Page 43 of Breakaway
"It's convenient. Short commute to the fridge."
"Fridge commute. That's what you're going with."
"Proximity to food is a valid housing criterion, Paulson."
He shakes his head and moves toward the bar and I scan the room because I have been scanning the room since I walked in. The guest room Paulson is picturing has a bed that holds our gear bags and hasn’t been slept in for months. The closet in it holds my off-season jackets because Wes's closet ran out of space. Nobody on this team has ever asked a follow-up question about that room and I have never had to tell a single lie about it.
Wes is near the silent auction table. Charcoal tux showing off his broad shoulders, his hand around a glass of red he has not sipped from. He is listening to one of the sponsors explain a foundation initiative, and his head is tilted in the way he does when he is being patient with someone who is not interesting.
I eat the crab cake and I watch his hand on the wine glass and I think about what those hands did to me last night and what I want them to do to me later and thankfully nobody in this ballroom can hear any of it.
His eyes drift to me. Not a turn. A drift. Half a second, steady, his expression unchanged. I hold it without moving my face. The half second closes. He is back on the sponsor. I am back on the crab cakes.
Martinez finds me at the appetizer table and introduces me to his wife. We make small talk about my move to Miami, how things are going on the team. Wes crosses behind me, four feetaway, close enough that I catch his cologne over the crab cakes. He does not slow down. I do not turn my head.
Twenty minutes later, Doyle corners Wes at the bar. I am six feet away, listening to a trainer explain a hamstring protocol I do not care about.
"Mercy, what was that place you took us in Coral Gables?" Doyle says. "The one with the brisket. The insane brisket."
The words land in my body before my brain catches up. The restaurant. The brisket. The night I kissed him on the couch and his wall came down and everything since.
"La Loma," Wes says. His voice is even. "On Galiano."
"That's the one. Melanie wants to go."
"Tell her to order the brisket and skip the bread. The bread is a five."
"How do you know the bread rating?"
"I have a reliable source."
His voice is steady. His eyes do not move toward me. But I see the corner of his mouth shifts by a degree that nobody in this room can read except me. From six feet away, with a champagne flute in my hand and a trainer explaining fascial planes, the laugh starts building in my chest and I hold it there. Tight, warm, mine.
Wes excuses himself from Doyle. He passes behind me on his way toward the restrooms, and his hand brushes my lower back, flat and fast, below the sightline of anyone who is not already looking. His palm is warm through the fabric. Then he is past me and the warmth stays on the fabric.
I count to ninety. I excuse myself from the trainer. I walk toward the back hallway past the restrooms. He is at the end of the hall, near a door that is closed but not locked.
He goes in and when I get close enough, his hand finds my wrist and pulls me through and the door clicks shut behind me and I am pressed against it with the full weight of his chest onmine. His mouth is on me before my eyes adjust. He kisses me hard, his tongue already pushing past my lips, one hand gripping my jaw to hold me where he wants me.
"Hi," he says against my lips.
"Hi." I am grinning into the kiss. "You told Doyle the bread was a five."
"The bread is a five."
"You said it to his face and I almost died."
"I saw." His hands are on my hips. His thumbs press into the bone through the tux pants. He pulls back to look at me. The only light is the thin line under the door. "You have been across that room from me all night and I couldn't move."
He kisses me again and grinds his hips into mine and I can feel him already hard against my thigh through the wool of his tux. His thigh presses between my legs and the pressure lands right on my cock and I roll into it, greedy, wanting more of it.
"Wes. We have maybe fifteen minutes."
"I know."
"Then stop being slow."
He laughs, low and warm, his breath on my neck, and his hands go to my belt. The buckle opens. His fingers are fast and sure and the zipper comes down and his hand shoves past the waistband. His fingers wrap around my cock and the grip is firm and perfect and I exhale hard against his shoulder, press my teeth into the fabric of his jacket to keep from making any noise this hallway would hear.
