19. The Pillow Smacker and the Ruthless Horndog
19
THE PILLOW SMACKER AND THE RUTHLESS HORNDOG
Luke
His shower is bigger than mine, and I am both jealous and grateful. Grateful because it gives me something to tease him about when I desperately need some levity after the most intense sex of my life. Jealous because, well, it’s a palace.
I gawk at the earth-toned tiles, the double showerheads, and the sheer square footage. “I could live in your shower. Hell, you could sublease this shower as a studio,” I say as we easily navigate the rainfall in this steamy paradise.
“I’ll have my real estate broker get on that right away,” he says as he dips his head under the hot stream.
Shame. I liked the way his sweaty hair smelled.
I whimper. “I’m sad.”
“Why?” he asks as he wets his hair.
“Because you’re washing all the sex off your body,” I say with a pout.
Laughing, he lifts his face. “You wanted me to sleep with your jizz on me, then wake up with it caked on my skin?”
“ Our jizz, baby,” I correct as I reach out a hand and slide it down the grooves of his abs. “You looked so hot with us all over your cum gutters.”
A laugh bursts from him. “You’re so classy, Remington.”
I smile, and it doesn’t vanish when he turns away to reach for the shampoo on the shower shelf. I feel warm but it’s not from the epic sex or the temperature. I’ve never laughed like this post-sex. I’ve never wanted to joke and play and tease and shower with someone again and again.
He pours the shampoo into his hand and runs it over his wet hair, and here’s one more—I’ve never wanted to wash someone’s hair.
Till now.
“Let me do it,” I say softly.
Tanner glances back at me, question marks in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“I want to,” I say, swallowing past a strange knot in my throat. Some weird new feeling. “Lean your head back.”
He complies and I run my fingers through his hair, longer than it was earlier in the year. “I like this messy look you’ve been working.”
“Good. That’s why I haven’t cut it for a few months,” he says.
“For me?” I croak, kind of hoping he says yes.
Tanner shakes his head as I roam my fingers through his lathered-up locks. “Just because…guys like it,” he says.
Fuck that. I dig my jealous fingers into his skull. “Don’t talk about other guys,” I say sharply, surprised by the intensity of my reaction.
Gently, he peels my fingers off his head, then wheels around. His lips are a ruler as he says in a challenging tone, “Why?”
I grit my teeth, trying to hold back, but failing. “Because I don’t like it,” I admit, and I’m evidently not done. I didn’t come into this shower to do anything but clean up and lighten the mood, but impulsively I’m blurting out, “And because I like your hair.”
“Then finish washing it,” he hisses with a tilt of his chin.
“I will, but don’t talk about other guys.” It’s an order.
“Don’t you either,” he says, giving his own too.
What other guys? “I won’t,” I say tightly. “I haven’t thought about other dudes for the last week.”
“Me neither,” he says. It comes out clipped, maybe even defiant.
He turns around quickly, like he needs to make some space from that admission.
I do too from my own, so I focus on the task. I wash his hair, slowing down my pace, turning it into a leisurely massage. Soon, he’s murmuring happily.
The sound stirs my heart. A little more than I want it to. I’ve got to end this moment, so I set my hands on his shoulders. “There. Done.”
“Thanks.” He rinses his hair and washes off. We finish cleaning up and step out of the shower quietly. I’m not sure what to say.
Tanner grabs a towel for himself, then tosses me one that I catch easily.
As I dry off, I watch his every move. The way he slicks on some deodorant, puts on face lotion, then how he nods to his bedroom. “You spending the night?”
It’s a question. But there’s an edge to it, an unspoken you’d better .
Hanging up the towel, I answer him the only way I possibly can. “I am.”
But once I’m under the covers in his bed, my body feels heavy, and not in the good, sleepy way.
More like something’s sitting on my chest. A weight maybe? As Tanner smacks a pillow to get it just right—something he didn’t do at my place, which makes it an even more adorable move I should not like so much—I glance around the darkened room so I don’t stare dopily at him.
Or say something cute like, “You smack your own pillows into submission.”
My gaze catches on something I didn’t notice before when we came into his room. His carry-on suitcase. It’s parked near the door.
He leaves tomorrow morning for the All-Star game, then an away series after that. That must be why I feel odd. “What time is your flight?” I ask, reaching for my phone where I set it on the nightstand.
“Nine. Don’t worry. I set an alarm. I’ll wake you up,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, putting my phone back down.
He finally settles into the pillow, then yawns deeply. It’s contagious so I yawn too, then close my eyes.
But the weight doesn’t move from my chest.
Because you weren’t worried about an alarm, you dumbass.
I face the scary truth. Since he’s leaving tomorrow, I won’t see him again until Jason’s wedding. Will we sleep together then? That seems risky since the guys might figure us out. So will we hook up again when Tanner and I return to New York? That’d be a fourth time.
And if we hook up more than three times, the situation might get messy.
I want another night with Tanner.
But I also want football and friendship. Maybe there’s a way.
I sit up, my heart racing. “Tanner,” I whisper.
Tanner pushes up too. “What’s up?”
“Football has rules,” I say.
“Yes. It does.”
“Baseball too,” I add, making this up as I go.
“That’s also true.”
“We need rules,” I say, and holy shit. I turn to him, excited again and in a whole new way. “It was seriously hard not to touch you tonight at the concert.”
“It was,” he says, cautious as he clearly lets me take the wheel of this conversation.
“And it’s going to be seriously hard not to touch you at Jason’s wedding too,” I say, building up a new head of steam. “But I don’t want to draw attention from them. I don’t want to take away from their wedding, know what I mean?”
“Of course.”
“And we don’t want the media to catch on about us, and then say we’re a thing, and then say we broke up. Right?”
He winces, like that’s a bitter thought. “Right,” he grumbles.
“So what if we cool it for the wedding, and then when we’re back in New York after your away series—” I begin but then stop when I remember something awful that happens when we return to New York. His brother’s wedding is in a few more weeks. His sister wants to set him up with a date for that wedding.
But the idea of Tanner with some other guy is too terrible a thought for my brain to handle, so I slam the door on that image. I focus solely on him and me. “Maybe when we’re back in New York we can have one more night together before I go to training camp?” I ask, and my voice pitches up at the end like I’m asking for something extraordinary.
Maybe I am.
Sex with my friend is extraordinary, and I don’t want it to end. I know it can’t last. Truly, I do. But I don’t want to give him up.
Not yet.
Tanner’s silent. The moonlight illuminates a sliver of his face, so I can’t entirely read him. His voice is cool too, when he speaks. “You’re saying you want to go cold turkey at the wedding, then fuck one more time here?”
When he puts it like that, I kind of sound like a ruthless horndog. If having the time of my life at night with him makes me one, so be it. I swallow past the uncomfortable feelings in my throat. “Yes. I don’t want this to end.”
He blows out a breath, dropping his head in his hand, like this pains him. “It’s just, Luke…”
Oh, shit. My heart skitters. He’s going to end this.
Of course he’s going to end it, you jackwad. He wants a boyfriend. You’re not boyfriend material.
What the hell do I say? I’m not sure, so I roll the dice with the simple truth. “I really like sleeping with you.”
He lifts his face. His mouth softens. “Same here.”
“Like, a lot. And I don’t know why.”
He snort-laughs. “Way to make a guy feel good.”
I set a hand on his biceps, curl it tightly, then tug him to the bed so we’re lying down, face to face. “I mean it. It’s really good. It’s like…” I stop to mime an explosion.
He grins. “Yeah?”
“It’s…well, when I said earlier I was excited, I meant it. I don’t even know why it’s so good. It just is. I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot in bed with you, and I didn’t know I was playing slots. But I’m winning big time,” I say.
He sighs, like he’s relenting. “We can’t keep doing this. And you know why.”
“I do. We’re in different places,” I say, starting to list the reasons so he knows I hear him, I get him.
But before I can explain more, he reacts with an intense, “I don’t care what places we’re in with our careers.”
Like he needs to reassure me that our respective statuses don’t bug him.
But that’s not what I meant, although that’s part of the problem. My problem , really . I do care that my career feels like it’s just starting. I care deeply. If I don’t give it my all, it might slip through my fingers.
“I meant we want different things in life right now. We have different priorities,” I say gently, even though I feel like an ass. Like I ought to just slap a sign that says playboy or nothing on my forehead. But it’s all I can give.
“Oh, right.” Tanner looks away, but then he nods, resolute. “Right. Absolutely. And the more we mess around, the more the lines blur,” he says, meeting my gaze again. “We need to…stop.”
But Tanner doesn’t entirely sound like he wants to stop. Especially with that pause he just took.
Maybe I’m playing dirty. Maybe I don’t care. I run my fingers along his arm. “I agree. We need to stop… soon .”
I press a kiss to his shoulder, using touch to make my case. A soft rumble falls from his lips, and when he adds a reluctant “ soon, ” I do feel like I’ve won the jackpot.
Another night with him.
I punch the air. “I scored! Another night with the hot-as-sin shortstop.”
He laughs, big and warm. The sound winds through me, tugging at my heart. My friendly heart for him, of course.
Tanner smirks. “Then, Remington, I dare you to resist me at the wedding.”
Laughing, I roll my eyes. “Don’t tempt me. You know I can’t resist a dare. Or you.”
“So, let me see if I’ve got this right. The wedding will be the Christmas Eve before the Last Great Fucking?”
He is talking my language. “And when we return it’ll be Christmas morning, baby, and you can open your gift.”
Then, since I don’t have to play it cool, just like I don’t have to be in control constantly, I wedge my body against his, savoring the warmth of his skin under the covers.
I sigh happily. I’ve been given another night. It is a gift.
Tanner lifts a hand and sets it on my face, stroking gently. I melt into his confident touch. He’s steady and calm. Soothing my wilder emotions.
I wait for him to say something sardonic. Instead, he asks a direct question. “Did you get what you needed tonight? In bed?”
It comes out full of tender concern, a lover asking if I was satisfied. My heart speeds up. “I did. With you I feel…”
But I don’t know how to finish the sentence.
With him I just… feel .
He deserves an answer though, so I try again. “I don’t know what it is. It’s just really good.”
That hardly covers it. For now though, it’ll have to do.
“It’s great,” he says as he drops his hand from my face to smooth it over his pillow.
Then, to hit it once.
And maybe I do have one more thing to say. “You smack your pillows into submission.”
He smiles in the darkness of his room. “I do.” Then he comes in for a goodnight kiss, and the tenderness of it makes my toes curl.
But I can’t get used to that, no matter how good it feels.