Page 13 of The Fall

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. I need to remember. I want to touch him, and I want him to touch me. I follow the pull of him.

The closer I get to the bathroom, the more the air grows heavier, warmer. It’s stupid to feel nervous, I tell myself.

My hand hovers over the doorknob. I can turn back, crawl back into bed, pretend I’m still asleep when Blair returns. A thousand questions flash through me.

But beyond this door is Blair.

I’m doing this.

I tighten my grip on the knob, and then I’m turning it, pushing the door open.

Warmth rushes over me. The bathroom is soft edges and glistening surfaces—fogged mirrors, puddled tiles—and the shower is glass-walled, encased in fog.

Blair is a dark silhouette behind the steamed glass, water running over the broad planes of his body.

Shit, he’s beautiful.

Water streams down him, little rivers flowing over the contours of his body.

He rakes his hands through his hair, head tilted back under the spray.

Water beads on his eyelashes, drips down his jaw, falls to his collarbones and races down his chest, then disappears into the dark trail of hair across his stomach, vanishing down into?—

I am desperate to touch him. Was he really my lover? Was he who I was allowed to love? And did he want me, too? How is that possible?

Step forward, and I might find out. Stay, and I might never learn the truth.

I shed my clothes, leave them puddled on the floor.

I’m acutely aware of my body, of every inch of skin, every goose bump, every shaky exhale.

Blurred memories flicker like heat mirages: his hands wrapped around me, the scrape of his stubble against my inner thigh, pleasure sparking through me.

I’m half-hard already, trembling, rookie-nervous.

This is so much more than walking into a shower.

This is crazy. I’m crazy. But I’m already here, and I can’t turn back. Fear wars with my fumbling confidence. I have no idea what to do. I’m supposed to be his lover, but I don’t know the first thing about what I’m doing.

A warm cloud of steam envelops me when I open the shower door. Blair’s facing away from me, his head under the spray. “Blair,” I say, my voice barely louder than the hiss of the water.

He turns, and?—

All of my terror, all of my fear, melt away. It’s Blair; my heart and soul know him.

I’m hypnotized by him. Drops of water slide down his arms, and little rivers trickle down his torso, slip around the heft of his cock and down his thick thighs. His eyes drop to my mouth. I want so badly to be kissed but have no idea if?—

“I figured you were out for another hour,” he says.

“I didn’t want to waste the morning.” My skin is too tight, like it’s a layer that needs to be peeled off to get to the real me.

He tugs me forward until there’s no room left between us. I sway toward him, needing more. I want to catalog every color in his eyes, measure how his pupils dilate when our bodies align.

He cradles the back of my neck and traces his thumb over my bottom lip. His hand skims down my throat to my chest. My heart stutters beneath his palm, rabbity and raw.

The first brush of his lips against mine is achingly gentle. I bring my hands up to frame his face before the kiss deepens and— oh . He drags his tongue along mine, draws me in, and the pleasure is raw as salt, as obliterating as hunger. I cling to him, knuckles white, water drowning both of us.

My fingers curl around his neck, pulling him closer, and my cock grinds against hard muscle and hot skin. He breaks the kiss, and his breath hitches, then steadies. “You come to warm me up or steal the hot water?”

I squeeze his ass. “Stealing all of you.”

He grins into my neck—light at first, then biting—behind my jaw. I close my eyes and let myself fall apart beneath his touch.

“What do you want, babe?” His voice comes out rough and wrecked already.

What do I want? Everything. I want to claw back the year I’ve lost, and I want his body to tell me who I am. I want to be whole again, more than this half-person stumbling through memories, and I want to lose myself in him until I forget that I’ve forgotten anything at all.

But how do I say that?

My mouth crashes into his instead. Blair matches me, his grip on my hips bruising. I’m so hard, and I arch into him, chasing more. “Want you.” My hands roam, rediscovering him. The taut curve at the base of his spine, the firm swell of his ass under my palms; I’m greedy for it all.

His hands map me in return, confident like he’s already charted every part of me. Have we done this so many times that he knows exactly how and where to linger? Maybe we have; maybe we’ve done this a hundred times, a thousand before, but for me, it’s the first time I’ve let myself crave this.

Blair’s cock grinds into my hip. God, I did this to him, and he wants me like this.

I’m caught between the pull of the past and the heat of the present, between the man I was and the one I could be in his arms. I need the memories we’ve made and the ones we haven’t yet.

I need all of him, in every way imaginable.

Blair slides a hand between us, taking our cocks in his fist. It’s obscene, it’s filthy, it’s everything I need and more, hot and tight and wet. Each stroke builds a white-hot thread inside me. I’m his; I’m completely his.

“Blair—” His name breaks apart in my mouth.

“I’ve got you.” The words rumble against my neck. “Always got you.”

He brushes his thumb over the head of our cocks, a perfect, too-perfect pressure, and my world shatters.

I shudder and clench and come so hard stars burst behind my eyelids.

It’s a ruinous wave, pulling me under, and I cling to him.

Blair goes rigid against me, his release triggered by mine.

I hold him close as we ride out the aftermath.

Then there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing and the water coming down around us. Blair looks so fucking happy, like he has everything he’s ever wanted in his life right in front of him.

His lips brush my temple. I don’t remember loving him, but like this, with his heart thudding against mine, I can’t imagine not.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he says.

“I am resting. With you.”

His laugh rumbles through me as he pulls me closer. “So much for concussion protocol.” His lips quirk into a smile against my cheek. “I hope Doc clears you this morning.”

“I’m fine.”

I’ll need to face Dr. Lin again today and convince her that everything is good, that everything is normal, and I’m normal. I’m in far too deep now to admit that I can’t remember a thing. The only way forward here is straight through.

“Well then, let’s get you checked out and cleared.” He reaches for the shampoo and starts washing my hair. “We need our Kicks back for this roadie. Gotta seal the deal.”

Right. Playoffs. There are two more weeks to go in the regular season, and the Mutineers are pushing for the playoffs for the first time in years, thanks in large part to Blair and me.

It’s time to live my life.