Page 7 of Shut Up and Jingle Me
I strip off myUnder Armourshirt, trying not to think about the fact that Max is watching me do it. The air feels colder on my skin, but then his hands are back, warm, steady, sliding over my shoulder as he tests the range of motion.
“There,” he says, pressing into the sore spot again. “That’s the muscle I was working. Probably just a strain.”
Probably. But with the way my pulse is thundering, it might as well be a full-blown cardiac event.
He starts kneading into the muscle again, thumbs working in deep, slow circles, and I have to clamp my teeth together to stop the sound threatening to slip out of me. Every press of his hands sends a sharp ache through my shoulder…and something else entirely through the rest of me.
I keep staring hard at the opposite wall over his head, praying he can’t tell. He’s still kneeling in front of me, between my legs, focused on his work, and there’s no way he’d notice the way my body’s reacting—thank god for my jock strap.
Still, the air between us feels different. Warmer. He shifts his weight slightly, his body brushing the inside of my thigh as he stands, and before my brain can stop my mouth, I blurt, “You know what would make a great calendar shot? Me, sitting just like this… and you, standing over me exactly where you are right now. With Christmas lights wrapped around us.”
His hands still for a second, and then one brow ticks up. Slowly, he looks down at me.
And I’m trapped.
I’ve seen Max’s eyes before, of course I have, but up close like this, with that piercing green fixed on me, it’s somethingelse entirely. They’re unfair. They’redangerous.My mouth goes dry, and whatever witty follow-up I was reaching for vanishes completely.
His dark hair falls onto his forehead, and his full lips almost tilt up into a smile before he snuffs it out. He’s so attractive it should be illegal. And did I mention that I really, really want to run my fingers over his day-old scruff? I suck in a slow breath hoping he doesn’t notice.
He tilts his head the smallest degree, like he’s waiting for me to crack first. I try not to. But my pulse is so loud in my ears it’s a wonder he can’t hear it.
“Is that so?” His voice is low, even, but there’s something in it, something I can’t read, that makes my stomach dip. “And what exactly would this pose… be selling?”
Heat creeps up the back of my neck. “Uh…Christmas?”
One corner of his mouth pulls up, not quite a smile, more like he’s caught me in a trap I didn’t realize I’d walked into. “Right. Christmas.”
My mouth opens to say something clever, but the words get lost in the sea green of his eyes. It’s like they’ve locked onto mine and aren’t letting go, and for a second, I’m not thinking about my sore shoulder or the fact that we’re in the middle of a locker room with my team all around us. I’m just…stuck there.
He breaks the stare first, going back to kneading my shoulder as if nothing happened. “Hold still. We’re not done yet.”
So I do. Or at least, I try to. But the longer his hands stay on me, the more aware I am of how close he’s standing—how the heat of him seeps in everywhere his body hovers near mine.
I drop my gaze to avoid another eye-lock and…oh.
For a second, my brain refuses to process what I’m seeing. Then it hits me: either I’m imagining things, or there’s the faintest shift in his jeans. The barest outline of a semi-hard dick. My mouth goes dry, and suddenly I’mpainfullyaware ofexactly where my knees are, how close they are to him, and how ridiculously easy it would be to just…hook my fingers in the waistband, snap open his button, and tug them down. Cross a line I’ve thought about way too many times in the last week.
Right, the last week…try the last few months.
The thought circles inside my head, and now I can’t stop picturing it—how little effort it would take, how quickly this could go from clinical to something it absolutely shouldn’t be. Heat coils low in my stomach, and I shift on the bench, trying to hide it, praying my body isn’t giving me away.
“Better?” he asks, voice steady. Too steady for what I’m positive is a hard-on in his pants.
“Yeah,” I manage.
He steps back, finally, giving me room to breathe. “Go shower. And ice that shoulder when you get back to the dorm.”
I grab my towel and head for the showers, my heart pounding like I just finished a sprint. I tell myself he didn’t notice. That I imagined the whole thing. But the ghost of that eyebrow quirk from earlier says otherwise. And the image of his long length pressing against his jeans makes me want to do unspeakable things.
By the time I make it to the showers, I’m still carrying the heat of Max’s hands on my shoulder… and yeah, other places. It’s not my fault; my body hasn’t gotten the memo that this is strictly off-limits territory.
Shedding the rest of my clothing, I duck into the stream, water pounding against my skin, hoping it’ll take the edge off. No such luck. The harder I try not to think about the shift I swear I saw in his pants, the more my brain replays it in high definition.
“Uh-huh.”
The voice snaps me out of it. I glance over and there’s Daniel two showers down, smirking as if he’s just caught me with myhand in the cookie jar. Or around my dick, jacking myself off like I want to do.
“What?” I ask, probably too defensively.
