4. Dante
DANTE
The bar noise drops to a comfortable hum around us.
Brady’s been nursing his third beer for the past forty minutes, which means he’s about done for the night.
I know his tells. He starts fidgeting with the label on his bottle, picking at the corner with his thumbnail until it peels back in a long strip.
He does it when he’s ready to bolt, but doesn’t want to be the first one to say it.
Cruz is leaning back in his chair across from me, arms folded over that massive chest, and he’s got this look on his face.
The kind that’s halfway between bored and entertained.
He’s been shooting me these glances all night, little flicks of those blue eyes, and every single time I catch him doing it, there’s this current that runs straight down my spine.
I take a long pull from my beer and set it down.
Brady drops his bottle onto the table with a thunk.
“Alright.” He stands up, stretching both arms over his head, his shirt riding up to flash that strip of brown skin above his waistband. “I’m out. Early session tomorrow.”
“Lightweight,” Cruz says, but he’s grinning.
“Some of us don’t recover like we’re twenty-one anymore, old man.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“My point stands.” Brady slaps Cruz’s shoulder, then points at me. “Don’t let this one talk you into shots.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say.
Brady grabs his jacket off the back of the chair and weaves between the tables toward the exit, nodding at Rocco behind the bar on his way out. The door swings shut behind him and the noise from the street cuts off clean.
Just me and Cruz.
I lean back, rolling my beer bottle between my palms. The bar’s gotten quieter in the last hour; most of the after-work crowd filtered out, leaving just the dedicated drinkers and a couple who look like they’re on a very bad first date.
The jukebox is doing something slow and a little melancholy in the corner.
Cruz is watching me.
He does it openly, no pretense, just those blue eyes steady on my face like he’s got all the time in the world and nowhere better to be.
The grin is still there, lazy and warm, but there’s an edge just under the surface that I’ve been feeling all evening.
Ever since he said what he said about Coach and the new girl—since he put that image in my head—I can’t shake it loose.
I’ve been half-hard in my jeans for the better part of an hour.
Cruz shifts in his chair. The movement is casual, but his eyes don’t leave me.
I’ve had maybe four beers. Enough that the soft filter drops away and I stop second-guessing the thing sitting right in front of me.
“Yo.” I set the bottle down. “You wanna go work out some frustration on my ass?”
The grin on Cruz’s face turns wicked. He tips his head to one side like he’s really considering it, dragging the moment out, and then he says,
“Fuck. I thought you’d never ask.”
The heat in his voice makes my dick twitch.
I’m already pushing back from the table.
We don’t say anything to Rocco, just drop enough cash on the table to cover the bill and tip, and walk out.
The night outside is warm for this time of year, the street lamps bleeding orange across the pavement, and the second the door closes behind us Cruz’s hand is on the back of my neck, fingers wrapping around loose and firm at the same time.
“Cab?” I ask.
“Too long.” His grip tightens slightly. “I know a spot.”
He steers me left down the block, away from the main street, and I let him because that hand on my neck feels like a brand and I’m not in any state to argue logistics.
We cut down a side street, the sound of the bar fading behind us, and then we’re at the edge of a small park tucked behind a solid wall of hedge that I’ve never noticed before. A little wrought iron gate stands open.
Cruz shoulders through it.
The park is nothing much. A curved path, a couple of benches, low light from a single lamppost near the entrance, and beyond that, darkness broken up by the shapes of trees.
The hedges on all sides are thick and high, easily eight feet, and the street noise is muffled to a murmur.
Empty. The whole thing is completely empty.
“See,” Cruz says. “Good spot.”
I barely get a look at it before he has me backed up against a wide stone column at the entrance to the path, his forearm braced against the stone above my head, and he looks down at me with that blue-eyed intensity that he usually keeps buried under the grin.
“Been thinking about this all night,” he says.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Me too.”
He kisses me.
It isn’t gentle. It’s this deep, hungry press of his mouth against mine, his free hand coming up to grip my jaw and tilt my head back exactly where he wants it, and I grab a fistful of his shirt at the waist and pull him in close.
He tastes like beer and something warmer underneath and I groan low in my throat because God, this man is big.
Every part of him is big—the hands, the chest, the way his body heat rolls off him in waves—and I feel it everywhere he touches.
We kiss until I’m dizzy with it, both of us pressing into each other, hips finding that slow grind that fades coherent thought into static. I can feel how hard he is through his jeans, thick and urgent against my thigh, and I know he can feel the same from me.
He pulls back just enough to drag his mouth along my jaw.
“Shit,” I say, and the word comes out rough. “I don’t have any lube on me.”
Cruz makes a sound that’s half laugh, half something much lower. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small bottle, holding it up between two fingers.
“I’ve got lube.” He pockets it again. “No condoms, though.”
I consider this for exactly half a second. “We’re clean. Both of us. You know the screening protocol ensures that.”
“Blood work, HIV, Hep B and C.” He nods.
“So?”
He drags his thumb along my lower lip, watching me.
“So I want to feel your ass bare around my cock,” he says. “That work for you?”
My whole body pulses. “That absolutely works for me.”
We’re pulling at each other’s jeans before the sentence finishes.
The park stays empty and quiet around us, just the sound of our breathing and the distant murmur of the city.
There’s something about being out here in the dark and the open air that makes everything sharper.
More urgent. Cruz palms the front of my boxer briefs, feeling me out, and the pressure makes me bite back a sound against his shoulder.
“Damn,” he says, appreciative.
“I know.” I grin against his neck.
He laughs, that chest-deep laugh, and then his hand pushes past the waistband and wraps around my dick and any amusement stops entirely.
We shove our jeans down around our thighs, both of us, and for a moment we’re just standing chest to chest in the shadow of that column, foreheads nearly touching, and Cruz gets his hand around both of us at once and starts to move.
The friction is obscene. We’re both thick, both heavy, and the drag of his cock against mine with his hand working us together draws a sound out of me I’d be embarrassed about in daylight.
His mouth finds mine again and we’re kissing slow and filthy now, no desperation left to burn through, just the deep rolling pleasure of it. He tightens his grip.
“Fuck,” I breathe into his mouth. “Yeah.”
“You like that?” His voice has dropped low.
“You know I like that.”
He laughs again, brushes his thumb over both our heads at once, and I genuinely lose time for a second.
But then his grip loosens and I make a noise of protest and he just says, low and certain,
“Bend over for me.”
My pulse spikes. I turn around, both hands finding that stone column in front of me, and I hear Cruz behind me shifting, getting himself ready. The cool night air hits my skin and then his big hands close on my hips and he’s pressing against me from behind, his chest warm against my back.
He reaches around me and hands me the bottle. “Get yourself started.”
I do. The lube is cool and I work myself open a little, one finger, two, and I’m not tight. I love this, have always loved this, don’t see a reason to be shy about it. When his fingers replace mine they slide in easy and deep as his other hand presses flat against my lower belly.
“There you go,” he says, close to my ear. “Open up.”
“I’m open.” My voice comes out hoarse.
“Yeah, you are.” He scissors his fingers slowly and I push back against him on instinct, impatient. He makes a disapproving sound. “Easy.”
“Cruz.” His name in my mouth is half warning and half plea.
“I hear you.” His fingers withdraw and I hear the quiet slick of him coating himself, and then the pressure of him starts at my entrance and God, he is every bit as thick as I thought he would be.
He pushes in slow, giving me time to breathe through it, and my grip on the column tightens until my knuckles ache.
We’ve danced around scratching this itch long enough that I thought I might start having wet dreams like some fucking teenager.
“Shit,” I grit out. “Shit, you’re big.”
“I know.” No apology in it. Just fact. His hands are firm on my hips, holding me exactly where he wants me, and he keeps pushing until I feel the press of his hips against my ass and there’s nothing left to take.
He freezes for a breath. Just holds there, buried in me, and I can feel his heartbeat.
“Good?” he asks.
“So good,” I tell him. “Fuck me.”
It starts with easy, deep rolling strokes that I feel in my gut, and my head drops forward and I breathe through it, adjusting to the stretch and the weight of him.
The column is cold under my palms and the night air is warm on my skin and somewhere on the other side of those hedges the city keeps going, people walking by without any idea that just here, behind the leaves and the dark, Cruz has me pinned against stone and is taking me apart one impressive inch at a time.
His rhythm builds.
“That’s it,” he says, low, hands dragging back to grip my hips tighter. “You take me so well.”
“Yeah.” The word barely makes it out.
“You feel incredible.” He drops his head to the back of my neck. “Bare like this.” He pushes in deep on the last word for emphasis.
My hips jerk back to meet him. I stop holding still and start moving with him, rolling back into every thrust, finding the rhythm and letting it build between us, hot and filthy and absolutely perfect.
One of his hands comes around to rest at my throat, not squeezing, just holding, and I turn my head enough to catch his mouth in a sideways kiss that’s more teeth than anything.
“Harder,” I tell him against his lips.
He obliges.
The sounds we’re making are indecent and I don’t care, nobody’s here, nobody’s watching, just the empty park and the thick hedge with a single lamppost throwing its orange light nowhere near us.
Cruz is breathing hard now, his chest heaving against my back, his grip on my hip tight enough to bruise and I want the bruise. I want to feel it tomorrow at training and know exactly who put it there.
“Close,” he gets out. Gritted, tight, like the word cost him something.
“With you,” I tell him. “Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t stop.
He fucks me through it, both of us chasing it down, and when I come it hits hard and sudden, white behind my eyes, I clench up around him.
I hear him make a sound that I feel in my spine.
He buries himself deep and stays there, shuddering.
I feel the heat of him fill me and the knowledge of it sends a second wave rolling through me that I wasn’t prepared for.
We stay like that for a long moment.
His forehead drops to my shoulder. His hands loosen from bruise-tight to something almost gentle.
“Damn,” he says.
“Yeah.” I’m breathing hard. “Damn.”
We clean up as best we can with a packet of tissues Cruz produces from the same jacket pocket that apparently holds everything useful in the world.
We pull our jeans up and stand in the park’s half-darkness looking at each other.
Cruz’s hair is a mess. His grin is back but different now—softer, less performative, more real.
“Wouldn’t mind doing that again,” he says.
I mirror the grin back at him. “That’s funny. Me neither.”
He reaches over and straightens the collar of my jacket, a simple gesture that somehow feels intimate now, and I let him do it.
“Tomorrow,” I say, “we have to pretend to be normal people.”
“We are normal people.”
“You know what I mean.”
He laughs, and the sound of it fills the little park, warm and uncomplicated. He slings his arm around my shoulders and steers me back toward the gate.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll call the cab now.”