Page 44 of Offensive Edge
“And we would have pretended to be just friends so we could share a dorm room.”
“What if we broke up while living together?”
“We never would have.” Theo was so certain that Rowan couldn’t help it anymore. He inched closer, touching the tips of his fingers to Theo’s cheek before he leaned in the rest of the way to kiss him.
The initial press of lips was sweet, soft, chaste. But as soon as they had that one moment of revisiting their innocence, Theo’s arm wrapped around Rowan’s back to pull him close, and when their lips met again, it was full of passion.
Rowan had forgotten what kissing felt like. What a sad prospect. But it was like getting back on the ice after he hadn’t skated in a while. He didn’t have to worry about balance. He didn’t have to worry about his stride. It was all muscle memory. The tip of his tongue found the gap in Theo’s teeth, and Theo had to struggle not to smile.
A dim awareness that Theo must have gotten better at this after eight years of kissing other people hung over him.
He wondered if Theo thought he was bad at it, and then his thoughts got caught in a tangle.
“Hey, was that okay?” Theo asked, pulling back when Rowan’s lips stopped engaging.
“Yeah. Like, holy shit, yeah. I just. You know when you start thinking and you can’t stop?”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Am I bad at this now?”
“At kissing? No, Ro, you’re not bad at kissing.”
“Is this okay? Can we keep doing this?” Rowan felt like he was holding a grenade when he was around Theo, and he didn’t know if the pin had been pulled or not. Was he safe, or was an explosion imminent?
Theo gave him a smile and pushed Rowan onto his back. “I’d really like to keep doing this.”
“You don’t hate me anymore?”
“I never hated you. I was heartbroken, and embarrassed, and frustrated. I never stopped loving you.”
Rowan wasn’t sure if that was an actual admission of love. If he said “I love you too,” would that be awkward? “Ditto,” is what he went with, and Theo shifted his weight onto Rowan’s body. Rowan was holding on to him like he was going to be pulled out to sea if Rowan didn’t have a tight enough grip, his fingertips biting into Theo’s skin.
“How do you feel about breaking that dry spell? Remind your dick what another human being feels like?”
Rowan was getting hard in his pajamas, and there was no hiding it from Theo with the way their bodies were pressed up against one another.
“Yeah. I want that. I want you,” Rowan said. It was the truest thing he could think to say. “I haven’t stopped thinking about this since that night after my hatty.”
“Fuck, I was so horny for you that I was dizzy for it that night. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It felt so good. Shut up.”
“Felt bad to not get to hold you after. Kiss you.”
Theo could be so fucking soft. And it wasn’t like Rowan didn’t want those things. He just was bad at asking for them, like Theo could.
“You can kiss me now,” Rowan said.
He had been to the playoffs once in his eight years in the league, and in that moment, on the precipice of the postseason, not a single one of his brain cells was thinking about his hockey career. All he could think about was Theo.
CHAPTER23
THEO
Theo never thoughthe would feel Rowan’s erection pressing against him again—weird hallway dry hump notwithstanding—but here he was, in a hotel bed, with Rowan’s trembling body under his.
What they were doing felt built on shaky ground to begin with. But he also knew that further under that was a foundation that was rock solid.
