Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Leo took the stairs two at a time, and Dawson stayed close enough to smell him, cold air and sweat and whatever he put in his hair, and his hands were shaking because they wanted to be on Leo’s back, on his waist, pulling him around on the landing and pressing him into the wall before they even got the door open.
Three flights with that want climbing up his spine, and by the time Leo got the key in the lock, Dawson was close enough that his exhale moved Leo’s hair. Leo’s hand fumbled the key.
The door opened, and Leo blew through it, jacket off, keys tossed, moving through the apartment the same way he’d moved through the game, all speed and noise and no off switch.
“You want a beer? I’ve got some craft stuff Jonesy left here. I need to eat something. I haven’t eaten since pregame. There’s chicken in I could heat up, or there’s pasta from—”
He kept rambling as he started pulling containers out of the fridge, telling Dawson about the Thai place in Oshkosh that Russ somehow convinced to deliver from despite how far away they were. Leo’s voice bounced off the cabinets.
“Leo,” Dawson interrupted when Leo finally stopped to take a breath.
Leo stilled, staring at the open fridge as if he had know idea what he was doing. He grabbed two bottles off the top shelf.
Dawson walked to him. Three steps across the tile. He took the beer out of Leo’s hand and set it on the counter. Took the other beer and set that down too. Put his hand flat on Leo’s chest, over his sternum, and pressed until Leo’s hips pressed against the edge of the counter.
“I don’t think you invited me over for a late-night snack,” Dawson said. Then, quieter, “You don’t need to impress me.”
Leo’s breath caught. His mouth closed, his eyes went wide, and the noise left him, all of it, the chatter and the motion and the hum that Leo ran on, gone between one breath and the next.
His shoulders sagged. His jaw unclenched.
He looked at Dawson like he was seeing him for the first time tonight, not the mechanic from the barstool, not the guy in the stands, just the man he’d been seeing in private, ready to take a leap with him.
Leo grabbed the lapels of Dawson’s jacket, pulled him in, and kissed him. He braced one hand on the counter, slid his other palm up to Leo’s jaw, tilting his face, and kissed him back slowly and thoroughly while Leo’s fingers twisted in his collar and pulled.
The kiss changed. Leo’s mouth opened under his, hot and tasting like beer and urgency, and his hips came off the fridge and ground into Dawson’s.
Dawson grabbed his hip and pulled him in.
Leo gasped into his mouth and rolled against him, and Dawson felt the length of Leo’s cock press against his thigh through two layers of denim.
Every thought in his head short-circuited at the heat of Leo’s mouth and the sound he made when Dawson’s hand fisted in his hair.
Tonight, the usual hesitation was missing. Dawson was done fighting this. He pushed his thigh between Leo’s legs, and Leo ground against it, shameless, his head falling back, mouth open on a groan that went straight to Dawson’s cock. Dawson put his mouth on Leo’s throat and sucked.
Leo’s hands shoved under his jacket, dragged at his shirt, nails raking across his stomach. “Off,” Leo said, “get this off.”
Dawson stripped his jacket off, Leo yanked his shirt over his head, and then Leo’s palms were on his bare chest, his mouth was on Dawson’s collarbone, and Dawson’s knees almost buckled.
“Couch,” Dawson said against his ear. “Now.”
Leo pulled him out of the kitchen. They made it to the couch, and Dawson pulled Leo down next to him, side by side, close enough that their knees pressed together.
He turned Leo’s face with two fingers under his chin and kissed him again, slower this time, setting the pace.
Leo’s breath hitched. His fingers curled into the couch cushion like he was stopping himself from taking over.
“Let me,” Dawson said.
He pulled Leo’s shirt up and off. Ran his palm down the center of Leo’s sternum, across his ribs, down to the waistband of his jeans. Leo was lean, every line of him cut sharp in the lamplight. He pressed Leo back against the arm of the couch and leaned over him, one knee between Leo’s thighs
His thumb traced the cut of Leo’s hip above his waistband. Leo sucked in a sharp breath. Dawson leaned down and pressed his mouth to the center of Leo’s ribs and felt the vibration of the sound Leo made run through his lips.
Leo’s hands dragged up Dawson’s bare back, nails biting in, pulling him closer. Dawson kissed him and let his weight settle. Leo arched up into him, skin on skin, and the heat of it after weeks of stopping short made Dawson’s heart skip a beat.
He made quick work of opening Leo’s belt and jeans, pushing the over his hips. Leo kicked them off, and Dawson palmed him through his boxer briefs, hard and hot.
“Off,” Leo said, pulling at Dawson’s waistband. “I want to see you, too.”
Dawson shucked his own jeans. Leo’s fingers wrapped around his cock before the denim cleared his knees, and Dawson’s forehead dropped against Leo’s shoulder as his breath punched out of him.
“Look at me,” Leo said.
Dawson lifted his head. Leo was watching him, dark-eyed, lip caught between his teeth, stroking slowly. When he spoke next, his voice had dropped into the register that short-circuited Dawson’s brain, low and rough and aimed at him like a weapon.
“Tell me what you want.”
He’d never asked for what he wanted before.
Not in Green Bay, not in Appleton, not in any of the forgettable rooms he’d passed through in his twenties.
Asking had always felt like handing someone a weapon.
Asking Leo felt like handing him the key to a door Dawson had been guarding his whole life, and he wanted Leo to have it.
He’d taken what was offered and left before the other guy’s breathing had evened out.
Leo’s grip stilled. He waited. Patient, unhurried, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on Dawson’s hip. Not pushing. Giving him room.
“Your mouth,” Dawson said. His voice came out rough and low, and he felt the heat climb up his neck. “I want your mouth on my dick.”
Leo’s eyes went dark. He pushed Dawson flat on the couch and slid down his body, knees on the floor between Dawson’s legs, and Dawson’s breath stopped.
Leo pulled his briefs down. Dawson’s cock was hard, flushed, and Leo looked at it and then up at Dawson with an expression that was naked want and nothing else.
He wrapped one hand around the base and licked a slow stripe from root to tip, and Dawson’s other hand found the back of Leo’s head, twisting into his hair before he could stop himself.
“Pull harder,” Leo said against him. “I can take it.”
Dawson tightened his grip. Leo took him in, wet and hot and tight, and Dawson’s hips bucked off the cushion before he could control them.
Leo pinned him down, both palms flat on his hipbones, and the strength in those hands, holding Dawson in place while his tongue worked, cracked open a wall Dawson had been bracing for years.
Leo was good at this. Better than good. His tongue found a spot on the underside that whited out Dawson’s thoughts, and when he pulled back to breathe, lips swollen, eyes half-shut, Dawson almost came from the sight alone.
“Leo.” His voice was wrecked. “I’m close. If you don’t—”
Leo pulled off. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at Dawson, lips swollen, eyes blown dark.
“Bedroom,” Dawson said.
Leo blinked. Then his face changed, the cocky edge dissolving into something raw, and he stood and held out his hand. Dawson took it and let Leo pull him up off the couch and down the hall.
The bedroom was dark. Leo reached for the lamp, and Dawson caught his wrist. “Leave it off.”
“I want to see you.”
“You’ll feel me.”
Leo’s breath shook. Dawson walked him backward until his knees hit the mattress. He sat, and Dawson stood over him for a second, looking down at Leo in the dark, wearing nothing but his briefs with his mouth still wet. He put his hand on Leo’s chest and pushed him flat.
“Turn over,” Dawson said.
Leo turned, face-down on the mattress, arms folded under his head.
Dawson could see the tension in his shoulders, the rise and fall of his chest, the long line of his back tapering to the waistband of his underwear.
He hooked his fingers in the elastic and pulled them down.
Leo lifted his hips to help, and then he was naked, spread out on the bed, and Dawson’s mouth went dry.
He started at Leo’s shoulders. Pressed his mouth to the knob of his spine and worked down, slow, tasting salt and heat, every vertebra, the dip of his lower back. Leo’s breathing went shallow. His fingers twisted in the sheets.
“Dawson. What are you—”
Dawson’s hands spread Leo’s cheeks, pressed his mouth to him, and Leo’s whole body seized.
A sound ripped out of him, raw, shocked, his hips jerking off the mattress.
Dawson held him down with one hand on the small of his back and licked flat and slow, and Leo buried his face in the pillow and moaned.
“Oh fuck. Oh my god. Dawson—”
Dawson didn’t answer. He licked into him, slow and wet, and Leo’s thighs trembled.
His fists clenched in the sheets, and the sounds he was making were guttural, broken, nothing like the man who narrated his own highlight reel.
Dawson gripped his hip, pulled him tighter against his mouth, and worked his tongue deeper as Leo sobbed into the pillow.
“Please,” Leo said. “Dawson, please, I need—”
Dawson pulled back, pressed a kiss to the base of Leo’s spine, and then lightly bit the swell of his ass. Leo shuddered.
“Turn over.”
Leo turned. His cock was flushed and leaking against his stomach and his face was wrecked, lips bitten red, eyes glassy. Dawson had never seen him like this. He looked seconds away from shattering. Dawson felt the same.