Page 42 of Two for Holding
Unless…
“You got a fucking hat trick tonight.You deserve to get off.Come out with me.”
Tom reared back, staring at him.“I…what?I couldn’t.No, no I couldn’t.”
“Why not?You’re gay.I’m gay.There’s a club three blocks from here selling shots for two dollars.”
“Jax.”Tom said it as though he thought Jax might be kidding.
“That’s two Canadian dollars.Come on.”
“I don’t go out.”
Time to play purposefully dumb.“You do too, with the team sometimes.”
“For team bonding, not for…you know.”
Jax looked Tom up and down.He still wore most of his suit, but like Jax, he’d ditched the jacket.His shirt emphasized the length of his torso and lithe grace, despite his delectable ass and thighs.“You have needs, though, Mr.Hockey Robot, same as the rest of us.What do you do then?”
“I just…you know.”
Heat rose in Jax’s gut, clouding his judgment.He’d started a very stupid line of questioning for a man who was trying very hard not to sleep with his captain.“I don’t know.What do you do?Get on the apps?Find a hooker?”
“No!”Tom appeared mortified at the very thought, focused directly on Jax for the first time since he’d admitted to wanting company.“I…take care of it myself.”
Oh God.
“You mean you…never?”
Tom shook his head.“Well, once, when I was seventeen, I… But no.Not since then.”
Jax did some quick mental math and wanted to jump into the nearest lake, no matter that it was November and they were in Canada.“Was it terrible?”
“No.”A secret little smile stole across Tom’s face.“It was…really nice.But afterward, I got so scared, and it never seemed worth the risk, you know?”
When Jax first thought Tom gave new meaning to the word “closeted,” he decided Tom must be lonely.But “lonely” couldn’t encompass how desolate Tom’s life must actually have been.Jax had assumed he must be hooking up somehow.He couldn’t picture a life without at least the animal comfort of skin and heat and pleasure when he lacked the human comfort of home and belonging and love.
Tom had granted himself none of it in fifteen years.
But maybe he didn’t need that kind of connection as intensely as Jax.He could be ace, or more interested in romance than sex, or not interested in it at all.Before Jax went entirely off the deep end, he ought to at least ask.
“Is it something you want?”
“Of course I want it.It was always something I couldn’t have until…” Tom waved his hand vaguely.“After hockey.”
“After hockey could beyears.Let me take you out.You could meet someone.You deserve…”
“Sex?”Tom laughed as if the idea itself was ridiculous.
Jax’s very thin thread of patience snapped along with the entirety of his ability to be normal about Tom.“You deserve to be touched like you matter.You deserve to be held and—and fucking worshiped.”
He’d stepped closer as he spoke.He didn’t remember doing it, but he must have because they were so close Jax could see every fleck of gray in Tom’s eyes.
“Jax,” Tom said, husky and low as if he’d been drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.As if he was drunk on Jax’s words.
Jax forced himself to step away.“So, yeah.You should come out with me.”
Tom swayed closer as if trying to follow Jax.“I…I, um…I wouldn’t know what to do.”
