Tape to Tape (Atlanta Firebirds #3)

Chapter 1 — ZAY

September

“Another drink, Zay?”

“Sure.” I slide my glass across the bar. “Fuck it, right? Last night to go hard before I’m on lockdown for a while.”

“You really think it’s going to be that bad?” Guy asks, like he hasn’t heard me talk about this job every day for the past three weeks.

“It’s not bad. It’s the opposite of bad. That’s the point.” Seth sets a fresh bourbon in front of me, and I nod at him. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Gary Miller brought me in to help support him as his assistant Athletic Trainer. And he brought me in because I’m good.”

“Damn right he did.” Guy takes a sip of his drink. “You gonna miss us mere mortals while you’re taping up pro-league shoulders?”

“I’ll try to remember the civilians.”

“The civilians.” He puts his hand on his chest. “I introduced you to your last girlfriend.”

“She was on your group project and she hated you.”

“The point stands. You owe me.” He points a finger at me.

I laugh. Guy has been making me laugh since freshman orientation when he sat next to me in a lecture hall and said, “You look like someone who takes notes. I look like someone who needs to borrow them.” He was right on both counts.

Nine years later, he’s still borrowing things and I’m still letting him.

He leans back on his stool, scanning the floor. His boyfriend Michael is out there dancing with some guy in a tank top, and Guy is watching like a man who knows exactly what he’s got and isn’t worried about a thing.

“You seeing anybody, by the way?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Man or woman?”

“Nobody. I start a new job tomorrow, Guy.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is. You just don’t enjoy it.”

He grins at me, wide and shameless, and I can feel the follow-up forming, but something catches my eye across the bar before he can say anything.

Hot guy. Ridiculously hot. Built, athletic.

Maybe my height. Thick dark hair, the kind that looks like he runs his hands through it a lot.

The kind that would be fun to run my hands through.

Light olive skin. And blue eyes that catch every time the lights swing.

He’s leaning against the far wall with a beer in hand.

He catches me looking. Doesn’t look away and gives me a smile. Wide open, zero hesitation. Like we already know each other and he’s just been waiting for me to come over.

I smile back before I realize it.

“Got your mark for the night?” Guy leans in, clocking exactly who I’m looking at.

“Maybe. We’ll see.” I take a sip of my bourbon. “I’m not in the mood to chase, though.”

“Only one way to find out.” Guy shrugs.

“You know what? Let’s hit the dance floor. I’d rather just enjoy the night.” I give the guy one more look, brief, direct, and then I follow Guy out into the crowd.

The floor smells like a mix of sweat, cologne, the sticky-sweet layer underneath that never fully goes away.

Michael, Guy, and I move through it, and I find myself sweaty, buzzed, dancing just enough to release some of this nervous energy that’s been building the last few days.

The DJ drops into something heavier and I let the bass sit in my chest.

Then I feel someone right behind me. Someone is deliberately doing this because the dance floor isn’t crowded. A man who found me on purpose. I push back against him, just enough, and a hand lands on my hip.

His mouth is near my ear. “Is this okay?”

I don’t answer. I just reach back and hook my arm around his neck as we rock together to the beat. He’s tall, broad, solid. His hand tightens on my hip while his thumb traces a slow circle on my hip bone and I feel it all the way down my spine.

“You’re the guy from the bar,” he says.

“And you’re the guy who followed me to the dance floor.”

“Followed is a strong word. Followed implies intent. I drifted. The crowd moved, I moved. It’s basically physics.”

“Physics. Sure.”

“To be honest, I really had no say in the matter.” I can hear the grin in his voice, the same one that caught my eye earlier. He pulls me tighter against him and I can feel all of him pressed against me. Hard, full length. Not subtle at all.

“You drift like this into every guy on the floor?”

“Only the ones who smile at me like that from the bar and then walk away like I’m not supposed to do anything about it.” His mouth brushes my ear. “Which, by the way, was rude.”

“That was strategy.”

“I guess it worked since I’m here.” His hand slides from my hip to my stomach, resting flat just an inch lower than maybe it should be. “Now what?”

I turn around.

Up close, he’s even better. The dark hair is messy from the heat, the blue eyes bright even in the low light, and that smile is taking up his whole face.

“Hi,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Zee.”

“Zee? Just Zee? Okay. No last name, no nothing. I respect that. In that case, I’m Tee.” His face hasn’t stopped doing that thing. “Tee and Zee. You hear that? The universe did that on purpose.”

“That’s alphabet phonics.”

“That’s fate, and you are not going to ruin it for me with logic.” He’s already closer, one hand still on my hip, the other tugging at the belt loop of my jeans. “You want to get out of here?”

“We don’t need to go that far.” I grab his hand and pull him toward the back hallway with the single stall bathrooms. Whoever designed this club knew what they were doing. Dark, a row of doors with small lights above them. I find a green one near the end, push it open, and pull him in.

When I turn around, he’s standing in the middle of the small room with his hands in his pockets, like he’s waiting to see what I do next.

“Did you bring me back here to have your way with me?” he asks as he takes a step forward, grin never leaving his face.

“And if I did?”

“Then I’d say you’re my favorite person in this building and I don’t even know your full name.

” He takes another step towards me, cups my jaw and kisses me.

Direct, unhesitating, his other hand sliding around my waist and pulling me flush against him.

I push him back against the wall and he goes easy, his mouth curving against mine.

He kisses slow, thoroughly, one hand on my jaw tilting my head where he wants it, the other flat against the small of my back. I bite his bottom lip and he makes a sound, surprised and pleased, and pulls me harder against him. He’s taking his time with this, which is a luxury I don’t have tonight.

“We should keep it moving, Tee,” I say against his lips. “I have an early morning.”

“Oh what, Cinderfella’s got a pumpkin he needs to get to?”

“Something like that.”

“And yet,” he says, eyes lit up, “here you are, in the back of the club, about to get your dick sucked.”

Well, that escalated quickly. “Oh, is that what’s happening?”

He drops to his knees on the concrete, smooth about it, like he’s been thinking about this. His hands go to my belt and work it open without fumbling, and then my jeans, and I’m already hard by the time he gets his hand around my cock and holds me there. Just holds me, looking up.

“I know the assignment,” he says, stroking me slow once, watching my face. “It’s not my first rodeo.”

“Are we in school or are we bull-riding?”

He snorts and winks at me. “Maybe a little of both if I’m lucky.”

I can’t help the laugh that escapes. Then he takes me in his mouth and I stop having opinions about anything.

He’s good. His mouth is hot and sure and he takes his time with it, the slow drag over the head deliberate.

Like he’s trying to learn every inch of me.

He makes sounds while he works, low and appreciative, humming against my cock in a way that makes it clear he’s into this for his own reasons.

I feel that humming all over and my head drops back against the door.

My hand settles in his thick hair, just like I was thinking about earlier.

When I tighten my fingers, he takes me deeper and I feel that all the way down my spine. The sounds get better when I do that.

He pulls off, lips wet, eyes bright. “You’re quiet.”

“I’m focused.”

“Good focused or bad focused?”

“Extremely good.”

“Most people give me notes,” he says, casual, like we’re discussing the weather.

His hand is still moving, slow and deliberate, thumb tracing the underside.

“Feedback. A whole review. One guy gave me a thumbs up mid-act, which I thought was unconventional. Point is, you’re just standing there being stoic. ”

“I’m not stoic. I’m enjoying myself.”

“Silently.”

“Pretty sure you’re covering whatever word quota we have for tonight.”

He laughs against my cock, which is a sensation I was not prepared for and will be thinking about later. “Fair. Point taken.” Then he takes me back in.

He takes me deep. Steady, his hand working the base while his mouth handles the rest. Every time my hips push forward he opens for it, his hands gripping my thighs to pull me closer.

The heat builds embarrassingly fast. He’s hitting the right spot, the right rhythm, and he locks that in, doesn’t waver.

I feel the pressure build, quicker than I thought possible.

He senses I’m close and increases his pace.

I come with my fist tight in his hair and my jaw locked and the full slow weight of it moving through me.

When he senses I am finished, he pulls off my dick and sits back on his heels, looking up at me. He is clearly pleased with himself and not hiding it one bit.

“Good?” he says, grinning up at me. Oh yeah, he knows how good he is.

“Extremely good,” I tell him, which only makes it worse.

“You said that before. I need range. Give me something to work with.”

“My vocabulary is fine. You just haven’t unlocked premium access yet.”

Something flickers across his face. Challenge, maybe. Delight, definitely. “Key word yet,” he repeats.

I pull him up by his shirt and get my hands on him before he finishes standing.

Undo his belt and jeans, slide my hand into his briefs.

He’s hard against my palm and when I wrap my hand around his cock he makes a sound against my jaw that I feel in my back teeth.

Thick in my hand, and I take a second with that, just feeling the weight of him, and he breathes out long and slow like this is almost too much.

“You don’t have to—” he starts.

“I know,” I tell him, and he stops talking.

For maybe three seconds. Then my thumb drags across the head, rubbing the pre-come around his slit, and he exhales hard. “Okay, wow, that’s... okay…yeah.”

I tighten my grip and stroke him slow, finding his rhythm, and he drops his forehead to my shoulder and lets it happen.

“Right there,” he says against my neck. “That’s. Fuck, Zee, your hands are…” I twist my wrist and whatever he was going to say about my hands is lost.

“My hands are what?”

“Shut up.” He laughs, breathless, his hips pushing into my fist. “You know exactly what you’re… doing… to me right now.”

“Tell me.”

“I just said shut up.” But he’s smiling against my shoulder. I speed up and his breath goes short and his hips lose their rhythm. “Fuck. Right there. Don’t stop, don’t—”

He tries to say something else and I tighten my grip and all that comes out is a broken exhale.

His hand finds the back of my neck, gripping, his mouth open and stupid against my collarbone, and he’s all sounds now, no words, just the desperate honest noise of a man who has finally stopped talking.

I didn’t think it was possible. I find it deeply satisfying.

“Zee, I’m—”

He comes with a broken sound against my neck, his hand fisted in the back of my shirt, and I work him through it until he’s done and his body goes heavy against mine.

We stand there for a minute. Just breathing.

He lifts his head. Still smiling, but it’s different now. Not as big, but somehow deeper.

“Tee and Zee,” he says.

“You’re still on that.” I shake my head laughing.

“I’m going to be on that for a while.”

We clean up. He fixes his hair. I fix my shirt. He leans against the wall, unhurried.

For a second, I think he’s going to ask for my number. He doesn’t. He pushes off the wall, touches two fingers to his temple in a lazy salute, and says, “‘Night, Zee.”

“Good night, Tee.”

He walks out. I watch him go. Nice shoulders. Nice walk. Nice everything. I head back to the bar. Seth has a fresh glass waiting. Guy finds me twenty minutes later, flushed and happy, and takes one look at my face.

“Don’t even try to tell me nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened.” I take a sip of my water, not looking Guy in the eye.

“Sure it didn’t.”

“I’m going home. I have work tomorrow.” I finish my drink and stand and he hugs me, tight and quick. I hug him back.

Outside, the air is still warm. September in Atlanta, the heat hanging on past midnight.

I walk to my car with the bass still fading behind me and the taste of a stranger still on my lips and tomorrow sitting in front of me like a prize I’ve been walking toward for years.

First day at the Firebirds facility. First day with Gary’s roster in my hands.

Tomorrow, everything changes. But tonight? Tonight was a good night.