Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
HENDRIX AVERY
“Tahegin, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
My boyfriend stands in the doorway, perfect teeth worrying his plump bottom lip.
God, I always want to kiss him when he does that.
“Please. I need help.”
How am I supposed to say no when he has those baby blues all big and doe-like? Seriously, Tahegin has the best puppy dog look I have ever seen, and I grew up with damaged and manipulative foster kids.
I haven’t seen much of him since he signed with the Treasures a little over a week ago. I’ve yet to look for a place between the two teams’ practice facilities, so Tahegin has been spending most nights in a hotel near the Treasures’ instead of driving an hour and a half there and back every day. We talk on the phone each night before bed, but our coaches have been busting both our asses in preparation for our game tomorrow—the first of the preseason.
The game where our two teams will go head-to-head.
All thoughts of football fall away as Tahegin’s tongue peeks out, prodding at his tender bottom lip and leaving behind a glossy coat across the rosy-pink surface. It hits me that I haven’t seen him since the day after my birthday dinner, and fuck have I missed him.
He’s gotten some sun since he joined the Treasures’ practices, and his skin is a rich bronze that highlights just how bright his blue eyes are. The fresh fade he got before my birthday has grown out, the carefully lined design on his scalp nearly blended into the rest of his dark hair. And, God, is it possible he’s gained muscle in the last week? His arms and chest and abs are on full display, thanks to his lack of shirt, and?—
“Jesus, Rix,” Tahegin gasps a millisecond before his hand wraps around the back of my neck and drags me inside his house. “I can’t focus when you look at me like that.” Our mouths collide a moment later, pushing and pulling and fighting for dominance.
I win, of course, but then his fingers fumble at the button of my jeans, and I’m all putty again. He works on freeing me from my pants while I grab his hips, forcing him to take backward steps through his house until we tumble together over the arm of the couch.
Tahegin grunts, and one hand disappears from my crotch to blindly feel around beneath him.
Whatever he is doing, I can’t be bothered to check. His navel is bare and in my sights, and I can’t help but dip down to lave my tongue across it, loving the way his body arches in response. A wicked chuckle escapes me as I toy with his belly button, teasing and pleasuring until he is whining in my grasp, his hand clutching my hair tight. The other is . . . pulling things from under his back.
Clothes, I distantly realize as the fresh scent of laundry detergent hits my nose above the heady musk of our arousal. Weird. Tahegin’s employees have never so much as left a folded hand towel out, much less an entire load of laundry.
“Hend— Rix !” Tahegin cries out in an overstimulated wail. In my curious state, I’d forgotten my teasing, and the way my tongue is pushing on the interior flesh of his navel has to be on the verge of torture if his heavy breathing and tight hold on my hair is any indication.
Okay, well, if his living room is a work in progress, we will just move this to the bedroom.
Wrapping my arms beneath him, I haul us off the couch, his legs instinctively circling my hips. I carry him up the stairs, all my focus on not tripping as Tahegin uses his position to grind the crotch of his soft joggers against my half-exposed shaft. My unbuttoned jeans slip further and further down until I ultimately kick them off somewhere between the second-floor landing and his bedroom. Once inside the room, I deposit Tahegin face down on the bed, halting him as he tries to spin ninety degrees to put his head on the pillows.
“Nuh-uh,” I growl. My hands clutch his hips, raising them off the mattress, and then I fist the tight curls atop his head. “Watch me.” I pull his head up and turn him to face the floor-length mirror propped at an angle in the corner of the room. We both pause, eyes meeting in the reflection as I slowly lower his joggers and boxers, exposing all of his tan skin, inch by inch. A tremor runs down his back, gooseflesh remaining in its wake. I dip my mouth to his ear, nip it, and whisper huskily, “Watch us .”
Tahegin bites his lip and moans, eyelids fluttering with arousal, but his sapphire blue eyes never leave mine as I kiss and lick my way down the smooth divot of his spine. Lower and lower I go, not stopping even once I reach the top of his ass. My tongue wiggles between his cheeks, pressing into the tiny, slightly deeper dent at the top of his crease before creeping further toward my goal. In the mirror, Tahegin’s eyes go wide, and he breathlessly stutters, “W-wait!”
I quickly pull my tongue back into my mouth and retreat a few inches. “What’s wrong?” My hands rub soothing circles where they rest on his hairy calves.
“I-I,” he stutters again. It’s so un-Tahegin-like that I sit back on my heels and remove my hands completely, not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable.
“We can turn the other way . . .” I offer in case it’s the mirror making him nervous. I swear I have caught him peering over at our reflections during sex in the past, but maybe I’m mistaken.
He shakes his head, resting on his elbows to press his hands against his cheeks. It’s something he does when he’s embarrassed, I’ve noticed. The natural bronze tone of his skin does well to hide his blushes, but he always gives himself away by pressing his cool hands to his warm cheeks. “No, the mirror is . . . It’s fine.” The low, raspy tone of his voice leads me to believe he is telling the truth.
I nod, encouraging him to continue with what is bothering him.
“Don’t make me say it,” he groans and drops his forehead into his hands on the mattress.
“Tahegin.” I wait until he peers at my reflection with one eye between splayed fingers, and then I point at his backside. “Every minute you make me wait is another minute I add.”
The apple in his throat bobs as he swallows. He drops his hands and licks his lips. “Add to what?” he asks, demure.
“To how long I’m eating your ass.”
His hands slap his cheeks with how fast they return to cover his blush. “ Hendrix .”
“What?” I shrug. “You let me do it last time.”
“Yeah, in the shower !”
I stare at him, blinking slowly. “Is that what this is about?” Grabbing his ass cheeks, I spread them and give the area a cursory once-over. “Looks clean.”
“Oh my God! Rix!”
My responding grin is shit-eating—and, okay, maybe that isn’t the best term in this situation. “You’ve showered, right?”
“Yes, but just quickly in the locker room after practice, not?—”
I squeeze my fingers on his ass until he breaks off with a gasp.
He sends me an accusatory glare over his shoulder. “You were straight when I met you. What happened to that guy?”
Cue my wicked grin. “Oh, baby,” I purr. “I’ve always been an ass man.” I keep my gaze locked with his as I bend down and drag one long lick up his crack. “Now, watch us.”
As much as I can, I keep my eyes on him in the mirror as I suck and lick his hole, only breaking eye contact to shutter my eyelids and release a blissed-out moan or groan. Otherwise, my attention remains on Tahegin—his awed expression, mouth slack with pleasure, blue eyes hooded and dark, teeth biting into his puffy lower lip when he tries to stifle the noises escaping him. I swipe my tongue over his hole, up and down, suck the sensitive skin, and wiggle my way inside him, eliciting a ball-milking moan from deep within his chest.
“Fuck, Rix,” he cries while grinding back on my face. Humming with salacious delight, I hold my tongue out and let him use my face for his pleasure. His hips roll, pushing back harder until I am forced to remove a hand from his ass to place it on the bed, bracing myself. More curses are chanted as he takes what he wants from me, but as his pitch grows higher and his lewd noises become closer and closer together, I pull away. “Nooo . . .” he blubbers, sounding utterly wrecked.
“Don’t worry.” I give his ass cheek a nip. “We’re just getting started.”
He groans, head falling onto his folded arms. “You are literally killing me.”
Trust Tahegin to always have a bottle of lube ready and waiting on the nightstand. I sweep it up, shove my boxers down my thighs, and coat my cock with the slick liquid. Lining myself up behind him, I palm his throat and haul his back to my chest. The mirror in front of us casts the perfect view of his naked body—the piercing in his nipple, the hard lines of his abdomen, his even harder cock. I suck on his earlobe before whispering in his ear. “Look at you. God, you’re sexy. Do you want to watch me fuck you, sweet T?”
“Can’t watch you if I’m dead,” Tahegin grumbles as his hand reaches for his dripping shaft.
“Nuh-uh-uh,” I tut, removing my hand from his neck to pull his arms behind him, securing his wrists at the base of his spine. He goes willingly, of course, because he loves when I take control. And so do I. “None of that. Let me make you feel good.”
Sighing, Tahegin melts into my hold, his head falling back on my shoulder. His heavy-lidded eyes remain connected with mine as my free hand slips between his cheeks and my still-slick fingers press inside his relaxed hole. We both groan in unison, me at the feel of him and him at the familiar intrusion that I know he loves. I stretch him leisurely, aiming for that pleasure spot I have yet to experience myself but that he goes wild for. Almost as wild as when I explore his navel.
I gently push into him once he is ready for me, and his body sags against me even more. A guttural moan falls from his slack mouth, long and slow. In the mirror, I give him a lascivious grin. “You like that?” I murmur in his ear, swiveling my hips. Heat surrounds my length, so tight on all sides that my vision momentarily goes dark.
Tahegin barely manages a breathless “Mhm” in response to my question.
“Put your arms around my neck,” I command, my voice still low. He does, and with both hands now free, I wrap my slick one around his cock, stroking slowly in time with the thrust of my hips. My other, I splay across his belly and?—
“Oh, you don’t play fair,” he pants as my thumb circles his sensitive navel.
“Never said I did.” I nip the crest of his ear, then tighten my grip on his abdomen to hold us steady as I fuck into him, somewhere between hard and soft, fast and slow. My concentration is split between thrusting, stroking, and circling—so much so that when Tahegin tenses against me, his arms pulling my face into his neck, I don’t even realize my orgasm is so close to the surface. Not until he clenches with a cry as his release washes over him, and I come, too, pleasure coursing from my balls to tip with every thrust.
We watch each other in the mirror, sweaty and panting, the mess between us growing. My thumb traces his navel one last time, a final spurt of come dribbling from his slit and over my fist still around his slowly twitching cock.
“Fuck, Rix,” Tahegin gasps through heavy breaths. His head falls fully onto my shoulder, and those blue eyes finally drift closed in the warm afterglow of sex. “I love the way you do that.”
I smile into his neck, humming. “Mm, do what?”
“ Me .”
That makes me chuckle. “I love doing you, too.” I plant soft kisses up and down his shoulder, and his head tilts to give me more access. “And I love you.”
“Sap,” he teases.
“Only for you,” I respond truthfully.
Tahegin hesitates before asking, “Is that the reason you came over tonight?”
Trying to make sense of his words, I don’t immediately answer. My clean hand captures his chin, turning him to face me so I can kiss him while pulling out. His mouth twitches into a frown at the feel of me leaving his body, so I kiss him hard enough that he forgets the momentary discomfort. Laying him onto the pillows, I slip my boxers down the remainder of my legs and use them to wipe the mess off his stomach and from between his legs. “I didn’t come here specifically for sex,” I say in case that is what he’s thinking.
“No, of course not.” He sits up, crossing his legs and clasping his hands in his lap. “I mean . . . I called you, not Aleks, and I can’t help but wonder if I only did it because I know it’s wrong, but I also figured I could . . . persuade you. You know, since you’re such a simp for me.” He laughs, but it’s hollow compared to my usual carefree Tahegin.
“It’s not the smartest idea,” I begin after a minute of consideration. “But I love you, so I’m here to help. Aleks would do the same.”
“Yeah?”
I smack a kiss on his lips. “Yeah, babe. Of course. Only difference is he wouldn’t fuck you like I do.”
“He might.”
“You take that back right now.”
“Or what? What are you going to do, Mr. I Keep My Shirt On During Sex?” He plucks the material of my T-shirt between two fingers.
My body betrays me by blushing, even as I roll my eyes, trying to play it off. The truth? I hadn’t made it that far because I was so focused on Tahegin. He should feel honored, really. “Whatever. Aleks isn’t shit compared to me.”
Tahegin gives me a worried look. “So . . . are we doing this?”
I nod. “Get it.”
Five minutes later, we’re dressed in boxers and sitting opposite each other on the kitchen floor. The sink, I notice, is halfway full of dirty dishes, much like mine at my apartment, and it is the first time—other than the laundry earlier—that I have seen anything out of place in his home. I don’t comment on it, though. I figure he will tell me if something is going on other than his housekeepers being out sick.
Spices and condiments litter the floor between our spread legs, and the Treasures’ playbook is open beside me.
Tahegin told me last year—before I started teaching him sign language—that he is an auditory learner. When he called me earlier, he confessed that he’s having trouble learning the new plays without someone talking him through them. Four years ago, when he started with the Rubies, that person was Aleks. Now, it’s me, and I love being the person he trusts to help him.
The problem is, my team is playing his team tomorrow, and having access to his playbook feels like cheating. I keep telling myself that he knows our plays from last year, even though we’ve revamped and renamed for this season, but it still feels wrong.
It’s for Tahegin , I remind myself as I move condiments—offensive players—and explain how the spices—defensive players—respond in kind.
This is okay, right? We can keep our relationship and our professional careers separate.
I hope.