Page 59 of Ice Dance

And so what if he was? We both needed this. Get it out of our systems, and then maybe we might finally be able to click.

You don’t want this, not like this.

Wasn’t listening.

I slung my arms over his shoulders and kissed him breathless. He dropped his hand to my dick, and groaned into my mouth. His fingers went around me as best they could through the fabric. I pushed into him, needing more, needing it deeper. Then his hand was gone, and I fucking whimpered. His fingers came up, under my top, skimming the scrunched ridges of my abs. Yes.

No.

I broke the kiss, stupidly.

His hands stopped, then his mouth chased mine, and idiot that I was, I turned my head away.

What was I doing?

Fucking things up again, that’s what.

“So uh . . .” My voice was absolutely shot. “Don’t take this the wrong way . . .”

He went still.

“No, don’t do that.” I faced his chest, had to fight not to put my mouth on him, and looked up. “There’s half a bottle of wine over there, and as much as I really . . . really want do to this, that bottle says it’s maybe not the right time?”

I hoped my mom was proud of me for this. Grown-up decisions, go me.

I placed both hands on his heaving chest, as much to hold a line between us as to stop me from diving back in.

His hand came to my face, tilting it up. Oh god. I wasn’t ever going to get that view of him out of my head. Hasegawa wrecked, in all the good ways. And I’d done that. At least if this went sideways, I’d have that view in my head forever.

“I really, really want to do this, by the way. In case you weren’t aware from the . . . everything.”

“I’d noticed.” At least his voice was a gravelly disaster too.

He stepped back, turning away, leaving me to go cold, but it happened slowly this time, and not from shock or grief at losing his body. Just the inevitable cooling off. Whatever this was, I didn’t want to ruin it with an angry, half-drunk fuck in a hotel bed. And maybe that was stupid of me, but it seemed like Hasegawa wouldn’t want that either, if he’d been thinking clearly.

He picked up his shirt. I watched his shoulders roll, and that heaven-sent back with its play of muscles move. Okay, alright . . . I licked my lips, wetting my mouth, and swallowed hard. When I got home, I definitely had enough head-porn of Hasegawa to keep me occupied for a while. I dropped off the desk and adjusted my top.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

“It’s probably a good idea.”

“Take the wine. I don’t want it.”

“Uh, sure.” I grabbed it and took a few seconds to breathe, and also to will my dick to calm down, so I didn’t leave his hotel room with a raging erection. I had no idea if what had happened here would make us or break us, but I didn’t want to be the one who broke us. “So, just . . . this? I don’t want you to think I don’t want it, or that it’s wrong. It’s not. Yeah?”

He turned, buttoning his shirt back up, putting all of that fine body behind a screen again. His hair was still a mess, but his smile was fully on his lips, so that’s how I knew I had the real Hasegawa in the room with me—the man who danced, the man few people saw. I saw him, and I was going to have a hard time not seeing him from now on.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

I laughed. “For leaving?”

“For helping me understand something.”

He looked a little sad, but not too much, maybe more content than I’d ever seen him. I wanted to go back over there and—fuck it. I crossed the room, stood on my toes, and kissed him fully on the mouth. Like earlier, it took his mind a second to rewire itself around what he wanted and what he thought he couldn’t have, then he softened, lips parting, letting me in. The kiss rolled, him and me, coming together in a whole new way we would hopefully be exploring more of soon . . . just not yet. His fingers came down lightly on my shoulder, then his hand was on my waist, the hold so soft it was barely there at all.

“We uh . . .” I tasted him on my lips, dropped my gaze, stepped back, and looked up again. “We’ll come back to this?”

His smile faltered, and I couldn’t stand to see it fall. So I took my wine and left, before he could say something stupid like, “That can never happen again.”