Page 33 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

Aidan didn’t know if he should be embarrassed that Levi had seen through him so easily, but he wasn’t, actually.

Maybe Levi’s matter-of-factness was rubbing off on him.

Levi’s hand settled hot and intent on his hip, squeezed. It lit Aidan up inside, in a way he swore he’d never felt before.

“You want it?” Levi asked softly. Aidan’s cock twitched, still hard just from the residual taste of Levi’s cock and the ghost of the feeling at the back of his throat.

It shouldn’t be so hard to just say it. Levi said things he wanted all the time. But every time it was the moment for Aidan to echo that desire, he clammed up. He’d known he was in love with Mo for almost three years before he’d even found the balls to tell him.

Not because he hadn’t felt. But because it had felt sometimes like he felt too fucking much. The emotions overwhelmed him. Stole his breath, then snatched the words right out of his throat.

But he wasn’t stupid enough to think Levi would be satisfied forever with nods, and so, ignoring the way his brain was screaming, he snatched the words right back.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.”

“Bro,” Levi said, gazing at him amused and fond.

Aidan rolled his eyes, that same feeling blooming inside him and unsure how that had even happened. “I thought we agreed the bro stays out of the bedroom.”

“We’re not in the bedroom,” Levi said.

He was ridiculous, and Aidan never wanted him to stop being ridiculous.

The only way he could tell him that was just to kiss him. To kiss him and kiss him, warm water cascading over their bodies, until Aidan wasn’t sure where he left off and Levi began.

Levi slid a hand around his cock and it felt like it only took a few strokes before he was gasping into his mouth, overwhelmed and overwrought with the pleasure surging through him.

“God, so good,” Aidan murmured into Levi’s shoulder. It was wide and broad, rippling with muscle. Strong enough to hold him up, even though his knees and his heart were wobbly.

They dried off slowly. It felt natural for Aidan to make sure Levi’s back was dry in a move he knew was more tender than he was ready to talk about.

But after that, it didn’t just feel weird to send Levi to his own room, but wrong.

Even though he’d never wanted to share his space, ever, with anyone.

But Levi wasn’t just going to stay here, unless Aidan spoke up about it.

“You . . .uh . . .” Aidan hated how uncertain he sounded. After hanging up his towel, Levi glanced over at him. Aidan cleared his throat and started over. “Don’t go back to your room tonight.”

Levi’s eyebrows skidded up. It was a sudden, messy, painful realization that sleeping in the same bed might not fall under the umbrella of a hookup. Because that was what a sex pact was, right? It was right there in the name—sex pact.

But before Aidan could take it back, Levi was leaning back against the counter, gloriously naked and apparently completely unashamed of that fact. Frankly, Aidan couldn’t blame him.

“Are you saying that because you feel like you should or because you want me to stay?” Levi asked. He added, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards, “Remember, I’m only going across the hall.”

Aidan knew that.

“I know,” Aidan said, licking his lips. “I want . . .” There was that hiccup again. If this had been football and he kept running into something that tripped him up, he’d work on it until he could do it without a single moment’s hesitation. Why was this any different?

He plowed ahead. Kept it simple. “I want you to stay.”

He ignored the voice inside him that shrieked that he was going to push Levi past his comfort zone.

That he was going to end up pushing him away entirely.

Logically, Levi didn’t look like he was going anywhere, but then Aidan had already figured out that voice was wrong more often than it was right.

Still didn’t mean it wasn’t loud.

Levi didn’t leave him waiting. “Okay,” he said, just as straightforward. “I’m gonna go grab some things. My phone charger.”

Aidan pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and the old ratty T-shirt he slept in and, while he waited for Levi to come in, paced in front of the bed.

He was being weird. He knew it, and he couldn’t even stop it.

He wanted this.

He wanted to keep this good feeling going, the heat he felt inside when Levi looked at him with those warm honey-brown eyes. He wanted to feel it when he woke up, too. It was the best thing he’d felt in ages. He was beginning to wonder if it was the best thing he’d felt, ever.

But no. That couldn’t be true. Mo was the best thing he’d ever felt, even though it had never ever, not once, been like this between them. They’d never shared a bed or a shower or their bodies.

That was the only reason it felt different now, Aidan justified. All that intimacy.

“Are you freaking out yet?” Levi asked as he reappeared in the doorway.

Aidan did not jump. He did stop pacing, at least. “What? Are you?”

Levi rolled his eyes. “No.” He climbed right onto the bed, stretching his long legs out, like it was nothing.

That tracked. The only freak here was Aidan.

Gesturing to the bed next to him, Levi said, “If you ever want me gone, you just have to say the word. I won’t take it personally.”

Levi wouldn’t. It wasn’t like he didn’t care about anything—he very obviously did, though Aidan was uncertain where he fell on that particular list. It was more like he wasn’t struck down by the same affliction Aidan had: caring about all the wrong things, way too much.

Being neurotic, Riley would tell him, poking him gently in the side. Stop that, before you break your brain.

It was that thought that got him on the bed. They slipped under the covers. They were both big, but the bed was bigger, and there was still room between them. At least until Levi turned over and slung an arm over Aidan’s waist.

Aidan must’ve tensed—with surprise, more than anything else—because Levi asked in a quiet murmur, “Is this okay?”

He nodded.

“Good. ’Cause I like it.” Levi’s smile was soft, and that warmth in his eyes was flooding Aidan’s insides.

“Me too.” There, he’d said it.

Levi looked pleased. “That’s the idea. I set an alarm.”

“What time?”

Levi shot him a look, but told him, and Aidan frowned. “That’s too early,” he said. “We don’t have to be at practice until nine.”

Moving closer, Levi nudged his mouth with his own.

It was so easy to slip into another kiss.

Not heated, this time, but quiet, intimate.

Kind of like falling asleep in the same bed and then waking up the same way.

“I know,” he said, when he finally moved back.

“But that gives us an extra half an hour.”

“For what?”

Levi chuckled. Kissed him again. “Turn off the alarm tomorrow morning and you’re gonna find out.”