“Is he even supposed to do anything in particular?” Noah asked Spence. “I thought you were just hanging out.”
“Oh, I am. Gavin, feel free to go about your normal routine,” Spence said in a way that was reassuring. “I’ll just chillax.”
I brushed aside my animosity for people who said “chillax.” “You’re gonna be bored as fuck. All I’m going to do is analyze Sunday’s game.”
“Even better. I love football.”
Noah flashed a thumbs-up. “There you go. It will be great, Gavin. Trust me.”
“I won’t forgive you for abandoning me,” I grumbled.
“I can live with that.”
With another cute grin, Noah wandered off to do his actual job—babysitting my schedule and finances, not me while I fumbled interviews.
“Whatever. If I bore the fuck out of you, I apologize in advance.”
Spence raised his hands again. He probably hadn’t had very high expectations in the first place.
We settled in the living room, and I flipped on ESPN before running through the game. When I caught a load of the headline, I recoiled.
“They’re still talking about that ninety-three-yard touchdown,” Spence said. “It was amazing.”
“It wasn’t a real game. They must be out of shit to talk about if they’re discussing a scrimmage.”
“Even so, it was incredible. You were playing against all your own starters on the Barons, not some guys off the street. How did you get that arranged, anyway? Must have been hard during the season when everyone is tired from practice and traveling.”
“Yeah. The Barons tend to be loyal to their family. Sounds like bullshit, but it’s true.” I leaned back in the seat, still studying the screen as an anchor in a bright yellow suit moved on to talk about tonight’s game. “We’re a new team compared to others in the NFL, and a lot of the guys still feel like we have something to prove. And I guess we do, because we don’t have all the history of, like, the Forty-niners and shit. We also get shitted on a lot by other people in the industry.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I shrugged. “People feel threatened by new things, and even though the Barons have been around for a decade, we’re still raw compared to a lot of the old-timers. New and beating teams with coaches who’ve been established for fucking ages.”
“Huh. I guess I didn’t realize the NFL has that kind of politics.”
It suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t supposed to be talking about the NFL. Fuck. Not even a couple of hours in, and I was already blowing it. “All organizations have politics, but I think it’s also about the fans and the media. Not just the NFL.”
“So you think fans are so antagonistic towards you because you’re one of the best tight ends in the country on a new team,” Spence surmised. “I bet you have a point. Could also be why they hate the fact that you don’t play the game.”
“The game?”
“You know,” he said. “Showboating. Celebrating. Being charming or at least entertaining. You just play the game and stalk off the field. Well . . . you started up with Instagram and Twitter.”
Noah was the one who updated my Twitter account, but I didn’t say that.
“What prompted you to get on social media after all this time?”
“Boredom.”
“Boredom is doing you good. The hashtag about Gavin Brawley’s smile trended for two full days. We’re talking millions of likes. For someone who claims to hate promo and marketing, that was solid gold.”
“And it was all Noah,” I said. “The scrimmage was his idea, and he’s the one who took and edited the video. To be honest, I know my reputation could use some work. I know people only look at me a certain way, but for a long time I didn’t give a shit. But when Noah came around, I guess you could say I started thinking about things differently.”
Spence nodded slowly. “How’s that?”
“Think about it, man. This guy who was going to be working for me and living with me was terrified. He thought I was a bully and an asshole. Worried about being here ’cause he worried I was going to antagonize him just because he couldn’t give two shits about football. I guess you could call it a wake-up call to realize a total stranger was wary of being around me due to my reputation and shitty attitude. I had to start thinking about my actions and what came out of my mouth. I don’t want to be a monster.”
Spence glanced over his shoulder as if seeking Noah again, but didn’t find him. “You two seem to get on pretty well now. I gotta say, I never expected to hear Gavin Brawley pleading with his PA not to abandon him with a hundred-and-twenty-pound journalist. It was adorbs. Especially when he all but patted your head in response before walking out without a backward glance.”
“He’s always like that,” I said, unable to resist a fond grin. “If you motherfuckers think I’m irritating on the field, imagine living with me and having to put up with my shit. Whiny and needy and obnoxious as fuck. But he handles it, and he isn’t afraid to put me in my place.”
“You’re saying the best way to get close to you is to call you on your shit?”
“Maybe? Yeah, I guess. It worked for him.”
Spence laughed. “So, I’ve been here for an hour and so far, this is what I’ve got—there are two things that can bring out DatBrawleySmile. Playing football and his personal assistant. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
It occurred to me right then and there that this sounded mushy as hell. But it also occurred to me that I didn’t care. There was nothing to correct. The only thing wrong about Spence’s statement was that I wanted Noah to be a lot more than my personal assistant.
I changed the subject not too long after that conversation and spent the next few hours watching game tape, but somehow things kept going back to Noah. By the time Spence was on his way and I was shutting the door, I couldn’t tell if I’d blown that interview or if I’d humanized myself by talking about my only fucking non-football-related friend.
When I found Noah hunched over my desk with his head braced in his hand, my spirits sank.
“Shit, I fucked up, didn’t I?”
Noah jumped up, looking guilty. “I didn’t mean to spy on you.”
“I don’t care about that. Did I mess up?”
“No . . . I don’t know.”
“Fuck.” I shook my head, scowling. “I never should have done that alone. I should have known I don’t know how to talk to people.”
“Gavin, that’s not—”
“Now that whole thing will backfire and—”
“Gavin, stop. I didn’t say any of that.”
I clammed up when he closed the distance between us. He was trying to reassure me, but he was clearly stressed. Dark brows wound together, back tense, and hair wild like he’d been clawing his fingers through it for the past few hours. I brushed some of it out of his face, unable to help myself. For just a second he closed his eyes.
“Why did you talk about me so much?”
“I’m locked in this house with you every day. Who else would I talk about?”
“I don’t know. Your other friends? Pretend Max is a female and talk about him?”
“Me and Max just have fun together, man. There’s nothing to talk about unless someone is trying to get TMI about my sex life.”
“And there should be nothing to talk about when it comes to me, unless . . .” Noah gestured as if searching for words. “Unless you’re talking about how you had to adapt to someone being in your space because you’re usually really private. But you . . . you made it out like . . .”
“I made it out like what?” I demanded. “Like we’re friends? Sorry. My mistake.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he snapped. “You said I’m the only thing besides football that makes you smile. Do you realize how that sounds?”
“I don’t give a damn about how it sounds. It’s true. And if they want to use my words to start some gay rumor, that’s their choice. I’m not gonna pretend you haven’t made
a difference in my life.” I pointed at him. “How can it be a human-interest piece if I omit the person who made me want to act like a decent fucking human?”
Noah flushed so red I expected him to unload on me about the boundaries we’d just discussed, me being his boss, and then detour into how I was sabotaging myself and my shot at improving my reputation with fans, but he didn’t. Instead, he stepped closer to me, slid a hand around to brace the back of my neck, and pressed his lips against mine.
All the tension flushed out of my body to a resounding yes finally echoing in my brain.
A wrecked moan escaped me as soon as his tongue was in my mouth. I couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t hide how much he turned me on. His body pressed to mine was everything. His taste in my mouth was fucking heaven. I loved how he writhed against me, and how he wasn’t shy about taking what he wanted. He didn’t wait for me to make a move—this was happening on his terms. And that turned me on like nothing else.
Noah only released his tight grip on my hair to slide his hands up my shirt and guide it over my head. He smoothed his hands over the bumps and ridges of my torso, breath coming faster and heart pounding so violently I could feel the rhythm like a drumline beating against my chest.
“Your body is so fucking amazing.”
Many people had said those exact words to me before, but coming from Noah, with his gaze heated and hands moving over me, it made my knees weak. I leaned against the desk and let him touch me—his fingers following the path of my pecs down my torso to my abs and then dipping along my V-cuts. I thought he would stop there and keep massaging my chest while I explored his mouth, but he dropped his hand lower and slid it into the band of my shorts.
Noah palmed my erection through my underwear with the confidence of someone accustomed to grabbing a dick. My eyes rolled back, and my body shuddered. He was capable of destroying me even without skin-to-skin contact.
“Fuck, you’re even bigger when you’re hard.”
I made a semi-incoherent sound and crushed him against me. My heart was beating so fast it was resounding in my ears, and it increased when he slid his hand into my underwear and started jacking me. With his fingers tight and thumb pressed to the slit, I felt like coming two strokes in. My legs were spread wide enough to burn my hamstrings, and my thighs were trembling like I was doing a plank instead of having my wood milked by a good little college boy.
“Yeah, Noah,” I whispered. “Jerk that dick, baby.”
A raw groan wrenched out of Noah, and he plastered himself to me tighter. One of my knees was pressed to his crotch, so I could feel how hard he was through the thick fabric of his Dickies. I about lost it when he started grinding against me. Losing it seemed even closer to my reality when precum slicked my erection so much that I could hear the slick sound of his hand pumping. My abdomen tightened, and an arc of pleasure shot through me.
“Stop,” I growled against his mouth. “Hold up.”
He obeyed, and took his hand off me. Too close. Way too close. I needed to make this last.
We kissed again, like the world was ending or the ship was sinking and this was our last goodbye, while I returned the favor of getting him naked. I yanked his button-down open and off, sending buttons flying everywhere in my clumsy panic to get him naked. He didn’t complain. Even when I tore the collar of his white undershirt. Just twined his tongue with mine and kissed me until I was near delirious with lack of oxygen. Not sure what it said about me that I’d rather have lost consciousness than end this kiss. But he did before me.
“You turn me on so badly,” he panted, mouthing down my throat. “It’s not fair.”
I rooted for a coherent response in the depths of my lust-addled brain, but he sank his teeth into the tendons on the side of my neck, and I lost my mind.
“Oh fuck.”
Noah sucked on the spot while I ground against his thigh, and he reached between us to fully shove down my shorts and underwear. He moaned and licked his way up again, sucking my tongue into his mouth while we ground against each other. By the time I had our positions reversed and him sitting on the edge of my desk with his thighs spread open, our restless frotting was driving me wild.
Noah reached down one-handed to undo his fly. His mouth moved more frantically after I yanked his pants and briefs down so our dicks could glide together. My past of hooking up had always been more or less the same—hard fucking or dick sucking, little kissing, and definitely no prolonged fooling around. Foreplay had never been my thing when I was in a paranoid rush to get off and hustle the other person out the door before they could snap a picture. Yet I was more than content to grind on Noah’s lean, naked body all day long. Maybe even for the rest of my life.
Except that was all jokes once he bent his knees, and my brain hyperfocused on his ass. I grabbed my dick and rubbed the precum-slicked head against his hole.
“Shit,” he groaned, reaching down to jerk himself off. Didn’t even hesitate, just started stroking it while his knuckles brushed against me.
I swallowed the rest of his moans and fucked his mouth with my tongue while jerking my dick with the head still pressed against his ass. He rubbed against it urgently.
“Bet you’re tight as hell.”
This time Noah shuddered. “We should stop,” he said, still stroking himself. Still making sure his tongue grazed me with every word. “Bad idea.”
“What’s a bad idea?”
“This,” he panted. “Letting you fuck me until you come in me.”
Jesus Christ, he was going to kill me. My hands began to shake again. I couldn’t stop kissing him between each sentence, needing to taste the lips that were saying words so dirty.
“You’d let me come in you?” I nibbled his lower lip, our eyes locked and heads pressed together. “Use you until I fill you up?”
He made another of those wrecked sounds and rocked against me. I could feel his ass clenching against the crown of my dick.
“Is that what you think about, Noah?” I asked, voice coming out in a low growl as I dragged the dampness against him. “You fucking tell me.”
“Yeah.” Now it was Noah who was shaking. His entire body was tight with tension, sweat glistening on his skin and muscles tight. “Sometimes.”
“Oh, fuck yeah.” I licked the side of his face, collecting sweat, and watched him slowly fall to pieces. “Tell me why. And how.”
“Here. I first thought of it here. You fucking me on this desk.” Noah was clawing at me now and pitching his voice lower, but it didn’t seem like embarrassment. Judging from the need leaking from his own dick, he was unraveling just as fast as me. “You had me pull up your chart from your doctor, and I was thinking—how I knew everything about you. How I could feel every inch of your bare flesh if you fucked me.”
Another hard kiss, then I came as close to begging as I could. “Let me.”
He shook his head again, looking agonized even as he started kissing me again.
We were locked together, sweating and dripping precum all over each other. I didn’t see how he thought me sinking into his ass was more of a line being crossed than us fooling around. I could have pointed out that logic, but an arc of heat lanced through me once his breath hitched higher, and I defaulted into a teenage boy.
“Can I put the tip in?”
It made no sense. At all. But Noah nodded and resumed his frantic exploration of my mouth. We were drunk on each other. It was the only explanation why I was begging him to slip my dick inside him just a little instead of going all the way.
Noah tilted his head back once I was inside him, eyes closed and throat bobbing with each swallow. He started jerking himself off as I did the same, stroking my shaft while his ass clenched around the crown. It was the worst kind of tease, but so tight and hot that the onslaught of a coming orgasm built in me and spread.
I pulled out, panting against his throat, and tapped the tip of my dick against his hole. He made a noise that sounded like sex and velvet encapsulated, right bef
ore shoving half the things off my desk so he could scoot backwards. With one palm planted against the desk, the other tight around his dick, and one knee drawn up and turned to the side, it was clear he wanted to feel me again.
My foot hit against my fallen keyboard, but I ignored it in favor of falling into another dizzying kiss while teasing his ass with my dick. I put the tip in again, eyes rolling back as he milked it with his clenching muscles, pulled out fully, and slipped in deeper the next time. I had no idea who I was tormenting anymore, but the first time I fully seated myself in him, his muscles clamped down on my dick and he yanked me closer.
Noah tossed his head back, eyes shut and biting his lower lip. He arched against me, rocking his hips, spreading his thighs wider in invitation. A silent shout of No more teasing. Just fuck me.
It wasn’t ideal—the friction was almost too raw, the glide not as smooth, and the edge of the desk bit into my legs, but it was amazing made perfect when his eyes slit open and he gazed at me while we were pieced together. Without lube, I didn’t smash him as forcefully as I wanted to, but the blissed-out half smile on his face let me know I was hitting it just right. That smile grew when I manhandled him off the desk and got him to ride me once we relocated to the couch.
I finished with my hands in his hair and our lips crushed together. It was an orgasm worthy of Olympic medals, but what really stopped my heart was the sound of my name in his lust-soaked voice.
We were both in trouble.
Chapter Fourteen
Noah
I opened my eyes to darkness and oppressive heat.
It took me several minutes to fully rouse and for my vision to adjust. My body was pressed against the back of a couch, and Gavin was crushed to my front. His arms were wound around me, and he was breathing softly in my ear. And we were sweating all over each other.
Illegal Contact (The Barons) Page 18