The sounds – panting, the rhythm of skin meeting skin – fill the car. I’m so close. And he knows it.
‘Good girl. Prove how much you missed me. Come on my cock.’
He drops a hand to my clit and rubs, tight circles, and I sob out a sound I don’t recognise. My body locks up and shatters, everything contracting around him. He doesn’t stop, grabs my hips, and fucks up into me like he’s chasing his last breath. I cry out, loud and raw, no filter, no shame.
‘Yes, Theo… Fuck, I love you!’
I feel him swell, pulse, throbbing inside me as he comes, filling me with heat so intense I moan again. His arms crushing me to him as if the world might split apart.
He holds me, and we stay there. One.
For a long moment, we just breathe, wrapped in heat and sweat and love. The world beyond the car doesn’t exist. It’s just us and the words we can’t take back. I’m still panting, my body wrecked, my heart wide open. This is the most reckless, feral thing I’ve ever done. And somehow, the most honest.
The most me.
Who’d have thought that Operation Dummy Pass would lead to the biggest try of my life?
‘Wow.’ I drop my head to his shoulder, heart thundering and overflowing. ‘Happy Valentine’s day, by the way… Are you okay?’
‘I’ll never be okay again without you.’ Finn cradles my face. ‘So no. I’m not okay, Theo. I’m yours.’
Epilogue
Finn
Four and a half months later…
* * *
The whistle blows and the season dies.
We lost. The final score flashes up on the big screen. A bright, digital insult. Glasgow takes the win, but it doesn’t gut me. Ninth in the league. For a team cobbled together a year ago, it’s a fucking miracle. I feel the sting of the loss settle in my muscles, more exhaustion than disappointment.
The changing room reeks of sweat and blood and shower gel as I scrub off the full eighty minutes. Thirty-six to Glasgow, our final match of the season. Not a shellacking, but not the fairy tale ending either.
Water sluices down my back as I replay Coach Wallace’s post-match speech. ‘Not what we deserved, but for a first-year club? We’ve scared the establishment. Next season, we climb.’
And you bet I’ll be here to climb with them.
I shut off the shower and haul my towel off the rail. My muscles ache in that satisfying way that tells me I’ve given it my all, left everything on the pitch. The boys around me are subdued but not devastated. We know what we’re building here.
‘Oi, pretty boy,’ Connor calls from across the room. ‘You coming tonight or has your ball and chain got other plans?’
I flip him the finger as I towel my hair. ‘My ball and chain, as you so respectfully call her, has a beautiful name.’
‘And the rest of her has your nuts in a vice,’ Connor adds, swatting my shoulder as he passes.
‘Jealousy’s an ugly colour on you.’ I pull on my joggers. ‘When’s the last time a woman waited for you after a match?’
Jamie scoffs in his corner. ‘And yer maw doesn’t count, Duffy.’
The room erupts in that specific brand of laughter that only exists between men who’ve bled together often enough. Even Scottie cracks a half-smile, which is rare these days.
‘Piss off, the lot of you,’ Connor grumbles, but there’s no heat in it. ‘So, Sin & Tonic at seven? First round’s on the captain.’
Brodie groans. ‘When did we decide that?’
‘Just now,’ Scottie pulls on a black tee. ‘You can expense it to Charlie.’
