Page 11 of Pucking Lucky (Steel City Sinners #1)

Ten

Trey

T he team bus smelled like it always did on away games. Stale sweat, cheap cologne, and the vague chemical scent of whatever industrial cleaner they used between trips. Five hours to Eastern University, another hour after that to our hotel. Six hours trapped in a moving metal tube with twenty guys who had no idea that the defenseman sitting next to me had been consuming my thoughts since our night together last week.

I could still feel the phantom press of his body against mine. The soft sounds he'd made when I touched him. The way his carefully constructed walls had crumbled completely, if only for those stolen hours.

"Stats look good for Eastern's power play," Sullivan said beside me, iPad balanced on his knees as he scrolled through what had to be the driest hockey analysis ever created. His fingers moved across the screen with a grace that reminded me of how they'd felt against my skin. "More structured than Northern Tech, but their cycle game is 7.3 percent less effective."

I slouched lower in my seat, stretching my legs into the aisle, trying to ignore the warmth radiating from where our thighs pressed together. "Cool. Fascinating. Tell me more about percentages while I try not to die of boredom."

He glanced up, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You asked for my analysis on their neutral zone trap."

"I asked for your charts. Not a dissertation on statistical anomalies."

"Same thing in my world," he said, but the smile lingered, softening his usual razor-sharp focus. A week of seeing Sullivan—Beau, my mind corrected—with his guard down had taught me to recognize these small changes. The nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. The way his shoulders dropped a fraction when he relaxed.

For everyone else on the bus, he was the same uptight, analytical robot he'd always been. Harvard Sullivan with his perfect posture and his color-coded notes. No one would guess what had happened between us that night in my apartment, how he'd completely come undone with my name on his lips.

No one except maybe Kai, who knew our secret but wasn't even on this trip - still back at school recovering from his concussion, probably texting me stupid memes about staying out of trouble.

"Their penalty kill runs a passive box," Sullivan continued, scrolling to a new diagram. "Collapse toward the slot rather than pressuring the points. Creates opportunities for our defensemen."

"You saying I should shoot more?" I asked, leaning closer to see the screen, using the pretense of hockey talk to breathe in the clean cedar scent of his soap.

"I'm saying Matthews should. Your point shot accuracy is 38.2 percent compared to his 52.7."

"Ouch," I clutched my chest in mock pain. "Tell me how you really feel, Harvard."

"Your passing accuracy from the half-wall, however, is consistently above team average," he added, like that somehow balanced the critique. "Especially on your forehand side. If you position yourself here—" He pointed to a spot on the diagram, his finger brushing against mine on the screen. "—you'll have optimal passing lanes to both Matthews at the point and Reynolds in the slot."

The casual analysis of my game should have annoyed me. Instead, I found myself soaking up his observations like a sponge. Sullivan saw things on the ice that most guys missed, patterns and tendencies that were invisible until he pointed them out.

"You've been charting my passing accuracy?" I asked, voice dropping lower as Williams and Reynolds walked past us toward the bathroom at the back of the bus.

"I chart everyone's performance metrics," Sullivan said, but there was a flush creeping up his neck that suggested he might have spent a bit more time analyzing my stats than was strictly necessary.

"That's cute. You've got a stats crush on me."

"A what?" His brow furrowed in confusion.

"A stats crush. You know, like when you're so obsessed with someone's numbers you start tracking them specifically."

The flush deepened. "That's not... I don't..."

"Relax, Harvard. I'm teasing you." I nudged his shoulder with mine, careful to make it look casual if anyone was watching. "It's kinda hot, actually. You breaking down my game like that."

Before he could respond, Coach Barnes moved down the aisle, clipboard in hand. "Room assignments," he announced, voice carrying over the low hum of conversation and the tinny sounds of music bleeding from various headphones. "Same as last road trip, except for Sullivan. You're with Harrington. Reynolds is bunking with Matthews this time."

My heart skipped a beat. Coach had just handed us an entire night alone together, no sneaking around required. Sullivan's face remained perfectly neutral, but his knuckles whitened where he gripped his iPad.

"Got it, Coach," I said, keeping my voice casual despite the heat suddenly pooling in my stomach.

Barnes moved on, continuing to call out room assignments. Sullivan stared straight ahead, his breathing slightly quicker than normal.

"You okay there, Harvard?" I asked quietly.

"Fine," he said, voice clipped. "Just... processing."

"Processing that we get a hotel room to ourselves for the next two nights?"

His eyes darted toward me, a flash of green-gold that betrayed his carefully neutral expression. "Among other things."

Coach finished assigning rooms and returned to his seat at the front of the bus. Sullivan turned back to his iPad, but I could tell he wasn't really seeing the stats anymore. His mind was racing behind those calculating eyes, probably running through every possible scenario for the weekend.

Our phones dinged simultaneously with a notification from the team group chat.

Williams: Room assignments dropped! Who's ready for some hotel partying?

Reynolds: Keep it under control this time. Remember what happened at Lakeside last year.

Matthews: Wasn't my fault the ice machine was unbolted.

Davis: Sucks that Nakamura's missing this trip. Bus feels empty without him.

Reynolds: Kid needs his brain to heal. No messing with concussions.

Williams: Sent him a team photo earlier. Says he's bored out of his mind.

I watched Sullivan reading the exchange, a small furrow forming between his brows. This was the first time he'd been fully included in the road trip traditions since transferring. Last trip, he'd been rooming with Reynolds, who had spent most of the weekend ignoring him. Now he'd be expected to participate in the team bonding.

And also secretly sharing a bed with me.

My phone buzzed with a private message.

Sullivan: This is unexpected.

I glanced at him sitting beside me, still staring at his phone.

Me: Good unexpected or bad unexpected?

Sullivan: Unclassified. Need more data.

I bit back a laugh. Only Sullivan would respond like he was cataloging a scientific specimen.

Me: Well I think it's good unexpected. Very good.

Sullivan: Coach will expect us to behave normally.

Me: We can behave normally. In public.

His fingers hovered over the screen for a long moment before he typed again.

Sullivan: I've never participated in hotel team bonding activities before.

The confession caught me off guard. I'd assumed Sullivan had been skipping these things out of choice, not because he'd never been included.

Me: Just drinking and bullshitting. Nothing complicated. I'll stick close.

Sullivan looked up from his phone, meeting my eyes. Something vulnerable flickered across his face before he nodded once, a small gesture of trust that hit me harder than it should have.

"Just follow my lead," I said quietly. "And if it gets too much, we bail. Say we need to review game film or something."

"Thank you," he murmured, so low I almost missed it.

The bus rolled on through Pennsylvania, the countryside sliding past in a blur of late autumn colors. Sullivan eventually returned to his statistical analysis, but there was a new tension in his shoulders. At some point, his knee pressed against mine, a point of contact hidden from view by the seats in front of us. Neither of us acknowledged it, but neither pulled away.

Three hours into the drive, Williams stood up at the front of the bus. "Movie time!" he announced, holding up his tablet. "Taking votes. Remember, Coach gets final veto."

A chorus of suggestions erupted, most of them immediately shot down by Barnes, who had strict rules about what could be played on the team bus.

"No sex, no excessive gore, no 'artistic' bullshit," Reynolds recited from memory, prompting laughter from the veterans.

They eventually settled on some action movie with The Rock, the kind of mindless entertainment that required zero brain cells to follow. Perfect for a bus full of hockey players running on protein shakes and pre-game anxiety.

Sullivan had never seen it, of course. He watched with surprising intensity, occasionally leaning over to whisper questions about plot points that made absolutely no sense if you thought about them for more than two seconds. Which Sullivan, naturally, did.

"The laws of physics don't work that way," he murmured as The Rock performed some impossible stunt involving a helicopter and a motorcycle.

"It's The Rock. He doesn't obey physics. Physics obeys him."

Sullivan frowned. "That's not scientifically accurate."

"It's not supposed to be accurate. It's supposed to be awesome."

He considered this for a moment, then nodded as if I'd presented a valid hypothesis. "I see. The spectacle supersedes realism for entertainment value."

"Exactly. Now stop analyzing and enjoy the explosions."

A small smile tugged at his lips. "I'll try."

His arm was warm against mine where we both rested on the shared armrest. Another point of contact, innocent enough to anyone watching, electric to me. I was acutely aware of every place our bodies touched, every shift in his breathing when something exciting happened on screen.

By the time the movie ended, we'd somehow migrated closer together, thighs pressed firmly alongside each other. Sullivan didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he didn't mind. The easy physical contact was new for him, I knew. Outside of hockey, he'd always maintained a careful distance from everyone, rigid personal space that seemed to extend in a three-foot radius. Except with me, suddenly.

"One hour to Eastern," Coach called from the front. "Rest up. We check into the hotel, have team dinner, then you're free until curfew. Morning skate's at 10 AM tomorrow."

Sullivan straightened beside me, the professional mask sliding back into place. I watched the transformation with fascination, the way he methodically rebuilt his walls, one brick at a time. Shoulders square. Chin up. That perfect Sullivan posture returning.

Except his knee still pressed against mine. A single crack in the facade that only I could see.

Inside, our hotel room felt both spacious and suffocatingly small. Two queen beds. Beige walls. Generic landscape prints. I watched as Sullivan performed a methodical inspection, checking the bathroom, adjusting the thermostat, testing the firmness of both mattresses with precise, controlled movements. His hands, those same hands that had explored my body with surprising confidence last week, now moved across the hotel surfaces with clinical detachment.

"This one's firmer," he announced, pointing to the bed nearest the window. "Better lumbar support."

A memory flashed through my mind—Sullivan's back arching beneath me. Nothing clinical or detached about him then.

"So that's our bed, then?" I asked, dropping my bag on the other one.

Color rose in his cheeks, spreading down his neck in a way I was quickly becoming addicted to. "I didn't say..."

"Relax, Harvard. I'm just messing with you." I flopped onto the softer bed, stretching out with my hands behind my head. "You can have your firm, lumbar-supporting mattress all to yourself."

He frowned slightly, disappointment flashing in his eyes before he could mask it. "But I thought we would..."

"Would what?" I grinned, enjoying his discomfort a little too much, enjoying the power of making him say it out loud.

"Share," he said quietly, the word coming out like a confession.

Something warm unfurled in my chest. "We can share whichever bed you want, Sullivan. I'm flexible."

"Stop calling me Sullivan when we're alone," he said, surprising me. "It feels... wrong."

"Beau," I corrected myself, testing the name on my tongue. I'd been thinking of him as Beau for days now, but saying it aloud felt different. More intimate somehow. "Better?"

He nodded, a small, precise movement. "Yes."

"Beau," I said again, just because I could, watching the way his eyes darkened slightly at the sound. "How long do we have before dinner?"

"Forty-three minutes," he replied without checking the time.

"Any ideas how to pass the time?"

His eyes flicked to the bed, then back to me. "I should review the Eastern power play structure again."

I laughed, pushing myself up to sitting. "Seriously? That's what you want to do with our free time?"

"It's important," he insisted, but there was a hunger in his eyes that had nothing to do with hockey.

"Come here," I said, voice dropping lower.

He hesitated for only a second before crossing the room, stopping at the edge of my bed. I reached out, hooking my fingers through his belt loops and pulling him down beside me. He came willingly, with none of the resistance from our earlier encounters.

"Hi," I murmured, brushing copper hair back from his forehead.

"Hi," he echoed, suddenly uncertain, like he didn't know what to do with his hands.

"Forty-three minutes isn't enough time for what I'm thinking," I told him, watching his pupils dilate at the implication. "But it's enough for this."

I leaned in, capturing his mouth with mine. He responded immediately, all that careful control channeling into surprising passion. His hand found the back of my neck, pulling me closer as the kiss deepened. I slid my palm under his shirt, tracing the defined muscle of his stomach, feeling him shiver at my touch.

"Trey," he breathed against my lips, the sound of my name igniting something possessive inside me.

"I've been thinking about you all day," I admitted, trailing kisses along his jaw, down the pale column of his throat. "Sitting next to you on that bus with your stats and your perfect posture..."

His breath hitched, fingers tightening in my hair. "We should be careful."

"We're alone now," I pointed out, nipping at his collarbone, drawing a soft gasp from him. "Just you and me, Beau."

His hands grew bolder, sliding under my shirt, exploring with that same analytical focus he brought to everything. Like he was mapping my body, memorizing every ridge and plane. It was intoxicating, being the subject of all that intense attention.

"We should stop," he said, even as his body arched toward mine. "Dinner..."

"We've got time," I murmured, pressing closer, feeling the evidence that he didn't really want to stop.

What started as a kiss quickly escalated, hands exploring, breath quickening. We'd only been together that one night, and the memory of it had been replaying in my mind all week. The way he'd looked, the sounds he'd made, how perfectly we'd fit together.

"Wait," he gasped as my hand slid toward his waistband. "Dinner's in twenty-eight minutes now."

"Plenty of time," I assured him, but I pulled back slightly, studying his face. "Unless you want to stop?"

The conflict in his expression was clear, desire warring with his instinct for order and routine. "I don't want to be late."

I nodded, pressing a final kiss to his lips before rolling away. "Rain check, then."

He caught my wrist, surprising me. "After dinner," he said, voice lower than usual. "When we get back."

The promise in those simple words sent heat through my entire body. "Count on it."

Beau sat up, smoothing his hair back into place with methodical precision. "Twenty-six minutes until dinner," he noted, already recalibrating to his internal clock.

I laughed, rolling onto my back. "You and that internal timer. It's like you've got a stopwatch in your brain."

"Time management is essential for optimal performance," he replied, but there was a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

"Well, Mr. Optimal Performance, we should probably head down soon."

He nodded, standing to straighten his clothes with careful movements. I watched him transform back into Sullivan before my eyes, the walls rebuilding brick by brick. But now I knew what was behind them, and that made all the difference.

"Ready for this?" I asked, as we prepared to leave the room.

He nodded, squaring his shoulders like he was preparing for battle rather than dinner. "I've studied typical team dinner conversation patterns. Key topics include upcoming opponents, professional hockey highlights, and crude humor about women."

I stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. "You've been studying how to talk to the team? Like it's an anthropological expedition?"

"Social interactions follow predictable patterns," he said defensively. "I've been cataloging them since freshman year."

"You're something else, Harvard." I shook my head, warmth spreading through my chest. "Just be yourself. Well, maybe not your full self with all the percentages, but you know what I mean."

"I'm not sure I do," he said, frowning slightly.

"Just talk hockey. Everyone loves hockey. It's the one thing we all have in common."

He seemed to consider this, then nodded. "Logical. Hockey as the universal language."

The restaurant was a generic Italian place near the hotel, clearly used to hosting sports teams. Long tables set up in a private room. Unlimited breadsticks. Enough pasta options to fuel twenty hungry hockey players before a game.

"Sullivan! Harrington!" Williams waved us over to the main table, where several guys were already seated. "Saved you spots."

By some miracle of seating arrangements, I found myself between Beau and Reynolds. Reynolds was already nursing a beer, his captain's C practically visible even without his jersey.

"Anybody heard from Nakamura today?" Reynolds asked as we sat down, surprising me with what seemed like genuine concern.

"Texted him before we left," Davis said from across the table. "Said his headaches are better. Still not cleared for screens longer than an hour."

"Good," Reynolds nodded. "Hate to admit it, but we could use his speed against Eastern. Their defense is big but slow."

The interaction caught me off guard. Reynolds, for all his homophobic bullshit, took his role as captain seriously. He checked in with injured players, remembered everyone's class schedules, made sure freshmen had rides to practice. It made it harder to completely hate him, which was annoying as fuck.

"Sullivan," Reynolds turned to Beau, "Coach says your old man's coming to the Lakeside game. Bringing some NHL connection?"

Beau froze beside me, fork halfway to his mouth. Something cold and tight replaced the warmth in his eyes, like a door slamming shut. "What?"

"Your dad," Reynolds repeated, like Beau hadn't heard him. "Coach mentioned he'd be at Sunday's game. Something about a scout or assistant GM or something."

I felt Beau's leg press hard against mine under the table, a silent signal of distress. He set his fork down with mechanical precision, the measured control of the movement betraying how rattled he truly was.

"I wasn't aware," he said, voice impressively steady, though I could feel the tremor running through him where our legs touched. "My father doesn't typically inform me of his plans."

Reynolds frowned slightly. "Weird. Thought you two were tight. The way Coach talks about Sullivan Senior and his connections..."

"My father maintains his own relationships with hockey personnel. I focus on playing." Beau's voice had taken on that clipped, formal quality I recognized as his defense mechanism.

The transformation was jarring—seeing him retreat behind that perfect Sullivan mask so completely, every trace of the man who'd been pressed against me in our hotel room erased in an instant. His shoulders squared, jaw tight, eyes suddenly distant. I could almost see the weight settling onto him, invisible but crushing all the same.

"Lucky bastard," Matthews chimed in from across the table. "Having NHL connections through family. Must be nice."

"It's not..." Beau started, then seemed to think better of it. "Yes. Very fortunate."

I watched him retreat behind that perfect Sullivan mask, all traces of the man who'd been gasping my name twenty minutes ago completely erased. The transformation was both impressive and disturbing.

"My mom's a kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn," I said, deliberately drawing attention away from Beau. "Only connection she has is to extra graham crackers during snack time."

A ripple of laughter moved around the table, successfully changing the subject. Under the table, I felt Beau's knee press against mine in silent thanks.

The dinner continued, conversation flowing easily among teammates who'd spent months together in locker rooms and on buses. Beau remained mostly quiet, offering brief comments about Eastern's playing style when directly addressed, but otherwise retreating into observation mode.

I stayed hyperaware of him beside me, noting the slight tension in his shoulders, the way he methodically ate his pasta, the careful sips of water between bites. To anyone else, he looked like the same uptight, reserved Sullivan he'd always been. Only I could see the storm brewing behind those calm green-gold eyes.

As the meal wound down, Coach stood at the head of the table. "Curfew's at 10. Anyone not in their rooms gets bag skated tomorrow." He glanced around the table. "Captains, make sure everyone behaves. Big weekend ahead."

The team dispersed gradually, some heading back to the hotel, others planning to find a local bar within walking distance for a single, responsible drink before curfew. I caught Davis's eye across the table and tilted my head toward the door, silently communicating our plan to bail.

"Think I'll head back," I announced, stretching casually. "Want to review some film before tomorrow."

"Such dedication," Williams teased. "What happened to Harrington, the party animal?"

"He grew up," I shot back with a grin. "Becoming very responsible in my old age."

"Sullivan's rubbing off on you," Davis observed with a laugh that held no idea how accurate the statement was.

"Something like that." I stood, not looking at Beau. "Coming, Harvard? Need to check those power play charts again."

Beau nodded, rising with that perfect posture. "I've identified some additional tendencies in Eastern's penalty kill we should review."

We made our excuses and headed back toward the hotel, walking side by side without speaking until we were well away from the restaurant. Only then did Beau's carefully constructed facade crack.

"My father never mentioned coming to the game," he said, voice tight with something that wasn't just surprise but fear. "Never even hinted at it."

"Maybe he wanted to surprise you?" I suggested, though I didn't believe it myself.

Beau laughed, a sharp, brittle sound, nothing like his rare genuine laughter. "The only surprises my father enjoys are the ones that test me. To see how I perform under unexpected pressure."

I thought about reaching for his hand, then remembered we were in public, where anyone might see. Instead, I bumped his shoulder lightly with mine, a casual touch that could pass as ordinary teammate interaction.

"You'll play great," I said. "You always do."

He shook his head, eyes haunted. "You don't understand. If my father is bringing an NHL connection, this isn't just another game. It's an evaluation. A test. A judgment on whether I've been worth all the investment."

The raw vulnerability in his voice caught me off guard. This wasn't just anxiety or a desire to perform well. This was genuine fear.

"Of what? Your ability to play hockey? Because newsflash, Harvard, you're fucking good at hockey."

"It's not about being good," he said quietly, fingers twisting together in front of him. "It's about being perfect. Sullivan men excel. That's all we're allowed to do."

The familiar refrain sent a surge of anger through me. "Your dad sounds like a real piece of work, you know that?"

"He wants what's best for me," Beau said automatically, the words rehearsed, hollow.

"Does he? Or does he want what's best for the Sullivan legacy?"

Beau didn't answer, his silence more revealing than any words. We walked the rest of the way to the hotel without speaking, the weight of Reynolds' revelation hanging between us.

In our room, Beau immediately reached for his iPad, pulling up footage of Lakeside games. His movements were slightly too controlled, too perfect—the tell I'd learned to recognize when he was fighting to maintain composure. I watched him retreat into stats and analysis, his safe space when emotions became too complicated.

"Beau," I said softly, sitting beside him on the bed. My weight dipped into the mattress, bringing our bodies closer. "We can talk about it, you know."

"There's nothing to discuss," he replied, not looking up. The blue light of the screen cast shadows across his face, highlighting the tension in his jaw, the slight tremor in his hands that he was trying so hard to control. "My father is attending Sunday's game with an NHL connection. The logical response is to prepare thoroughly and perform optimally."

"And what about us?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could consider it.

His fingers stilled on the screen. "What about us?"

"If your dad's watching, does that change... this?" I gestured between us.

Beau looked up, something raw and unguarded in his expression. "My father can't know. About us. About any of it."

"I know that," I said, fighting the irrational hurt the words triggered. "But I'm asking if you're going to push me away this weekend because he's around."

He studied me with those analytical eyes, as if calculating variables I couldn't see. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, a nervous gesture I'd never seen from him before. "That would be the logical approach," he said finally. "Minimize variables. Reduce distractions."

The admission stung more than it should have. "Right. Of course."

"But," he continued, setting the iPad aside, his fingers brushing mine as he moved, "my performance metrics have consistently improved since we began... this arrangement." He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "The data suggests you're not a distraction."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying I make you play better?"

"The statistical evidence points in that direction," he said, voice uncertain. "Though my father would consider it a confounding variable."

"So what are you saying, exactly?" The hope rising in my chest felt dangerous, reckless.

Beau moved closer, his knee touching mine on the bed, the warmth of him seeping through the fabric of our jeans. "I'm saying..." he paused, conflict clear in his eyes, "I'm saying I don't know what to do."

His honesty caught me off guard. This wasn't Beau, the analyst, with all the answers. This was just Beau, confused and caught between what he wanted and what he'd been raised to believe.

"Hey," I said softly, taking his hand before I could second-guess myself. "We can figure it out together. One day at a time."

His fingers tightened around mine, the gesture more revealing than his words. "My father has expectations. He always has."

"And what about what you want?" I asked, the question hanging between us.

Beau looked at me, something raw and uncertain in his gaze. "I want..." he started, then stopped. "I want Eastern tomorrow. I want to play well. And I want..." his eyes dropped to my mouth before meeting my eyes again. "I want tonight."

Something shifted in my chest, a strange tightening that I didn't want to examine too closely. This wasn't Beau making a grand declaration or choosing me over his father. This was simpler, more immediate. Just tonight. Just us, in this moment.

"Okay," I managed, throat suddenly tight. "One day at a time."

His hand found mine on the bedspread, cautious but intentional. "I've never..." he started, then looked away. "My father has very specific ideas about what a Sullivan man should be."

"And what do you think a Sullivan man should be?" I asked.

He looked genuinely surprised by the question, as if no one had ever asked what he wanted. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "I've never considered it separately from his definition."

The raw honesty in his voice hit harder than any declaration could have. This wasn't about defiance or choosing sides. This was about Beau taking his first tentative steps toward figuring out who he was beyond his father's expectations.

"Well," I said, reaching out to trace the curve of his jaw with my fingertips, feeling the slight roughness of stubble beginning to emerge. "Maybe that's something else we can figure out together."

Beau's breathing hitched, his eyes darkening as he leaned into my touch. "We have the whole night," I murmured, my thumb brushing across his bottom lip, feeling it part slightly under my touch. "Just us."

"Coach will check rooms at ten," he said, his voice unsteady but still tracking the time. "He'll knock on doors to confirm everyone's in."

I laughed softly. "You and your precise timekeeping."

"It's a useful skill," he countered, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

"What if," I suggested, moving closer until our faces were inches apart, "we behave ourselves until after Coach's room check, and then..." I let the implication hang between us.

His pupils dilated even further, a slight flush spreading across his cheekbones. "An optimal strategy," he agreed, his analytical mind clearly appreciating the logic even as desire darkened his eyes. "That would eliminate the time constraint variable."

"Exactly." I pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. "No rushing. All night, if we want."

"All night," he repeated, the words sounding like both a question and a promise.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, Beau's perfect hair mussed where I'd run my fingers through it. He looked at me with undisguised want, the careful Sullivan mask completely gone.

"After room check," he whispered, the words hanging between us like a promise. "Tonight, I want everything."