He hesitates for a moment, pulling back and holding my eyes. A rough swallow works along this throat. “When?”
“Tonight.” I cup his jaw, slide my thumb along his mouth, tracing it. “Now.”
He lowers his head, taking my thumb into his mouth and sucking it.
“Fuck.” I squeeze his waist tight and hold him closer, crushing our chests together.
Oliver lets my thumb out with a pop, eyes holding mine. “Where?”
Sweet, heady relief rushes through me. “Anywhere. Whatever you want.”
He smiles, smug and satisfied.
“Shut up,” I growl at him, kissing him hard, pinning him against the sink.
“I didn’t say anything!” he mutters against my mouth.
I thrust against him, hard and deliberate, sliding every inch of myself along every inch of him. His eyes flutter shut. “You were thinking it.”
He grins as he cups my ass and squeezes. “Thinking what?”
“That I’m so fucking desperate to taste you and touch you and make you come so many ways and times until you can’t even walk straight that I would get you off on the roof of an In-N-Out if you asked me.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” he says as I tug out his tiny ponytail and sink my fingers into his hair, “I’m just as desperate.”
“Nothing makes me feel better,” I tell him hoarsely, taking his hand and guiding it over my erection. He pants as I work his hand along me. “Nothing makes this better when you’re around. You’re a fucking nuisance. A maddening, infuriating temptation.”
“Gav,” he whispers, and it’s my undoing. “Please.”
“Anything,” I tell him, slipping my hand along his stomach, beneath his shirt, grazing my knuckles over taut, warm skin. “Let me touch you.”
“Yes,” he pants. “Hell yes.”
I slip my hand beneath his shorts, his boxer briefs, and feel him, silken smooth, hot, and throbbing hard. Fuck, he’s beautiful. He’s perfect.
“Oh, God,” he groans.
“No God here,” I tell him. “Tell me who’s giving you pleasure.”
“You are,” he whispers, cupping my neck, pulling me in for a kiss as I slip my thumb along the sensitive underside of his cock, over the slit that’s wet, leaking for me.
“Say my name,” I tell him.
“Gavin,” he says, then louder when my hand wanders lower, stroking, teasing, making him plead against my neck.
“That’s it,” I tell him, kissing his temple, breathing him in. “Fuck yeah. C’mon. Come for me.”
“I’m so close,” he groans. “Shit, I’m so close. I swear it’s not usually this fast, I just—”
“Oliver,” I mutter against his cheek, then kiss his mouth again and again. “I’m about to blow my fucking load, only from getting you off. You don’t need to explain yourself.”
“I want it to last,” he says faintly, slipping his hands beneath my clothes and cupping my bare ass. “I don’t want this to be it.”
“It won’t be,” I promise him, tenderness flooding me as I touch him, as he clutches me and works himself against my hand, chasing release. “We have all night.”
He sucks my earlobe, and my weak knee nearly gives out. “I want every minute.”
I’m about to promise him the fucking world if he wants it, when suddenly Oliver’s back porch flood light bursts to life, pouring like high beams through my kitchen window.
We’re both startled for only a moment before we crash back down on each other, kisses deepening, bodies moving, until the sound of a woman’s voice shouting an expletive makes Oliver freeze, then whip around, facing his house.
I stand there, stunned.
He shields his eyes, squinting. “Oh, shit!” He straightens his shorts, pats his pockets frantically. “I don’t have my phone. Shit, I don’t have my phone, and she’s—”
He spins around, wide-eyed, breathing heavily. “I’m so sorry. I really have to go see if she’s okay. I—” He clasps my face and kisses me one more time, hard and deep. I wrench away just as he lets go, as he slams his feet into his muddy sneakers and bolts out the back door toward his house.
I stand, foolishly watching him long enough to observe him wrap his arms around a woman nearly as tall as him, a waterfall of flame-colored hair spilling down her back as he tugs her tight and sways her. Comforts her. Kisses the crown of her head.
According to my doctors, I have a dangerously high pain threshold, but even this is too much for me. I can’t watch a moment more.
So I turn away and lock the door behind me. Then I walk through my house, flicking off one light switch after the other, until, once again, everything is dark.
17
OLIVER
Playlist: “Slide to the Side,” Beaty Heart
Pretty much the only thing potent enough to relieve me of the erection of my lifetime is the sight of my little sister in tears. “Ziggy,” I whisper, swaying her tight. “I’m sorry. I left my phone…” I glance out in the yard where my water bottle and phone lay abandoned near the pile of weeds I was pulling before Mitchell ambushed me. “I left it outside. I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, dabbing her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. I’m just so angry, and I needed to talk to you because you always make it make sense. I figured maybe you’d fallen asleep on the couch or you’d left your phone in the car, so I drove over and tried to use my key, but it didn’t work, and I got even more upset, then—”
“Hey. It’s okay.” I hold her tight, how she likes, and keep swaying her. Ziggy’s on the autism spectrum, and since she was diagnosed back when we were teens, I’ve learned how to give her comfort when she’s upset like this. Hard pressure, rhythmic swaying, making a safe space for her to tell me whatever she needs to or, conversely, to let silence be enough when she can’t seem to form words.
“You’re always welcome here,” I tell her. “I always want you to be comfortable showing up when you need to. I feel like a jerk for not having my phone and for not giving you a new key. Come on inside.” I pull my keys from my pocket and open up the house for her, before jogging out across the lawn to grab my phone and water bottle.
As I run back, I glance toward Gavin’s kitchen window, regret and guilt knotting inside me. His house is completely dark now. I can only imagine how it looked to him, seeing me practically jump out of his arms when I noticed a woman outside my house and ran straight toward her. I have a feeling he’s locked that door and shut me out. In more ways than one.
Worst part is, I know it’s for the best. I know Gavin only wanted me for one night, and I know I shouldn’t want him for a thousand more. But I do. I want him. And with every sliver of him that I see, of the person I’m starting to realize is the real Gavin, I only want more.
Acting on that wanting, encouraging it, even this little bit, is asking for trouble. If I indulged it and fell for him, then what? Pine for him for as long as he stays with the team? Watch him walk off into the sunset and retire somewhere warm and lovely to live in a big grayscale house with no one to fill it with color, or worse, with someone who agrees that black, charcoal, and heather gray are the be-all, end-all of interior design?