Page 12 of Filled

“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.