Page 70 of Hard Check
“Forty crime thrillers and nothing else. No cookbooks. No—what do people have? Coffee table books.”
“I don’t have a coffee table.”
“You do know they don’thaveto go on a coffee table, right?” Leo glanced over his shoulder, grinning. “They’re just books with a lot of pictures. You could get one that’s all old cars or something.”
Dawson peeled the label on his beer and watched Leo’s back, the shift of his shoulder blades under the T-shirt, the strip of skin above his waistband where the shirt rode up when he reached for a cabinet. He still couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to have this sexy man in his life. He wanted Leo in his bed, but he was trying to be chill.
They ate at the kitchen table, Leo talking between bites about practice and the new guy who was staying with him for a little while. Dawson listened, but his attention kept snagging on the wrong things—Leo’s tongue catching sauce at the corner of his mouth, the way his throat moved when he swallowed, the low hum of his voice filling a room that was used to silence.
Under the table, Dawson’s foot found Leo’s. Leo pushed back without missing a beat, his toes hooking Dawson’s ankle, and his eyes flickered up with a look that had nothing to do with hockey or Cole Englund or anything he was saying aloud.
Dawson held the look. Leo’s foot slid higher, calf against calf, and Leo kept talking about Jonesy’s latest pregame playlist like he wasn’t running his leg up Dawson’s under the table. Dawson gripped his fork and didn’t taste a single bite after that.
After dinner, Leo washed the dishes. Dawson dried. Side by side at the sink, elbows bumping in the narrow space, and Dawson kept catching himself watching Leo’s forearms, the tendons shifting as he scrubbed the skillet. The domesticity of it sat in Dawson’s chest like a fist. He wanted this. He wanted it so badly that his hands weren’t steady on the plate he was drying, andwhen Leo set the last dish in the rack and turned to face him, leaning his hip against the counter with a towel in his hands and his hair curling past his ears, Dawson forgot what he’d been about to say.
“What?” Leo said.
Dawson kissed him. Leo’s back hit the counter. His hands came up, towel still in one, and gripped Dawson’s shirt at the sides. Dawson’s palms found the counter on either side of Leo’s hips, caging him. The kiss was unhurried, the kind of kiss that only happened when there was nowhere else to be and no one coming home.
Dawson pulled back. Leo’s eyes were dark, his lips wet.
“Bedroom?” Dawson said.
Leo’s breath caught. He let the towel fall to the counter. “Yeah.”
Dawson took his hand and led him down the hallway. His bedroom was at the end, and when he pushed the door open, he saw it the way Leo would: the bare walls, the gray comforter pulled tight, a crime thriller face-down on the nightstand. Nothing in the room that wasn’t functional.
Leo stopped in the doorway. His eyes moved across the room and landed on Dawson, and Dawson felt the weight of being looked at in a space he’d never shared.
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the chair. His skin prickled in the cool air, and Leo’s gaze tracked down his chest and stayed there, and Dawson’s hands were not steady.
“Come here,” Dawson said.
Leo crossed the room. Dawson pulled Leo’s shirt off and tossed it aside, laid his palms flat against Leo’s chest. The mole below his left collarbone that Dawson had put his mouth to a dozen times. The dip between his ribs, where Leo was ticklish and would never admit it. Familiar now. Known.
Leo kissed him and walked them both backward until Dawson’s legs hit the bed. Dawson sat. Leo stood between his knees, hands in Dawson’s hair, tilting his head back. The kiss deepened, and Dawson’s hands slid to Leo’s waist, his hips, the button of his jeans.
He got Leo’s jeans open and pushed them down. Leo kicked them off and climbed onto his lap, knees on either side of Dawson’s thighs, and the weight of him, solid and warm and wanting, pressed Dawson flat onto the mattress.
Leo ground down against him, slow, deliberate. Dawson was hard, had been since the kitchen, and the friction of Leo’s body through denim and cotton drew a sound out of him that he buried in Leo’s shoulder.
“Off,” Leo said, pulling at Dawson’s waistband. “Everything off.”
They stripped the rest in a tangle of hands and denim and kicked-free fabric. Leo’s body against his, skin to skin, was the sharpest thing in the room. Dawson rolled them, settling over Leo, and Leo let him, spread beneath him on the gray comforter, dark against the sheets, watching Dawson with eyes that held nothing back.
Dawson kissed down his throat. His sternum. The cut of his hip. Leo’s cock was hard against his stomach, flushed, and Dawson wrapped his hand around it and gave one long stroke, feeling Leo’s hips push up into his fist.
“Dawson.” Leo’s voice had dropped into the register that undid him. “I want you inside me.”
Dawson’s hand stilled. He pressed his forehead to Leo’s hip and breathed against his skin, and his whole body was shaking. Not from fear, but with want so sharp it had teeth. He’d been lying in this bed for weeks thinking about exactly this, and now Leo was asking, and Dawson’s throat was too tight to speak.
“Yeah,” Dawson said. “Okay.”
He reached for the nightstand. The drawer stuck, same as always, and he yanked it open and found a condom and lube. His hands were clumsy getting them out, and Leo watched him from the pillow with dark eyes and a patience that made Dawson’s skin burn.
Dawson settled between his legs and slicked his fingers.
He took his time. One finger first, circling, pressing, waiting for Leo’s body to open for him. Leo’s breathing changed, going deeper, deliberate, his hand gripping Dawson’s forearm. When Dawson pushed in, Leo’s eyes closed, his head tipped back, and the sound he made was quiet, contained, nothing like the noise Leo made in the rest of his life.
