Chapter 8 #3
Patrick’s back hit the counter, and Asher crowded in after him, both hands shoving up under his shirt to the warm muscle of his back.
Patrick made a low, rough sound and gave up whatever he’d been holding on to all night.
His hands closed around Asher’s hips and hauled him in until they were flush.
Asher felt how hard Patrick already was against him and briefly forgot his own name.
“You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to get my hands on you?” Asher got it out against Patrick’s mouth, barely.
“Since the gala.” Patrick’s voice was already wrecked. “You’re not the only one who’s been dying.”
Asher worked a thigh between Patrick’s and rolled his hips, slow and dirty. Patrick’s head dropped back against the cabinet on a sound Asher would be hearing for a week.
“There he is.” Asher dragged his mouth down the cords of Patrick’s throat, grinning against the skin. “Knew you were loud under all that quiet.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.” He got a hand between them and palmed Patrick through his jeans, felt his whole body jerk. “Fuck, you feel that? That’s all you. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks.”
Patrick swore into his hair and pushed up into his hand, then went for Asher’s fly with fingers that weren’t quite working. “Asher. I need—”
“I know. I’ve got you.” Asher’s vision quit on him when Patrick finally got him open. “Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it.”
“You. Just don’t stop.” His voice was barely there. “Don’t you dare stop.”
The careful, locked-down man Asher had spent two months trying to reach was gone. This was the rest of him, hard and shaking, past holding anything back.
He said it again, low against Asher’s temple, the same three words of French he’d let slip on the lakefront, torn loose this time.
“Tell me what it means,” Asher said, mouth at his jaw, Patrick’s belt half undone in his fist.
“Someday.” It was barely a voice at all, his hips chasing Asher’s hand.
And then Asher’s brain, the worst possible organ at the worst possible time, reminded him what day it was.
He made himself stop. It was about the hardest thing he’d ever done with his clothes still on, his hand still down Patrick’s jeans, Patrick still hard against his palm. Every cell in his body filed a complaint.
“Wait.” He kept his forehead against Patrick’s, both of them breathing hard. “I can’t. I’ve got practice at six and the opener’s this week, and I cannot show up wrecked.”
“I know.” Patrick’s voice was shot. His hands didn’t move off Asher’s hips.
“I hate this. For the record.”
“Noted.” Patrick didn’t look any readier to let go than Asher was.
So Asher peeled himself off, one inch at a time, the worst kind of slow.
He got his fly done up with hands that weren’t cooperating and watched Patrick do the same.
They were both aching, both a mess, both grinning a little at how stupid it was to want something this badly and walk away from it on purpose.
Patrick walked him to the door. They stood in the entryway facing each other, Asher’s jacket in his hand.
“I’d ask you to come to a game,” Asher said, “but I already know what you’d have to say.”
“We could clinch this week.” Patrick’s jaw worked. “After that, it’s playoffs.”
“I know.” Asher wasn’t going to make him stand in his own doorway and turn Asher down. “Forget I asked.”
“I’m not going to forget it,” Patrick said in a low, almost rough voice. “I’d be there if I could. You know that.”
“I know.” And he did, which was the whole problem. Patrick had a playoff run starting. Asher had a full season in front of him and a call-up he was pretending not to chase. The timing of the two of them was a joke.
“So, when do I see you again?” He kept it light. It didn’t come out light.
“I don’t know.” Patrick didn’t dress it up. “Soon as I can. I can’t tell you when that is.”
“Yeah.” Asher pulled his jacket on. “Soon as you can.”
“Goodnight, Asher.”
“Goodnight.”
Asher stepped into the hall and the door shut behind him. He stood there a second with his hand on the back of his neck, not pressing the elevator button, his pulse still nowhere near its normal rate.
He drove home with the windows cracked despite the cold, his mouth still warm and his hands still remembering the heat of Patrick under his shirt. An hour in, the high wore off, and he started working the problem instead.
The Fireflies opened in four days. After that it was a game most nights until September, a Monday off if he got lucky, half of every month in some other city.
Patrick had two weeks of regular season left, games every other day, then a playoff run that wouldn’t turn him loose until summer.
He went through the schedules, looking for a day they could both spare.
There weren’t many. The best case was a stray Monday that lined up with one of Patrick’s nights off, with Asher home instead of on a road trip, with everything breaking right at once.
He didn’t have an answer for when. What he had was four days until the season swallowed him whole, a man he could still taste, and the slow, sinking understanding that wanting Patrick and finding time for him were going to be two separate fights.
He pressed the gas a little harder. It didn’t help. Nothing between here and September would make this any easier.