I step closer to him. “You sent a message that didn’t sound like you and it hurt both of us. What I need isn’t your apology. I need you here. Not the version for everyone else. You.”
“I’m here.” His hand comes to my jaw, the palm against my cheek, the thumb below my ear. The grip from the first night. Except the first night his hand was shaking and the grip was a decision still deciding. Tonight the hand is steady.
“You’re not shaking,” I say.
“No.”
I lean forward and I kiss him. The kiss is warm. Not the first-night flood, not the late-night urgency of a man who drove across the city to avoid his own sensible arguments. This is aman kissing me because he wants to kiss me and has nowhere else to be and isn’t leaving at dawn.
His other hand finds my hip. Not pulling. Resting. His thumb settles against the fabric over the tattoo.
“I’ve been thinking about your apartment,” he says against my mouth. “During the press scrum. A journalist asked about the move and I answered the question about the league and the city and the football and the whole time I was thinking about this apartment and being with you.”
“That’s not professional.” I laugh against him.
“I’m done being professional tonight.”
I pull his shirt up because I need his skin. He lifts his arms. The shirt goes and his chest is in my kitchen in the lamplight, the breadth of him, the planes real and specific. I put both hands on him. His collarbone. The slope of his ribs where his breathing shifts under my palms.
He undresses me with the same unhurried attention. My shirt first, his knuckles dragging up my sides. The blue linen goes on the kitchen floor. His hands are on my hips and his palms are warm.
“We’re not staying in the kitchen,” I say.
“No.”
I take his hand and head to the bedroom. He sees the made bed and looks over at me.
“You made the bed. You don’t make your bed.”
“I made it tonight because you were coming.”
“That’s possibly the most romantic thing you’ve said to me.”
“The competition is limited. I also cleaned the bathroom.”
He laughs. The surprised one. The one that opens his whole face and makes my chest do the thing it always does.
“I want you inside me tonight,” he says after watching me for a moment. “I’ve never...but I want to. Show me.”
“I’ll show you everything.”
I kiss his throat. His jaw. The place below his ear where his pulse is faster than his face admits. My hands go to his belt. The buckle comes apart. His pants pushed down his hips. He steps out of them. I look at him in the warm light, standing at the foot of my bed.
His cock is hard against his stomach, thick, flushed. His eyes are on mine and they don’t drop. The vulnerability of standing here bare and trusting me with this makes my chest go tight in a way that isn’t yearning.
I strip. He watches. His eyes move down my body and stop at my cock, hard, and the look on his face is hungry and open and not performing anything.
I push him gently onto the bed. He goes. He lies back and his hair fans on the pillow and his legs are open. I climb over him. My weight on my forearms. My cock against his, the friction making us both breathe harder. His hands are on my back, fingers spread wide, pressing into the muscles along my spine.
I reach for the nightstand. Lube.
I kiss him. Deep and slow. Then I move down his body. His chest. His stomach. I take his cock in my mouth because I want him relaxed and wanting and out of his head. The sound he makes when I take him in is low and open, a man letting his body respond without thinking.
I pull off after a minute. I slick my fingers. “Breathe,” I say.
My finger circling the rim of him, the slick warmth. He inhales, his thighs tense and then release as he makes himself relax. I push one finger inside him, slow, watching his face.
His mouth opens. His eyes stay on mine.
