Page 17 of Gap Control (Lewiston Forge #3)

I nodded, jaw clenched so hard my vision fuzzed at the edges. TJ's fist kept up, the motion almost desperate, and when I swore under my breath, he grinned, teeth flashing, and buried his face in my neck.

Then, he stopped. Froze, for a half second, enough time for me to feel the shudder in his gut. He tensed like a wire pulled taut and ready to break.

He reached the peak with a stifled gasp, his forehead pressed so hard against my shoulder I thought he'd bruised the bone. For a second, neither of us moved. Then he burst out laughing, a hiccuping, incredulous sound that made me snort and almost lose it myself.

"Shit," he breathed, flopping sideways onto the rug. "I swear I'm usually not that quick. This is, like, a statistical outlier."

I propped myself up on one elbow, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and looked at him, red-faced, sweaty, still somehow impossibly beautiful. "You want a do-over?"

He grinned and shoved my shoulder. "You're not even going to ask if I'm okay?"

"You look fine to me."

He covered his face with both hands and made a sound between a groan and a giggle. "Fuck. I'm a statistic now." He peeked out from between his fingers, cheeks blotchy. "I can still make you come, though. Give me a sec first to gather my dignity."

I rolled onto my back, staring at the water-stained ceiling, and tried not to laugh. My heart was slamming, like I'd just sprinted a shift. "Statistical outlier, huh?"

"I swear. You just—you're really fucking hot." TJ flopped his arm over his eyes, then squinted at me through his fingers. "You're not mad, right?"

"About you coming fast?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Like, record time. Don't tell the group chat."

I sat up, wiped off my hands with the hem of my hoodie, and looked at him. He was spread out on the rug, hair matted, skin flushed, and one leg still stuck in the tangle of his boxers.

I wanted to freeze the moment and pin it to my memory wall: TJ, post-orgasm, looking like he belonged nowhere but right here, on my bedroom floor.

"I mean, if you're worried about the group chat, that's probably worse than anything you could ever do to me in bed," I said. "You know Lambert's got a spreadsheet already."

"Fuck you," he said, but it came out more delighted than offended.

"That was the plan." I nudged him with my foot. "I didn't even get my turn."

"Oh my god, you are such a team player." He rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin in his hands, grinning up at me. "I can rally. Swear on my life."

"I believe you."

He scooted closer, the bare skin of his thigh sliding over mine. He cupped my balls, palm firm and insistent, like he was intent on making up for lost time.

I fought to keep my eyes open. I wanted to see how his mouth went soft and serious when he focused and how his tongue darted out to wet his lips as he worked me. He was quiet, with no jokes or commentary. His hand slipped into a rhythm, wrist twisting slightly on the upstroke.

I didn't want to rush it, but my body was all high voltage, ready to go at the lightest touch. I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, fingers curling into the blanket beneath me. He must've seen, because his pace sped up, squeezing harder.

The point of no return reared up in front of me. I wanted to warn him, to say something witty or even just his name, but all that came out was a choked breath and a desperate buck of my hips. He laughed—delighted, somehow—then finished me off, wringing me out with a few brutal strokes.

He flopped down beside me, both of us catching our breath in the silence.

"I told you I could rally," he said, smug. He looked like a disaster and had never been hotter.

"Congrats. You made it to round two."

He grinned and nudged my shoulder, then wiped his hand on the blanket with zero shame. "You know, statistically, you're now part of a very elite club."

"Someone should give me a ribbon."

He reached up, plucked a pillow off the bed, and lightly smacked me in the side of the head. "That was a very delicate moment, Ryker. We just crossed a major threshold. You can't ruin it with a joke."

"Sorry." I wasn't sorry at all. "I'll send you a trophy in the mail. Something tasteful."

He hit me again. We both crawled up onto the bed. "You're incorrigible."

"Big word for you."

He grinned, grabbed the other pillow, and swung both at once. Feathers exploded from a split seam, drifting down over the covers, settling over our naked bodies. TJ looked at the mess he'd made, then at me, and then at the mess again.

It broke something loose inside me. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the fact that my body was still humming, or the whole post-game, post-sex afterglow, but I started to laugh. It was good and loud until my stomach ached.

He kept whacking at me until I wrestled the pillow from his grip and pinned him, both of us wheezing, feathers in our mouths, covered in sweat and stuffing.

We looked like absolute hell. We looked like home.

Eventually, we collapsed side by side, a heap of limbs and half-suffocated giggles.

TJ poked me in the side. "You realize we'll have to clean this up, right?"

"Not tonight." I burrowed into the crook of his shoulder. I closed my eyes.

Soon, his breath evened out, slow and steady, as he drifted off. My mind spun for a while about hockey, what was happening in my apartment, and whether it was as simple as it felt.

I woke up with TJ half on top of me, drooling into my shoulder, his hair a crime scene. He was heavy and warm and smelled like sleep and the faintest hint of strawberry gym deodorant.

It was impossible to move without waking him, so I didn't. I lay there, listening to his soft snores and watching how his hand twitched when he dreamed.

Around six, he blinked awake, rubbed at his face, and mumbled, "Did we actually do it on the floor, or was that a weird hockey dream?"

I grunted. "Check the rug burn."