Page 63 of The Trade Deadline
“I’d like to kiss you,” Lars said, so close now his words tickled Ryan’s nose.
“Hmmm?”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for weeks,” Lars confirmed, somehow understanding Ryan’s question better than he had himself. “Can I?”
Ryan barely gave a nod before the gap closed and their lips finally met. For a whole two seconds, it was chaste, tentative, and sweet. Then it was intense as Lars shifted his weight and was half on top of him. The kiss deepened, frantic as Ryan’s hand came up to tangle in Lars’s hair, just long enough to bury his fingers and grab on if he wanted to. Lars’s free hand went to Ryan’s hip, then found its way under his shirt.
While he chased kisses and got lost in the musky sweet scent of the man above him, Ryan’s legs parted to allow Lars to sink more onto him. As he slid into the space between Ryan’s thighs, it brought Lars’s hard dick in contact with his. Ryan was only half hard, but he moaned and thrust against Lars; it wouldn’t take much, not tonight. Not when his skin had been on fire all day, not after that stupid forgotten dream on the plane, not after denying himself the mere thought of this moment.
Lars’s hand moved up Ryan’s side, his thumb rubbing circles that felt as hot as a brand. When Ryan thrust upwards, Lars met him with a downward push of his hips, their dicks sliding together with the movement.
Old memories rushed forward, mingling with the new ones. Lars’s mouth, his hands, his cock?—
An empty bed, long gone cold.
Ryan jerked back from the kiss. With his right hand he pushed Lars back and held him at arm’s length; he couldn’t quite bring himself to untangle his left from Lars’s hair.
“What’s wrong?” Lars asked. He looked so adorable with that frown and kiss-swollen lips that Ryan was tempted to keep his worries to himself and go right back to where they’d left off. It’d be easier and fuck if he wouldn’t enjoy it.
Until after, when he’d wonder if and when Lars would leave. When he’d judge himself for going through with it without saying…what exactly?
“I just…” He didn’t know where that sentence was going. He was putting it into words for the first time, that elusive worry he’d never let himself linger on because it was a worry about circumstances that seemed impossible. “I just don’t want you to forget me again…or if this is only happening now because I’malmostsomebody.” Once they start, the words tumble out. “Like if I go back to playing like I barely belong in the NHL?—”
“Whoa,” Lars interrupted. He put his hands on Ryan’s cheeks, a strangely grounding feeling that let him find the room to breathe. “Who ever said you weren’t good enough for the NHL?”
“No one, but?—”
“I’vealwaysthought you were a good player.” He sounded so genuine, looked so earnest that it hurt more.
“Maybe,” he said shakily. Why couldn’t Ryan believe him? “But you didn’t know I existed before Baltimore.”
“I—” Lars floundered a little. He gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing as he searched Ryan’s eyes for an answer. “I never notice the other team,” he offered apologetically. “I really don’t.”
“I know you don’t,” Ryan agreed and hated the way Lars relaxed slightly, like he was forgiven. And he mostly was. Ryan had thought he could overlook the past, but that was when they were trying to be friends. Trying to be something more…it made the future uncertain, and he couldn’t move forward with the past hanging over them, unanswered. “You didn’t notice me before, not even when we—” He didn’t want to say it. That would make it worse, make it so much more humiliating when this was hard enough. “You forgot me once already. What’s to stop it from happening again?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Lars confessed.
“That’s the problem.” Resigned to closing the door on tonight’s possibilities, Ryan sat up and faced Lars. “Until you can give me an answer, I don’t think this” -he motioned between them- “can go any further.”
Lars, bewildered as he watched Ryan’s hand, gaped at Ryan. “Why?—?”
“Sorry.” And he was. Sososorry. He really envied the versions of themselves that both knew what had happened between them in Geneva and could’ve figured this out months ago. But Ryan had just enough self-esteem to want Lars to remember their night in Geneva, to haveseenhim then like he saw Ryan now. He didn’t think Lars could actually forget him again…but he wanted to feel like Lars couldn’t move on as easily the second time. “I think you should go back to your room.”
Shock was slowly melting away. Lars didn’t seem to have a second emotion ready to replace it, his face looking crestfallen while his eyes glinted in frustration. “Do I get more of a hint?” he grumped, and fair. From his perspective Ryan was being cryptic, at best. He crossed his arms over his chest in what looked more like a protective gesture than an angry one.
“Not right now,” Ryan said. He pinched the bridge of his nose—no less frustrated than Lars was—and grumbled, “I just need some space and I would like you to think about what I said. See if that jogs anything.”
Lars sat there, expression finally blank as he stared at Ryan. “Yeah, sure,” he said, his voice sharper. Strained, like when he has to deal with the media after a bad game. “I’ll…see you tomorrow, I guess.” He slipped off the bed.
Ryan listened to his steps retreat to the door and grimaced when he heard the door open. Was he really doing this? Probably too late to undo it, anyway.
“Good night, Ryan,” came a low whisper just before the door clicked closed.
Ryan sat there, stiff and motionless, until he finally was too tired to stay upright. He let himself fall to the bed and pass out, mind blissfully blank, and thankfully didn’t dream of how he might’ve fucked up the best thing he had going for him.
Chapter21
Lars
