It was clean. I'd washed it this morning and left it on the counter to dry, the way I always did. There was no reason to move it, no reason to open the cabinet and slide it onto the shelf next to the others, arranging them by size the way my father had always insisted.
I did it anyway.
Wonton watched me from the back of the couch, his green eyes tracking my movements as I straightened the pillow beside him. The pillow didn't need straightening. I straightened it twice more.
We'd used his truck three times now, parked out in the scrubland where nobody went. The truck was controlled. The truck didn't have my training schedules on the refrigerator, or my cat watching from the couch, or my competition footage queued on the TV.
But tonight I'd texted my address instead of the usual coordinates. December was too cold for the truck.
Except I'd cleaned the bathroom this morning. I'd changed the sheets. I'd closed the laptop that usually sat open on my coffee table, the one with dozens of tabs of my own competition footage that I watched on loop, looking for flaws.
Wonton meowed and jumped down to wind between my ankles. I fed him because it gave me something to do with my hands. The dry food clattered into his bowl, and he ignored me, the way he always did when he'd already gotten what he wanted.
The buzzer sounded.
I pressed the button to let Red into the building and stood there with my hand still on the intercom. Forty-five seconds for the elevator. I counted in my head because counting was safe, because counting meant I wasn't thinking about what it meant that I'd invited him here.
The knock came at fifty-two seconds.
I opened the door. Red stood in the hallway with his cheeks flushed from the cold, his jacket still zipped.
I stepped back to let him in.
Then I pinned him against the door.
My mouth found his before he could look around, my hands already under his jacket. If I kept him busy, he wouldn't notice the training schedule or the closed laptop. This could still be just bodies, just friction, just something I could walk away from when the season ended.
"What's your cat's name?" Red asked against my mouth.
I bit his lower lip hard enough to sting. "Wonton."
"That's cute." His jacket hit the floor, and I got my hands under his shirt, finding the warm skin beneath. He shivered but kept talking. "How long have you had him?"
"Three years." I pulled his shirt up, and he lifted his arms to help. I thought that would be the end of it.
"Did you adopt him or—"
I bit down on his collarbone, not hard enough to mark but enough to make him gasp.
"—or was he a stray?"
"Shelter." I dragged my tongue up his throat. "Stop talking."
"Make me."
I dropped to my knees.
His belt took too long, and I yanked his jeans open, shoving them down his thighs along with his boxers. He was already hard, flushed dark and leaking from the tip, and I wrapped my hand around the base and stroked once just to watch his stomach muscles jump.
"Joel—"
I licked a slow stripe up the underside, base to tip, and his breath stuttered. I did it again, tasting salt and skin, and his hands found my hair but didn't pull.
I took the head into my mouth and sucked, my tongue working the slit, and the sound he made went straight to my cock. I sucked him deeper, relaxing my throat, and his hips jerked forward before he could stop himself. I grabbed his hip with my free hand and held him still, held him exactly where I wanted him while I set a rhythm that had his thighs shaking within a minute.
"Fuck, that's—" His head fell back against the door. "Your mouth, Jesus Christ—"
I pulled off just enough to speak, my lips brushing the head. "Still want to talk about my cat?"
