Page 44 of The Fall
God, his touch makes me want to drag him somewhere private and let him ruin me slowly.You could have all of me, forever. You do have all of me forever.
“Yo, Cap,” Simmer calls from down the table. “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, but it had to be something from the arena, what would it be? And why is it nachos?”
Blair argues for buffalo chicken sandwiches like he’s coaching the power play. Beneath the table, he lays his palm on my thigh. This time, I cover his hand with mine.
The night unrolls around us. I am on fire, burning alive in front of everyone, under his touch. If he slid his hand higherright now, I’d let him do anything he wanted. I want his mouth on me again, slow and greedy, until I forget my own name.
Eventually, the night winds down toward curfew. The guys start getting noisy about calling for Ubers and settling tabs. Credit cards come out, chairs scrape against the floor. Cell phones and sunglasses are gathered.
“Who’s on coffee duty tomorrow?” Hayes asks.
“Not it!” Novak says immediately.
“Bus leaves at eight,” Blair says, his voice rising above the din of twenty hockey players. “Don’t be late.”
A pack of hockey players goes nowhere quickly. Some of the guys wander to the railing. Some get distracted by the fire pit, others by the dartboard. Blair tucks my hand into his and leads me inside the bar, turning us down a hallway that barely glows. There’s only enough light to trace the lines of his face from the shadow, and the rest of him fades in and out.
He stops abruptly and turns me into his body. We press our foreheads together, and the world outside this tiny, enclosed pocket of air simply evaporates. He breathes out, I breathe in. We share this air, confined in our private universe that needs nothing beyond its borders to be complete.
He inches closer until our lips are a breath from touching. He tastes of saltwater kisses and summer nights spent tangled up together on beaches where nobody else exists but us. He eases deeper, his mouth opening, patience sliding into hunger. The kiss deepens like waves building strength before they break against the shore.
I tangle my fingers in the thick hair at the nape of his neck, holding him closer, holding him here. We kiss, and time drops away, like we’re not standing in a darkened corner while twenty teammates could round the corner any second.
We move closer, and closer still, until our bodies are a single hard line. Everything that means anything narrows to the taste of his lips. If I could weld myself into this moment, I would.
“Yo!” Hayes’s voice bounces down the hallway. “If you’re down here, hurry your asses up. Ubers are pulling up!”
Our kiss breaks. His eyes are so bright, so intense; they burn into mine. I don’t look away.
I don’t want to look away. He’s everything: my anchor, my lifeline, my reason for being. The world blurs when he’s this close.
How do you describe something you’ve never experienced before? How do you put words around feelings you’ve never felt before? I want to burn this moment into my broken memory so deeply that it can never be stolen away again.
Nothing’s truly lost until you forget the taste of another man’s lips.
And I will never forget him.
Ten
The hotel’sballroom is empty except for me. I’m alone with a breakfast spread that stretches across three tables: sausage links sizzling beside crisp bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs nestled between golden pancakes and Belgian waffles, pastries arranged in spirals. Maple syrup catches light under the heat lamps, its sweet scent mingling with the salt tang of meat and the rich aroma of fresh coffee.
I load my plate with eggs, bacon, a blueberry muffin, and a buttery croissant. Pregame carb-loading. The team buffet feels too large without the guys filling it up. I’m early, but there was no point crawling back into my own bed after slipping out of Blair’s this morning.
Last night is popping inside of me, little fireworks of memories that shimmer and glow. The drag of Blair’s mouth on my collarbone is a ghost on my skin, his hands still there on my hips where he’d pulled me closer.
My fork clatters against the plate.Blair, his mouth trailing down my stomach, his tongue tracing patterns lower and lower?—
I take a deep breath, trying to focus on breakfast instead of how Blair had looked up at me from between my thighs with a wicked grin.
I remember straddling his hips, watching his eyes darken as I took control. Remember how he flipped us, and then the slide of skin against skin, and the way he took his time with me. We had ground together for what felt like hours, kissing until we were breathless, and I clamped my thighs around his waist, our cocks hard, hot, and rutting together until every nerve ending was aching and alive.
When I came, his name was caught between my teeth, his gasp buried in my throat.
Afterward, we lay tangled, our legs knotted together. He traced lazy patterns on my chest. I couldn’t look away from him—the satisfied curve of his smile, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead.
“Stay,” he’d murmured, half-asleep already, and his arm settled, heavy, across my waist.
I did, for hours.
