeah. Sure. For this, maybe.

It isn’t slow, just a hitch of my breath before I shove myself into him, lips meeting his with no hesitation, only need.

A low moan etches from his throat that sounds like absolute relief, and then he’s responding, giving me back the passion I’m feeding him until it feels like we’re part of a continuous loop. His hands reach for my waist, pulling almost harshly before I seat myself across his hips, legs straddling him on the low bench. His back hits the brick behind him, finding stability as the skates half-tied on his feet dig into the rubber mat flooring.

Pulling back to look down at him, I take in every detail. The thick brush of his dark hair falling over his forehead, the pink flush of his cheeks and the darkness of his swollen lips that are open lightly, huffing quickened breaths. His hands are still bracketing my hips, making me feel like a feather with the way they span the entirety of my waist.

“Is this what you want?” he breathes out, voice raspy as he gazes half-lidded eyes up to me. I reach out for him, but he catches my wrist and holds it. “Tell me.”

My voice is gone, my mouth so dry it feels like I’ve gone months without a drop of water. I can only nod.

A breathtaking smile I’ve never seen before breaks through his lips, two dimples showing across his cheeks as he laughs and closes his eyes before pressing his mouth into the skin of my wrist and muttering against my pulse, “Good. Me too.”

I can’t decide what I want to do with him first.

Sliding my hands up his shoulders, his neck, and into his hair, I grip it lightly and dive back in, only to the strong column of his throat this time, licking and kissing it rapidly. He moans again, long and loud where his lips are right at my ear and I shiver, sending goosebumps across my skin. The movements of our bodies are harsh enough to dislodge both headphones, my phone clattering to the floor, giving way to echoing silence.

His hands lace a pattern across my lower back, and for a moment they wander south. I wait for him to dosomething, anything—I just need more. But after a brief hesitation, his palms soothe up my covered spine and into the hair at the base of my neck, cradling my face in his hands as he kisses me again.

I grab his massive palms in my own hands, hard and insistent as I slide them down, down, down to cup my ass.

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