Page 9 of Full Tilt (Love The Game #4)

He doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t even flinch. He just deepens the kiss, a hand curling at my hip to steady me as if he knows I’m coming undone.

I don’t let people take control. That’s not who I am. Not off the pitch. Not in life. And definitely not in this.

But Brent doesn’t ask. He takes. And I let him.

When he finally pulls back, I chase him without thinking—mouth following his like I’m starving for something I only just realised I’ve been missing. It’s instinct and embarrassing as fuck, but I can’t help it.

He pecks my lips once more, gentle, like sealing the moment. Then his voice, low and calm, breaks the tension. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get off the street.”

It’s like a bucket of water to the chest. Right. We’re outside. Still. Alley-adjacent.

Fuck.

“Yeah,” I mutter, dragging in a breath. “Let’s do that.”

We fall into step again, walking quickly now. My head’s a mess—buzzing, stunned, a little dazed. I half expect him to take a turn towards a flat or side street, but instead, he leads us towards Black Salt Ink.

The shop’s shutter is halfway down, lights dimmed except for the one above the main station. He unlocks the door, pushes it open, and gestures me inside. It smells like antiseptic and ink. Familiar. Clean. Calming.

He flicks on another light and walks to the counter, grabbing a portfolio and an unopened bottle of water, which he tosses to me without missing a beat.

I catch it by pure luck.

“Sit,” he says, nodding at the station table.

I do—grateful, honestly, for something solid under me. My knees are still not okay. Across from me, he flips the portfolio open. Quiet. Professional. Like he didn’t just kiss me like he wanted to take me apart in the street.

Christ.

Brent lays out the sketches, the ones he took photos of and sent me yesterday. His hands are steady, fingers stained faintly with ink even now. He doesn’t say anything at first, just gives me a moment to look.

“These are what I’ve got so far,” he says, sitting down across from me. “Based on what we talked about before. Obviously, I haven’t had a chance to work in the notes you gave me tonight yet, but I’m glad we’re on the same page about direction.”

I nod slowly, scanning the bold shapes, the clean flow of lines. It’s good. Really fucking good. Even before adjustments, it’s already speaking to something in me.

“I like this,” I murmur, tapping the one that mirrors the structure from my right arm. “This one flows better than the others.”

He leans in a little, not crowding, just close enough to read the page beside me.

“Yeah. I studied the photos that Tank took of your right piece. That’s where I thought you’d lean.

I’ll tweak the elbow section, tighten the wrap, sharpen the direction down the forearm. Maybe bring in more negative space.”

I lift my gaze. “I want it to feel like it belongs. Not like it’s fighting the other side.”

His lips twitch. “You and symmetry, huh?”

I take a long sip of the water he passed me. “I like balance. On the pitch and off it.”

“Noted,” he says easily.

I watch him as he scribbles a few things on a sticky note, head tilted, brow drawn in quiet focus. It’s unfair, how this moment—just the two of us, a table between, pencil scratching paper—feels calmer than it should after what just happened in the alley.

It’s centring. It grounds me.

I needed this. Talking about the sketch helps me find my footing again. Helps me be me again.

But still, I can’t forget how he kissed me like he already knew exactly how I’d taste.

Brent grabs a fresh pencil and flips to a clean page in the sketchbook, posture loose but focused. His brow furrows slightly as he starts blocking out shapes—quick, light strokes, just roughing out ideas. He’s quiet for a minute. There’s just the soft drag of graphite filling the space between us.

I watch his hands. They’re confident, efficient, with no hesitation. I don’t know why that makes me feel calmer, but it does.

“You know,” he says, not looking up, “the first person I ever inked was my best friend’s older brother. I was seventeen. Probably shouldn’t have even been holding a machine unsupervised, but Dutch—my mentor—had this hands-off, ‘figure it out or fuck it up’ approach to teaching.”

I raise a brow, relaxing a little. “That sounds promising.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” he says, grinning. “This guy, Tyler, shows up all full of swagger, like ‘Yeah, man, ink me up, no big deal.’ Wants a tribal sun—because it was back in the day, and no one was making good decisions.”

I snort despite myself.

Brent’s smile widens. “I get maybe thirty seconds in and the machine stalls. Just dies in my hand. Tyler doesn’t even flinch.

He’s halfway through telling me about a rave he’s throwing in a barn, and I’m panicking, like ‘This is it. I’ve ruined a man’s spine, and my career’s over before it started. ’”

I let out a quiet laugh. “What did you do?”

“Faked it,” he says proudly. “Made some vague excuse about switching needles and then spent the next ten minutes trying to fix the machine with my elbow covering the fresh linework so he wouldn’t notice I’d botched the curve.”

“And did he?”

“Not until two years later when he came in to get it covered up,” Brent says, flicking his eyes up to me with a shameless grin. “Said it looked like a cartoon egg hatching.”

I huff a low, amused breath. “Did you do the cover-up?”

“I did. Fuck knows why he let me, but he let me fix up my shitty design. Somehow, we’re still friends. Mostly.”

I shake my head, but the grin pulling at my mouth is harder to fight now.

There’s something disarming about Brent, even when he’s telling a story that should’ve had me walking out the door ten minutes ago. It’s the way he owns it. The way he laughs at himself without pretending he’s perfect. He doesn’t try to impress me. He just is.

And that… that’s dangerous as hell.

Because the more I sit here across from him—his long fingers dusted in graphite, his hair falling forward as he sketches, that faint smudge of ink on his cheek from earlier I hadn’t noticed before—the more I feel my grip loosening.

The reasons I shouldn’t want this blur at the edges. The excuses I’ve clung to start crumbling. And that kiss? That stupid, perfect kiss? It's echoing too loud in my head.

It’s not supposed to feel like this. It’s not supposed to feel… right.

I push back from the chair so fast it scrapes against the floor. Brent startles, pencil still in hand, gaze snapping up to mine.

“Cam?”

“I can’t—” My voice comes out rough. “I just need—Sorry. I need to go.”

I’m already moving. Already ducking out into the reception like the building’s on fire and I forgot how to breathe. Because if I stay one second longer, I’ll fall harder. And I’m not ready for what that means.

Not yet.

Not with someone who might actually matter.

By the time I crawl into bed, my brain’s still tangled in Brent. In his stupid lip ring. His voice. The way he’d looked at me with zero judgement, just patience and curiosity and a quiet kind of focus that shouldn’t be as disarming as it is.

I’m exhausted, but sleep’s clearly not on the cards—not with my thoughts racing like they’ve just snorted a line of preseason adrenaline. So I do what I shouldn’t. I reach for my phone. It’s past midnight, but the screen lights up the second I touch it—and my stomach swoops.

There’s a Messenger notification from Brent. My breath hitches. I tap it open.

A voice message that’s over two minutes long.

I freeze. It’s late, definitely too late for casual conversation and even for tattoo sketches or rugby updates or shared memes. My heart does a weird stumble. I press Play before I can think better of it.

It starts instantly.

A sharp breath. A low groan.

“Fuck—Camden…”

My cock twitches.

He’s panting. The sound of slick skin on skin is unmistakable, and Jesus Christ, it’s him—Brent. His voice, rough and breathless, wrapping around my name like a fucking prayer.

My balls pull tight. I lie here, stunned, heat pulsing under my skin, cock swelling fast beneath the sheets as the audio keeps going. He’s not holding back. It’s raw. Dirty. Him chasing release with my name wrecked on his tongue.

“God, you—” A ragged moan. “—looked so fucking good tonight… Been thinking about your mouth all day…”

I’m frozen, rooted to the mattress while my dick fights for space against the waistband of my boxers. Just as I reach down—just as my palm brushes the ache beneath my waistband—there’s a scuffle in the audio. A muted curse. A bump.

“Oh fuck, no. Shit… shit ? —”

Then silence. The recording ends abruptly, and I almost drop my phone when it pings.

Brent: Please don’t listen to that.

Brent: It wasn’t meant to be listened to.

Brent: Fuck.

Brent: Please just delete it.

Brent: Ignore me. I’m an idiot.

Another ping.

Brent: I’m so sorry.

Brent: Shit. Camden, seriously…

Brent: I didn’t mean to send that. Just… delete it, okay?

I stare at the messages, at the little timestamp, at the fact that it says he’s still online with the cursor moving, probably mortified. Probably pacing his room, wondering if I’m going to ghost him or sue him or show up to slap him upside the head.

I don’t know what to say. My cock’s still hard. My body is still burning. But my head? My head is a mess.

Was that real? A mistake? Some kind of twisted test? I can’t tell. I should respond. Say something. But I don’t trust myself right now.

Instead, I lock the screen, turn off the lamp, and lie here—awake. Wanting and confused.

Jesus Christ. What the fuck just happened?

It’s all too much, too fast. And holy hell, if this is what he sounds like when he’s getting off alone, I’m in trouble.