Page 22 of Powder
I couldn’t stop. The words kept pouring out, sharper and louder with every breath. “You’d obviously moved on!”
“I haven’t moved on!” Tian shot back, his voice cracking under the strain.
“Well, how the hell would I know that? We promised radio silence, no texts, no calls, nothing!” My chest heaved, fury boiling over. “What did you expect me to think, huh?”
“I know what we said! I was there, Jack!” he shouted, eyes wild. “This is insane—why are we tearing each other apart in a fucking hallway?”
The door across the hall flew open, and an older woman in a sedate blue dress stalked up to us, her face pinched, the room behind her filled with people with papers in front of them. She then dressed us down in flowing Italian that neither of us understood, but we nodded along. Her gist was pretty clear. Shut the fuck up, you dumb, loud Americans, we’re trying to have a meeting. With that dictate delivered, she stormed back into the conference room and slammed the door in our faces.
“Whoa shit,” Tian whispered.
My temper subsided in an instant. “She should be a hockey coach,” I muttered, my gaze refocusing on Tian.My beautiful Tian.
We were both breathing hard, as if we’d just gone twelve rounds in the ring, and all I could think about was dragging himsomewhere dark and tearing into him again. The softer fantasies—anything more than raw sex—died in my throat, choking me, because I hated myself for wanting more when my body just screamed for him.
“I missed you,” Tian confessed on a shaky breath, but what I really heard was the echo of all the nights I’d missed the sex, the heat, the way he made me lose control. But he sounded vulnerable. Sad. And the admission gutted me. It shredded any lingering envy, littering the bits on the wet tile floor under our shoes.
Now it was my turn.
“I missed you too, so damn much,” I revealed, opening up as he had.
He moved like lightning, coming into my arms with a speed that shunted me back into wall with a grunt. His mouth crashed over mine, tongues colliding, teeth nipping, both of us rough and desperate, needing each other’s bodies more than breath. I cupped his ass and moaned at the familiar feel of his body tight to mine. I slid my tongue into his mouth, licked and sucked, nipped at his lower lip, then kissed the place where I had tugged. He held my face, fingers carded into my beard, his mouth just as hungry and hot as I remembered. “Tian…”
“Jack, shit. Shit,” he panted, as we ravaged each other’s mouths. “Jack, my foot… ice… floor… missed this.” My hip impacted a laundry cart, sending stacked towels to the tiles. I rubbed my teeth down along the side of his throat. “Jack, we can’t… we can’t do this here.”
“Sure, we can,” I growled across his thumping jugular. “Didn’t you ever read Tennant Rowe’s autobiography?”
“Tennant Rowe?”
More kisses. “Railers?—”
“I know who Tennant freaking Rowe is, Jesus.”
“Well, he and his husband went at it all over the Olympic Village, and they were on different teams.”
“Why would I read that book? I’m a snowboarder,” he replied as I lapped at his collarbone.
“Because Rowe is an icon.”
“I know, but…” He groaned into another kiss.
“You taste so good, Tian,” I coughed out just as the door from reception opened to swat Tian in the back. He huffed in pain. My head snapped up as I readied myself to rip whoever had interrupted us a new asshole. Starry stood there, eyes wide, room key cards in one hand, his carry-on bag over his shoulder.
“Oh, oh shit. Sorry, sorry! Sorry, oh shit, so sorry. I just… you’ve been gone for twenty minutes. I thought maybe you fell into the pool and drowned. Right. Well, here’s your key. See you in the room. Hi.” He nodded at Tian, tossed the key to the laundry cart, and then backed out, his face as red as the sleeve on our jackets.
“Fucking A,” I mumbled, the fire starting to wane now we’d been busted so horribly. I relaxed my grip on Tian, letting his feet touch the floor. “Be careful. I don’t want to be the reason you twist your knee and can’t compete.”
“You would never be the reason anything bad happens to me,” he said, stealing a kiss, his fingertips combing through my beard as he stared into my soul. “We need to talk. There’s so much going on here.”
“Here in Milan or here in this nook?”
I dragged my hands down his sides, rougher than I meant to, every nerve begging me to grind him into the wall, nails itching to scrape skin, hands too eager, barely held back by a shred of restraint. I’d have to take a cold shower the moment I got to my room. What I’d say to Starry remained to be seen.
“We might be able to sneak some alone time—lock a door, ignore the curfews, get loud, fuck each other stupid until wecan’t walk straight.” Just the thought of it had my cock aching, my blood rushing hot—I was already halfway there just looking at him. “My training schedule, and yours probably, is chaos times ten, but competition hasn’t started yet, so maybe tonight we could slip away.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’d like that.” I also liked the way my fingertips bumped along his ribs. He was so lean yet muscular. My fingers hadn’t forgotten the feel of his warm flesh. Touch craved more skin…
“Cool. I’ll text you later. I think we can do this.” With that perplexing comment, he stole a fast kiss and then wiggled free. “Later.”
