Page 69 of Take Two

Pleasure detonates through me, an electric rush that locks every muscle in my body. My back comes off the bed, my legs fall open as my orgasm rips through me, my dick pulses in his fist as I cum in thick, desperate spurts. Cyaire’s name is a prayer on my lips, my voice hoarse as I shudder beneath him, my release painting both of us in sticky heat. He doesn’t stop, can’t stop, his own control snaps as he buries his face against my neck, his teeth graze my skin as he follows me over the edge.

I whimper at the first pulse of his climax inside me, my oversensitive body clenches around him as he spills deep, his hips stutter through the last waves of his orgasm. His cries are muffled against my lips as I kiss him, swallowing the sounds he makes, the taste of him, salt and sin and something so him, fills my mouth. His fingers dig into my skin, his body convulses as he empties himself inside me, the heat of him branding me from the inside out.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing, the thundering of our hearts in sync. My arms and legs wrap around him instinctively, pulling him down against me, needing the weight of him, the solid press of his chest against mine. His heartbeat hammers against my ribs, wild and unsteady, and I hold him so tight I might bruise him. He doesn’t pull away. He melts, his body boneless against mine as the last shudders of his release leave him.

When he finally pulls out, the loss of him is an immediate a hollow ache. I want to drag him back inside me. He only collapses beside me, his skin slick with sweat, his chest rises and falls in deep, uneven breaths. The mattress dips beneath his weight, the sheets cool against my overheated skin, and for the first time in years, I don’t want to move. I don’t want to breathe. I just want to stay like this, ruined and sated and tangled up in him.

“Come here,” I murmur, my voice rough as I reach for him. My arm hooks around his waist to drag him closer. He comes willingly, his body molding against mine like we’re two pieces of the same puzzle. I lean over him, my hand cupping his jaw as I capture his mouth in a kiss that’s slow and deep and full of everything I can’t say out loud. My lips move against his with a desperation that borders on reverence, pouring every ounce of feeling into the press of my mouth, the slide of my tongue, the trace of my fingers against the line of his cheekbone.

I don’t tell him what I want to tell him. I hold my words back. Neither of us is ready. Not yet, but it’s there in the way my thumb brushes over his bottom lip, in the way I breathe him in like he’s the only air I need, in the way my heart stutters when his lashes flutter open and I see the dazed, blissed-out haze in his dark brown eyes. He looks undone. I did that. I put that look on his face. The realization is like a weight, heavy and inevitable.

I’m in love with this man.

I stare down at him, as his lips part on a soft sigh, as his fingers trail lazily over my shoulder. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him.

Cyaire hums against my mouth when I finally break the kiss. His body shifts closer, his leg drapes over mine like he’s trying to fuse us together. The warmth of him seeps into my skin, his breath fanning over my collarbone, and I want to stay like this forever. Reality creeps in at the edges, the sticky mess of cum drying on my skin, the faint ache between my legs a reminder of just how thoroughly he’s used me.

“We should clean up,” I whisper, though the thought of moving, of untangling myself from him, makes me pause. His chuckle vibrates against my skin, low and sleepy.

“You have a promise to keep, Jamie.” His voice is thick with exhaustion, but there’s a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, the kind that tells me he’s already three steps ahead of me.

I feign ignorance, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I do.”

He yawns, his body already relaxing into the mattress, his fingers tracing idle patterns over my chest. “Just give me thirty minutes.”

I watch as his lashes flutter closed, as his breathing evens out, as the last traces of tension leave his body. For a second, anxiety claws at my throat, the what ifs, the how longs, the fear that this is too good to last. I swallow it down. Because right now, he’s here. In my arms. In my bed, and that’s all that matters.

Everything else, the noise, the distance, our careers, the years we lost, it can all wait.

I give him an hour.

Then I sink into the warmth of his body again, my hands mapping every inch of him like I’m memorizing the shape of him, the sounds he makes, the way his back arches when I touch him just right. I take my time. I worship him, and when he’s trembling beneath me, his nails digging into my shoulders, his voice a broken plea against my skin, I remind him, with every kiss, every thrust, every whispered word, exactly who he belongs to.

Chapter 17

Cyaire

Jamie glances toward the boards just as he’s about to skate away, his attention shifting from the ice beneath his blades to where I’m standing. Our eyes meet for the briefest second, neither of us smiling because we don’t need to. There’s no performance in it, no awareness of the cameras positioned around us or the hundreds of people watching from the stands. It’s just us, the way it’s been for weeks now during these early mornings and late evenings when the work strips away everything else. The tiny nod he gives me says everything it needs to, a wordless reassurance delivered with the kind of quiet confidence that’s become familiar. You’ve got this. I answer with one of my own, holding his gaze for just a fraction longer before the moment disappears as quickly as it came, swallowed by the demands of the day ahead. So do you.

As I make my way across the rubber matting toward the bench, carefully navigating around coiled cables and equipment cases, I almost forget where I actually am.

Climate Pledge Arena has disappeared.

In its place stands Seattle Central University’s home rink, reborn through meticulous attention to detail and the collective imagination of dozens of crew members who’ve spent days transforming this space into something it isn’t.

The transformation is remarkable, almost unsettling in its completeness.

Every trace of the Seattle Vipers has been stripped away or hidden beneath layers of movie magic, replaced with the fictional world we’ve been building scene by scene. Massive red, black and white banners hang from the rafters bearing Seattle Central’s crest instead of the Vipers logo, each one perfectly weathered to suggest years of tradition and rivalry. The center-ice insignia has been replaced with the university emblem, a red hawk taking flight, rendered in such vivid detail that it looks like it’s been painted there for decades. Even the dasher boards have been wrapped with fictional sponsors, their logos and slogans designed to feel authentic rather than invented, making it almost impossible to remember this is still the same NHL arena Jamie calls home for forty-one games every season.

It doesn’t feel like a movie set anymore, not with the lights blazing and the energy building. It feels like game day.

The lower bowl is packed with hundreds of extras dressed as Seattle Central students, alumni and die-hard supporters, each one contributing to the illusion that we’re about to witness something real. Faces are painted in school colors, bold stripes of red and black adorning cheeks and foreheads. Foam fingers wave above heads, bouncing rhythmically with the growing excitement. Homemade signs bounce throughout the stands, celebrating former Seattle Central stars, names like MORRISON, KELLY, and DAVIDSON scrawled in paint and glitter. Somewhere in the student section, a group begins chanting the university fight song, their voices rising in unison, while another answers with rhythmic clapping that ripples through the arena like a wave gathering strength.

Some of them are extras hired through casting agencies, trained to react on cue. Some of them are genuine Seattle Vipers fans who answered the casting call because they wanted the chance to watch filming inside their team’s arena, to see how movie magic gets made in a space they already consider sacred.

Looking around at the sea of faces, some familiar from previous shooting days, others completely new, I honestly don’t think anyone cares which is which anymore.

Everyone has bought in completely, surrendering to the fiction we’re creating together, including me.