Chapter 19 #2
He pushed me back onto the bed and came down over me, one knee between my thighs, his weight braced on one arm. When his bare chest pressed to mine, every thought I had scattered.
Skin.
His skin on mine.
I grabbed his back, fingers dragging over tattooed muscle, and kissed him hard enough that our teeth clicked. He gave me one second of it, then took control back, pinning one of my wrists above my head.
“Pace,” he said.
I let my head fall back against the mattress. “Fuck.”
“Color.”
“Green. Impatient green.”
“That isn’t a separate color.”
“It should be.”
This time he did smile, small and dangerous. Then his hips lowered.
Our cocks lined up through fabric, and I arched off the bed.
The friction punched a sound out of me. Sweatpants, dress pants, briefs, too many layers and still not enough to dull it. Declan’s mouth went to my neck while he rolled against me, slow, controlled pressure that made my hands shake. I tried to thrust up harder.
He pinned my hip with his other hand.
“No.”
I groaned. “Declan.”
“You’re going to take what I give you.”
My whole body reacted to that, heat and frustration and relief tangling until I couldn’t separate them. He kept the rhythm steady, grinding down in slow strokes, his cock hard against mine through the barrier of clothes. It was obscene how intimate it felt. Not enough skin. Too much want.
“Please,” I said, and I didn’t know what I was asking for until the word was out.
Declan lifted his head. “Hands at your sides.”
I obeyed, fists curling in the sheets.
He sat back just enough to unbutton my pants.
My hips jerked.
“Still.”
I froze, badly. My muscles trembled with the effort. He noticed but didn’t mock me. He opened my pants and slid the zipper down, then paused.
“Color.”
“Green.”
He reached inside and wrapped his hand around me.
I almost came right there.
His grip was firm, warm, exactly enough pressure to make my vision blur. He stroked once, base to head, slow enough to be cruel. I choked on his name. My hands fisted harder in the comforter.
“That’s it,” he said, voice rougher now. “Let your body answer before your mouth tries to get clever.”
I laughed once, broken and breathless, then lost it when he stroked me again.
He watched my face while he touched me. That should have made me self-conscious. It didn’t. It pinned me more effectively than his hands ever could. I had nowhere to hide from the pleasure, nowhere to stash it under a joke or a bad attitude.
My cock slid through his fist, wet at the head now, his thumb dragging through it and circling in a way that made my thighs tense.
“Declan.”
“I’ve got you.”
Not a line. Not dramatic. Just a fact.
It wrecked me.
I reached for him before remembering I’d been told not to move. My hand stopped halfway.
His gaze dropped to it.
“Ask.”
My throat was dry. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
I shoved at his waistband with no grace whatsoever. He helped, pushing his sweatpants and briefs down enough to free himself, and then his cock was in my hand.
For a second I went completely still.
He was thick and heavy against my palm, hot skin, hard as I was, a bead of wetness at the tip. This should have been the moment my brain tripped over gender, over what I had always assumed about myself, over the fact that I was touching another man like this for the first time.
Instead, all I thought was him.
Declan’s breath left him when my fingers closed around him.
“Like that?” I asked, rough.
“Firmer.”
I tightened my grip.
His eyes closed briefly. The sight of it, his control bending because of my hand, sent a rush of power through me so sharp I almost couldn’t hold still.
I stroked him clumsily at first, learning the weight and heat, the way his jaw flexed when my thumb dragged under the head, the way his hips wanted to follow but didn’t.
He kept stroking me through it.
Our rhythms found each other in pieces. His hand on me, mine on him, breath mixing, mouths catching between words. Then he shifted, pushed my pants and briefs lower, and guided us together.
Skin to skin.
I swore so loudly he covered my mouth with his.
Our cocks slid against each other in his hand and mine together, slick, hard, hot friction that made every nerve in my body narrow to that point of contact.
He rocked into me, not fast, but deep enough that I felt the drag from base to tip.
I clutched at his shoulder with my free hand, nails digging in.
“Too much?” he asked against my mouth.
“No. No, don’t stop.”
“Then breathe.”
I tried. It came out ragged.
He adjusted the angle, trapping both of us together between our fists, and the next stroke made my back bow.
Pleasure built fast, too fast, overwhelming without being scary.
My brain went quiet in a way it almost never did.
Not empty. Focused. Declan’s weight. His hand.
His breath. The rough hair of his thigh against mine.
The smell of his skin. The pressure of being held inside a command I had chosen.
“Close,” I gasped.
“I know.”
“Can I?”
His hand tightened. His mouth brushed my jaw. “Yes.”
Permission hit harder than touch.
I came with a sound I couldn’t stop, spilling hot over our joined hands and stomachs, my body shaking under his. Declan kept moving through it, slower, dragging it out until I was cursing and clutching at him, oversensitive and wrecked.
Then his control finally fractured.
His hips drove into our fists, once, twice, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. He came with a low, rough sound against my skin, his body heavy over mine, warmth spreading between us. I held him through it, dazed and useless, my hand still around him as his pulse kicked against my palm.
For a while, neither of us moved.
The room returned slowly. The lamp. The hum of the heater. My heart trying to relearn a normal rhythm.
Declan lifted his head first.
His face was flushed. Beard damp at the corner of his mouth. Eyes clear but unguarded in a way I had never seen.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, then realized that was not enough. “Green. Very green. Embarrassingly green.”
A quiet laugh left him, and the sound did something soft to my chest that sex hadn’t touched.
He kissed me once, gentle this time, then got up to get a towel from the bathroom. The loss of his weight made me feel exposed. My brain started moving again, slower than usual but still dangerous.
Vanessa.
Olivia.
Roman’s face.
Home.
Declan returned and cleaned me with a care that made my throat ache. He cleaned himself after, then handed me my briefs and pants without making it weird. We dressed halfway in silence, not distant, just careful.
I sat on the edge of the bed, shirt still off, and watched him pull his sweatpants back into place.
“When we get back to Denver,” he said, “we need rules that don’t bend because we want them to.”
The calm after sex thinned.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Nothing at work.”
I looked down at my hands. My fingers were still sticky at the edges despite the towel. “Define work.”
“The arena. Practice facility. Team hotel on game days. Planes. Buses. Anywhere I am actively your coach and other people can reasonably expect access to us.”
“That’s a lot of places.”
“Yes.”
I hated the answer because it was true.
He came to stand in front of me. “I’m not saying nothing happens.”
I looked up.
“I’m saying not there. Not in my office with players outside. Not in a hallway where you came to me overloaded and I confuse care with wanting. Not anywhere the dynamic can get tangled with your job.”
My chest felt tight. Not panic. Not rejection. Something more complicated.
“So what happens?”
“We plan. We talk before. You tell me colors honestly, even if the honest answer means no. I do the same.”
“You have colors too?”
His expression changed, just a little. “I should.”
That answer settled in me.
I reached for his hand, then paused, because suddenly I didn’t know if I was allowed to initiate after all that.
Declan noticed. “You can touch me, Jace. If that changes, I’ll tell you.”
I took his hand.
His fingers closed around mine.
“What about Vanessa?” he asked quietly.
Guilt came back like a bruise being pressed.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “That’s a coward answer, but it’s the true one. I know I can’t keep pretending everything is fine. I just don’t know how to blow up someone else’s life because I finally figured out mine is a mess.”
He sat beside me, still holding my hand. “Olivia and I need to talk too.”
“Do you still love her?”
He was quiet long enough that I regretted asking.
“Yes,” he said finally. “But not the way a husband should.”
It hurt, even though it wasn’t about me.
Maybe because it was.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, our hands still linked between us. “I don’t want to be the reason you become someone you hate.”
“You aren’t responsible for my choices.”
“No, but I’m in them.”
His thumb moved across my knuckles. “Yes.”
No lie. No easy absolution. I respected him more for not offering one.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket across the room.
We both looked.
Roman, probably. Maybe Vanessa. Maybe both, because apparently consequences had excellent timing.
“I should go,” I said.
“Yes.”
Neither of us moved.
Then Declan stood and handed me my shirt. I buttoned it wrong the first time. He watched for three seconds, then silently fixed the middle button I’d skipped.
The tenderness of it almost undid me.
At the door, I turned back.
“Nothing at work,” I said.
“Nothing at work.”
“But not nothing.”
His gaze held mine. “Not nothing.”
I nodded, trying to put the rule somewhere stable in my head where it wouldn’t get lost under want and guilt and routine changes.
He opened the door a crack, checked the hallway, then looked back at me.
I should have left.
Instead I stepped into him and kissed him one last time.
It was brief because it had to be. Mouth to mouth, his hand at my waist, my fingers catching his wrist. No heat chasing more. No command. Just proof that the room had been real.
When I pulled away, he let me go.
I walked down the hall with my shirt buttoned correctly, my phone buzzing again in my pocket, and the taste of him still on my mouth.
For once, I did not run.
I counted my steps to the elevator, breathed through the guilt, and carried the rule with me like something fragile I had agreed not to break.