Chapter 17
Artemis
Ibarely register the car door clicking open, but I can’t ignore another person joining us in the car because he clears his throat. A thick glob of shame tries to slither down my spine.
The car smells of cum, there’s no denying it, especially not to the man who knows me better than anyone.
I sit up on the back seat, trying to ignore the sticky, cool feeling in my underwear because yes, I blew my fucking load in my pants while sucking off Xavier. What. The. Fuck?
My blood has run cold, my mouth is dry, the flames of just a moment ago snuffed out by the gust of chilled air that brushed across my overheated skin when Apollo climbed his ass inside my vehicle.
My twin’s eyes meet mine in the rearview before sliding to a still half-naked Xavier. Mercifully, he’s tucked his dick away.
Shit. This is so bad.
My brother’s not one to judge. Okay, that’s not true. My family doesn't judge sex. They judge stupidity. But from the way his eyes bore into mine in the mirror, he’s judging. He knows this isn’t what it looks like.
He pulls up the lid of the center console. “You got forks in here?” He holds up the abandoned pie from the hood. “You snooze you lose.”
It looks like a casual hookup. But I don’t do those in the cramped back seat of my car, on a whim, after a game where anyone could walk up and find me. Including my twin brother.
This isn’t nameless, or faceless. In fact, the face of the man I just blew on my backseat is scrutinizing me so forcefully it feels like my skin might catch fire under his watchful stare.
This is bad.
Xavier’s breath is still uneven, just like mine. I stare down at my trembling hands. They’re sitting on my lap, and in the dim light of the car’s interior you can’t see the wet patch in my crotch.
I hope.
Why couldn’t I have just kept it in my pants? I almost snort at the fact that’s exactly where my release is, but the frustration bubbling under my skin is louder than everything, including my still-racing heartbeat.
Damnit. So much for my iron-clad self-restraint.
Xavier’s looking at me with a question in his eyes, but I’m not sure which question it is. Do I leave? Do I stay? Do I crack a joke and diffuse the thickening tension? Do I ask your brother to leave?
His question could be one of many, but perhaps those are all my own questions, not his. We all sit in silence for a few moments while Apollo pulls out a plastic knife, opens the pie, and cuts himself a piece.
Of course Apollo’s sitting here in the middle of my shame spiral while one of our rivals is in a state of undress, and he’s just vibing like it’s Tuesday.
He eats it like a slice of pizza, making yummy noises the whole time while Xavier and I stare at each other, not knowing each other well enough to have a conversation with just our eyes.
My gaze drops to his bare chest, his hard nipples, the ridges of his abs.
When he makes one of his pecs dance, he draws my heated stare back to his before arching a brow.
“That’s not your pie,” he directs to my brother in the front seat.
“I know.” Apollo finishes his last bite. “That’s why I only took a slice.” He grins. “It was left unguarded. Be glad a wild animal didn’t find it. There are wild raccoons around these parts.” He meets my eyes again in the mirror. “Or worse, Scott.”
My stomach dips at the mention of my best friend. My former line mate. The man I’ve essentially avoided like the plague since he graduated, moved in with my sister to do unspeakable things to her, and abandoned me to live his life out in the big, bad, world.
It’s not fair or rational. There’s no way I expected him to resit the year with me, that’s unreasonable. But I’d be lying if I said a bone-chilling wave of bitterness doesn’t wash over me when I think of him.
I drop my gaze from Pollo’s. I know what he’s asking. “What would Scott think about your backseat dalliances with a top-goal-scoring rival of the Raccoons?”
It’s hard not to feel embarrassed, ashamed even. Sleeping with the enemy is taken pretty seriously in our ranks. We’re college athletes. Our team is almost as important as our blood family. Sometimes even more so.
Despite my post-orgasm haze making me feel like nothing bad would come of me doing more with Xavier, I know better.
Squad before rod.
I force a slow breath into my lungs.
The logo before the pogo.
I clench and unclench my fingers.
Stick taps before cheek taps.
I go through the never-ending list of annoying as fuck mantras we drilled into Ares’s head when he first became a Raccoon. When our horn-dog, younger brother joined the team, entering his College Bro Ho era, he didn’t give a fuck who was attached to the holes he fucked.
You’d think he would have, considering in high school he almost ended up in jail after banging a rival coach’s princess daughter at sixteen years old. He was sixteen. She was seventeen.
Thank fuck the legal age of consent in Iowa is sixteen, or it could have gotten messy. For her father, more so than for my brother, since he struck Ares’s pretty face. And Ares struck back.
My brother fights like a rabid animal and almost wound up in a holding cell for assault until rational heads prevailed—and the fact that a coach started it, by attacking a student.
Inter-team relationships are never a good idea. And yet… Xavier’s eyeing me like I’m his favorite Christmas present under the tree. The one he’s wished for all year long.
“Pie?” Apollo holds out the pie between the gap in the front seats. He’s made more slices and moved one into the space left by the piece he took.
I’m about to say no when Xavier reaches out and picks up a piece, then accepts the napkin Pollo offers him as well.
As he eats, in this weirdly heavy silence in the car, crumbs of sugared pastry fall onto his chest, and it literally takes all of my strength not to slip my tongue out and collect them all.
My mouth waters for non-cinnamon-scented related reasons. He even chews sexily.
Apollo’s stare is hot on my face so I turn to meet his amused self. “Pie, Hermano?”
I shake my head. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Huh.” He swipes another piece off the foil plate and takes a bite. “You’re usually ravenous after a game.” His eyebrow arches. “I guess you found another way to sate your appetite tonight.”
Xavier makes a sound that could be a chuckle, but at my glare, it dies on his sugar-coated lips.
“Should we invite him to Thanksgiving dinner?” Pollo tips his head in the direction of my still semi-naked companion, now covered in glistening, sugar crystal temptation.
Xavier’s head starts nodding, his mouth is too full to answer, but he’s working to swallow his dessert so he can say something.
“No need.” I clear my throat, trying to free the lies sticking to the back of my tongue. “He has plans.” I shake my head again, trying to dispel the image of me licking sweet, cinnamon crumbs off Xavier’s naked skin. “And it’s not like that.”
The words are like a blow to my chest, even though I’m the one who has said them.
At my sentence, Xavier’s chest visibly deflates.
His shoulders fall. The glint in his eyes goes out like I blew on a candle flame.
He finishes his pie in silence, picks up his shirt and coat, and without saying a word to me, pops the back door open.
“You should get dressed; you’ll catch your death.
” There’s no clap back, no twitch of his lips, no arch in his brow, only a fiercely fluttering muscle in his jaw and his eyes shuttering.
He doesn’t utter another single word in my direction before he tosses a casual, “catch you later,” to my brother, slams the door, and leaves.
Cold air skims my face, reminding me of the heat behind our kiss mere minutes ago.
An instant, hollow ache slams into my chest, expanding like an expanding drop of ink blotted on a piece of tissue.
My muscles tighten, and any relaxed and warm feeling that was lingering from my orgasm has gone, replaced by even more fucking shame.
I stare at the still-fogged up windows, a sinking sensation taking over my body. It’s for the best. Resetting boundaries, expectations, and laying down the understanding that it won’t be happening again. It can’t. We aren’t a good idea. The sooner he accepts that and moves on, the better.
My fingers drift to my lips, ghosting where his mouth was pressed against mine. The stifling scent of cinnamon in the car makes my stomach clench, lurching against the familiar warmth that’s normally so comforting. If it’s for the best, then why the hell does it feel like this?