CHAPTER NINE HARDEST AND FASTEST #3
The mirrored surface reflected them side by side: Tyler lean and controlled, Brock broad and scarred, both wearing little enough that every physical response remained clear.
One minute passed.
“Easy,” Tyler said.
“You’re shaking.”
“Excitement.”
Two minutes.
Shoulders burned. Thighs tightened. Brock’s breath grew louder. Tyler watched sweat travel from his chest into the dark hair below.
Brock watched Tyler watching.
“Eyes forward,” he said.
“Mirror is forward.”
Three minutes.
Tyler’s medicine ball drifted. He corrected. Brock adjusted his stance, placing one foot closer to Tyler’s.
Their knees touched.
The contact was not sexual.
Their bodies made it so.
Tyler’s arousal tightened further against black fabric. Brock’s response rose beneath gray. The mirrored wall offered every angle, every involuntary movement, every failed attempt at control.
“Move your knee,” Tyler said.
“You move.”
“You initiated.”
“Balance.”
Four minutes.
The medicine balls became impossible. Tyler lowered his by one inch. Brock did the same.
Their shoulders pressed together.
Neither stood.
“This is a tie,” Tyler said.
“Not until somebody quits.”
“We could change the event.”
“To?”
Tyler dropped the ball.
It struck the mat and rolled away.
Brock laughed in victory, but Tyler turned, still crouched, and pushed him sideways. Brock’s ball fell. They went down together.
The deciding round collapsed into wrestling.
Tyler caught Brock’s shoulders. Brock gripped Tyler’s waist. They rolled across the mat, endurance forgotten, each trying to claim position and neither able to ignore the arousal pressing between them.
“You dropped first,” Brock said.
“Changed events.”
“Without agreement.”
“Captain’s discretion.”
Brock pinned him. Tyler kissed him.
The rule against intentional sexual contact ended at once.
Brock answered with full force, one hand behind Tyler’s head and the other holding his hip. Tyler reversed them, straddled the larger man, and dragged his mouth along Brock’s jaw.
“Who won?” Brock asked.
“First round, me.”
“Second, me.”
“Third disqualified.”
Brock lifted Tyler to his feet. “Steam room.”
“Command?”
“Suggestion.”
Tyler followed.
Steam swallowed them inside the tiled room. They removed sweat-soaked training clothes and left them outside the door. Naked, heated, and still carrying the intensity of competition, they faced each other beneath soft white light.
No score separated them.
Tyler put Brock against the tile. Brock turned them. Tyler trapped both of Brock’s wrists overhead; Brock broke the hold and lifted him onto the bench. Control passed with each movement, not seized permanently but offered, answered, and returned.
Their bodies remained visibly aroused, every reaction welcomed rather than used as evidence.
For several minutes, they slowed enough to see each other clearly through steam. Tyler followed the dark line of hair down Brock’s chest with one finger. Brock traced the muscles of Tyler’s abdomen, then the small scars at his hips from years of skates, boards, and surgical repairs.
“You know what the competition proves?” Tyler asked.
“That you cheat at course design.”
“That whatever one of us does, the other answers.”
Brock’s hand settled over Tyler’s heart. “That frighten you?”
“Less than it used to.”
“Why?”
Tyler placed his palm over Brock’s. “Because matching me isn’t the same as taking something away.”
Brock brought their foreheads together. Steam collected in his hair and along his eyelashes. “Neither is staying.”
The word carried the contract question neither had discussed since the doctor’s report.
Tyler kissed him before fear could turn it into an argument. This time the kiss did not decide control. Brock began it, Tyler deepened it, and both ended it when breath became difficult.
“Suite,” Tyler said.
Brock smiled. “Shared suggestion?”
“Unanimous.”
When the heat became too much, they crossed the private hallway wrapped in hotel towels and returned to the suite through the service entrance.
The ledger remained open on the desk.
Tyler looked at the tied score.
Brock came behind him and placed both hands at his waist. “Final night.”
“No winner.”
“Then no control.”
Tyler turned inside his arms. “Shared control.”
The suite became the final event.
There were no rounds. Tyler chose the first pace. Brock changed it. Brock used strength; Tyler answered with balance and speed. They moved from the window to the bed, from competition to laughter, from laughter to an intimacy too sustained for either man to perform.
By the time city light began to fade toward dawn, both were exhausted and neither had declared victory.
The connecting door to Tyler’s unused room remained open. His bed there was untouched, his suitcase still standing beside it. Brock looked through the doorway while Tyler pulled the sheet over them.
“You paid for a very expensive luggage closet,” Brock said.
“League paid.”
“Still wasteful.”
“I needed options.”
“And?”
Tyler rested his chin on Brock’s chest. “I chose.”
The word did not mean the suite. Brock understood. His arms closed more securely around Tyler.
Outside, delivery trucks moved along the lakefront and the city prepared for another public day. Inside, the hardest shot and fastest skater lay too tired to compete, each man trusting the other with the unmeasured strength of staying still.
Tyler lay across Brock’s chest beneath a twisted sheet. Their trophies stood side by side on the desk.
“Hardest,” Tyler said, touching Brock’s sternum.
“Fastest,” Brock answered, tracing Tyler’s spine.
“Still tied.”
“You hate ties.”
Tyler looked toward the ledger. Then he closed his eyes and settled more fully into Brock’s hold.
“I’m developing range.”
Brock kissed his hair.
For once, equal points felt less like a stalemate than a promise neither could keep.
Neither man wrote down the result.