Page 52 of The Fly-Half

“All right,” I said.

“Good,” Mason said with a nod, picking up his beer again. “What about on the pitch?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I do,” Devon said, leaning against me again. “You’re worried I’ll get hurt.”

“Maybe? But I never worried about that before.” I thought his words through as I spoke. I didn’t think it was the case, but maybe it was? I’d never wanted him to get hurt, but my reaction today was more extreme than anything I’d ever experienced.

“Yes, but I wasn’t yours before.”

His words were soft but the blow they dealt was a hammer to my heart.

My feelings were entirely selfish, my violence fuelled by a possessive need to protect him. But that would be impossible unless he stopped playing rugby, and I’d never ask him to do that.

I was trapped.

And the only way out would be to deal with my feelings.

Or embrace them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Devon

I could seeJonny’s emotions wearing on him throughout the evening, sitting heavily on his shoulders as he fought to work through them.

Mason’s revelation about his jealousy and trust issues was one thing, but his realisation that his recent on-pitch violence stemmed from protectiveness and possession was another, and I got the feeling that would be the one gnawing away at his chest.

Because the only ways for him to protect me were to either steamroller everyone, which meant focusing on us rather than the team, or for me to stop playing. And we both knew that wasn’t an option. Not yet anyway.

I had at least another five or six years left on my career, maybe more if my body didn’t betray me, and I wasn’t planning to retire a minute earlier than necessary. Rugby was more than my job, it was my life, and I wasn’t going to give it up for a man, no matter how much I loved him. Not for a reason as petty as jealousy.

I could only do so much to help him work through his feelings, and while talking about them might help, we’d done a lot of that already tonight. And it only seemed to be making him feel worse.

So it was time for a distraction.

“We should go upstairs after this,” I said, standing on my toes and leaning in to brush my lips against the shell of Jonny’s ear. We’d both offered to do the washing up since Mason had cooked, and I wanted to get it done as soon as possible. I’d had all evening to come up with plans, and all of them involved me showing Jonny exactly how I felt about him.

Without actually telling him how hopelessly in love I was.

That would be best left for another day when the poor man wasn’t already swimming in emotional turmoil.

“Why?” Jonny asked, a tiny smirk playing across his lips as he lifted a saucepan out of the soapy water to rinse before setting it on the drying rack. “Getting tired?”

“Not really.”

“Then why do you want to go to bed?”

I grabbed his ass and nipped his earlobe. “I didn’t say anything about going to bed. I said let’s go upstairs.”

“So you want to fuck on the landing? In the shower? You know both of us won’t fit, right?”

“Oh my God,” I said, swatting his ass and laughing as he leant down to brush my nose with his before stealing a kiss. “You’re such a twat.”

“Yeah, we’ve established that,” he said with a wry smile. “Don’t know what that has to do with your desire to fuck on the landing.”

I laughed and kissed him again, my hand still on his ass. “You know what I mean!”

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