Chapter 12 #2
Nate opened the door right after his first knock, like he’d been waiting. Like he’d been standing near it, just as eager as Ramsey felt.
“Hey,” Nate said, holding the door in as Ramsey walked in, toeing off his shoes and handing the bag of takeout to Nate as he pulled off his heavier coat.
“Hey,” Ramsey said, shoving his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t do something monumentally stupid and totally out of character—additionally out of character—and grab for him.
Lose himself in the uncomplicated joy of the way he already knew their bodies fit together.
It would be so easy. It would be so good. But Nate had said he didn’t want to cross the line, so Ramsey wasn’t going to be the one to do it, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Come on in,” Nate said, gesturing towards the living room. “I put the game on—but first, tell me what was so good about today.”
The words burst out of Ramsey, like he’d been holding them in too long. “I got back on the ice today. Got to skate, finally.”
It had felt real when he was doing it, but there was nothing more real than opening his mouth and telling Nate.
Watching the knowledge filter through Nate’s brain in real time, and his smile—Nate had given him real fucking smiles a handful of times before, sure, but Ramsey was pretty sure it had never been like this before, not since June—it was lighting up parts inside of him that had been cold and dead for so long Ramsey might’ve even forgotten they existed.
Maybe they’d never existed before.
“Oh yeah? Yeah? God, I’m so fucking happy for you,” Nate said, and he was pulling Ramsey into his arms before Ramsey could take a step back. Before Ramsey could be smart about this after all.
But maybe like their first meeting, this was all predestined, and there’d been no way to avoid it, not really.
Not when Ramsey fit into Nate’s embrace like he’d been designed for that purpose, only.
Nate’s big strong arms around him like that first breathless step on the ice.
Like a snipe from the blue line that went right over the goalie’s shoulder pad.
Like a perfectly blocked shot. Like the bone-deep satisfaction of waking up every morning and knowing that his life was arranged exactly as he wanted it to be and nobody else but him knew how he’d done it.
Nate tipped his head down but didn’t let go, and their eyes caught.
Ramsey’s pulse thumped unevenly. He should say something; make a joke. But the last thing he felt like doing was laughing. Not when Nate’s dark eyes were so intent on him and then his grip tightened around Ramsey’s waist. Not only not letting go, but holding on tighter.
“Nathaniel,” Ramsey murmured breathily. Not sure, for the first time in what felt like forever, how on earth he even intended to finish that sentence. What it even meant.
“I told myself I wouldn’t do this—” Nate broke off with an abrupt head shake and that was all the warning Ramsey got before Nate dipped his head and kissed him.
It was the kiss version of that smile. A kiss that tasted like joy, flavored with inevitability. Softer and sweeter than he’d anticipated but somehow even better than it had been before.
They’d kissed in June and that had been good. So good, Ramsey had thought about it long after he should’ve forgotten about it.
But this was even better.
Nate made a muffled noise in his throat, fingers digging into the sweatshirt fabric pooling at his waist, and something wild and new flared inside Ramsey’s stomach.
It had been awhile for him—after June, he hadn’t felt like going out and picking up, though he’d steadfastly ignored what that meant and why he was blowing off guys who approached him—and that had to be the reason it felt this way.
Both urgent, like if he didn’t drag Nate to his bedroom, he might combust, and easy, like they had all the time in the world this time.
Like it wasn’t just going to be once, but enough that maybe in a million years, all of this wouldn’t feel like he was being remade from the inside out.
Nate kissed him deeper, and Ramsey let himself get lost in the kiss. In the perfect interplay of his mouth and Nate’s mouth, and the way his tongue curled around Ramsey’s, like it not only belonged in Ramsey’s mouth, but that it owned Ramsey’s mouth.
Normally that might not be a turn-on but everything about Nate did it for him.
Always had.
Which was why he hadn’t been able to leave him alone, even when he thought Nate was dangerous to not just his peace of mind, but the way he’d carefully and deliberately constructed his life. Even when he thought Nate would resent him forever for leaving how he had in June.
None of that had ever mattered.
Nate broke off, as the back of Ramsey’s head tipped back against the wall. He was breathing hard. They were both breathing hard.
Ramsey wanted to gather him in closer. Pull him back. Lock him in so he’d never stop kissing him.
“I told myself—”
“You’re gonna give me a complex about how you don’t want me,” Ramsey teased, because it was easier than saying it for real. Than questioning, why are you still fighting this?
He didn’t want Nate to put the brakes on now. Didn’t think they could, but Nate was deliciously stubborn. He might still try and Ramsey wasn’t going to survive that. Didn’t he know that Ramsey and his normally exceptional self-control was hanging on by a thread here?
Nate laughed, eyes crinkling, like he couldn’t imagine a world in which that was actually true. “I kissed you.”
“Both times,” Ramsey reminded him. Reminded himself.
“Shouldn’t I be the one bragging about that?
” Nate wondered. His hand had found Ramsey’s hair and was currently ruffling through it affectionately.
But there was a hint of something more in the touch.
Like it would only take a moment for the vibe to change completely.
For Nate to bury his fingers in Ramsey’s curls and yank.
“I don’t know, shouldn’t you be?” It was hard not to smirk. Not to feel a real kind of way about that. Lots of guys—more than Ramsey really could count, or remember, even—had wanted him over the years, but he’d never felt like that was anything special. Not until Nate had chased him out of the bar.
“I don’t take it for granted. Having you, like this,” Nate murmured and kissed him again, soft and lush.
He wouldn’t. He didn’t.
Ramsey’s mouth went dry, his whole body tight with want.
But before he could really sink into it, Nate pulled back.
His fingers drifted lower, down the side of his face, tracing the bow of Ramsey’s lips. Unbidden, Ramsey’s mouth opened. If he was panting, the only two who would ever know about it were Nate and himself.
And while that might have been unacceptable at some point, Ramsey was finding it difficult to care right now. Not when what he’d wanted for so long—wanted and told himself over and over that he shouldn’t get, that he wouldn’t get—was right here, within reach, Nate’s muscles flexing under his touch.
“Do we need to talk about it?” Nate asked.
Ramsey didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to do it. He knew Nate did too. He could feel Nate’s hard cock pressing into his hip. Could feel how tightly leashed Nate’s whole body was, coiling around his arousal. Keeping it controlled.
He was tired of Nate controlling it. So tired of controlling himself.
“What is there to talk about?” Ramsey played stupid. It wasn’t his best moment, but also, most of his blood was no longer in his brain and he was this close to finally getting what he’d been craving, again.
Nate shot him a knowing look and did the worst thing in the world: he stepped away.
Ramsey did not make grabby hands and try to pull him back, but he wanted to.
“We said this wasn’t real. That we weren’t dating, for real,” Nate said, his voice rough. Frustrated.
Well, that made two of them.
“I think I said it wasn’t real,” Ramsey said impudently.
Nate rolled his eyes.
“That was only because I couldn’t get you to even talk to me,” Ramsey said, and it felt like a truth had just shaken free. A truth he wasn’t sure he’d wanted out there, but now that it was, he couldn’t take it back. If he even wanted to take it back.
He’d been fighting this for so long. Months of Nate being pissed at him. Months of snide comments and a simmering resentment. Probably an earned simmering resentment, because Ramsey had ditched him the moment he’d panicked at who he was hooking up with.
Funny how Nate being Nate Bishop, defensive captain of the Toronto Thunder, was now somehow less pressing than the fact that he was Nate Bishop, guy playing frustratingly difficult to get.
Nate shot him a baffled look. “That isn’t true. That can’t be true.”
None of those were questions, but Ramsey’s head bobbed still, nodding.
He’d lost control of himself, which Ramsey supposed was all inevitable. Eventually, he should’ve known he’d run into the one person who made him a babbling idiot.
“Wait a minute, is that true?” Nate took a step closer. “That’s not bullshit?”
Ramsey’s mouth was so dry. He didn’t know how to do this. “Why does it matter?”
Nate shot him a chiding look. “It fucking matters to me.” He pressed him, full body against Ramsey’s, to the wall.
Then kissed him again. Deliberately, and Ramsey would’ve thought it was like a taunt, but he’d seen the look on Nate’s face—that open, naked want broadcast for anyone who wanted to see it—and knew it wasn’t.
“If it isn’t bullshit, then I’d do that again. ”
“Just once?” Ramsey asked, mustering up the most innocent voice in his roster. But it didn’t work. It came out all wonky. Which . . .not surprising, considering he wasn’t sure he could feel his fingers or his toes. He wasn’t cold, though; the opposite, in fact.
Burning alive just from the look in Nate’s dark eyes.
The hopeful possibility that Ramsey might want this too.
And he thought he might, but he didn’t know how to want that.