I didn’t have an answer for that.
So I nodded, because anything else would have cracked too much open, and got out of there before my twenty minutes became twenty-five because time meant nothing when my brain was on fire.
The walk back to the hotel should have helped. Cold air, moving feet, simple task. Get to hotel. Elevator. Declan’s room. Knock. Don’t explode.
Instead every step made me more aware of my body. My cock was still half-hard in my dress pants, uncomfortable and persistent. My mouth kept replaying the pressure of his. The way he’d said color. The way he’d stopped, not because he didn’t want me, but because he wanted me somewhere safer than an alley with beer on my breath and brick at my back.
That should have cooled me down.
It did not.
I texted Roman in the elevator because I promised, and because if I didn’t do it right then I would forget until three in the morning and he would actually murder me.
Me: Back at hotel.
His reply came before the doors opened.
Roman: Room.
Fuck.
I stared at the word. My thumb hovered. My brain started building a lie, fast and useful and terrible.
Me: Almost.
Not true.
Not fully false.
I hated it anyway.
Declan’s room was at the far end of the hall, away from the elevator, because apparently hotels knew how to make bad choices feel cinematic. The carpet swallowed my footsteps. My heart thudded too hard. I stopped outside his door and checked the number twice even though I knew it was right.
Then I knocked.
The door opened almost immediately.
Declan stood there in a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants, barefoot, hair still a little damp, beard rough around his mouth. He looked less like my coach and more like a man who had been trying not to pace.
For some reason, that was what made me nervous.
He stepped back. “Come in.”
I did.
The door clicked shut behind me.
The room was dim, one lamp on near the bed, curtains pulled over the city lights. His suit jacket was hung neatly over the chair. His phone sat facedown on the desk. There was a water bottle beside it, unopened. It bothered me that I noticed all of that and not where to put my hands.
Declan noticed that too.
“Jacket off,” he said.
My fingers moved before my embarrassment caught up. I took it off and folded it badly over the back of the chair.
“Shoes.”
I kicked them off, then immediately winced because one hit the wall.
