“I didn’t.” I unlocked the doors, waited until we were both inside with the engine running and the heater blasting. “I wanted to leave an hour ago.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because you were trying so hard.” I reached for his hand, lacing our fingers together on the center console. “You were incredible tonight. You know that, right?”
“I made awkward small talk about horse bones and helmets.”
“You showed up. You stayed. You let my teammates see that you exist.” I brought his hand to my mouth, pressed my lips to his knuckles. “That matters.”
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had dropped to something rough. “Take me home.”
We didn’t make it past the entryway.
The door had barely clicked shut before Tanner was on me—hands fisting in my shirt, mouth hot and demanding against mine. He kissed like he was trying to consume me, all the restraint from the bar evaporating into desperate need.
“All night,” he gasped between kisses. “I kept thinking about this. Watching you with your team, knowing I couldn’t touch you?—”
I walked him backward into the wall, pinning him there with my hips. “Drove me crazy too.”
“Good.” His hands worked at my belt, clumsy with urgency. “I hated it. Hated pretending you’re just my roommate when I wanted?—”
“What did you want?”
“This.” He got my belt open, shoved his hand down the front of my jeans, and wrapped his fingers around me. “You. I wanted everyone to know you’re mine.”
The possessiveness in his voice hit me somewhere primal. Tanner wasn’t usually like this. Usually, he was careful, hesitant, letting me lead. This was different. This was him staking a claim.
“Yours,” I managed, my hips jerking into his grip. “I’m yours.”
“Prove it.”
I hauled him off the wall and toward the bedroom, barely breaking contact long enough to navigate the hallway. He was pulling at my clothes the whole way—jacket off, shirt yanked over my head, his mouth finding every inch of skin he exposed. By the time we hit the bed, I was down to boxers, but he was still half-dressed.
“Off.” I tugged at his shirt. “All of it.”
He stripped with an efficiency that would have been funny if I hadn’t been so hard it hurt. When he was bare, I pushed him onto his back and pinned his wrists above his head.
“This okay?”
“Yes.” His breath came fast, pupils blown wide. “God, yes.”
I kissed down his throat, his chest, the taut plane of his stomach. He squirmed underneath me, testing my grip on his wrists, and when I held firm, he made a sound that had me grinding against the mattress for relief.
“I thought about this,” he said, voice wrecked. “At the bar. Every time some guy clapped your shoulder or called you Landry— I kept thinking about how you’re different with me. How I’m the only one who gets this version of you.”
“You are.” I nipped at his hip bone, felt him jolt. “You’re the only person who really knows all of me.”
“Show me.”
I let go of his wrists and reached for the nightstand. Condom, lube—the motions were becoming familiar now, comfortable in a way that still surprised me. When I slicked my fingers and pressed one inside him, Tanner’s back arched off the mattress.
“More.” His hand found my hair, tugging hard. “I don’t want gentle tonight.”
I gave him more. Two fingers, then three, working him open with a focus that made him curse and writhe. He was so responsive like this—every touch pulling sounds from him that I wanted to memorize.
“Now,” he demanded. “I’m ready.”
“Bossy.”
