Page 52 of The Last Inch Of Ice
He comes.
When it happens—when Kai shudders against him with a strangled sound—the realization hits Nazar with the force of a physical blow.
I did that.
Something powerful and protective swells in his chest, so intense it’s almost frightening.
He pulls back slightly, his breathing ragged, trying to see Kai’s face in the dim light.
Kai looks dazed, his eyes unfocused, his lips swollen and red. He’s beautiful. Completely undone.
Then reality crashes back in like cold water.
Kai slips out of his hold—quickly, efficiently, the way he moves on ice when he’s evading a check. He pulls his clothes back into order with practiced hands.
“No, Callahan, wait—”
“We’ve been gone too long,” Kai says, his voice flat and empty of emotion. He won’t look at him. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Kai—”
But he’s already gone, disappearing down the corridor like he’s fleeing a crime scene.
Nazar stands alone in the service hallway, the scent of Kai and everything they just did still clinging to his clothes.
He forces himself to breathe, ordering the painful ache in his body to subside.
He fails.
He turns and punches the wall—not hard enough to break anything, just hard enough to feel it. The dull thud barely registers over the roaring in his ears.
Fuck. What am I doing?
He knows Kai hates him. Has to hate him. How could he not, after everything?
And Nazar has no goddamn clue why Kai keeps letting this happen. Why Kai allows Nazar to touch him, to kiss him, to pull him into storage closets and hallways like they’re teenagers instead of professional athletes with everything to lose.
Is it just convenience? The efficiency of a shared secret? Physical need with no emotional attachment?
No. That doesn’t make sense. Kai Callahan could have anyone he wanted. Nazar has seen the way people look at him—men and women both, the kind of attention that comes with being beautiful and famous.
And Nazar has minimal experience with men. He’s clumsy and desperate and he’s sure it shows. He doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time, just operates on instinct and want.
He remembers Kai’s sarcastic sneer from weeks ago:“You think I let them fuck me?”
The memory sours everything, turning the heat in his gut to a cold, ugly knot of jealousy and rage.
Because the answer is—maybe? Probably? Nazar doesn’t know. Doesn’t know anything about Kai’s life outside of whathe observes from a distance or experiences in these brief, stolen moments that leave him more confused than before.
He straightens his clothes, runs his hands through his hair, tries to make himself look like someone who hasn’t just had a breakdown in a motel service corridor.
When he returns to the lobby, everyone is exactly where they were before.
No one looks up. No one seems to have noticed he was gone.
Kai reappears a few minutes later from the direction of the bathrooms, his face carefully neutral, and settles back into his armchair near Bonifazio. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through it like nothing happened.
Like Nazar doesn’t exist.
