Page 16

Dakota awoke to someone climbing in bed beside him. “Bryce?” he whispered hazily, but the minute the word left his mouth, he knew that wasn’t who it was.

“Nah, Gavin,” the guy whispered, sliding closer and looping an arm around Dakota’s waist, his breath warm on the back of his neck. “Sorry I woke you though. You must have been having a good dream about that Bryce guy.”

“Hardly. More like a nightmare.”

Some of his unhappiness must have bled through in his voice because Gavin dragged his thumb across Dakota’s abs, his voice turning concerned. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dakota scrubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah, not fully awake yet.”

“You want me to let you get more rest?”

For a moment, Dakota considered it before he shook his head. “No. Not sure I could fall back to sleep even if I tried.”

“Ugh, I feel that. I want to take a nap, but I’m too wired from the win.” He pressed a kiss to Dakota’s shoulder, curving his body around him. “I’ve gotta admit, it was nice to come home and see you in my bed though.”

“It’s comfortable.”

Gavin chuckled. “It sure is. It isn’t usually pre-warmed for me though. This is a nice change of pace.”

“Good.” Dakota swallowed hard because he liked that Gavin seemed happy, but it was a little disconcerting how happy he seemed right now. Must be from the earlier win or something.

Gavin feathered his lips against Dakota’s shoulder, trailing kisses toward his neck. “So I picked up sushi on the way home. You hungry?”

“Not yet. But if you are?—”

“Oh, I’m hungry,” Gavin purred. “But not for sushi.”

“You’re so fucking cheesy.”

“And you’re grumpy when you wake up.”

Just when I’m thinking about my damn ex, Dakota thought sourly.

“Yeah?” Gavin asked.

Dakota grimaced, realizing he’d said that aloud and not in his head. “Yeah. He was a piece of shit. But I don’t want to think about him right now.” He flipped on his side to look at Gavin.

Damn. He looked so fucking good like this, wearing no shirt, and a pair of trousers with the clasp and zipper undone.

“What do you want to do?”

“Focus on something else.” Dakota licked his lips.

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “You could always get me off.”

“That’s your solution to everything,” Dakota protested.

“Do you have a better one?”

“No.” Smiling a little, Dakota pushed Gavin onto his back, then tugged at the waistband of his trousers. “We had a deal, didn’t we? I can finger you while I blow you, right?”

“Mmm, yes, I believe we did.” Gavin pillowed his head on his arms. “Go for it.”

“You really are insufferable,” Dakota muttered, but since he already had Gavin’s trousers off and was eagerly reaching for the lube, he didn’t think he was fooling anyone.

Gavin’s head was still spinning as he staggered out of bed.

Damn, Dakota had fingered and sucked him within an inch of his life, and he was weak-kneed and wobbly now.

“You okay there?” Dakota asked, eyes dancing with amusement.

“Are you going to let me eat sushi off of you?” Gavin asked instead of dignifying that with a response.

Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Well, since you wouldn’t let me come yet … I guess I don’t have much choice.”

He was sprawled naked in the middle of the bed, lazily stroking his cock. Goddamn. Gavin’s mouth watered at the sight of him, all sex-rumpled and gorgeous.

“You always have a choice,” Gavin murmured, bending over to lazily brush his lips across Dakota’s. “But if you’re up for getting kinky with some food, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I suppose I’ll allow it.” Dakota sighed, but there was a twinkle in his eyes that made Gavin think he was enjoying their usual banter.

“Thank you,” he said gravely. He dropped another peck on Dakota’s lips before he straightened. “I’ll be right back.”

After retrieving the sushi from the refrigerator, Gavin carried it into the bedroom. He found Dakota exactly where he’d left him, only now, his cock was leaking at the tip.

He set the bag of food on the bed beside Dakota’s right hip, took a seat near his left thigh, then bent over and licked the droplet of liquid forming. “Mmm, nice appetizer,” he said after he’d straightened.

“You really are disgustingly cheesy,” Dakota said. He looked like he was trying to fight back a grin.

“Sometimes,” Gavin agreed. “Now, are we doing this?”

“Sure. But we better put down a towel.”

That wasn’t a bad idea, so Gavin fetched one from the en suite bathroom, then spread it out onto the sheets. He patted it and arched an eyebrow at Dakota.

“Do you want me to do something?”

“Roll onto your stomach on this, please.”

Dakota looked longingly at the sushi. “But that looks so good and now I’m hungry .”

“Oh, you’ll get fed.”

“Your dick doesn’t count,” Dakota said, but he did shift onto his stomach.

Gavin laughed, lifting gorgeously arranged containers of sushi out of the bag. It was almost a shame to mess them up, only he had a feeling they’d look even better arranged on Dakota’s skin.

“I’ll feed you the veggie sushi,” he promised before a thought occurred to him. “Hey, will it bother you to have seafood touching your skin. I know you’re concerned with animal welfare and …”

Dakota shot him a look over his shoulder. “You’re weirdly thoughtful.”

“How is being thoughtful weird ?” Gavin asked.

Dakota shrugged, which Gavin took to mean it had something to do with his damn ex. Bryce, apparently. Clearly the guy was a piece of work.

“It’s fine this time,” Dakota said slowly. “I do occasionally eat sustainably caught seafood. Maybe next time you’d be up for doing all-veggie sushi though?”

“I’d be open to that,” Gavin agreed, because Dakota had used the words ‘next time’ which seemed like a small victory. Although he’d taken a dim view of raw vegetables since the ill-timed food poisoning from salad incident, for Dakota, he’d make an exception.

He arranged Dakota so he rested on his elbows, legs together, then eyed the hollow where his torso met his ass.

“This’ll be cold,” he warned Dakota, but he still flinched when Gavin poured soy sauce to form a shallow pool in his lower back.

“Damn, that is cold,” he muttered.

Gavin activated his virtual assistant, saying, “Please raise the bedroom temperature five degrees.”

“Raising the bedroom temperature five degrees,” it echoed back.

“Why am I not surprised you have everything set to voice commands?” Dakota asked drily.

Gavin laughed. “No idea what you mean.” Just because he liked ordering people—and technology—around …

He carefully placed the sashimi and nigiri he’d ordered for himself on Dakota’s ass, making it as artful as possible. “You mind if I get a picture of this?”

“Uhh, of you using me as a table? I’ll pass. Besides, do we want incriminating evidence of the shit we get up to together?”

“The chance of a leak is very small, since I have it set so my pictures don’t automatically sync to the cloud and, instead, go in a secure folder, but I was planning to crop out your hair and the tattoo on your shoulder anyway. And you’re not a table, you’re art .”

“Well, when you put it that way …”

“How about this?” Gavin asked. “I’ll take some pictures, you can look them over, and if you hate them, we’ll delete them?”

“Seems fair.”

Gavin fetched his phone, took a few shots, then passed his phone to Dakota.

He was silent as he looked through them. “Oh,” he said a moment later. “That’s actually really … well, it does look like art.”

“You good with me keeping them then? It’ll be nice spank bank fodder for when I’m alone in a hotel bed on the road.”

“Sure. Guess I should have gotten some pics of the three fingers I had up your ass earlier.”

Gavin shuddered, skin going prickly-hot at the memory. He’d never particularly been into ass play—at least not with his own ass—but that had been incredible. Dakota had long, slender fingers and knew how to hit all the right places.

“Yeah, that was hot,” he said roughly. “Though a video might have been better. And easier, if we’d used a tripod.”

“Mmm,” Dakota said, the sound almost a low, rumbling purr. “Yeah, it would.”

“Now,” Gavin said before he got distracted by the idea of what they could get up to in front of a camera in the future. “How about a truffle avocado roll?”

He carefully dipped a piece into the pool of soy sauce, enough to barely wet it, then lifted it to Dakota’s mouth. He fed it to him, enjoying the brief scrape of Dakota’s teeth on the pad of his thumb as he took it from Gavin’s hand.

“Mmm,” Dakota said with a happy moan. “That’s incredible. I’ve never had anything like it.”

Gavin smiled as he dipped a piece of salmon nigiri in the soy sauce, then ate it himself.

“Next up, we have a sweet potato roll with miso butter,” he explained.

Dakota made appreciative noises as he ate and they went on like that for a while, Gavin feeding himself, and then Dakota. He’d ordered way too many of the vegetarian options, but he was pleased Dakota seemed to like all of them, from the egg and shiitake mushroom roll to one with spicy cucumber.

Gavin enjoyed his blue crab and spicy scallop rolls, then tried a few of Dakota’s vegetarian ones when it was clear there was no way he’d finish them all. They were good, but it wasn’t the actual food that had Gavin feeling like he couldn’t get enough.

It was more than the sensual way Dakota took the food from his fingers, delicately lapping at them with his tongue and how he kept fighting the urge to grind his cock against the mattress, afraid of disturbing the carefully arranged food.

It was his willingness to give Gavin this moment. To trust him. That was what made Gavin’s skin heat and his head buzz with need.

After they’d had their fill, Gavin packed the leftovers away and set them aside. Most of the soy sauce in the small of Dakota’s back was gone and Gavin dragged his tongue across what little remained, licking it off him until the saltiness was gone and there was nothing but the taste of Dakota’s clean skin beneath.

“Can I eat you out now?” he whispered, kneeling on the bed beside Dakota’s hip.

Dakota parted his legs, rasping, “Please.”

Gavin settled between his thighs and pried Dakota’s cheeks apart. For a guy who didn’t play hockey, his glutes were incredibly muscular, and Gavin happily buried his face between them.

Dakota let out a low moan, arching up to meet his mouth, and Gavin gave the task ahead his sole focus, licking the rim, teasing his tongue inside, then sucking a little. The latter seemed to drive Dakota wild and it wasn’t long before he was arching his back, fucking himself on Gavin’s tongue, and making the most deliciously needy noises.

“Yeah, like that,” he whimpered as Gavin pushed his tongue in deeper. Dakota’s body shook.

Fuck, he was so amazing like this, so beautifully alive and responsive, trembling with need, desperate for everything Gavin would give him. Both their bodies were sheened with sweat as Gavin redoubled his efforts, getting lost in the feel and taste of Dakota, taking note of every small thing that made his moans grow louder and made him seek out more.

“Almost there, almost there,” Dakota said with a gasp, a shudder rippling up his spine as he ground against the mattress. “Please, touch me, Gavin.”

Gavin couldn’t refuse Dakota anything, not when he sounded like that, and he reached under Dakota to grasp his cock and stroke. The head of it was slippery with pre-cum, the slide of his foreskin perfect as Gavin worked him over.

A few more laps and sucks with his tongue and lips and then Dakota cried out roughly, thighs clenching, coating Gavin’s hand in cum. He trembled through it all, unrestrained as he fucked into Gavin’s fist, chasing the last few aftershocks of pleasure.

And then he collapsed like a string holding him up had been cut, breathing hard. Gavin carefully let go of his dick, easing his hand out from under Dakota. He softly stroked Dakota’s ass and thighs with light, gentle touches, watching his toned back rise and fall, his breathing shifting from ragged to slow and even.

His head was turned to the side and he looked … peaceful like this, expression blissed out, content.

Gavin had a sudden urge to make Dakota look like that as often as possible and he swallowed thickly. Maybe if he was patient … maybe if he gently coaxed Dakota to open the doors in those high walls he’d built up …

Dakota’s eyes fluttered open and he shot Gavin a lazy smile. Gavin grinned, lifting his hand to his mouth and licking his fingers clean.

“Fuck.” Dakota shifted onto his back, grabbing Gavin and urging him to stretch out over his body. “Gavin.”

Dakota took his fingers in his mouth, lapping them clean, then pulling him in for a searing kiss. Gavin pulled him close, tangling their bodies together, seeking the warmth of Dakota’s skin and the soft noise he made.

They made out for the longest time, until Dakota drew back, touching the corner of his mouth with a rueful smile. “Damn. I’m going to have the worst beard burn if I’m not careful.”

“Sorry.” Gavin gently pushed Dakota’s fingers away to inspect the skin underneath his much softer facial hair. “I know my whiskers are a little coarse.”

“The beard looks good on you though.” Dakota trailed the sides of his fingers along Gavin’s jaw.

“Does it?” Gavin dragged a hand up and down his back, liking the way Dakota pressed into his touch.

Dakota gave him a look of disbelief, his hair a tangled mess on Gavin’s pillow. “Like you don’t know how you look.”

Gavin shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you like it.”

“Despite my best efforts, I like you,” Dakota said, like he was admitting some huge secret.

Gavin smiled, feeling a little smug. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Dakota sat up. “Hey, do you mind if I take a shower? I feel a little sticky.”

“Yeah, of course. Want company?”

Dakota looked him up and down. “Only if you promise to scrub my back.”

Gavin reached out, wrapping a hand around the back of Dakota’s neck and pulling him closer enough that he could speak against his lips. “Sweetheart, I’ll scrub every inch of you with my tongue if you want me to.”