Page 66 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

The moment the driver turned up his radio and pulled out onto the road, the taxi ride became a blur.

Jesse slid over next to me as the car started moving, the side of his leg pressing up against the side of mine. My heart was already racing. The back of his hand touched mine and then he laced his fingers through mine before I had a chance to overthink it.

Fuck, fuck,fuck.

The driver started talking to him about TNU hockey, and they talked at length about various games and players that I had no clue about.

As they spoke, Jesse’s hand remained in mine. In the moving shadows that the streetlights made from outside, I kept catching glimpses of his tattoos, the vines on his wrist pressed up against me.

I was getting hard, too, which was its own particular kind of torture. I reached down to rearrange my bulge and Jesse spotted it right away.

He reached down to give my cock a slow, tight squeeze with his hand.

When he moved his hand away I swore it tookeffortnot to moan right here in front of the cab driver.

For the last three days I’d wanted nothing but this, and had spent all of my energy on trying to force myself tostopwanting it. But as I looked outside and watched as we pulled into the TNU campus, I knew I was too weak to deny Jesse anything. I couldn’t resist any longer, and every inch of my body felt like it was pulled toward him like he was the current of an ocean way bigger than me.

I was perilously close to having a full-blown crush on him, and there was no shot in hell that it wasn’t going to explode in my face at some point.

Jesse’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He was so close that I could feel the vibration on my own leg, and when he fished it out, I saw Kane’s name on the screen.

“Mind if I answer just for a moment? It’s my brother.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, and the cab driver didn’t give a damn.

“Hey,” he answered. “No. I went home. Of course I didn’t drive, I called for a ride. Mason’s with me. Yeah. Don’t know yet.”

I smacked his leg with the back of my hand when I heard him mention my name. He turned to me and I gave him a death glare, but he didn’t seem to give a damn. I could faintly hear Kane’s voice coming from the other end of the phone, but I had no idea what he was saying.

“I know,” Jesse said. “Yep. See you soon.”

He hung up and slid his phone away. I clenched my jaw, knowing that Kane was now well aware that I was with Jesse tonight.

“What was that about?”

“Kane’s fine. Don’t worry,” Jesse said before turning forward to the driver. “Just up here, on the left. You can pull into the curve.”

A few seconds later we pulled up to a big brick building that must have been his fraternity. We got out of the cab and before the car even pulled away, Jesse walked over toward me.

“Am I going to regret this?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Doubt that.”

He pushed his hair back, looking at me like he could see through my soul. “Have you regretted a single moment you’ve spent with me, so far?”

I swallowed. “No.”

He wrapped his arms around me, and his lips were on mine a moment later. He tasted like whiskey mixed with a strawberry lollipop, and I wanted to taste more of it.

The bump of bass came out from inside the frat house, and a faint peal of laughter came from one of the open upstairs windows.

Jesse’s tongue slid out against mine a moment later and I opened to him, surprised by how hungry his kiss was.

“Heard you were at the Hard Spot last night,” he said near my lips as he broke off from the kiss. One of his hands found its way to my hair, and he stroked the back of it as he looked down at me.

“I was,” I said. “I went there trying to find someone to fuck.”

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