Page 34 of Tempting the Teammate
But I knew this defiant look. It was the same look he’d given his father when Mr. Sokolov tried to find a way to dismiss his photographs and refuse to buy him a vintage camera and the equipment to develop new photos. I’d spent weeks planning it with Mrs. Sokolov until we surprised Andrei with all the stuff he’d wanted. I knew this look of readiness on his face. I knew that he just wanted to hear it. He was ready for the worst, and he would fight to cut the wait time short if he needed to.
He clenched his teeth and pulled his lips back, exhaling through flaring nostrils. “Say it,” he said. “You read the stories, and it finally made you see what they all seem to know. Don’t be a coward now, Griff. Tell me the truth. I already know you can’t stand me anymore.”
How fucking dare he? “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snapped.
But his eyes twinkled with unshed tears, and his cheeks were red. “I do, Griff. Fucking years. The fact that you didn’t see it sooner…”
“Christ, you’re making this hard,” I said.
“Say it. Say that you know,” he said. A challenge. His upper lip lifted, one side higher than the other, and sadness cast a gloomy shadow over his beautiful face.
My gaze swept across his face, and I understood. Nobody would be this frightened. Nobody would be this scared of a friend who had a problem to share. Nobody other than myself and Andrei. And I knew this fear all too well because it had plagued me for days.
Andrei…Andrei had been living with it for longer than I could imagine.
I swallowed and lifted my hands carefully to his face, looking into his eyes as my own vision blurred with tears. “It would be easier to show you,” I whispered, my voice strangled far too much to let me speak clearly.
He didn’t say another word. He didn’t pull away from my hands as they closed around his face and held him so gently. He didn’t frown when I leaned in a little.
Then again, he didn’t close his eyes either. He watched me as if he couldn’t believe it, and my latest discovery proved itself truer with every passing heartbeat. Because I had seen that frightened expression before. I had seen the hopelessness in the eyes and the tightness of a clenched jaw and the fear of sayingit aloud for the sake of friendship. But the last time I’d seen it wasn’t on Andrei’s face. It was in the mirror just this morning.
I’d never claimed to be smart. I’d never promised anyone I would figure it all out at first try. But damn, I should have figured this one out sooner.
As I leaned in, Andrei blinked, opening his eyes as if not to miss it in case it flew by too quickly.
My insides fluttered with excitement, making me giddy and restless. The sensation climbed, tickling me from the inside out, filling me with the sweetest anxiety I’d ever felt. Even my toes tingled with anticipation, the distance between his lips and mine so vast and wonderful.
But then, as the corners of Andrei’s mouth trembled and ticked upward, I let my left hand slide to the back of his head, and I closed my eyes, letting myself be immersed in the physical sensation like no other. This impossible, frightening, defiant elation that refused to play by the rules of physics and that lifted my feet off the floor. It carried me through the fog and clouds, through storms and restless seas, until it led me to a sun-kissed meadow where only Andrei existed.
His lips were softer and warmer than anyone could have convinced me. They melted against mine, wet and sweet and perfectly shaped for kisses. He closed his lips around my lower one, sucking it gently as his arms came under mine and around my torso. He didn’t freak out like I’d expected him to through all these days of torment. He kissed me back, taking the lead at the very moment when I’d lost control.
He kissed me softly as I leaned down, my fingers moving over the hair on the back of his head. I could feel the wild grace of his softly tangled curls and his fingers running through my shaggy hair. And when the tip of his tongue touched the tip of mine, I thought my heart would just about burst out of my chest and kill the mood.
But it didn’t. It thundered inside my rib cage, performing its big drum solo, while I let my other hand move around Andrei and to the small of his back, where I touched him gently and made him moan.
He pulled away from me. “Griff…”
“That was…” I whispered, looking at the way his cheeks flushed and how his eyelashes fluttered when he blinked rapidly and looked away from me. He slouched, bending awkwardly just a little inward, and tried to turn away from me. “I liked it.”
The words felt small and irrelevant. I could have racked my brain and found a way to recite a sonnet to him about the way I would die without another taste of his lips, but it felt as though there weren’t any words in our language that could conjure just how true that statement was. So I didn’t try it. I kept it simple, unlike all the other blunders of the past few weeks.
“You did?” Andrei looked at me.
Judging by the way he was hiding his midsection away from me, he very much liked it, too. But I didn’t tease him. If we kissed again, I would know I could tease him. For now, I just didn’t want to blow this up. So I nodded. “Andrei, the truth…the truth I wanted to tell you…” I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair. “I feel like I’m high.”
“You wanted to tell me,” he said softly, prompting the previous train of thought.
“Yeah, but I feel high, Andrei. Don’t you get it? I never thought you were…” I stumbled over the labels, suddenly too afraid to utter the word. “What are you exactly?”
He bit his lip. “I suppose I’m gay.”
“Right,” I said, nodding. Then, another thought. “And is this the first time you’re telling that to anyone?”
Andrei swallowed. “Aloud?” He tried to laugh. His eyebrows lifted pleadingly, and I stepped forward. It didn’t matter. We had stuff to talk about. We had a whole lot to unpack. But I alsoknewthatlook. I knew the way his gaze searched for me, and his eyebrows trembled upward when he needed me.
My arms wrapped around him like an invisibility cloak so he was safe to break down or simply take a breath.
“Nobody knows?” I asked quietly after a light shudder had passed through Andrei. Even in all this mess, I felt more relieved and closer to him than I had in weeks. The burden of the secrets was behind us. I couldn’t even imagine the torrent of decisions and conversations this required, but I didn’t care. It was all outside this little shield of ours.
