Chapter 19 #2
The sound he made was soft and immediate and genuine, and something about the honesty of it settled the nerves in my chest into something I could work with.
I opened my mouth and took him in — just the head at first, just finding out what the weight and the heat and the taste of him actually felt like against my tongue.
Salt and warmth and the specific realness of another person choosing to be this vulnerable in front of you.
His fingers tightened fractionally in my hair, not directing, just present.
“That's good,” he said, and his voice was already rougher than it had been thirty seconds ago. “Exactly like that.”
I sank down a little further, feeling the stretch of my jaw around him, the new geometry of the whole thing. My tongue moved against the underside and I felt him exhale hard through his nose above me.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, keep doing that.”
I kept doing it. Found a tentative rhythm, pulling back and sinking down, learning the territory the way I'd learned everything in my life — by paying attention, by adjusting, by refusing to stop until I understood what worked.
His hand in my hair shifted slightly, thumb pressing against my temple in a small, deliberate stroke that felt less like guidance and more like reassurance.
“Breathe through your nose,” he said quietly, not making a thing of it. Just information.
I adjusted. The rhythm evened out. His hips made a small involuntary movement that he caught immediately, and I heard him swear under his breath at the effort of holding still.
“You don't have to,” I said against him, pulling back enough to speak, and felt him shudder at the vibration of it.
“Don't have to what?”
“Hold still.”
A pause. “Rook.”
“I mean it.”
He exhaled something that was almost a laugh and almost not. “Let me know if it's too much.”
“I will.”
I took him back in and this time I let him move, let his hips roll up in small controlled pulses that he kept measured and careful, and the trust in the restraint of it did something to my chest that had nothing to do with technique.
His cock was heavy on my tongue and I worked him with my hand at the base and my mouth taking the rest and his breathing above me had abandoned any pretence of steadiness.
“That's—” He stopped. His hand pressed flat against the back of my skull, not pushing, just warm and heavy and there. “Fuck, Rook. You're—”
I hollowed my cheeks the way he'd done for me and felt his whole body go rigid.
“Fuck,” he said, through his teeth.
I did it again. His hips stuttered and his hand tightened in my hair and the groan that came out of him was the most unguarded sound I'd heard from him since the night before, stripped of the easy charm and the deflection and everything he used to manage rooms and people. Just Soren, undone, in my hands.
“I'm close,” he said, rough and honest. “You don't have to—if you want to stop before—”
I took him deeper in answer and heard him lose the rest of the sentence entirely.
He came with both hands in my hair and my name in his mouth, and I stayed with him through all of it, learning that too — the pulse and the heat and the specific intimacy of being trusted with this particular moment.
His thighs were shaking on either side of me when it finished.
I pulled back slowly and pressed my lips to the inside of his thigh before moving back up his body.
He pulled me down and held on. Neither of us said anything for a while. His heartbeat was loud and fast against my ear and gradually, over the next several minutes, it slowed.
“Okay?” I asked, eventually.
He laughed, and the sound came out wrecked and warm and entirely real. “That's the wrong question.”
“What's the right question?”
He lifted his head and looked at me, and the expression on his face was the most undefended thing I'd ever seen there. “Are you okay?”
I thought about it honestly, the way he deserved. “Yeah,” I said. “More than.”
He made a quiet sound and pulled me back down, and his hand started moving in slow aimless circles on my back, and the city outside had shifted gear into full morning noise by the time either of us spoke again.
“Okay?” he asked, into the air above my head.
“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.”
The panic arrived quietly.
It didn't announce itself. One minute I was lying there feeling the warmth of his chest under my cheek and his heartbeat against my ear, and the next the weight of everything that had happened in the last twelve hours landed on me all at once and my chest went tight.
I'd been with a man. I'd wanted it and I'd done it and I'd loved every second of it, and I had absolutely no framework for what that meant about me or what it meant about us or what I was supposed to do with it now that the room had gone quiet and my brain had come back online.
Soren felt the shift before I could say anything.
“You got quiet,” he said, and his hand stopped moving.
“Just thinking.”
He propped himself up on one elbow to look at me, and the warmth in his eyes made the panic worse because I didn't deserve it right now, and I knew I didn't deserve it, and I was about to make that fact visible.
“Rook, if I pushed too far—”
“No. That's not—you didn't do anything wrong.” The words felt inadequate for what I was trying to say. “I just—this is a lot.”
“What is?”
“This. Us. Everything.” I sat up, needing distance even though moving away from him felt like ripping off a bandage.
“I don't know what I'm doing, Soren. I've never done this before.
Never been with a guy. Never wanted anyone the way I want you.
And I don't know if I'm ready for whatever this is turning into.”
I watched his expression shift from concern to hurt to anger so fast I almost missed the transition.
“Are you seriously doing this right now? After everything we just—”
“I'm not doing anything. I'm just being honest.” But even as I said it, I knew it was bullshit. I was pulling away, putting walls back up, and we both knew it.
“Honest.” He laughed, but the sound was bitter. “You want to talk about honest? You've been showing up for weeks. Coming to my gigs, driving me home, telling me you care. And now that we've actually crossed the line into being physical, suddenly it's too much?”
“That's not what I'm saying—”
“Then what are you saying, Rook? Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you were fine with wanting me as long as it stayed theoretical. But now that it's real, you're already looking for the exit.”
“I have a playoff game in a few hours. My head needs to be clear, and right now all I can think about is you and what we just did and how I don't know how to process any of it.”
“So this was a mistake.” He said it flatly, and I could see him closing off in real time. “That's what you're telling me. That sleeping with me was a mistake you're already regretting.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.” He was out of bed and getting dressed now, movements sharp. “You're pulling away. I can feel it. And I get it, Rook. I really do. Message received.”
“That's not fair—”
“Fair?” He turned to look at me with eyes that were blazing with hurt and fury. “You want to talk about fair? You've seen everything. You know exactly how messy my life is. And you kept showing up anyway. Kept making me believe that maybe you wanted me despite all of it.”
“I do want you—”
“But not enough to stick around when it gets real.” His voice cracked on the last word, and I saw him fight to pull himself back together. “Not enough to deal with the fact that I'm complicated and damaged and probably going to fuck this up eventually.”
“Soren, that's not what I'm saying.” But I could hear how defensive I sounded, how I was reaching for logic instead of honesty. “I just need time to think. To figure out what this means.”
“You've had weeks to think. What you needed was to fuck me first to make sure it was worth the trouble of figuring out.” He crossed his arms and looked at me, and the devastation on his face made my chest feel like it was caving in.
“You know what the worst part is? I actually thought you were different.
Thought maybe you were the one person who wouldn't bail the second things got complicated.”
“That's not true—”
“Isn't it?” He laughed, and the sound was hollow. “Well, guess what, Rook? I am chaos. This is what you signed up for when you decided you wanted me.” He moved to the door and held it open. “I think you should go.”
I looked at the open door. At his face. At the careful blank he'd pulled over all that hurt like a blind drawn down.
“Soren—”
“Please.” The word was quiet. Tired in a way the anger hadn't been. “Just go.”
I got dressed. He didn't look at me while I did it, just stood at the door with his eyes on the middle distance, and when I walked past him into the hallway I felt the space he put between us like a physical thing.
The door closed behind me. No slam. Just the soft click of the latch, which was somehow worse.
I stood in the empty corridor for a moment, unable to move in any direction.
Then I walked to my room and sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and tried to breathe through the self-loathing that was making my chest feel too tight.
He was right. I'd been a hypocrite. I'd asked for honesty and vulnerability and closeness, and the second he'd given it to me, I'd panicked and pulled away. I'd taken what I needed and then made him feel like a mistake, and there was no version of that where I wasn't the problem.
I grabbed my phone and pulled up his contact, fingers hovering over the call button.
What the hell was I supposed to say?
I set the phone down without calling and stared at the ceiling until it was time to get on the bus to the arena.
Game Two was supposed to be about momentum.