He was so frighteningly on the money, I laughed.
That seemed to shock him too. “Man, you’re weird.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
We demolished the first pizza in silence, though I ate slower than Lucky to make sure he had enough. When the box was empty, I put it on the floor and brought him his precious chicken strips.
He groaned. “Is it wrong that I still really want to eat them?”
“It’s wrong you ever wanted to eat them, but don’t let that stop you.”
He didn’t, and there was something oddly satisfying about watching him eat. Maybe it was his obvious enjoyment or the relief on his face when he was done—as though he could finally relax now he had a full belly.
I didn’t dwell on why that might be. Lucky’s issues were his own unless he chose to share them. “What do you want to do now?”
“You mean you didn’t come all the way here just for the pizza?”
“If I had I’d be long gone.”
Lucky rubbed his hands together and sniffed them. “I kind of want another bath so I don’t smell like the morning after a pub crawl.”
“Have one then.”
“Come with me?”
“Um. Okay.”
Lucky ran a bath hotter and deeper than I usually had time for, unless it was a hydrotherapy pool and any relaxation vibes were cancelled out by the presence of a bazillion physiotherapists.
He stepped into it and held out his hand, even though I was still stubbornly dressed and observing him like a stalker from the doorway. “What’s the matter? Too clean already?”
The things going through my mind were far from clean, but, as ever, I was struggling with the conflicting compulsions being with Lucky brought. Being naked with him was fucking heaven, but the intimacy that seemed to come naturally to him choked me.
I took a tentative step forward.
“Shoes, Dom,” Lucky teased. “At least get your feet wet.”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“Wouldn’t know, mate. I ain’t much of a literate.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Lucky’s gaze sharpened evilly. “So?”
I sighed. “So…I like things to make sense.”
“Then your life must be shit.”
He was more right than he knew, but watching him enjoy the water with almost childlike happiness torpedoed my indulgent self-pity.
I toed my shoes off and nudged them into the corner. Then I stripped and folded my clothes on the counter.
Lucky sniggered.
“What?”
“I knew you were a neat freak.”
“You know nothing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t quote Game of Thrones at me unless you’re prepared to be as freaky in the sack.”
Blushing around Lucky had grown less frequent as I’d got used to his sharp tongue and filthy sense of humour, but I blushed now, and he saw it.
His expression softened. “Come here.”
As if I could refuse. As if I wanted to. I stepped to the bath and dipped a foot in. “Wow. That’s hot.”
“Yeah. I don’t like it when the water gets cold fast. It’s like a limp dick then.”
“Jesus Christ. Do you ever stop?”
“Not on purpose.”
I shook my head and got in the bath. Lucky moved to the tap end and stretched his legs out to tangle with mine. Our knees touched, and with the heat of the water consuming the madness raging in my renegade brain, it was pretty damn perfect.
“See?” He smirked like he’d read my mind. “Just what you needed, eh?”
“It’s not the bath I needed, mate.”
“If you say so.”
I did, but saying it twice seemed a waste of our limited time together. “Come closer.”
Lucky edged down the bath, and then spun around so he was between my legs. I fought every dirty thought that ran through my mind, but my dick sprang to life anyway, nudging Lucky in the back as he leaned on me.
He ignored it and closed his eyes. “You’re so comfortable I could fall asleep right here.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Lucky always looked like he needed a good night’s sleep. “I’ll wake you up before it gets cold.”
Lucky’s lips twitched with a humourless smile, but he said nothing.
I trickled hot water on his chest and played with his hair for a while, until my hands began to wander.
His chest was smooth and bone-white. His ribs were a little too visible for my liking, but his stomach was a perfect slender plain leading to a dark dusting of hair. I followed the trail to his half-hard cock, and grazed it with my fingers.
Lucky shivered and pushed back on my dick. “Don’t get rowdy in here. It’ll make a mess.”
His tone was light, teasing, but a second shudder spurred me on. I ghosted my fingers over him again and gave him a gentle squeeze before I relented and went back to drawing wet patterns on his chest. “So…”
“So what?”
“What have you been up to since I last saw you?”
“Working. I got somewhere to live too.”
“You’re not staying with your friend anymore?” The friend he occasionally fucked…Stop it. I had no claim on him, and no right to ask for one. “That’s great that you’ve got your own place.”
Lucky snorted. “It’s a room. A shit one. But it’s mine at the moment, and that’s all that matters for now.”
“How’s work going?”
“It’s hard. I thought I knew most of the basics, but it’s a difference kind of place to what I’m used to. Newer, better stuff to work on.”
“But you like a challenge, right?”
“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?”
I had no answer to that, and Lucky seemed to know it. He lifted himself off me with a sigh and turned over, straddling my waist. His knees dug into my hips, but I didn’t mind. The pain was worth it to see his dick sliding along mine.
“Your turn,” he said. “How are things going with that bloke you thought might out you?”
“They’re not. He’s disappeared on me.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Nervous.”
It was true. Isha had gone from calling me every hour to vanishing off the face of the earth. No one could get hold of him. Maybe he’d sold his story and didn’t need the money from his clients anymore. Right, ’cause you’re important enough to make him millions?
Of course I wasn’t. The tabloids would have a field day with my sexuality, and I’d seen enough of what had happened to the very few top-flight players who’d come out to know it would go on and on and on until my life was pretty much ruined, but I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that I was worth what Isha would need to give up his job.
But still. His absence terrified me. Unless finding out that he knew about me had been a never-ending bad dream.
Lucky rubbed my forearms underwater. A soft wave sloshed up my torso. “Sorry.”
“What for?”
“I get the feeling you come here to forget, then I ask you a bunch of questions and send you right back there.”
“I came here to see you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I punctuated the statement with a kiss, and it was like fully opening a dripping tap. My lips met his, my tongue slid into his willing mouth, and temporarily the world—my world—was a perfect place.
Lucky moaned softly, and ground down on me, sending more water rushing over the edge of the bath.
I caught his wrists and broke the kiss. “Let’s get out before we drown ourselves, eh?”
He didn’t protest as I stood carefully, bringing him with me, and stepped out of the bath. I set him down long enough to dry most of the water from his skin, and then threw him over my shoulder.
Lucky’s laugh did insane things to me. For a young man so hardened by a life I knew nothing about, he was different when he laughed. Free. I tossed
him onto the bed and his grin was a mile wide as I pounced on him.
“What do you want, Dom? You want to fuck me?”
I did, so badly I’d dreamed about it a thousand times over, but something held me back. “Not yet,” I whispered.
If he was disappointed, I couldn’t tell. He merely smirked and turned the tables on me so absolutely that coherent thought was gone.
He flipped us over, straddling my chest so his dick pressed insistently against my mouth while he swallowed me down.
The double-edged pleasure was insane. I loved sucking Lucky’s cock, and combined with his wicked mouth on mine, I didn’t stand a chance.
I came first, fucking up into his mouth, and shooting with a cry that was muffled by his dick in my mouth.
Then I redoubled my efforts on him.
He groaned. “Shit, Dom. You’re gonna make me scream, man.”
A residual bolt of heat rocketed through me, and I squeezed his balls as hard as I dared. Scream, Lucky. Scream for me.
He started to come. Frantic, ragged moans tore out of him, and he spilled into my mouth, his body rigid until it was over and he sprawled limply on the rumpled hotel sheets.
Grinning, I sat up and gripped under his shoulders, tugging him up the bed until he was where I wanted him: draped over me, head on my chest while I played with his hair.
He was quiet for a long while. I thought he might’ve fallen asleep, and was dozing off myself when his barely audible sigh cut through the sated silence. “What are we doing, Dom?”
“Hmm?”
Lucky sat up slightly and fixed me with a stare that made me squirm. “What are we doing?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because you’re treating me like a long-lost lover.”
I begged to differ. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Friends?”
“Yeah.”
He rolled his eyes. “If that’s true, then you’re the worst friend I’ve ever had.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Hide behind one word answers like a cheating husband. I’m just asking where your head’s at. This ain’t no inquisition.”
I wanted to reach for him, to pull him back into my arms and lose myself once more in all that was him, but I couldn’t, because he was right. Somewhere along this weird path, we’d crossed the line from hook up to—to what?
Jesus. I had no idea.
Lucky’s scowl deepened. “Okay. Let me ask you one more thing. If things were different, for both of us, would you want to keep seeing me? I know it’s messed up because you’re you, and I’m me, and we don’t really know each other, but I, uh, I like you, Dom.”
My heart stilled as I imagined how things might progress if we carried on, how junk food, hot baths, and making each other explode could become normal. Maybe we’d fuck until that was normal too. My pulse quickened, and my sated cock stirred again—but then reality kicked in and I saw Lucky splashed across the tabloids as he left the hotel, with me skulking out behind him, my career overshadowed by the scandal, and my entire world falling to bits as the paparazzi hounded me into an early grave.
Lucky sat up properly before I could make sense of any of it, his damp hair falling into his face. “Actually, don’t answer that. I can live without the awkwardness of you rejecting me.”
“Whoa.” I caught his arm. “I wasn’t going to reject you.”
He snorted. “It’s all right, Dom. You don’t have to pretend there’s some magical way you and me could make something out of this. I know what I am to you.”
“Do you?”
“Course I do. I’m your outlet, right? For your dirty homo secret? You come here so I can make you come, and then you go back to your real life—back to being a dude bro hetero for everyone else’s benefit…except yours, ’cause I could be anyone and you’d still be fucking miserable.”
I reeled back from his abrupt onslaught. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Lucky slid off the bed and started gathering his clothes. “I’m talking about the fact that the way you live is going to kill you if you’re not careful. You don’t have to want me, Dom—it’s not about me—but if nothing changes for you, you’re always going to want something—or someone—you can’t have.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
It came out sharper than I’d intended, and my growl seemed to wind up Lucky more. He yanked his jeans up his legs and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “How would I know what you know? It’s not like we tell each other anything we don’t have to, is it? Which would be fine if we were just fucking, but we don’t even do that.”
Was he for real? He was pissed off because I hadn’t rolled him over and fucked him like a piece of meat? “Do you want me to fuck you? Would that make this better?”
“It would make it easier.”
“How?”
“Because that’s all it would be.” Lucky stamped into his boots and jerked his shoulders into his weathered coat. “You can’t have it both ways, Dom. You can’t be stroking my hair, gazing at me, and making me feel like something, then dropping me when it gets real for you. Use me, or fucking lose me, yeah? ’Cause I’m not up for the bullshit in-between.”
He started towards the door. My brain finally caught up with his intention to walk out on me and I scrambled to my feet. “Lucky—”
“Don’t.” He evaded me. “It’s okay. I get it. Whoever you are, you can’t change your world for someone like me, but don’t think I’m gonna play make-believe with you either. I can do that shit by myself with a ten-bag of fucking bubble.”
I literally had no idea what he was saying to me, and he was gone before I even halfway caught up. The door slammed as I reached it—just as well as I was still naked—and I laid my palms on it, my head dropping with my heart. I didn’t understand Lucky, or how I felt about him, but somewhere along the line I’d fucked up, and I needed to fix it fast.
My clothes were in the bathroom. I retrieved them and threw them on, and it was only when I went back to the empty room that I realised Lucky had left his phone behind.
Fourteen
Dom
I kicked the door of my borrowed bedroom shut and leaned against it, eyes closed, head bowed, fighting the urge to punch myself in the face. Manchester was the worst city on earth for no other reason than it was the last place I wanted to be. Two days here felt like twenty, and I still had a lifetime to go before I could go home.
Sighing, I pushed off the door and ventured further into the room I’d been assigned at the Manchester club’s visitor accommodation. There was so much luxury I wanted to puke, but I settled to stripping down to my boxers and throwing myself on the bed, taking my two most precious things with me.
I set the phones on a pillow, one sleek and up to date, the other cracked and antiquated in iPhone years, but both equally valuable to me. I’d kept Lucky’s fully charged since he’d run out on me four days ago, mine too, but neither had buzzed with any contact from him.
You should’ve left it in the room so he could retrieve it without you taking it hostage.
And for once, the devil on my shoulder was right. I’d kept Lucky’s phone for my own sake, praying that he’d care enough about it to face me to get it back, but I’d heard nothing, and selfish anxiety was starting to lose space to genuine concern. No one had called Lucky’s phone, and the idea that there was nobody in his life to worry about him scared me to death. He was fine—of course he was—but what if he wasn’t? How would I ever know?
That’s right, bring it back to you.
Groaning, I closed my eyes, praying for the sleep I so desperately needed to give me a break, but nothing happened. Agitation clawed at my fatigued muscles, and panic built in my chest until I was sweating. I was such a fucking idiot. All I’d had to do was be honest—to tell Lucky I could promise him nothing but furtive evenings holed up in a crappy hotel, clipped text messag
es, and cryptic phone calls. Nothing but secrets and silence. But instead I’d let him leave believing it was his fault. That we had no future because I didn’t want one with him, and now I had no way of fixing it, even if all the apologies in the world could make things right.
Frustration boiled over. I rolled off the bed and stumbled onto the balcony, gasping in frigid winter air until my chest ached, but I barely felt the cold as I leaned on the rail. Numbness warred with a new pain in my heart and I fucking hated myself.
The years-old scar on my wrist throbbed. I glanced, half-expecting to see it bulging out of my skin, but I couldn’t see it in the dark. Perhaps that wasn’t real either.
A knock at the door broke through my haze. I turned slowly and stared back into the room. Did I imagine that shit? The state I was in, I could believe it, but then the knocking came again, louder, and more insistent.
Dazed, I hurried inside and grabbed some joggers from my open bag, yanking them over my junk in time to open my door to Micah—who’d been sent from his own club—and a player from Madrid we’d been training with.
“Get dressed, dude,” Micah said. “We’re going out.”
“Out?”
“Yeah. Management want us to hit a few bars, show some face. Figured yours would too.”
By management, he meant our commercial teams, not our clubs, and he was probably right, but I’d never cared about that bullshit, and everyone knew it—Micah especially after our conversation a few weeks ago. “Whatever. You kids have fun.”
I started to close the door, but Micah blocked it with his foot. “Come on, mate. Don’t be a drag. We’re gonna get food first. You gotta eat, right?”
Food was the last thing on my mind, but I’d skipped dinner, and left to my own devices, wouldn’t bother to rectify that—a dangerous game where pro sport was concerned. Fuck it. “Give me five minutes.”
I’d made a shit ton of mistakes recently, but letting myself be talked into hanging around Manchester city centre was right up there. Getting food turned out to be tiny plates of crap at a VIP bar, and if I hadn’t been so wound up, I’d have been bored out of my tiny mind.
As it was, I was veering between a panic attack and punching the next person who tried to touch my arse.
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