Page 17 of Cold Comeback (Richmond Reapers #1)

My back hit the shelving unit behind me with a soft thud. A stick bin dug into my hip, and a plastic tub rattled once like a warning. Equipment shifted above our heads, but I couldn't bring myself to care about anything except the weight of Gideon's body against mine and the fire in his kisses.

"Fuck," he breathed against my mouth, grinding his hips forward. The friction sent sparks up my spine.

I reached for the hem of his shirt, sliding my hands underneath to touch the warm skin I'd been thinking about for days. He was solid and real under my touch, muscles flexing as he pressed closer.

"You have no idea," I gasped when his lips moved to my neck, "how many times I've thought about this."

He sucked gently, making me arch against him. "Tell me."

"Every practice. Every time you bark orders during drills. Every time you look at me like—" A moan cut off the words as he sucked hard enough to leave a mark.

"Like what?"

"Like you want to devour me."

His laugh was dark and breathless. "That's because I do."

We moved with desperate urgency, hands everywhere, trying to touch as much skin as possible while still technically clothed. When he pressed his thigh between my legs, I had to bite my lip to keep from making a sound that would carry through the thin walls.

"Quiet," he warned, but his voice was shaky.

"Then don't do that thing with your—oh, fuck."

He was doing the thing anyway, grinding his leg against me in a rhythm that had me seeing stars. My hands scrambled to grip his shoulders as heat coiled tight in my stomach.

It was unbelievable. We were in a storage closet at a children's charity event, fully clothed and rutting against each other like teenagers. It was messy and desperate and everything I needed.

I pushed my hand lower, fighting to get inside his jeans. He sucked in, doing his best to give me room.

Gideon's cock was hard, hot, and already leaking a little. I wanted to taste it, but there wasn't room, and he wasn't about to let me drop to my knees in the equipment closet. Instead, he reached out for my jeans as he moaned.

He reached in, wrapped his hand around me, and I nearly lost it then and there. My head thudded back against the shelf, and something plastic clattered to the floor. He laughed, low and triumphant, muffling it against my neck.

We jerked each other off, quick and brutal, like we were both afraid of running out of time. I tried not to think about the fact that anyone could walk in. Tried not to think that if anyone found us, the Richmond Reapers would have a bigger PR problem than face paint monsters.

He kissed me again, sloppier this time, all teeth and spit and heat. I stroked him, thumb sliding over the slick head of his cock, and he bucked into my hand, panting.

"Gideon, I'm going to—"

"Yeah," he breathed, "me too."

The orgasm hit me like a hard shot to the chest—sudden and overwhelming and making me grateful for the shelving holding me upright. Gideon followed seconds later, his face buried in my neck, body shuddering against mine.

We stayed pressed together for a moment, breathing hard and trying to remember how to function. The storage room smelled like cleaning supplies, sex, and a lingering sweetness from the face paint.

Reality crashed back slowly. First, the awareness that we were still in public. Then, voices in the hallway outside—Wren calling someone's name, getting closer.

Gideon stepped back so quickly he nearly knocked over a mop bucket. His hair was wrecked, his shirt rumpled, and a flush was spreading up his neck.

"Shit." He was already trying to smooth his hair and straighten his clothes. "The team—what if someone heard us?"

I watched him frantically attempt to erase evidence of what had just happened, and something twisted in my gut.

"So we're back to this?" I asked, tucking my shirt back in. "Pretending it didn't happen?"

"That's not—" He stopped and ran both hands through his hair. "You don't understand. If someone heard us, if they figure it out—"

"Then we deal with it. I'm not asking for a press conference. I'm asking you to stop treating this like a crime."

"It's… not that simple."

"It is. You're scared it makes you weak. It doesn't."

The voices in the hallway were getting closer. We both froze, listening.

"...need to wrap this up soon. Traffic's going to be murder..." Wren's voice moved past the storage room without stopping.

When the sound faded, Gideon's shoulders sagged slightly. "I should get back out there." His gaze met mine.

I opened the door, stepping out into the bright fluorescent light of the hallway. My legs felt unsteady, and I was pretty sure I looked like I'd been thoroughly debauched in a closet, but I didn't care.

Behind me, I heard Gideon take a shaky breath before following.

The rest of the cleanup passed in silence.

We worked efficiently, professionally, like two teammates who hadn't jerked each other off only twenty minutes earlier.

The others didn't seem to notice anything unusual, though Linc gave me a strange look when he caught me adjusting my collar for the third time.

In the parking lot afterward, most of the team had already left. I unlocked my car and rolled down the window, then looked back to where Gideon stood by his truck, keys in hand, staring at the pavement.

"Figure out what you want, Gideon," I called, not caring who might overhear. "I'll be here when you do, but I won't be your dirty secret."

I drove away without looking back, leaving him alone in the lot.

On the drive home, my body still hummed with the aftereffects of what had happened in that closet—the taste of him on my lips, the feel of his hands on my skin, and how he'd looked at me with wonder in his eyes.

The panic afterward stuck with me, too. He'd immediately started erasing evidence, building walls, and retreating into captain mode.

Back at the team house, I found Pluto in the kitchen, constructing what appeared to be a sandwich of architectural significance.

"How'd the charity thing go?" he asked around a mouthful of every condiment we owned.

"Good. Kids had fun. Grimmy only terrorized half of them."

"Progress." He paused in his sandwich engineering. "You okay? You look like you wrestled a bear."

"Something like that."

I grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed upstairs, leaving Pluto to his culinary experiment. In my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out my phone, scrolling through the photos Grimmy had taken throughout the event.

There I was with Danny and the other kids, all grinning at the camera with hockey sticks raised like weapons. In another shot, Bricks carefully painted a star on a little girl's cheek while I told some story in the background, gesturing wildly.

In the last photo, taken during cleanup, Gideon and I were visible in the background. We weren't even looking at each other, but there it was—his body angled toward mine, my hand reaching in his direction, the space between us somehow more intimate than touching.

We looked like two people desperate for each other, trying not to be.

I stared at that photo until my eyes burned. All of Gideon's panic about being discovered, and there we were, broadcasting our feelings to anyone with eyes. His careful control was an illusion. The secret he was so eager to protect was already written across our faces.

I set the phone aside and made a decision. I was done being patient and finished waiting for Gideon to figure out what I already knew—that what we had was worth any risk.

Things were going to change—one way or another.