“Fuck you’re beautiful.” I can’t help it, the words escape me without me realising they were on my tongue. “God I can’t believe you’re mine. Love you. Love you so much.” My fingers are slippery with lube and shaky with emotion and Marlon sits up and comes to my help, opening the condom package and rolling it over my shaft.
We both stare down at it for a heartbeat, then I look at Marlon. “How do you want me?”
He laughs a little and a hint of his earlier embarrassment creeps into his cheeks, rosy and wonderful. “In every way possible,” he admits quietly. “But maybe—can I sit on your lap?”
He’s going to kill me. It’s official. Marlon Rothe is going to kill me with his body and his mind and the way they combine into the perfect human being. “Yes.” It’s barely audible, but I hastily sit up and scoot back against the bed’s headboard, corduroy rough against my back, helping to ground me in reality. “Come here.”
Marlon crawls towards me, closing the distance with easy grace I’ll never possess, then throws a leg over mine andstraddles me, folding his hands behind my neck. “I know I said I want hard and rough,” he says as he lowers himself, carefully. “But maybe this is better. Okay?”
“Yes!” I say, incredulously. “Of course it’s okay, Mar, fuck, you couldn’t do anything not okay.” My cock slips inside him and I throw my head back, eyes closing instinctively as his heat slowly engulfs me.
When he bottoms out, we both breathe out at the same time, relief and amazement and overwhelm. I open my eyes again and we smile at each other, not moving, just enjoying. Savouring this moment I didn’t think would ever come. I never want to lose this closeness again.
“I love you,” I whisper and let my hands trail over his cheekbones, his nose, his mouth, his chin. “You are breathtaking.”
He smiles and kisses me, chastely. “I love you,” he says. “You make everything better.” He moves, a tiny circle, rocking his hips, still holding me, still looking at me.
“This is the best I’ve ever felt with another person.” I look at him, drinking in his face, hands slowly gliding down to his hips. “You are a marvel.”
“You make me feel safe and adventurous at the same time,” he retorts.
It should be cheesy, what we’re doing here. Not even fucking, just…carefully, leisurely rocking against each other. Exchanging compliments like the air we breathe. But I can’t seem to care. I’m full to bursting with emotion and—a first for me—the sex is secondary. I get to hold him, stroke him, finally tell him how I feel about him. That's the important part.
We lean forward into a slow, exploring, intense kiss, matching the soft movements of our bodies. I’m not sure I can come like this, but it also doesn’t matter. Who cares. We’ve got the rest of our lives for orgasms and I’m sure we’ll make good useof it. But right now…I’m going to enjoy finally being able to hold him. For as long as I can.
CHAPTER 17
Marlon
AUGUST
It’s a terrible day.We’re getting London summer at its finest; grey and cold and clammy and going through all your clothes right into your bones. It feels like autumn is here. Like I should be drinking hot chocolate under a blanket, not play the first games of the season.
I’m still only wearing short sleeves; it is August, after all, and I refuse to be reigned over by the weather. Though I have regretted the decision with every cold, miserable gust of wind, I will take that secret to my grave. Stubborn, me? I prefer the termtenacious.
Practice has come to a brief lull as the coaches set up new training stations for us. I wish I could have just kept on moving. It would make me feel warmer. But at least I can look at Freddie and warm my insides, which also helps. He’s laughing, goofing around with one of our athletic coaches, apparently not the least bit aggravated by the weather.
To be fair, I did wake him with a blowjob this morning. If he were grumpy, I’d probably take it personally.
It’s weird, doing this. We knew it would be, going in, but I’m still trying to get used to it. Freddie is still my team mate. He’s still the same boy I grew up alongside, I still do my bestto pass the ball to him so he can score. But I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to not look at him all the time. I want to smile constantly, these days, and I worry that if people look too closely, they’ll see the tiny hearts in my eyes whenever I spot Freddie.
He's just as bad as me—worse, even. Only for him, it’s not just looks—it’s touches, too, fleeting presses of hands against my body when he thinks no-one is looking. A slightly too long clap on the shoulder. A hand in my hair, caressing rather than tousling.
“He likes you.” Mofe’s voice in my ear almost makes me jump out of my skin.
Shit.
My heart is making a valiant effort to escape through my mouth and I press a hand to my chest and wheeze, turning to look at my fellow defender. “You could warn a fellow instead of sneaking up on me.”
Mofe grins, then runs a hair through his newly cropped black afro. “I’m like a black panther.” He winks at me and mimes cat paws and I shake my head at his antics. Like a sensible person, he’s opted for long sleeves and tights under his shorts today and I’m ever so slightly envious. I suppose being Nigerian makes him less stubborn about trying to weather the ungodly conditions.
“Seriously though,” he says now and moves to stand next to me, resting an easy elbow on my shoulder though we’re the same height. He nods his chin over to where Freddie and the coach are still laughing. “He likes you.”
A cold completely unrelated to the weather floods my veins and I tense, involuntarily. Bloody hell. Surely he can’t mean what I worry he means. Right? Because somebody noticing—somebodycalling us out—could end our careers right here. “Yeah,” I say, matter-of-factly despite my racing heart. “We’regood mates, I like him too. We went through all the youth teams together,” I add for good measure, like he doesn't know.
Mofe gives me an unimpressed look. “Not like that, dumbass.” His tone is still light. He always sounds playful and good-natured, until he doesn’t. Even when he casually talks about my biggest, scariest secret, it’s all in good spirits. “In, like, a faggy way.”
A sledgehammer to the chest couldn’t have hit me harder.Faggy. I’m too shocked to be angry, although my brain understands the terribleness immediately. I could blame it on the language barrier, maybe? Mofe’s face is still friendly. I don’t think he realises how bad it really is.
