Page 175 of The Lies We Play

I say, “What?”

Very quietly, he says, “Let me have you today.”

I know what he means.

My body knows before my head finishes catching up.

We have done this before. He has had me. I have had him. We have learned the architecture of each other’s bodies over a year and a half, in the patient way two men who love each other learn anything that matters—by paying attention, asking, listening, and asking again. There are nights when one of us tops, nights when the other does, and nights when it changes because one look across a room makes every plan irrelevant.

“Today,” I say.

“Today.”

“What’s today?”

His gaze drops to my mouth, then returns back to my eyes. “You won the Cup. You haven’t put your body down in eight weeks. You haven’t been allowed to live inside it without someone measuring, taping, icing, scanning, or hitting it. I want you to put it down.” His voice drops. . “I want to do the work for both of us. I want you to take what I have.”

I look at him.

There are things I should say. Are you sure? What about you? Is this because I won?

None of them make it out.

“Yes,” I say.

His breath leaves him.

Just once.

Then he kisses me.

Slowly.

Not like last night, when we came through the door half drunk on champagne and noise and relief, when he shoved me against the wall and I laughed into his mouth because I had the Cup in my apartment for twelve minutes and still wanted him more.

This kiss is different.

This is Halston taking inventory with his mouth. My lower lip. The corner of my jaw. The cut on the inside of my cheek from the second period. He kisses me like he’s checking for damage and making a promise to every part of me he finds.

I try to take over.

Of course I do.

My hand comes up to his neck, my thumb under his jaw, and I push into the kiss with enough heat to turn it into something I understand. Want. Friction. A way to make my body louder than my feelings.

Halston pulls back an inch.

“Creed.”

I freeze.

His eyes hold mine.

“You’re going to lie here.”

The command should irritate me.

Instead, it goes through me low and hot.