Page 19 of Studs Up
His wide eyes stared back at me for a split second. Fear, pure and plain fear, spread across his face. It left a rotten stone in my gut. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
The door banged again.
“Monroe, let’s go!” Alex shouted through the door.
“Oh my god,” Holden breathed. “Yeah, coming.” He grabbed his bag and his carry on and left. He opened the door and slammed it shut, leaving me frozen.
What the fuck just happened?
Holden Monroe kissed me, and now my blood was too hot for my own veins. And there was a burning ache in my chest.
Looking down, I found my cock had pitched a six-man tent.
“Well, fuck.”
…
Marcel dropped down in the seat next to me.
“Long fucking camp,” he said. I ignored him. “You and Monroe, that must have been a fucking disaster.”
The heat of Holden’s lips was still on mine, and I tried to make sense of it. What I needed was to be alone. I had spent every minute of the last two weeks with the most infuriating man on the planet, and now Marcel wanted to be a chatty Betty.
The plane started to taxi to the runway. I was finally going home, which was good. I needed to get my head on straight.
“Monroe, such an arrogant dick,” Marcel said. “I’d love to put him in his place.”
Like Marcel could. Even at his worst, Monroe could dance circles around Marcel.
I turned my head to him so he could see exactly how much I wanted to have this conversation.
“Fine,” he shrugged. It took a minute for him to settle in with his headphones and phone.
He didn’t speak for the rest of the flight, letting me get lost in my head.
Holden floated around in my mind. He had a tight body that was wound up, but when he kissed me and I held him between my hands, he relaxed. I felt him melt into me, fitting perfectly. There was a sense of unfulfillment. It hadn’t been enough. I wanted more. More of his kiss, and his body, and that little moan.
God, I wanted to hear that again in a way that I had never wanted anything before. The trophies were great. But they didn’t make me tingle, and my heart pound like it was filling with blood for the first time.
My cock thickened with the memory of him being so close. Was that what it was? Sexual tension?
And what exactly did that mean for me? A man had never turned me on, but then again, I barely noticed women either.
Quite frankly, it was all irrelevant. It was a distraction, and I was very good at not having distractions. Relationships and girlfriends were a distraction. I didn’t need one, and I didn’t want one.
Monroe’s kiss was all distraction. It was just a kiss. Nothing more. So what if he was a man? It didn’t matter. I swear that it didn’t matter, and I stopped thinking about it.
So, I did what I always did when it came to a distraction. I ignored it.
Preseason was in Arizona, and I hated Arizona. There was no rain, no mountains, and no fucking water. It was red. Everywhere I looked was red rock, red dust, red, red, red. Fucking hated it.
I could not understand anyone who looked across the desolate dead landscape and said, ah, look at that beautiful view. Look at the beautiful what? There was nothing there.
Three weeks spent in the arid desert was not enough of a distraction. Practice, training, and games weren’t enough to wipe the memory of his lips kissing mine. Not even the sun’s heat could burn away the memory of his touch and the way my blood sang when he moaned. I dreamed of it on repeat and woke with a hard leaking cock that demanded attention.
I gave it the attention it wanted, and when I orgasmed, it was forceful, and Holden was the only thing on my mind.
Landing in Seattle was a relief, mostly because it was gray and raining exactly how it should be. The second I got home, I dropped my luggage, went straight to the roof, and lay on the lounger in the rain to rehydrate like a shriveled lizard. In the cold rain, I watched the steam rising from my skin because that fucking kiss still had me in a tight, unbreakable grip.
