Page 38 of Try Line Hearts
He groaned and rolled onto his side—
—and froze.
Memory hit him in one violent, crystalline sweep.
Kaine’s mouth.
Kaine’s weight crashing them into the bed.
Kaine’s hand sliding under his shirt, hot and sure.
His own hands in Kaine’s hair, on his waist, dragging him closer like starvation had finally overtaken him.
Kaine—breathless, hard, whispering,I want you, you idiot, but not like this.
Byrne’s stomach dropped clean through the mattress.
“No,” he muttered into the pillow. “Christ, no.”
A glass of water, two paracetamol tablets and a purple wrapped square of chocolate sat on his nightstand.
Kaine’s doing. Of course it was.
He reached for them automatically, then stopped halfway.
Kaine was still in the room.
Somewhere.
Byrne scanned the dim space. Kaine’s bed was empty, sheets tangled, duvet half on the floor. He’d clearly been up for a while.
Byrne checked the clock.
06:42.
Training wasn’t until nine. Kaine slept later whenever he could.
He hadn’t today.
Because Byrne had grabbed him like a lifeline and then ground against him like—
He cut the thought off hard, jaw clenching.
He sat up slowly, hands pressed to his temples. His shirt collar was stretched. His hair a mess. His lips—
He touched them.
Still tender.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He drank the water in four desperate gulps, swallowed the tablets, and stumbled into the bathroom. The shower helped in the purely mechanical sense — heat loosening muscle, water washing sweat away — but it did nothing for the sickening churn in his chest.
His reflection looked exactly as wrecked as he felt. Bruise-shadowed eyes. Pallor. Guilt carved into every line.
“You absolute disaster,” he told the mirror.
After twenty minutes of pacing the tiny dorm room like a trapped animal, Byrne pulled on training gear and fled.
