10. CHAPTER TEN #2
His eyes burn into mine over my palm, chest rising quickly between us, and I lower my head until my mouth is beside his ear.
“Stop fucking moving,” I breathe. “He’s not coming in.”
Connor goes still, but the glare only gets worse.
I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek.
This is fucking insane.
Marcus is ten feet away while I’ve got his little brother trapped against the shower wall with one hand over his mouth, the other around his hip, whispering into his ear that he needs to stop moving.
There is absolutely no version of this that gets better if that door opens.
The door rattles against my back, and Connor jolts beneath me, knocking into my chest before my hand at his hip presses him firmly back against the tile.
“Thought you already left?” Marcus calls from the other side.
I lower my forehead to the tile beside Connor’s head and breathe slowly through my nose, feeling the door shift against my back when Marcus tries it again.
“I got caught up.”
I turn my head as I say it and find Connor already looking at me, those blue eyes fixed on mine from barely inches away.
For once, neither of us looks away.
His breath moves warm against my palm, each exhale slipping between my fingers while his chest rises against mine, the front of my hoodie soft where our bodies are pressed together.
He’s still tense beneath my hand, but he isn’t fighting me anymore, and the longer he looks at me, the less attention I have left for the door at my back or Marcus standing on the other side of it.
Connor swallows, his lips moving against the centre of my palm, and my eyes drop straight to his mouth.
His gaze follows mine, settling on my lips, and for one long second I stay there with my hand over his mouth and his body trapped beneath mine, watching his eyes darken as the silence stretches between us.
Marcus laughs outside.
The sound hits me like cold water, and I tear my gaze away, turning towards the door while my teeth close around my lip ring.
The door shifts against my back again before Marcus’s palm lands heavily against it, the frame creaking as he finally pushes himself upright.
“Well, hurry up. We’re heading out for food.”
His footsteps disappear into the noise of the locker room before I can answer, his voice swallowed by someone else shouting across the benches.
Connor sags against me.
The tension holding him rigid against the tile gives all at once, his shoulders dropping as a long breath spills warm across my palm, and some answering release goes through me with it. I let my forehead fall against his shoulder, breathing out into the soft fabric of my hoodie.
“Fuck.”
I stay there longer than I need to, forehead pressed to him while footsteps cross the locker room outside and someone bangs a locker shut.
Then Connor breathes against my hand.
My hand.
Still covering his fucking mouth.
I lift my head and find him looking at me, blue eyes moving over my face while neither of us says a word. My palm is warm from his breath when I finally peel it away, fingers grazing his cheek before my hand falls between us.
There’s no hand on the other side of the door anymore, no Marcus waiting to catch us, nothing keeping me crowded into Connor’s space when all I have to do is reach behind me, lift the latch and walk the fuck out.
My eyes drop to where my hoodie has ridden up between us, exposing a strip of Connor’s stomach above the dark band of his boxers. My hand is still curved around his hip, thumb resting close enough to bare skin that one careless movement would put it there.
The next breath drags rough up my throat.
My thumb sweeps over the fabric, and when I drag my eyes back up, Connor is already staring at me.
Those blue eyes widen.
I barely have time to straighten before both his hands slam into my chest, sending me shoulder-first into the cubicle door with the latch cracking against the frame behind me.
“What the fuck, Reid?”
I shove myself upright and roll the sting from my shoulder, irritation flaring hot enough to burn straight through everything else.
Connor’s chest rises unevenly between us, blue eyes burning into mine.
“Stop touching me.”
“You’re fucking welcome.”
I wrench the cubicle open and walk out before the rest of what I want to say follows it, but Connor is hot on my heels.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” he snaps. “I don’t want it.”
My feet stop.
For one ugly second, I’ve got nothing. No smartass response waiting on my tongue, no easy comeback to throw at him, just those four words sitting there while I turn and lean my shoulder against the lockers.
The smirk comes easier than anything else, familiar enough that I can hold it there while Connor stares at me.
“Noted.”
He stops a few feet away, still breathing too quickly, and whatever he finds when he looks at me has his hands closing at his sides. His mouth opens, but I’ve got fuck all left to give him now, so I lift my brows and wait.
He turns, shoving out the door, and it slams behind him.
I keep smiling at the empty space he leaves behind until my cheeks start to ache.
“What the fuck?”
I push away from the lockers and drop onto the bench, scrubbing both hands over my face and down my jaw while the last ten minutes refuse to fuck off with him.
I scrub harder over my jaw.
Connor walked out wet and flushed in my hoodie, smelling like my body wash, and I’d barely managed to keep my eyes off him before I had him backed against the tile with his breath hot against my palm and his eyes on my mouth.
Marcus’s little brother.
Fucking Connor.
I tip my head back against the locker and crack my skull against the metal.
Pain blooms across the back of my head, clean and uncomplicated enough that I welcome it.
“Fuck.”