I can wait, I decide, and when Hendrix and I do finally come together—no pun intended—it will be well worth the wait.
Tucking a towel around my waist, I take my time pampering my skin and hair with lotion and oil; the dry chill of winter has the hydration wicking away every time I turn around. The turf burn on my forearms is already a pain in the ass—I don’t need my elbows and knees cracking with each movement, too. My glasses sit delicately on my nose as I leave the bathroom, giving my eyes the chance to recuperate after sleeping in my contacts.
Hendrix isn’t in the bedroom when I return, so I drop my towel on my way to the closet. And of course, I’m fully nude, searching my dresser for a specific pair of boxers, when Hendrix darts into the bedroom. The door slams behind him, and his back falls against it with a heavy thud. His eyes are wide when they meet mine through the closet doorway.
“There are a lot of people in your house,” he pants as if he ran up the stairs on his way to my bedroom.
I quirk my eyebrow at the green smoothie in his hand before my gaze sinks lower, past his bare chest, to a sinful pair of boxers that are doing nothing to hide the prominent outline of his package. “Did you—” I break off to stifle a chuckle. “Did you go out there like that?”
“It’s not funny,” he hisses.
“You have a hickey on your neck,” I point out. “It’s kind of funny.”
“Tahegin.”
“Okay, okay.” I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I forgot that there are more staff around on game days. If it makes you feel any better, they all signed NDAs when they were hired.”
Hendrix suddenly goes very, very pale—face literally as white as a sheet. “They . . . You have people sign . . . Of course you do. You’re rich and famous and-and a man and my teammate and— Christ, T, what are we doing?” Frantic fingers grab at his already sleep-mussed hair. “People are going to see us together.”
Despite having just brushed, a bitter taste fills my mouth. I lick over my teeth, pursing my lips. “Ouch.” He can’t mean it the way it sounds, can he? Is he . . . embarrassed to be seen with me? Does he only want to be with me when no one is watching? “Tell me that came out wrong, Hendrix.”
“It . . . a little, but not all of it.” He fumbles to set the green smoothie on the floor. As he stands, his gaze lifts, and he freezes in an odd half crouch, staring at me. “Are we—” He clears his throat. “—going to have this conversation while you’re naked?”
Huh. I forgot about that.
Frustration has me throwing all the neatly folded boxers in my drawer to the ground in search of that one fucking pair. My favorite pair that I wear all the time. I know they’re in here. They have to be in here, damnit!
I pause, take a breath, and consciously unclench my aching jaw. The spike of heated emotion isn’t necessary, but I know where it comes from. The knowledge doesn’t make me feel better, per se—but knowing that I can’t help the way my brain is wired does. Well, the meds help some, but bursts of heightened emotion can still happen—overwhelming sadness, elated happiness, red-hot frustration.
Shit, shit, shit, I curse to myself as I settle for a different pair of underwear. This. This is why I’m always jumping dick-first into a relationship—so I don’t have to explain my emotions and how they can fluctuate. Of course, in the past, it only led to more problems when a partner came over because I offered for them to stay night after night, subjecting them to seeing me at my worst and best every day without explanation.
It’s me, isn’t it? I am the reason why he doesn’t want to be seen with me. Because I—
“I didn’t know you have another tattoo.” Hendrix must have come closer at some point during my mental berating. He’s only a few feet away now, leaning against the doorjamb of the closet. Those stormy grey eyes are guarded as they follow the movement of my hands pulling my boxers up my legs, over my thighs, to settle the waistband on my hips.
I glance down at the tattoo he is referring to, but the small semicolon is placed so low on my left hip that it doesn’t even peek out of my boxers. “Well,” I huff. “We hadn’t gotten that far.” He would have discovered it once we were naked together, but now the odds aren’t looking too well for that.
Hendrix closes the space between us, a look of determination on his face as he enters the closet. “T,” he murmurs, maintaining eye contact as he ever so slowly sinks to his knees on the carpeted floor. Fingers skim my hip bones before tucking into the waistband of my boxers, and then, millimeter by millimeter, he tugs them down.
My breath hitches as a long-standing fantasy of mine literally unfolds right in front of my eyes: Hendrix on his knees and looking at me like I am his own personal Super Bowl championship ring.
He only exposes enough skin that my tattoo becomes visible on the divot of my hip, just inches below the bone he lovingly caresses on his downward journey. My root and the trimmed tight curls on my pubic bone are right there, my thickening shaft nearly touching his chin through the fabric restraining it. Still watching me, Hendrix leans forward and presses a gentle kiss on the semicolon tattoo.
I’m pretty sure I stop breathing.
“Please let me explain,” he whispers against my skin.
My agreement is entirely too fast—a quick nod and a blurted “Yes.”
Sitting back on his heels, he leaves my boxers low as he tries to make up for his earlier words. “I am worried,” he begins slowly, “about putting this out there for public consumption before I . . .” A heavy sigh falls from his lips. “What if you’re right, and I’m not . . . bi? I would have come out to the world only to turn around and take it back. People would speculate—maybe even blame you for making me change my mind or something. I just want to be sure.”
Okay, that makes a good amount of sense.
But, damn. It’s been a long time since I kept my relationships secret from the public and never from my family or—
I bite my lip, already dreading his answer to my next question. “What about our teammates?”
“I want to wait to tell them, too.”
“For how long?” My voice is way too quiet, too full of emotion.
Hendrix hangs his head as if ashamed of his answer. “Until the end of summer?”
A noise of disbelief jumps from my mouth without conscious permission.
“The end of summer at the latest,” he quickly corrects. “We’re so busy with football right now, then we have the playoffs, and maybe the Bowl if we’re lucky. I’m not sure when we’re going to do more than kiss, but once we do, maybe we can start by telling Micah and Aleks. We can take our time in the summer, and then tell the team during training camp. Then, eventually, the public.”
“I . . .” It’s different—and not at all what I would choose if I wasn’t so determined to make this work—but I am willing to try. For him. It might do us good to spend time just the two of us before the gossip hounds get a hold of us.
His hands return to my skin, this time on my sides above my hips, and his thumbs travel small circles on my belly that slowly get bigger until he swipes over my navel. Pleasure shoots directly from his thumb to my balls.
I gasp, my fingers burying in his messy blond hair. “Y-you aren’t playing fair.”
“Mm,” he hums, leaning forward to flick the tip of his tongue across the insanely sensitive flesh of my belly button. “I’m being very fair,” he murmurs, hot air grazing the cooling wetness left from his lick. “You want to take things slow in the bedroom, and I want to take them slow with the public. It looks like we will be going very—” Lick. “—very—” Open-mouth kiss. “—slow.” Squeezing his thumbs on either side of my belly, he bunches the skin just enough to nip the rim of my navel.
The intense, euphoric feel of it has me releasing a quick shout, my hands holding tight to his head, keeping him pressed there as I ride the swell of pleasure, my toes curling. “Fuck me,” I groan, cursing because I am such an idiot for wanting to do this the right way.
Hendrix releases my skin and pulls back, a wicked grin spreading across his face. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed by the desire burning low in my gut and between my legs, I’d be in awe of that smile. I’ve managed to get him to crack a wholesome few while laughing, but this one feels like it was made for me. “I can’t,” he practically purrs. “We’re taking it slow, remember?”
