The Nature of the Game (Stick Side Book 2), page 13
There was certainly a need now. Lots of it. Most of it centered in his pants.
“You . . .” Dan’s gaze swept Ash from the top of his brown-haired head to his size thirteen feet. It was an assessing sweep, no hint of heat, but it still made Ash’s blood sing. “Guys who look like you aren’t . . .”
Hands on his hips, Ash cocked his head. “Pretty sure that’s a stereotype. That guys who look like me can’t be gay, or bi, or whatever.”
“You’re right.” Dan rubbed his forehead. “You’re totally right. That was dumb. I’m sorry. I’m sorry also for what I said. Before.”
“Sorry, huh? Does that mean you don’t want to kiss me?”
“I . . .” Dan’s gaze landed on Ash’s mouth.
Ash raised an eyebrow.
Dan blushed.
It was a good look on him.
Ash took a step toward him, but Dan stiffened. What was going on in that head of his? Was he embarrassed by what he’d said? Surprised that Ash felt the same way? Freaking out that he’d laid it all out there in the first place?
All of the above. Definitely.
Ash might freak out later himself. Knowing he was bisexual was one thing. Acting on his attraction to men—to Dan—after spending his adolescent years in locker rooms where the words gay and fag and homo were used as insults by clueless teens? It was like getting used to a new coach after playing for the same one for years. Like climbing the Himalayas after practicing solely in Yosemite.
It’d take practice. Lots of practice. Lots of practice kissing Dan.
He was so on board with that.
Dan was no longer looking like the top of his head was about to fly off. Ash chanced another step closer, and Dan watched him, not moving, not even blinking.
Was he breathing? Ash certainly wasn’t.
It was Dan who closed the distance between them, tentatively, hands curling around Ash’s upper arms. Ash snaked his arms around Dan’s waist, bringing them chest-to-chest and lifting Dan up onto his tippy toes, making Dan’s breathing hitch and his hands clamp onto Ash.
Holding a man was different than holding a woman. Dan was harder, sturdier, curved in different places. But it was nice not to have to watch his own strength for once. Dan looked like he could take a pounding.
Fuck. When had he gone from kissing Dan to pounding him?
Now that his brain had gone there, it was impossible to rein it in, and he kept picturing Dan on his back underneath him, head thrown back against the pillow, mouth open in an O of ecstasy, sweat dampened curls clinging to his forehead.
Jesus. The air was sucked out of the room, and yes, that was his dick thickening in his pants, right up against Dan’s thigh. There was no way Dan could miss it.
And he certainly didn’t. Gasping, his gaze snapped to Ash’s, eyes dark and wide. His hands came up to Ash’s face. “You do want to kiss me,” he breathed.
“Yes. Yes, I really, really do.”
Dan reared up, nuzzling Ash’s face with his nose, breathing him in. Ash returned the gesture, arms banding iron-like around Dan as he inhaled. Dan smelled mostly of soap and a little bit of aftershave, scents Ash had never been turned on by before. But on Dan, it made him want to pull him even closer.
Ash pressed a tiny kiss to Dan’s cheekbone, the skin warm and soft. “I’ve never kissed a guy before.”
“Me neither.” Dan pulled back, just a bit, and smiled quietly at Ash. “Hi.”
Something soft and warm tumbled in Ash’s chest. “Hi.”
He leaned in and—
A key in the lock, then the door being thrown open, and a loud voice proclaiming, “It smells great in here! I hope you left me some of whatever that is.”
Huffing a frustrated breath, Ash’s hands clenched on Dan’s hips. “Are you kidding me? Way to suck the fun out of the evening, Dad.”
“What was that?” his dad called from the front, where he was no doubt removing his work boots.
“Nothing,” Ash called back.
Dan’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, and he fell forward into Ash, laying his forehead on Ash’s shoulder.
“I’m glad one of us is finding it funny,” Ash grumbled, pressing a quick kiss to the top of Dan’s head. “Parents have the worst timing.”
Footsteps came closer, and with a final squeeze, Ash stepped back from Dan. Nothing like a parent to kill an erection. Dan appeared to be in trouble, though. He scrubbed his hands over his flushed face and remained behind the island, hiding his boner from view. The grin he shot Ash was self-deprecating and open and a little bit naughty, and promised all sorts of things Ash would’ve given his left nut for had his dad not walked into the kitchen.
“Hey, kid.”
Ash took a steadying breath and leaned back against the counter. “Hey, Dad. This is my friend, Dan.”
“The one from your office building you’ve been lunching with? Nice to meet you, Dan.”
“You too, sir,” Dan said as they shook.
“Sir?” Ash’s dad’s eyebrows flew up and he smiled at Ash. “I like this one. I’m no sir, though,” he told Dan. “It’s just Eddie.”
“Okay, just Eddie. You’re even bigger than Ash.”
At six-foot-four, Ash was tall, and he was wide. Eddie was both taller and wider, his hair a thick, shocking silver, laugh lines bookending his eyes and mouth.
A booming laugh from Ash’s dad. “His mom’s tall too, so between the two of us, he was going to be a giant. He was always the tallest kid in his class. You should check out the pictures in the photo album on the coffee table.”
“Dad . . .”
“What? Dan wants to see.”
Dan turned to Ash. “Yeah, I want to see.”
Ash pointed at his dad. “You’re not allowed to meet my friends anymore.”
Eddie Yager didn’t appear too concerned about it.
In the living room, Ash took the photo album off the coffee table and handed it to Dan. Plopping onto the couch, Dan opened it to the first page. Ash sat on the armchair, the clink of silverware on a plate resounding around them.
Couldn’t his dad go away? Couldn’t he see that Ash was trying to woo someone?
Dan chuckled and scooched forward, holding the album out between them. “What’s this?”
“My first hockey game.” Ash moved forward too, the album resting open half on his lap, half on Dan’s.
“You look deranged.”
“Yeah,” Ash said with a laugh. “I couldn’t wait to play. I was awful. I mean—” He waved at the picture of his relatively pint-sized self in a hockey uniform and skates. “—I was four, so it’s to be expected.”
“How does someone from Florida end up playing hockey? Why weren’t you at the beach?”
Ash glanced over his shoulder at his dad and lowered his voice. “My parents both have demanding jobs. They worked nights and weekends sometimes, so I’d find myself at the rec center down the street with my babysitter more often than not. One of the instructors there must’ve seen me admiring the skaters, because he found me a pair of used skates in the lost and found, put me on the ice, and from there . . . there wasn’t any going back.”
Their gazes met over the album, something heavy and soft, terrifying and thrilling settling between them. Dan perched on the very edge, his hand resting on the arm of Ash’s love seat.
A throat cleared loudly. “I’m going to take my dinner into my room,” his dad announced at full volume. “And watch some TV. Very loudly.”
Neither of them acknowledged his departure.
Silence descended between them. Ash could’ve sworn he heard his own heart beating in tune with Dan’s. The night felt surreal, as if Ash was looking at it through a gauzy curtain. He stood to place the album on the coffee table, and when he turned back, Dan was standing right behind him.
“Should we have dessert now?” he asked.
Ash reached for his hand and drew him those last few inches closer. “Does dessert involve kissing?”
“Yes.” Dan rose onto his toes, arms threading around Ash’s waist. “Definitely yes.”
He kissed the corner of Ash’s mouth. Ash hummed in frustration. Chuckling under his breath, Dan placed another tiny kiss on Ash’s jaw.
“No more of that,” Ash growled, chasing Dan’s lips with his own, hands clamping onto Dan’s hips.
Finally, their smiling mouths met, clinging with no sign of hesitancy. Dan tasted faintly of the beer they’d had with dinner, and his mouth was alternately hard and soft on Ash’s. One of Ash’s hands found Dan’s lower back, fingers spreading wide onto the top of his ass; the other carded through those amazing curls Ash had been dying to touch for weeks.
Perhaps they’d never kissed men before, but they got with the program fast enough.
Kissing Dan wasn’t unlike kissing a woman. Except where Ash might’ve hesitated before biting a woman’s lower lip, thought twice before cupping an ass and squeezing, banked the desire to just let go and fucking take . . .
He didn’t do that with Dan.
And Dan groaned and bit back, and his nails dug into Ash’s shoulders through his T-shirt, and he gave and took with as much enthusiasm and desire as Ash.
They separated, but only for a second to catch their breaths. Dan cupped Ash’s face with a hand, thumb brushing along Ash’s lip. Ash sucked Dan’s thumb into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, enjoying the rough edge of a nail against his tongue so much it tantalized his senses. Dan’s eyes went so hot, his cheeks flushing with hunger, and Ash growled in the back of his throat.
Then they were kissing again, harder, messier, teeth clicking, tongues sweeping in to take control. Clenching hands and hungry moans. Dan’s leg wound around Ash’s hip, bringing them even closer, nudging their erections together.
Breathing hard, Ash tore his mouth away. “Fuck.” He dropped a kiss to the corner of Dan’s mouth, on the underside of his jaw, down to his collarbone.
Dan’s head fell back with a gasp and he clung to Ash’s shoulders.
Ash’s hands had somehow found their way up the back of Dan’s T-shirt, and he ran them along heated skin, brushing the tips of his fingers along Dan’s spine, making him tremble.
“Fuck,” Dan breathed, echoing Ash’s sentiment. His own hands clenched on Ash’s shoulders. “Fuck, Ash, I don’t . . .”
“Don’t what?” Ash mumbled into Dan’s neck. He bit the soft skin between Dan’s neck and shoulder, making Dan shudder so violently that he buckled. Ash caught him, then stumbled onto the love seat behind him, taking Dan with him. Straddling Ash’s thighs, Dan rested their foreheads together as they got their breaths back, both hands cupping Ash’s face.
“Don’t what?” Ash asked again.
Dan’s low laugh was self-deprecating. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.”
Ash ran his hands soothingly up and down Dan’s sides. “Hopefully not That was awful, let’s never do it again.”
“No. If anything it’s let’s do that again. And again. As often as possible.”
So they kissed again. And again. As often as possible.
SEPTEMBER 2009—PRESENT DAY
They didn’t awake tangled in each other, but it was close.
Ash squinted his eyes open to gentle yellow sunlight. He was warm and cozy, and his feet weren’t hanging over the end of the bed. He snuggled further into the pillow.
A pillow he shared with Dan. Nose to nose, on their stomachs, Ash breathed deeply and inhaled Dan’s sleep-musk scent.
They weren’t tangled together . . . but they were half on top of each other.
Ash found he didn’t care.
Dan’s face was relaxed in sleep, cheeks flushed from heat, mouth slightly parted. The corner of his lips were crusty on one side where he’d drooled. He slept the way he had six years ago, with an arm folded up under his pillow. He’d wake up with a kink in his elbow if he didn’t move it soon.
Ash ran the back of his fingers over Dan’s jaw, the warm skin tingling his fingers.
Leave. He should leave. He shouldn’t have stayed in the first place.
But this was Dan. His Dan. A little more subdued, a little less quick to smile, a lot harder on himself. Still his Dan, though. Same crazy hair. Same flash that sparked in his eyes when he was angry. Same habit of rubbing his forehead when he was nervous or unsure. Same underlying vulnerability.
Same ability to get under Ash’s skin.
He should leave. But he didn’t want to.
So he stayed. No matter how bad of an idea it was.
He ran his fingers over Dan’s jaw again. Because Dan was still sleeping. Because he could. Because cocooned under the covers together felt like old times, felt like past Sunday mornings they’d spent together, breathing each other in and wishing the day would never end.
Dan snuffled, sinking further into his pillow. Ash yanked his arm back, which was what woke Dan fully. His eyes cracked open, and he blinked blearily at Ash. Sighing, he closed his eyes again, only for them to spring open a second later.
“You’re still here,” he said, voice rough with sleep. He touched Ash’s bare shoulder, as if assuring himself he was real.
Ash sucked in a breath at the barely there touch. “Yeah.”
“How come?”
He should’ve hedged.
I was comfy and didn’t want to move.
Your bed’s bigger than mine.
The alarm on my phone didn’t go off.
But if he expected honesty from Dan, it was only fair to reciprocate.
“I didn’t want to leave.”
Dan’s hand jerked on Ash’s shoulder. “And now?”
“That’s a loaded question,” Ash said, rolling onto his back and scrubbing his hands over his face. “I should go.”
“You don’t—”
“I do have to. Otherwise I’m going to jump you, and I don’t think either of us is ready for that.”
He got out of bed, a choked sound coming from behind him as he gathered the sweat pants, T-shirt, and hoodie he’d discarded last night.
And fled.
The numbers in the spreadsheet didn’t make sense. And not because Dan was too distracted with thoughts of Ash returning to jump him. But because the numbers didn’t add up.
After Ash had run out of his room like he was being chased, Dan had showered, dressed, and gotten to work. He should’ve slept longer given the time they’d gone to bed, but he’d been wide awake after Ash’s words and couldn’t think about anything except Ash jumping him.
He’d even left his door open a crack in case Ash came back.
Seated in one of the lounge chairs next to the window in his room, laptop on his thighs, he checked his spreadsheet for a third time, frowning when the numbers still didn’t make sense.
He wasn’t distracted.
His math wasn’t wrong.
Which meant . . .
Well, he wasn’t sure what it meant.
Just like Ash’s parting shot. He didn’t know what that meant either.
I do have to. Otherwise I’m going to jump you, and I don’t think either of us is ready for that.
Dan was ready. More than ready. He’d been born ready. He ached with how ready he was.
But Ash was very obviously not ready. And more than that . . .
Possibly not interested.
No, he was definitely interested. That had been a full-on erection in his running shorts when he’d left, tenting the front and making Dan’s mouth water just remembering it. Remembering how it’d felt in his hands once upon a time, smooth and silky and hard. The sounds Ash had made as Dan licked the underside, nibbled the tip, and then sucked him into his mouth.
So, yeah. Ash was interested. His body, anyway. The rest of him . . . his mind, his heart . . .
That was what Dan needed to work on. Because he didn’t just want Ash’s body—he wanted the whole package. He’d had it once. He’d had every part of Ash once, and he wanted that back.
But what if he’d fucked things up too badly last time? What if there was no coming back from that? Second chances were all well and good unless the person you wanted a second chance with didn’t want you back. Had written you off as a mistake.
He’d just ask Ash what he wanted. He could do that, right?
Or . . . Even better, Dan would lay it all out there. Everything he felt, everything that was in his heart, he’d hand it to Ash with a bow for Ash to accept or reject.
It was the least he could do.
His gaze snagged on a swath of denim-blue fabric on the chair across from him. It had the Syracuse AHL team’s logo on the front—faded and almost entirely gone. Dan sighed. Ash had caught him wearing his old sweatshirt a couple nights ago. Would he never stop embarrassing himself in front of that man?
“What’d the laptop do to piss you off?”
Forced out of his thoughts, he found Ash leaning against the doorjamb, wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and looking so edible that Dan had to swallow past a dry throat. “Huh?”
Ash waved at his own forehead. “You’re frowning at your computer.”
“Oh. It’s not the computer so much as the spreadsheet on it.”
“Spreadsheet? Why are you working on a Sunday?”
“I always work on Sundays.”
“Why?”
“Why not? You work Sundays.”
Ash crossed his arms. “That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the nature of my job.”
Dan glared back at him. “And this is the nature of my job.”
“Still?”
“Still,” Dan confirmed. “And much more frequently.”
“Why?”
“Because I was only a junior analyst back then.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m the manager of financial planning and analysis.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds boring.” Ash straightened and gave a jerk of his chin. “Let’s go have breakfast.”
“I need to send an email to the auditors about—”
