Page 179 of The Lies We Play

He sees that too.

He kisses my hip once, then moves up over me. His mouth finds mine. I taste myself on him, and possession rushes through me so fast I have to grip the sheet. He kisses my forehead after, which should not hit me harder than his mouth on my dick, but it does.

It feels like being chosen after the hunger.

Like he wants all of me, not just what I can give back.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he says.

“Hal.”

“I know.” His voice is rough. “Tell me anyway.”

“I’ll tell you.”

He nods, but he doesn’t move right away.

He studies my face first.

That is the part that always gets me. The check. The pause. The refusal to take what I have already offered until he’s sure I’m still offering it. It should make me impatient. Instead, it makes my eyes burn, which is inconvenient and frankly disrespectful to my image as a newly crowned champion.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m not allowed to be an asshole right now.”

“You’re always allowed to be an asshole.” His fingers brush my jaw. “I’m just not letting you hide there.”

I hate him a little for knowing me.

I love him worse for the same reason.

He shifts between my thighs and slicks his fingers. The sound is small. Almost nothing. Still, it changes the room. My body recognizes it before I can talk myself into being casual. Heat spreads low through me, mixed with nerves, desire, memory.

Halston’s hand settles on my thigh.

“Breathe,” he says.

“I am breathing.”

“No, you’re performing respiration.”

I laugh, and the laugh breaks on a gasp when his slick finger circles me.

He goes slowly.

The first press is almost nothing, light enough that my body has time to decide. I force my legs not to tense. He feels it anyway, because of course he does, and bends to kiss my stomach. My ribs. The bruise above my sternum again.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

Three words.

He works one finger in, patient, pausing every few seconds to watch my face. The stretch burns at first, familiar and private, my body opening around him in increments. Pain and pleasure braid together until I can’t separate them, and I don’t want to. The burn makes me present. It drags me back into a body that spent the playoffs being used as a tool.

“Hurts?” he asks.

“Not—” I can’t finish because his finger moves, crooks, and hits the spot that makes my legs jerk. My hand flies to his wrist, not to stop him. To hold on. “Keep going.”