Just as I lifted the carafe to fill my mug, the door opened. I didn’t bother turning around, just poured my coffee and stirredit. There was no need to see who had joined me. I knew all the voices coming through the door, even if they were shouting and talking over one another.
“That’s a round!”
I laughed. Hazing the new guy had already started. While they were proven leaders, professional, dependable men who never failed to get the job done, no matter how big, small, or impossible, they were, at their core, a bunch of fraternity boys.
Turning around, my coffee halfway to my mouth, everything stopped.
Everything.
And it didn’t fade away. Someone flipped the main switch and turned off the whole damn world.
Except, the spotlight that wreathed one being in a halo that warmed my damn soul.
Then, the world righted itself, turning back on with a scratch as if life were an old record player.
“Daniel! Come meet the new guy!” Parker’s words hung in the air.
Holy fuck.
CHAPTER 7
ALEX
“That’s a round,”Parker Holt called out as we walked through the door to the team’s lounge.
I silently calculated the number of rounds we were up to as I looked around the room Parker Holt led us into. I’d heard about the hazing teams laid on their newbies, and if this was as bad as it got, I could deal.
The guys spread throughout the room, which resembled the living area of an open-concept apartment. There was a full L-shaped kitchen, a long table surrounded by office chairs—the same chairs as those around the conference table in the ops center—enough to seat the entire team plus a few more. Then there was the living area, grouped opposite the kitchen, with a large sectional couch, a couple of chairs, plus a coffee table, end tables, and even an entertainment center, a rug anchoring it all. Opposite the kitchen, a couple of offices lined the wall where the bedrooms would be if the space were actually an apartment. Between them sat a bathroom, if the sign was anything to go by.
“Pretty fucking sweet, innit?” Parker asked.
I nodded. The setup was pretty fucking sweet. As the rest of the team milled about, I realized there was another guy in our midst I hadn’t met yet, but who tickled the gray matter so muchso that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The more I watched him, milling about in the kitchen making coffee, the more familiar he seemed.
“Cat got your tongue, kid?”
My chin wobbled back and forth, denying the insinuation even though I said nothing. Finally, I couldn’t help but ask? “Whose the guy in the kitchen?”
“Hmm?” Parker asked.
Sighing, I pointed at the guy with my chin. “The guy in the kitchen making coffee…”
Parker leaned to the side, blocking my field of vision as he looked around the guys blocking his view. “Daniel! Come meet the new guy!” Parker’s words hung in the air.
The guy turned, his eyes rounding as they met mine.
Holy fuck.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t fucking be him. But I knew, as did my dick, that it was. It washim.The guy I went home with that one weekend during all those weeks of training, that I let my focus slip. That I let myself feel, and want, and experience. Not a good fucking idea. Not at all. The last few weeks of training dragged by at a gruelingly slow pace.
Every moment since we met, I fought myself. I spent every day telling myself it was just a hookup. It didn’t have to be. I knew where he lived. Hell, we lived in the same apartment complex now, but I still kept myself in check. I refused the connection. I had to keep my head on straight.
Straight.
Gah. I fucking hated that goddamn word. Almost as much as I hated hiding. And I hated hiding with a fiery passion that burned my insides until the only thing that helped with the rage hiding in a closet set fire to was running.
He lifted the mug in his hands to his mouth. I envied that cup. I remembered what his lips felt like against my skin.That morphed into another memory. One that threatened the minuscule control I had on my cock. It had already lengthened and thickened at the sight of him, but watching his lips wrap around the rim of that mug, and remembering them doing the same to my cock.
The slow, steady roll of his hips as Daniel walked toward me made my dick twitch in my uniform pants. The ones that were too snug to hide what my traitorous memories were giving rise to.
