I gave him a vague nod of acknowledgment. Seeing him was a lot of things, but I wasn’t sure I’d classify it as good.
We both turned our attention to the safety of the screens behind the bar, and I commented on Kansas City’s new QB. The next ten minutes were peppered with attempts to keep another awkward silence at bay. I remembered when it used to be comfortable, when we could sit next to each other and not say a damn thing, the secret connection between us an electric thrum beneath quiet anticipation. I decided I’d stay long enough to finish my drink, then offer him a polite handshake and make my exit. Hopefully, we wouldn’t run into each other again for at least another five years. Preferably a decade.
I cast a sidelong glance at Cullen as he rattled the ice in his glass, then sucked the rest of the Coke down. He eyed me right back, running his fingers over his jaw speculatively. I’d found him attractive the second I laid eyes on him at training camp our freshman year at Southern U, though I wouldn’t have called it attraction back then, would’ve just said he was the kind of guy who made you take notice. A little rough around the edges. Scruffy-jawed and angular, eyes that darkened with his temper.
He was a full-blown looker now, with wavy honey-gold strands hanging loose, untamed as he was. It’d been short in college, and I’d never been into the long-hair thing that seemed to be so popular now until this very second. Next to him, the neat, basic haircut that I’d had since the beginning of time, my plaid shirt, and jeans made me feel old and out-of-date.
As I sat there, all I could hope was that he wasn’t about to engage in some kind of “way back when” conversation. It was way too fucking late for a come to Jesus between us. I definitely needed to go.
“I’m gonna hit the restroom,” Cullen said, his tone gravelly and confidential, like a secret spilled in a dark corner.
The farewell died on my tongue.
I knew that look in his eyes, maybe more familiar to me than anything else about him and one of the things I’d wished a hundred times I could truly forget. The way they darkened when he narrowed them slightly at the corners, the provocative challenge within them. Jesus, it still got a rise out of me.
Nodding, I forced my attention to the screen above me but saw nothing, heard nothing aside from a clock ticking in my head as he walked away.
One minute, two, the tick of seconds kept the beat to the wild tempo of my pulse as heat coursed through my body.
He couldn’t have meant what I thought. What you want.
I shook the voice from my head. I didn’t want shit besides a painkiller and maybe a nap. Possibly a job.
It was the perfect time to leave. I could be gone before he came back.
And yet, another handful of seconds later, dick already hardening behind my fly, I finished off my vodka tonic and stood, grabbing my pack and heading to the restroom. It was as swanky as the rest of the lounge, a thick art deco mirror gilding black subway tile, dark wood accents, a trough sink where a man stood washing his hands.
Three empty urinals.
One closed bathroom door.
I upnodded the stranger as we brushed past each other, then stopped outside the closed door, waiting until he was gone, an uncanny sense of dislocation pervading me, as if I was somehow both here and back outside Cullen’s old dorm room. What the fuck did people do in these situations? Knock? Barge in? What if I’d misread the cue and Cullen was actually using the facilities. Christ, I’d relive that embarrassment for years.
“Cullen.” The unused sound of his name was gritty on my tongue but not tentative, thank fuck. We were never that.
The door swung open, and I waited for some comment on how long it took me, the way he used to do when I’d sneak into his room after games. He’d always been an impatient bastard. I wasn’t sure that had changed since college. But Cullen said nothing as I shut the door behind me and let my pack drop to the floor, just watched me.
It was a close fit. Two wide receivers in an airport club bathroom? That probably wasn’t something that happened every day.
“There’s a joke in here somewhere.” He quirked a smile, reading my thoughts, though I was pretty sure the joke was me. “What do you call two wide receivers in an airport bathroom?”
“Bad idea?” I suggested wryly.
He hitched one shoulder. “I’m not exactly known for my good ones.”
A single step put him before me, his fingers sinking just behind the waistband of my jeans and anchoring as electricity zipped from my groin to the crown of my head.
I turned my head away just before his mouth met mine, and he chuckled softly.
“That’s how it’s gonna be, then?”
“Yeah.” I arched my hips as he lowered my zipper and freed my cock. Then I did the same to him. The man had a beautiful cock, I’d credit him that. The first one I’d ever touched, first one I’d ever tasted, and even back then, I’d known he’d be an instant addiction.
“Alright, Pretty Woman.” The tease came murmured against my neck, and I hated how aroused the simple caress of his lips over my skin got to me.
But maybe his lips would’ve been the better option than the fierce lock of our eyes as he leaned back, wrapping his fist in an unforgiving grip around our shafts, and began stroking. He kept the pace slow, the minute roll of his hips ensuring I felt every millimeter of contact—the head of his cock brushing the underside of mine, caressing the little notch that’d always driven me crazy. He remembered, I was sure of it now, and I finally broke the stare down to let my head fall back against the door, teeth pinning my lower lip as I sank into the bliss of each stroke. Yeah, this was easily the worst idea I’d subjected myself to in the last five years. Too bad it felt so damn good.
Watching his hands on me, how his jaw slackened with every thrust, had me on edge quicker than I wanted. Just before I lost it, I caught him by the shoulder and spun him left to face the wall. Cullen didn’t resist, just braced his hands on the dark tile, a soft groan leaving his lips as I yanked his pants down his thighs and glided my spit-slick cock between his crease.
“Want this?”
“What do you think?” he gritted out, grinding his ass against me as his fingers curled on the wall. “Sure as fuck didn’t come in here to discuss stats.”
The safe topics. Smart-ass.
I wet a finger, slid it between us, and circled his rim before pushing it inside. Cullen clenched around me as my knuckles brushed over his heavy sac. We were well beyond safe topics of conversation now. Well beyond conversation at all.
When I sank a second finger inside him, he dropped a hand from the wall, and I felt the telltale pull of his skin around me as he jerked himself. “You got anything on you?” His voice was husky, riding the same edge as me. We used to go for hours. That wasn’t gonna be the case today.
“Yeah.”
“Should’ve remembered that. Damn Boy Scout. So c’mon, then.”
I almost grinned in spite of myself. Yeah, definitely still impatient. Keeping a hold on his hip, I shifted my weight to my good knee and lowered enough to fish around in the front pocket of my backpack, coming out with a lubed condom I rolled on quickly before rubbing the head of my cock over his hole.
“Fuck yeah. C’mon,” he urged again in a low murmur.
He thrust his ass back, but I grabbed his asscheek, keeping him from impaling himself, and took my time, easing into the vise grip of his ass until his body heat enveloped me, and a shudder rolled through my shoulders. Goddamn, how this ass used to torture me, how much time I used to spend daydreaming about how good it felt in my hands, around my cock, under my tongue, getting twisted up and hard on the sidelines as I watched him run down the field and anticipating the minutes until we no longer belonged to the fans or the coaches barking into our ears. Until we were just each other’s for a handful of hours. It was easier to focus on that than how limited our time together was, back then. And eventually, I failed at even that.