Page 80 of Tough Call

I loved this. I loved it so much. Snarking about hockey with someone who knew the sport, but also just being with Connor. The gorgeous scenery outside had nothing on the beautiful man sitting beside me.

I don’t know when I fell in love with you.

But I do know I never want this feeling to end.

CHAPTER 26

CONNOR

The days blurred together. We explored Andalusia. Madars took me to the Alhambra, Córdoba, and Toledo. We spent a couple of nights in Barcelona. Portugal wasn’t far from Sevilla, so we drove up to Lisbon, explored Sintra, and went on a dolphin-watching excursion out of Algarve.

Before I knew it, we were getting into July. Halfway through this amazing time in Spain with Madars. Another three weeks, and I’d be on my way back to Canada while he returned to Switzerland.

After that…

Time would tell, I guess. I wasn’t ready to think that far ahead yet. Not until the end was close enough that we couldn’t keep ignoring it and we had to start having conversations about where we went from here.

For now, we were just going to continue enjoying the perfection. Tonight, that meant cooling off in the villa’s pool after we’d spent the scorching hot afternoon walking around Sevilla. It was after eight in the evening, the sun was still up, and the air was still thick with the summer heat, and this water was absolutely perfect.

“Why did we even go outside during siesta?” I asked, leaning against the pool’s edge. “I’m surprised we didn’t burn to a crisp.”

Madars laughed as he swam up beside me. Resting his arm on the tiled edge, he grinned. “We haven’t burned yet.”

“Thank God for sunscreen.”

“No kidding.”

He was right, too—despite the oppressive sun, we’d managed to go all summer without so much as a burn. I’d even tanned, though with my fair skin, that just meant I was a shade or two darker than printer paper. Madars wasn’t quite as pasty white as I was, but being Northern European, he was still very fair-skinned. Like me, he didn’t look tanned, per se, but when he turned his arm and exposed the pale skin on the inside of his forearm, it made his very slight tan between the lines of his tattoos look more pronounced.

Didn’t really matter to me—he was gorgeous no matter what. The hint of a tan was just a reminder of all the time we’d spent under the Spanish sun.

Or maybe I was just getting ridiculously sentimental because being around Madars had that effect on me.

And apparently I’d been thinking about it a moment too long, because Madars tilted his head and peered at me. “Something wrong?”

I shook myself and laughed. “No. No. Nothing’s wrong.” I reached for his waist beneath the water. “Just… enjoying the view.”

His smile really was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.

And…

Oh. God. So was his kiss.

Madars wasn’t the only talented, generous man I’d ever touched, but he was the only one who could so effortlessly stop my world on a dime. One touch of his lips, and I was laser-focused on him. On the things he did. On the things he liked. On the utter disbelief that the stars had aligned and put us in the same place at the same time, and that I was the man he’d chosen to kiss like that.

Fuck. How did I get so damn lucky?

After a while, he relented, and as I caught my breath, he whispered, “Have I mentioned how much you turn me on?”

I pulled him against me so our dicks rubbed together through our swim trunks. “You made that pretty clear, yes.”

He chuckled. “Surprised I can even go out in public with you.” He nipped my lower lip. “One look at you…” He pressed hard against me, driving a moan out of me because fuck, he turned me on that much too. And we were going to get it on right here in the pool, weren’t we? Or in one of the deck chairs? Hell, on the grass?

No, right here in the pool, because the way he was kissing me now—God, we weren’t going anywhere any time soon. Not until we’d satisfied some of this hunger that always burned to life whenever we were touching.

The water was cool, but it was far from cold, and both of us were rock hard between our bodies. Madars dipped his fingertips beneath the waistband of my swim trunks, but then he pulled them free and growled, “Fuck it. Take them off.”

“Good idea.”