CHAPTER TWO TWO CAPTAINS, ONE LOFT #3
“No.” Brock pulled him closer. “I want you to remember.”
What followed began as another contest and became something neither man could have won alone.
Control passed between them in deliberate turns.
Every challenge received an answer. Every answer asked permission for the next.
When the intensity finally carried them beyond words, the shower held the sounds they could not contain and the water carried away every remaining excuse.
Afterward, Tyler rested his forehead against Brock’s shoulder.
Brock’s arms remained locked around him.
Neither moved for a long time.
“One night,” Tyler said eventually.
His voice sounded unfamiliar.
Brock reached behind him and shut off the water. “Obviously.”
“We’re captains.”
“Co-captains.”
“This can’t complicate the team.”
“Nothing complicated about it.”
Tyler lifted his head. “We just got naked in a shower after fighting on a gym floor.”
“Straightforward sequence of events.”
Tyler wanted to laugh. The desire frightened him more than the sex had.
Brock opened the shower door and reached for a towel. He dried Tyler first, using a gentleness completely at odds with the man who had carried him across the room.
“Your room or mine?” he asked.
“We said one night.”
“It’s still the same night.”
Tyler considered the dark hallway, the two separate suites, and the absurdity of pretending he wanted to cross it alone.
“Yours,” he said. “My sheets are new.”
Brock’s laugh followed them to the bedroom.
Tyler woke before dawn with no idea where one body ended and the other began.
He lay on his side beneath a twisted gray sheet. Brock had curved around him from behind, one heavy arm across Tyler’s waist and one thigh wedged between his. Their naked chests rose in different rhythms. Brock’s face was pressed into the back of Tyler’s neck, his breath warm against damp skin.
Tyler should have moved.
Morning light had barely begun to silver the windows. Practice started at nine. His phone was in the other room. His publicist had probably sent six messages about the captain announcement. Every sensible part of his life waited beyond the edge of the mattress.
Then Brock shifted in sleep.
The unmistakable evidence of morning arousal pressed against Tyler’s body.
Tyler closed his eyes.
His own response arrived instantly.
Brock woke with a low breath, tightened his arm, and became very still.
“Morning,” he said into Tyler’s neck.
“It’s not morning yet.”
“Your body disagrees.”
“My body has shown poor judgment since arriving in Wisconsin.”
Brock’s mouth touched the place where Tyler’s neck met his shoulder. “You can go.”
The words were sincere. Brock loosened his arm.
Tyler caught the wrist and returned it to his waist.
“I know.”
He turned inside Brock’s hold.
For a few seconds, neither performed. Brock’s hair was disordered. Sleep softened the severity of his face. A crease marked one cheek from the pillow. Tyler realized he had never seen the man without armor of some kind—pads, sarcasm, anger, control.
Brock studied him with the same unsettling care.
“One night,” Tyler reminded him.
“Sun’s not up.”
“Technicality.”
“You love technicalities.”
Tyler kissed him before the conversation became honest.
The morning encounter lacked the desperate violence of the shower.
It was still physical, still competitive, but sleep had stripped away the need to prove anything.
Brock rolled above him; Tyler reversed them.
They traded strength for patience, impatience for laughter, and laughter for breathless silence.
When they finally stopped, sunlight had reached the foot of the bed.
Tyler remained sprawled across Brock’s chest.
Brock traced one absent line along his spine.
“Still straightforward?” Tyler asked.
“Extremely.”
“And uncomplicated?”
“Completely.”
Tyler lifted his head. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“You’re still in my bed.”
That ended the argument.
They showered separately. Tyler returned to his room, dressed in immaculate silence, and spent too long covering the mark near his collar with concealer. At breakfast, Brock wore a high-necked training shirt despite the warm loft. Neither commented on it.
They left through the secure garage at seven forty-five, each carrying coffee and an equipment bag.
Inside the elevator, their shoulders touched.
Neither moved away.
Neither captain noticed the garage door closing behind them, or the way Milwaukee’s morning light joined their two shadows across the concrete until they became one long shape.
“This doesn’t happen again,” Tyler said.
Brock watched the floor numbers descend. “You said that last time.”
“Last time was a kiss.”
“And this time?”
Tyler remembered steam on glass, Brock’s hands steady at his waist, and the unguarded face beside him at dawn.
“A scheduling error.”
The elevator doors opened.
Brock stepped out, then turned and held them with one broad hand.
“We need rules,” he said.
Tyler should have objected to the word we.
Instead, he followed Brock into the garage.
“Not rules,” Tyler said. “A scoring system.”
Brock smiled slowly.
“Now you’re speaking my language.”