Page 49 of Fire Me Up
The locker room wasn’t hard to find—just follow the sound of running water. I pushed open the door, stepping into a cloud of steam. The shower area was just visible through the mist, and there he was, back to me, water streaming down his body.
I froze, struck dumb by the sight of him. Water cascaded over the broad planes of his shoulders, down the curve of his spine, over the perfect globes of his ass. He was even more beautiful than I remembered, all golden skin and hard muscle. I wanted to touch him so badly my fingertips ached.
He turned, sensing my presence, and for a long, suspended moment, we just stared at each other. His eyes widened, lips parting in surprise, droplets clinging to his eyelashes.
“Dylan?” His voice was rough, disbelieving. “What are you doing here?”
“I...” Words failed me. All the excuses I’d rehearsed evaporated in the steam.
Gael reached for a towel, wrapping it around his waist, and I caught a glimpse of something on his right ass cheek—dark ink I hadn’t seen before. A tattoo. New.
“You got a tattoo,” I said stupidly.
Gael’s cheeks flushed, and he adjusted the towel higher. “Yeah. I kind of… um. Yeah.”
I remembered his words when I was tracing my fingers over his body, examining the ink, remembering what he’d said abouthis tattoos. They’re for people who have a piece of my heart. “Can I see it?”
He hesitated, then turned, dropping the towel just enough to reveal the ink on his right cheek. My breath caught in my throat. It was a small, perfect sketch of my motorcycle, and the sidecar. Underneath, in flowing script, were words I couldn’t quite read from this distance.
“What does it I started to ask, but never finished.
“Why are you here, Dylan?”
I looked away, then shrugged. “I got your text. And I miss you, too.”
He tilted his head. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“When you’re not there… I don’t know. It hurts too much, and I’m so fucking scared of what that means.”
Gael stared at me for a long moment, then crossed the space between us in two quick strides, grabbed me by the front of my shirt, and slammed me against the tile wall. His mouth crashed into mine, hot and desperate and tasting of mint. I gasped against his lips, my hands instinctively finding his hips, pulling him closer.
“You fucking asshole,” he growled between kisses, his hands gripping my face. “Two weeks of nothing. Not a word. I can’t fucking live without talking to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, then kissed him again, deeper, trying to pour everything I couldn’t say into the press of my lips against his. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
His hands were everywhere—shoving up my shirt, yanking at my belt, desperate for skin. I matched his urgency, spinning us so he was the one pinned against the wall, my thigh pressing between his legs. He was already hard, his cock hot against my denim-covered leg.
“Need you,” he panted, nipping at my bottom lip. “Need to feel you inside me. Need to know you’re really here.”
Those words sent a bolt of pure want through my body. I fumbled with my zipper, my hands shaking so badly I could barely manage it. Gael helped, his strong fingers making quick work of my jeans, shoving them down my thighs.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” I murmured against his neck, breathing in the clean scent of his soap, the underlying musk that was purely Gael.
“Who’s fault is that?”
“Definitely mine.”
He stared at me for a long moment, holding eye contact. “Okay, well fuck me all better.”
“Is that really the right
“You ran away. I’m the injured party here, if I ask you to fuck the pain away, you’d better damn well do it.”
I couldn’t really argue with that, so I pulled out my wallet, sorting through it, sighing with relief when my fingers closed around a packet of lube.
Gael’s jaw went tight. “Why do you have that? Have you…” He swallowed. “Have you fucked someone else.”
“I haven’t been inside anyone since you. Couldn’t. You ruined me for every other man, baby.”
