Chapter 34 #3
I can’t stop touching him while we wait for the water to heat up. On the small of his back. His hips, where long lines of muscle cord around his torso. His thighs, which are strong from his months of physical therapy, like marble against my palms.
“You feel so good,” I breathe softly against his back, wrapping my body around him.
He turns around and guides me under the spray of water, his arms steadying. He’s the perfect juxtaposition of thoughtful and quiet yet commanding and powerful. He makes me feel safe, even when I’m in the most dangerous position of my entire life.
With Zane, sure. But more than that–because Asher has my whole heart in his hands.
He only lets me go to squirt shampoo into his hand, which he starts massaging into a lather. “Want to tell me what happened with Zane?”
I waited for Carter while the rest of the guys got a cab back to the hotel.
Zane disappeared shortly after our conversation, and I’m still unclear about why he even bothered showing up tonight.
And if it was to somehow catch Asher us in the act, then he’s the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the entire world.
All of my racing thoughts disappear when Asher’s fingers glide against my scalp, running the shampoo through my hair. “God that’s nice.”
He chuckles softly and repositions us so that he’s standing behind me.
Our bodies are close, and I can feel the swell of his cock against my ass, hardening as he digs his fingers in harder.
He sounds a little uncertain when he says, “I wasn’t sure if you’d push me away. After what happened tonight with Zane.”
I’m not sure why he has to keep bringing up the bane of my existence when we’re having a perfectly incredible moment in the shower together.
I sigh. I know why.
We need to talk about this, even if all I want to do is get lost in how good the warmth of the water feels as it cascades down our bodies. Or how his hands are doing incredible things to my neck, massaging tension away that I didn’t even know I was holding.
I turn around, and he puts his arms over my shoulders, pulling me close. Our cocks brush together, and the softness of the moment is starting to be overtaken by an edge of hunger that’s curling low in my stomach.
I’m holding on to the small shreds of sanity I can manage when I tell him, “Zane is very confident in what he saw, and he also says that he has a picture of us together.”
Asher stiffens in my arms, and I hate how easily I can feel the anxiety coursing through him. That my words are what’s causing it. “Do you think that’s true?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Zane definitely can’t be trusted, and I’m not sure what he plans to do with this information. Getting me fired won’t get him my job–he’s not qualified for it.” I wish I could take more comfort in that fact.
Asher starts massaging my head again, but since I’m under the spray now, he’s working the shampoo out of my hair. “So you think that he’ll want to use it to make your life–or mine–a living hell?”
“It’s the closest answer I’ve come up with over the last few hours.” Even though I’ve tried to put tonight out of my mind, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Or how we’re on the precipice of everything tumbling down.
Will Asher and I survive something like that? Him being outed to the team and me being fired? It’s not exactly a great way to start a relationship, and couples have crumbled under far less strain.
“Have you thought about what you want to do?” He asks softly, his lips near the shell of my ear.
What do I want to do? I want to live in this moment forever. I want to go to sleep with Asher and wake up next to him. I want us to build a life together, and I want to frame the photo that Zane has of us on our mantle in the living room.
“The smart thing would be to get ahead of this and resign.” It’s the cleanest answer that I’ve come up with, and even before Zane caught us, I’d been considering it. I’d leave on my terms so that I can find work somewhere else, and Asher can come out–if, or when, he wants to–on his own terms.
He shakes his head emphatically. “No. I won’t let you do that. You worked too damn hard to get where you are.”
I run my hands along his cheek before scratching against his beard. “With or without his job, I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“I can leave the team.”
Now, it’s my turn to act like that’s a ridiculous possibility.
“Absolutely not. You deserve to leave hockey on your own terms. You have the back half of this season to play your heart out and finish with the team that you helped build. I will never take that away from you. Plus, you aren’t the one who did anything wro–”
He cuts me off, his fingers digging into the muscles in my back. “Neither did you. We fell in love, and I won’t ever look at that as something that’s bad.”
My whole body freezes as his words tumble through my mind. “That’s a pretty serious allegation,” I say, buying time to work through hearing him say it, even though I’ve been keeping the exact same words inside too.
“I’m a pretty serious guy,” he says, grinning before placing a kiss on my lips. He looks at me again, his blue eyes bright. “And I love you, Wyatt Chase. You saved me. I’m not going to throw us away for anything.”
His words hit somewhere deep inside of me, emotion threatening to overtake me.
Because everything that’s happened to me before has nothing to do with him.
He’s not a guy who’s only interested in sticking around when things are convenient.
And I need to stop treating him like his love is conditional when he’s done everything to show me that he’s in it for the long haul.
But still, I can’t let him throw away his last season. It’s too big of an ask. “And me loving you means that even if this isn’t wrong, it’s still now allowed in the eyes of the school. You shouldn’t be the one who has to walk away.”
Asher’s not playing fair when he runs his hand along my shaft, making it hard for me to think. “I feel like we’re not going to agree on this,” he says, starting to work me up and down slowly.
My stomach tenses, and I’m trying to remember what we were talking about.
Except that all I can think about now is how good my cock feels, and how long it’s been since he’s touched me like this.
I want to give myself over to it so badly, but there’s still a nagging thought in the back of my mind that won’t let me let go.
“Asher,” I groan, my hand splaying against the cold wall. I’m trying to find stability as he starts toying with my tip, beads of wetness already leaking out. “Just promise me that you won’t leave the team.”
I don’t know how I managed to get the words out, but I feel like I just ran a marathon.
“Okay,” he says, shifting his hands down so that he can cup my balls. He squeezes gently and I feel like I’m going to explode. “I won’t do anything right now. But we have to make a decision soon. Otherwise, it’ll be made for us by Zane.”
“Soon,” I agree in between haggard breaths that stall out when he drops to his knees in front of me.
He tilts his head up, looking at me with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. “I’m not letting you go,” are his last words before he takes me in his mouth and makes me see stars.