Page 128 of Breaking the Ice

“Sure.”

Gavin wasn’t sure they’d spent a night apart since getting together almost two weeks ago, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to start now. Especially not when he was already so uneasy about all the crap surrounding his team.

Some moments, somedays, Zach felt like the only steadiness Gavin possessed.

You know other things, too. Lots of other things.

He reminded himself of that, over and over, in the gym. Lifting until his arms burned and running hard on the treadmill until sweat stung his eyes.

After showering, he headed home, heating up leftovers and eating them on the couch as the Sentinels and Mavs played.

Hayes was already two goals in, skating like a man possessed against his former team, but Gavin was only half-heartedly watching as he sorted through his email and tried to pretend like he wasn’t already eager and waiting for Zach to show up. To kiss him. To put his arms around him. To reassure him. And then to do more . ..

It wasn’t that late, but with arousal already beginning to simmer in his veins, Gavin took himself to bed—not todoanything; he couldn’t actually imagine not waiting for Zach, now that he was allowed to touch him and be touched in return—but because he thought maybe if he did, the waiting wouldn’t feel so interminable.

He’d read the same page of his book, some bullshit crap about leadership that Sidney had recommended, when Gavin finally heard the front door open and close.

He’d texted Zach his front door code a few days ago, but this was the first time he’d actually used it, and his heart began to race as he heard the noises of Zach closing the door, shucking his shoes, dropping his bag down on the couch, and then heading in towards the bedroom.

When Zach finally appeared in the doorway, his face was half-shadowed, the only light coming from the lamp next to the bed.

“Hey,” Zach said, grinning. “Hoped I’d find you here.”

“You happy to be right?”

“Yeah.” Zach’s gaze dipped from Gavin’s face down his bare chest to where the blankets were barely rucked up around his hips, exposing a strip of his boxer briefs. “I used to imagine you lying here like this when we talked on the phone.”

Gavin swallowed hard. Remembering all the times he’d done exactly that—and even more, the moment he’d hung up, touching himself, and wishing there’d been some way,any way, it could be Zach’s hands instead of his own.

“It happened pretty often,” Gavin admitted, and Zach groaned in the back of his throat, soft and earnest.

“You’re killing me, here,” he said. But he sounded like he’d willingly go to the grave.

“Then I guess I shouldn’t tell you what else I used to do,” Gavin teased.

Zach froze in the middle of taking off his sweatshirt.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Zach demanded, after he regained movement again, his T-shirt following the sweatshirt. Gavin almost joked thatyeah, his clothes did absolutely belong on Gavin’s floor, but heat blasted through him at the thought, because they sure fucking did.

Zach’s breath was coming out in shallow pants, his chest rising and falling.

“I’m not kidding,” Gavin said. He swallowed hard, meeting Zach’s intense gaze.

After shucking his jeans, Gavin fully expected Zach to crawl up on the bed, to blanket his very willing body with his own. But even though Zach put a knee on the bed, absently cupping where he was clearly hard in his briefs, he didn’t move up farther.

Instead, Zach waved at him, casually, like his eyes weren’t blown dark and hungry like he could eat Gavin alive. “Well, then,” he said, “what are you waiting for?”

“What am I—” Gavin broke off. “You don’t want me to—”

“Oh, I do,” Zach said smugly.

“I’m not touching myself in front of you,” Gavin hissed, suddenly flushed with embarrassmentandunexpected arousal.

“You’re not, huh?” Zach grinned. “I bet I could convince you to do it.”

“No way,” Gavin scoffed. He wasn’t going to take that bet. Maybe he was soft for Zach—eager, really—hungry, like he’d been starving for years and years. Zach had to know that, but he wouldn’t use it against him.

Would he?