Chapter 35
I hadn't slept. The flight was barely ninety minutes, but I'd tried anyway, and every time I closed my eyes I saw Red's face on my phone screen. So I stayed awake instead, watching the dark landscape scroll by below.
The Las Vegas airport was nearly empty at this hour. A few red-eye travelers shuffled toward baggage claim, and I clocked exits and security cameras out of habit before making myself stop. I'd packed light, just a carry on, because I hadn't been thinking about clothes when I booked the flight.
Red was waiting outside arrivals.
He was leaning against his truck, arms crossed, wearing a hoodie I'd stolen and returned at least three times over the years. The sky was still dark, but the airport lights caught the copper in his hair, and when he saw me come through the doors, he straightened up like I'd pulled him on a string.
I walked toward him. He walked toward me. And then we were standing in front of each other in the pickup lane at five in the morning, and I didn't know what to say.
He had dark circles under his eyes and stubble coming in along his jaw. He'd played a full game last night, done a media scrum, and probably hadn't slept either. But he was here, at the airport, at five in the morning, because I'd told him I was coming.
"You didn't have to pick me up," I said. "I could have gotten an Uber."
"Shut up."
He pulled me into his chest and held on.
I dropped my bag and wrapped my arms around him. He smelled like soap and coffee, and I pressed my face into his shoulder and breathed. His heart was beating too fast under my ear. So was mine.
We stood there for a long time. Long enough that a car honked at us to move, long enough that the sky started to lighten at the edges.
Red's hand came up to cup the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, and I thought about all the times we'd done this in private.
Hotel rooms with the curtains drawn. His apartment with the lights off.
My place in Colorado Springs, where no one could see.
This was a public sidewalk. There were security cameras and strangers walking past with their luggage.
Red kissed me anyway.
It was brief, just a press of his mouth against mine, but it was the first time he'd ever done that where someone might see. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.
"I love you," I said into his shoulder. I'd said it on the phone, but I needed to say it again with my body against his.
"I know." His voice was rough. "I love you too."
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were red-rimmed, tired, and so open it almost hurt to see.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
The drive to Red's place took twenty minutes. I spent most of it with my hand on his thigh, the muscle tensing under my palm every time I shifted my grip.
"You're distracting me," he said.
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're touching me."
"I'm allowed to touch you now." I slid my hand higher. "You said so."
He caught my wrist before I could go any further. "I'm driving."
"So pull over."
He shot me a look, half warning and half want, and I grinned at him because I could.
Red's house was in a quiet neighborhood, the kind of place where people had lawns and garages and lives that made sense. He pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, and for a moment we just sat there in the dark cab.
"I can't believe you're here," he said.
"I told you I was coming."
"I still can't believe it."
I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed across the center console into his lap. It was graceless and awkward, my knee hitting the steering wheel, his hands grabbing my hips to steady me. But then I was straddling him in the driver's seat with my back against the dashboard, and his face was right there.
I kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. I could have him now. He was right here, warm and solid beneath me, and I was done being careful.
I fisted my hand in his hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. He made a sound low in his chest, and I bit down on the tendon of his neck hard enough to leave a mark. His hips jerked up against me and I ground down, letting him feel how hard I already was.
"Inside," he managed. "We should—"
"Not yet."
I rolled my hips against his and he grabbed my back, trying to pull me closer.
His hands were scrambling, uncoordinated, and I liked him like this.
I'd spent years watching him command a locker room, a press conference, and a defensive zone with equal ease.
This was Red with all of that stripped away.
We stayed in the truck until the windows fogged and my thighs were burning from the angle and Red was shaking underneath me.
I had one hand in his hair and the other pressed flat against his chest, his heart hammering against my palm.
He was hard against my ass, straining against his sweatpants, and every time I shifted my weight he made a desperate sound.
"Joel," he whined. "Please take me inside." He swallowed hard. "I need you. In a bed. I can't—I need—"
I pulled back and looked at him. Pupils blown, lips swollen, throat already starting to bruise where I'd bitten him. He was wrecked, and I'd barely started.
"Okay," I said. "Let's go."
I climbed off him and got out of the truck. He sat there for a second, dazed, before he managed to open his door. His legs were unsteady when he stood.
I grabbed my bag from the back seat and followed him to the front door, and the moment he got it open I shoved him inside and pinned him against the wall.
"Call me Sparkles."
Red laughed, breathless, pinned between my body and the wall. "What?"
"You heard me." I cupped him through his jeans and his eyes lost focus. "You've been calling me that for years. So say it."
"Joel—"
"That's not my name." I squeezed him through his jeans. "Try again."
He was flushed all the way down to his collar, trying to get friction I wasn't giving him. I waited. I'd been patient for six years. I could be patient now.
"Sparkles," he said. It came out choked. "Please, Sparkles, I need—"
"Better."
I kissed him hard and started walking him backward. We hit a doorframe, a corner, something that crashed to the floor. I didn't care. Red's hands were pulling at my shirt, and I was biting his lip, and we were both breathing too hard to navigate properly.
His bedroom was at the end of the hall, a king-sized bed with rumpled sheets and morning light filtering through the curtains. I shoved him down onto the mattress and stood over him, pulling my shirt over my head.
"Strip," I said.
He scrambled to comply, kicking off his pants and boxers while I unbuckled my belt. By the time I had my jeans off, he was naked on the bed, propped up on his elbows, watching me with dark eyes.
"Turn over."
He turned onto his stomach without hesitation, and I stood there for a moment just looking at the freckles on his shoulders, the curve of his spine, the roundness of his ass.
I climbed onto the bed and straddled his thighs, running my hands up his back. He shivered under my touch.
"All the things I wanted to do to you," I said. I dragged my nails down his spine, light enough to tease, and he arched into it. "All the ways I wanted to take you apart."
"So do it." His voice was muffled against the pillow. "I'm right here."
I leaned down and kissed the back of his neck, then bit down on the muscle where his shoulder met his throat. He groaned and ground his hips into the mattress, trying to get friction, and I pressed my weight down to pin him flat.
"Stay still."
He went still.
I kissed my way down his spine, taking my time. His skin was hot and flushed. By the time I reached the small of his back, he was trembling.
"Joel," he breathed. "Please."
"Please what?" I pressed my thumbs into the dimples above his ass and he made a broken sound.
"Your mouth." He turned his head, looking at me over his shoulder. "I want your mouth on me."
"Where?"
He squeezed his eyes shut. "You know where."
"Say it."
"I want you to eat me out." The words came out rough, almost a whisper. "Please. I've been thinking about it for so long, I need—"
I grabbed his hips and pulled them up, forcing his weight onto his knees. He scrambled to brace himself on his forearms, ass in the air, and I spread him open with both hands.
I leaned in close enough that my breath ghosted across his pink hole. Then I licked a stripe from his balls to his tailbone, slow and wet, and he keened. His whole body jerked like I'd run a current through him, and I gripped his hips hard enough to leave bruises and did it again.
He tasted like soap and skin and something underneath that was just him, and I pressed my tongue flat against his hole and just held it there, letting him feel the heat and the pressure.
He was making sounds I'd never heard from him before, desperate and raw, his hips trying to push back against my face.
"More," he gasped. "Please, I need more—"
I gave him more. I licked into him, working the tight ring of muscle until it started to give under my tongue. He was so responsive, every flick making him shake, every press making him moan. I fucked him with my tongue and he fell apart under me, his thighs trembling so hard I had to hold him up.
"Oh god," he breathed. "Oh fuck, that's—right there, right there—"
I sealed my mouth over his hole and sucked, and he shouted into the pillow. His hands were fisting in the sheets, his back arching, his cock hanging heavy and untouched between his legs. He was so hard it looked painful.
I slid a finger into him alongside my tongue. He was wet from my spit, loose enough to take it easily, and I crooked it forward, searching for that spot inside him. I knew the moment I found it because his whole body seized up and he made a sound that went straight to my cock.
"Fuck," he choked. "Fuck, Joel, I'm gonna—"
I pulled back.
"No." His voice cracked on the word. "No, please, don't stop. I was so close—"
"You'll come when I tell you to."