I did know it. And he was saying exactly what I needed to hear to put all of this to bed. My feelings for him, my desire for him, and the part of me that really felt like we’d become friends and had cherished that closeness. But instead of relief that we were on the same page, it was undeniable that we weren’t at all. The only thing I knew, at that moment, was that the idea of us not speaking anymore, not confiding in each other again, crushed my heart.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It does.” Gavin opened his mouth, closed it, and then swallowed hard. “Noah, until I can want you without it legally being classified as sexual harassment, I just need to stay the fuck away from you.”
“But if we stuck to our bou—”
“Forget boundaries!” His voice rose, booming through the empty property and echoing. “It’s not just about me touching you. I like you, goddamnit. I don’t just want to fuck you. I want you in my bed, with me at breakfast and dinner, watching football with me even if you don’t know the difference between a kicker and a punt—”
I kissed him.
And he jerked away so abruptly that I lost my balance and fell into the water.
“Goddamnit, Gavin!” I shouted, spluttering and spitting out water after coming up for air. “What the hell?”
“What the hell yourself? I just told you we need to stay away from each other.”
Gavin was so naturally loud that he sounded angry, but once I blinked the water out of my eyes I realized he was once again fighting a laugh. Glaring, I splashed water in his face.
“You jackass. I’m completely soaked.”
“It’s not like you have to go far for a change of clothes.”
“Oh, whatever. Just forget it.”
I swam away from him and towards the steps. My ears were burning despite the water being colder than I’d been prepared for, and I wanted to be away. To give him what he wanted and create all of this distance so this tug-of-war could dead itself once and for all. But when he grabbed my arm and pulled me back towards him, my heart sped and relief washed over me just like the water. I melted against him once my back was pinned to his hard chest.
For a brief moment, we said nothing. Just looked ridiculous with him bare chested and me fully dressed and wearing ruined sneakers while he breathed in my ear. Then he sighed.
“We’re failing at boundaries.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “I can’t help it.”
His hands tightened on me. “Why?”
“Because I fucking like you too.”
Gavin exhaled against me. He sounded so relieved that I wanted to turn and hug him, but I was trapped in the iron grip of his arms. “Tell me what to do,” he said. “And be sure. Because I don’t want to screw this up. I don’t want to make you regret any of this. And I don’t want you to think your job is contingent on—”
I pulled out of his grasp and turned in the water. “I don’t think that. You’re a good person. And I trust you.”
He searched my face, brows knit and so visibly confused that I felt just awful.
“I have feelings for you, Gavin. And I don’t want to ignore them even though I know you probably think I’m some freak who goes around fucking all his bosse—”
This time, Gavin shut me up with a kiss. And when he tangled his fingers in my hair and pinned me against the side of the pool, I didn’t stop him.
I wanted this. I wanted him. And it was becoming clear that no matter how much I tried to fight it, the need to be close to him wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Fifteen
Gavin
At first we had an unspoken rule to only fuck like crazy after business hours.
It didn’t last.
I had my fingers, tongue, or dick in him twice a day before dinner by the time Halloween came. We played it off like it was just us getting nasty together. Him showing what a freak he was underneath his Oxford shirts, the kind of boy who liked his hair pulled and my come all over him, and me showing him the reason I spent so much time in the gym.
But he was sleeping in my bed by the holidays.
We were on a one-way trip to the danger zone, and there seemed to be no way to stop it. And no reason for me to want to.
“I have good news times two.”
I waited, from my station on the floor by my bucket of fan mail, but Noah didn’t elaborate. He didn’t even look up. He was sitting cross-legged in the office chair, wearing torn-up jeans and one of my long-sleeved Barons T-shirts, with his attention rapt on the computer screen. He was fucking adorable. Messy hair all in the way of his glasses and lower lip caught between his teeth.
“What’s the good news?” I prompted. “You have on no underwear and decided to stop cutting me off during the day again?”
There was no response so I did the only rational thing I could think of—crawled across the floor until I was under the desk. A nip at his ankle sent him flinging himself backwards with so much force the chair nearly flipped over.
I guffawed as he glared.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to get your attention.” I pulled myself up, getting all up in his space in the process, and sat on the edge of the desk so I was blocking the screen. “What’s the good news?”
Noah’s gaze skewed down my bare chest to my low-hanging cotton pants, not even pretending not to check out my dick. I smirked. He rolled his eyes.
“Sorry. The Vice article just came out, and it distracted me.”
“Oh.” Unease crept over me like a million spiders. “Is it bad?”
“I don’t know. Someone didn’t let me finish reading before he tried to scare the shit out of me.”
“I’ll read it myself.”
Noah didn’t protest as I unplugged the laptop and balanced it on my hand, squinting at the tiny text so I could read out loud.
“‘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,’ says one of the most well-known tight ends in the NFL.”
“Oh no,” Noah groaned, sinking lower in the chair. “Why did he have to start with a quote about me?”
“Gavin Brawley began his football career thirteen years ago in an abandoned lot where he and other kids in one of the most rough-and-tumble—hey, look at that, he didn’t fucking say ‘hardscrabble,’” I drawled.
“Shut up and keep reading.”
“How can I keep reading if I shut up?”
Noah kicked me in the kneecap, and I nearly dropped the laptop.
“. . . rough-and-tumble neighborhoods of Newark, NJ, started throwing the ball around. He was always the biggest and, due to a self-admitted shitty attitude and boulder-sized chip on his shoulder, he always played the meanest. The fact that Gavin is completely aware of the flaws fans and journalists alike spend so much time focusing on, and doesn’t deny their existence, makes him stand out from the many professional athletes who only apologize for their behavior when forced to do so by PR or a lawyer. You can tell they’re insincere and that they don’t really understand what they’ve done wrong. But not Gavin. He knows he’s an asshole, and, until recently, he seemed completely unapologetic about it.”
Noah’s fingers were choking strands of his hair by now. He was more nervous than me about this article.
“Do you want me to stop?”
He shook his head rapidly.
“Okay . . . I find myself sitting in Gavin’s beautiful mansion about two months into his house arrest for assaulting a man he’d had a confrontation with at a nightclub. No one knows why Gavin punched the guy, and uncovering the details of that infamous night aren’t why I’m here. I’m here to observe Gavin in his natural habitat. To see what a multimillionaire athlete does during a football season he’s banned from when he is isolated in the Hamptons with no one to talk to but his personal assistant and occasionally mem
bers of his management team. Noah, this is boring.”
Noah jumped to his feet and grabbed the laptop. He skimmed the article faster than I would have been able to, synthesizing and analyzing the text at a speed that was sort of hot. Weird things about Noah turned me on. My attraction had turned into outright infatuation—a fact that he was starting to become very aware of. Danger zone times ten.
“Oh, get the fuck out of here,” he snarled, some of his Queens accent creeping in. “Gavin seems most comfortable around Noah—his personal assistant and a former social worker at an LGBT foundation. How the hell did he know where I worked?”
My brow crashed down. “No clue. Does he say your full name?”
“No, but still. Why does he have to basically mention me being gay?”
“Working at an LGBT foundation doesn’t make someone gay.”
“Oh, thanks, Gavin. I didn’t know that.” Noah gestured with the laptop, causing the screen to nearly swing shut. “The only reason that is worthwhile information to put in is if he wanted to make it clear I’m probably gay.”
He had a point.
“Just keep reading.”
Noah read the next few lines to himself, eyes narrowed with suspicion and distrust. He looked like me when I scanned the publications Mel and Joe were trying to force me to do interviews with—wary and skeptical about their intentions. But he was wary and skeptical for me. There were times when I tried to remind myself that he likely only spent so much time on my dick because I knew how to use it with enough skill to make him blow his load without touching his own, but moments like these made me wonder if he shared my developing . . . something. Whatever it was.
I brushed my lips to the side of his neck, and he brought up a hand to cup my jaw. Didn’t even stop reading. Just returned the touch as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Had anyone ever been like this with me? The answer was a big fat no.
“Several times throughout the afternoon, Gavin talks about how awful he is. The word miserable comes up a lot. Pissy. Grumpy. Disaffected even makes an appearance. For a guy who claims to be of few words, he has a good vocabulary.” Noah snorted. “Despite all of this harping on his own shitty personality and mean-spiritedness, Gavin spends a solid two hours reading fan mail. Ninety percent of the mail he receives is awful. Advice for him to commit suicide, quit the league or at least the Barons. Death threats from fans of rival teams. Insults about him having grown up poor with doubts about his literacy. There are many people who think he’s a witless Neanderthal but still want him to choke-fuck them. He reads all of those out loud without reaction except for a bit of anger at the people who seem to find his lack of family humorous. At one point, Gavin shook his head and looked at me. ‘I get why people don’t like me, but that shit makes me mad. They’re not just insulting me. They’re insulting every kid who grows up in the system. Saying I deserve that means they deserve it too. This is the reason why I don’t fuck with people. I may be a fucking douchebag, but I’m in good company with about ninety percent of humanity.”
Noah wound an arm around my neck and pulled me closer. Protectively. As if he could keep me from seeing the words I’d already read. I kissed his forehead.
“Gavin doesn’t read the nice letters out loud because most of them are from less fortunate kids or teenagers. He says they’re too personal to share with a stranger, which leads us to talking about his recent donation to his old high school’s football program.”
“Can we stop reading this now?” I ask, nosing at him again. “I’m horny.”
“You’re always horny. But this is work for me. Seriously. Just let me read.”
I tried to control myself as he skimmed the rest of the article. The wariness never left his expression, but some tenderness made its way in. He kept smiling and squeezing me, a total sucker for the parts Spence must have put in about me gushing over the kid who’d written me a second letter thanking me for the donation, and wishing I could have come to the school myself.
“‘I’m glad it made him happy,’ Gavin says as he tosses a football into the air. He’s looking at me again, not blinking, but I can’t read his expression. Gavin has one of the most impenetrable faces I’ve ever seen. ‘I expect a lot of people are gonna assume I did it as a publicity stunt. Some shit to make up for me acting like I’m still a nobody from Newark who can fuck up a dude who toes too far out of line. But that’s not what it’s about. I’m glad the kid at least knows that.’ Judging by some of the responses to his contribution, Gavin has a point. A few people are skeptical about his sudden philanthropic gesture. His personal assistant, however, is not one of them. As Gavin goes back to the gym to complete his grueling daily workout regime, Noah leads me out. He’s worried about the interview and it shows in everything from his big blue eyes to his knitted brow. ‘I started out thinking working with Gavin was going to be a nightmare, but it’s not. I just wish other people could get to know him the way I have. Beneath the snarls, sarcasm, and hostility is a good guy. Even if he doesn’t eat Italian bread.’”
I burst out laughing as he set the laptop on the desk again. With the tension easing from his shoulders, I backed him up against the desk and wrapped my arms around him. He was half smiling and didn’t stop me from sliding my tongue into his mouth. It was only his recent plea for me to stop feeling him up while he was working that kept my hands from running all over his body.
“Mmm,” I moaned against his mouth. “How do you expect me to keep my mitts off you when your kisses always feel like invitations to tongue baths and blow jobs?”
“Ha.” Noah planted a hand on my chest and pushed me away. “We should probably kiss less.”
“You gotta deprive me of everything? I love kissing you.” Noah blushed to the roots of his hair, so rosy and pretty that I couldn’t stop grinning. He remained stubbornly silent, and I chucked his chin. “All right. The Vice article wasn’t bad. We can breathe easy. So, what’s your double good news?”
“Oh yeah. First—someone at Under Armour called my father!”
I had a feeling his father loathed me, but my relief was enormous. All I’d done was ask the woman handling the donation whether she could put his résumé in front of some eyeballs, and I’d worried it wouldn’t get far. It wasn’t like anyone at UA owed me a favor. It’d bothered me that I couldn’t do more to help his father out, but Noah liked reminding me that it wasn’t my responsibility. He said it with an edge every time, defensive and unwilling to take a handout, but I could tell he liked that I cared. And that he was surprised that I did.
“That’s awesome.”
“It is. And it’s some kind of regional manager position. If he gets the job, he’d be overseeing multiple stores. It’s like thirty thousand more than he used to make.” Noah rested his hands on my shoulders. “I know you said you didn’t want me to tell him it was you who’d sent in his résumé, but I think you should let me. You giving him those Thanksgiving Day tickets to the game was a step in the right direction towards his trusting you.”
“A, you’re not telling him. And B, I gave those tickets to both of you.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. I passed on freezing my ass off in a snuggie and told him to take his new girlfriend and Jasmine. My other good news is that I can come over here on Thanksgiving and eat turkey sandwiches with hot-sauce pickles while we watch the game.”
Was he trying to sweep me off my feet? We could get sweaty and ride each other three times a day, but him wanting to make me happy in simple ways, like watching football with me even though he was so apathetic, made me want to squeeze him tight.
Damn. This whole thing with it being a crush and us just having sex to cope with the obvious energy between us was doomed. At least on my end. I had no idea what his feelings were, and I hadn’t asked. I was afraid to ask.
“Does that sound good?” he prompted. “If not, I can stay home and watch figure skating.”
“Figure skating?”
“Yeah. There always seems to be so
me figure-skating thing on around Thanksgiving. Or Star Wars marathons.”
I poked his stomach, smirking. “Nerd.”
“No apologies.”
“None needed.” I brushed my thumb over his face. “And that’d be great if you’re cool with Joe and Mel being here. I’d planned to stay here and get drunk, but they tag-teamed me and demanded they do some catered dinner.”
Noah’s smile faded a little, but he covered it quickly. “Hey, that’s awesome. I love that they care so much. I should have known they wouldn’t just let you sit here by yourself on Thanksgiving.”
“They try to do it every year since both Simeon and Marcus try to see their own families. They invite me, but I’m not trying to intrude.”
“I’m glad Mel and Joe care so much then. Their catered dinner sounds much better than what I had in mind.” The forced smile turned a little naughty. “Well, maybe not.”
I wanted more than anything to know what had caused his lips to turn up at the sides and his eyes to glint. He was a dirty boy in bed, and I loved it when he was vocal about what he wanted. Even more so once he was worn out and messy but still demanding another round.
“Fuck them. I’ll blow them off and spend the day with you.”
“No,” he said. “That’s rude.”
“Does it look like I give a fuck about rudeness?”
“You give a fuck about people who give a fuck about you,” Noah countered. “Just do the dinner.”
This was awful. The mental image he’d put in my mind of us eating random shit all day and watching football while sprawled on my couch or in the bed was epic. Especially when you added sex.
“You could stay over on Wednesday,” I ventured. “And then stay for dinner on Thursday?”
“With Joe and Mel?”
“Yeah.”
Noah gave an emphatic shake of his head complete, with hands waving in front of him. “That’s not just out of my lane. It’s out of my area code.”
Illegal Contact (The Barons) Page 20