Page 86 of The Fall

I pitch forward and rest my cheek against his. He twists to kiss me, hot and messy from this angle, ferocious and frantic at once. His teeth scrape my lips. “Go slow.”

“I will,” I promise.

I enter him slowly, so slowly; his body swallows me by fractions.

The heat of him is staggering. I push in another slow inch. He clenches around me, and his breath catches, his spine bowing just a little too far. “You okay?” I whisper against his neck.

“Don’t stop.”

I obey, pushing forward again, letting him set the pace with the yielding of his body, and the slick slide gives way to a perfect, gripping friction. His back relaxes, his hips tilting to meet my slow advance.

He lets out a long, broken moan when I’m buried to the hilt, and we stay joined like that, chest-to-back, heart-to-heart, joined but motionless. I kiss his temple, his ear, the line of his jaw. He turns his head, and our lips meet.

“I love you,” he gasps.

“I love you,” I breathe into him. “So fucking much.”

“I’m yours,” he whispers. He pushes back on me, hips grinding until I gasp against him, and then we’re rocking together, slow thrusts that build as I fuck into him.

His sounds are ragged, filling the small space of the room. My free hand roams everywhere it can reach: along his ribs, down his flank, over the taut muscle of his thigh. His voice is broken syllables. “Torey—yes—don’t stop—love you?—”

I tuck my face into the curve of his neck, and my lips linger behind his ear, whispering “I love you” over and over again. He hums when I bite, hard enough to leave a mark. My teeth graze the tender skin again, tasting the faint tang of sweat, and I suck gently, pulling a sharper sound from him.

My hips roll into him, each thrust sinking deeper. The friction is maddening, every inch of him pulling me in. His skin is slick under my palm, hot to the touch, and my breath fans over the damp curve of his neck. Our mouths meet in desperate half-kisses.

I shift my angle, searching for that spot, and when I hit it, his whole body jerks.

A sharp, shattered cry leaves him. His hips buck against me, a frantic, mindless yearning for more.

I did that, I’m the one breaking him apart like this.

My thrusts grow firmer, chasing his rapture, desperate to hear him fall apart.

My hand slips lower still, brushing over the coarse hair before wrapping around his cock.

He’s hard and heavy in my hand, and he bucks into my touch.

“Torey—fuck, please,” he chokes out, voice splintered.

My lips graze the shell of his ear, teeth catching the lobe. My hand works him in time with my thrusts, thumb sliding over the slick head of his cock and gathering the wetness there. His muscles tighten around me, pulling me deeper.

The slide of our bodies is messy and perfect, but I hold on, drawing it out, needing to feel him shatter first. His back bows, a beautiful arc of surrender, and another shattered sound rips from his throat as his body gives a violent jerk.

I drop my forehead to his shoulder. My thrusts turn desperate; I’m losing control. “Blair,” I gasp. His cock jerks in my hand, and I tighten my grip, working him through orgasm as his release spills hot over my fingers.

My hips snap forward one final time, burying myself inside him as my orgasm tears through me. Stars burst behind my eyelids, my entire body seized in that perfect moment of release, every muscle drawn tight.

Silence follows, save for our ragged breathing. My forehead rests against his back, our hands still laced together over his heart. I don’t want to move. Ever. I want to stay like this for the rest of time.

But eventually, my muscles protest. I ease out of him and roll to his side. Blair’s arm wraps around me immediately, pulling me against him. His eyes catch the light, dilated and deep. They are so blue, so deep, like looking into the heart of the ocean, and I want to drown in them.

We breathe together in the quiet aftermath. My body aches in the sweetest ways. The ceiling fan spins lazily above us, stirring the warm air. Outside, waves whisper. I close my eyes and soak in every moment.

His breath ghosts along my shoulder, slow and steady, a gentle tide ebbing back. He shifts behind me, nuzzling closer until there isn’t a sliver of space left between us.

Tomorrow we’ll pack our bags and board a plane and return to the real world. But not yet.

Our last day on the island vanishes like water through cupped hands. We wake tangled together in white sheets that smell like sex, and we trade slow kisses, neither of us wanting to acknowledge the packed bags by the door.

“We have to go,” Blair breathes against my lips.

“Five more minutes,” I say, pulling him closer.

Those five minutes turn into thirty.

The taxi arrives too soon. Blair loads our bags while I take one last look at the villa.

The air still hums with yesterday’s laughter, echoes of our gasps and sighs are tangled in the hibiscus and the lapping waves.

I close my hand around nothing, wanting to hold on, knowing I can’t.

I can’t keep the sea salt or the sun, but what we built isn’t so fragile.

Two weeks ago, we arrived brand new. Now, we leave unbreakable.

The trek home unfolds in stages: boat to mainland, car to airport, security line to gate. Blair holds my hand the entire time. Every few minutes, he lifts my knuckles to his lips like he can’t help himself.

The flight home feels like the final pages of a story I never want to end, and when the flight attendant’s voice crackles through the cabin speakers to announce our final descent into Tampa, I almost want to cry.

We’re still holding hands. Neither of us has gone more than five minutes without touching. My body has forgotten how to exist without his touch.

The plane banks, and through the window, Tampa Bay glitters below us. Blair leans closer, his voice dropping so only I can hear. “I’m not sure I can go back to pretending that I’m not in love with you.”

The cabin pressure changes around us. My ears pop. I turn my hand over in his, palm to palm, and squeeze.

“I know we agreed to keep this private,” he continues. “But these two weeks...” He shakes his head. “They changed things for me.”

“For me too.”

His thumb brushes over my knuckles. “I’m going to struggle.”

The plane dips lower. Tampa grows clearer through the window. Our city, our team, our life is waiting to reclaim us. “Maybe someday soon, we won’t have to hide.”

Blair’s fingers tighten in mine, and for a moment, it’s only him and me and the hush before touchdown. “You mean that?”

I squeeze his hand and don’t let go. “You’re not a secret I should keep hidden. You’re—” I pause, searching for the right words. “You’re everything.”

The plane banks again, and the coastline comes into full view.

“I want to do this right,” he says. “For you. For us.”

“We’ll figure out how to tell the team first. Then management.”

The captain announces our final approach. Blair squeezes my hand one more time. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Soon.”

“Soon.”

The plane touches down with a rubber-screech thud that jolts me back to earth. Passengers around us stir as phones chirp to life. Seatbelts snap open. The overhead bins clatter. I want to linger here, where no one knows what we are except us.

Blair brushes his thumb along my knuckles one last time before we stand.

We shuffle forward together. I catch his gaze in the reflection of a window before the jet bridge yawns open and Florida heat pours in. We step into it side by side. The rest of our lives waits beyond the gate.

In the terminal, we walk close enough that our shoulders brush. Our vacation bubble hasn’t popped, but it’s thinning as the world crowds back in, and the bustling airport is a shock after two weeks of empty beaches.

He collects his bag from the carousel first, then mine, and hefts them both over his shoulder. I want to kiss him by carousel four, taste whatever is left of our vacation on his lips and let everyone stare. Instead I follow him out to the garage.

He tosses my bag in his truck in long-term parking, then leans in, crowding me against his truck’s door. No one’s around; there’s nothing but rows of empty cars baking in the sun.

“Last chance,” he whispers, “for me to kiss you before we’re back in the real world.”

I grab his shirt, pulling him close, and our kiss turns hungry. When we break apart, I’m breathing hard. Blair rests his forehead against mine, eyes closed.

“I don’t want to go back,” I say. Not to separate apartments, separate lives.

“I know.” His voice is rough. “I don’t want to drop you off at your place.”

“I could come back with you tonight?”

He takes my hand, and when he speaks, his words are careful, as if he’s been holding them inside since we landed. “You could come with me and stay.”

“Are you… asking me to move in with you?”

He doesn’t mean for tonight or until morning or until training camp starts up again. He means open drawers and closet space and two toothbrushes lined up on marble.

Blair’s eyes hold mine. “Yes.” He takes a breath. “Move in with me, Torey.”

I touch his face, run my fingers along his jaw. “It’s fast,” I say.

“Too fast?” he asks, and there’s vulnerability there, a crack in his usual confidence.

I shake my head. “No.”

“I don’t want to waste time on what we’re supposed to do when I know what feels right. I want you in my life. I want to be with you all the time, and I don’t want to pretend that I don’t.”

“I want that too.” I want his house and his bed and his life. I want mornings and evenings and all the moments between.

He leans in, kissing me as he says, “Then let’s do this.”

The drive to my apartment passes in a blur. Blair’s hand takes mine whenever he doesn’t need it as if he can’t bear to not touch me.

When we pull into my complex’s parking lot, I feel a strange disconnect. This place was never home, but now it feels even less so, a temporary shelter I’ve outgrown.

The door swings open to reveal my sad bachelor existence in all its glory: a one-bedroom box with white walls and furniture picked for price instead of comfort. It looks unlived in because it is. I’ve been existing here, not living.

“I’ll grab clothes,” I tell Blair. “Can you check the kitchen and living room for what’s worth keeping? I’ve got some protein and recovery mixes.”

He nods, already moving. “Got it.”

In the bedroom, I throw open dresser drawers and the closet.

There’s not much to pack. I fold my jeans into the bottom of my duffel bag, shove my shirts above them and ball up my socks in the gaps between.

Toiletries from the bathroom, my good watch from the nightstand, the sketch pad I keep beside the bed; everything that matters fits in one bag, which says something about the life I’ve been living here.

The room looks no emptier for my having packed.

Blair’s Mutineers jersey—the one I’ve slept with—is bunched beneath my pillow, and I stuff it into the bottom of my bag.

When I return to the living room, Blair is sitting on my couch with one of my sketchbooks open in his lap.

It’s a hockey one, filled with action shots from games and practices.

And filled, mostly, with Blair: Blair taking face-offs.

Blair celebrating goals, Blair with his head bowed in the locker room, shoulders bearing the cross of captaincy.

“These were on the TV stand,” he says.

I set my duffel down. “Which one is that?”

He turns the book toward me. It’s open to a drawing of him on the bench, head tilted back, water bottle raised to his lips. The details are precise: the curve of his throat, the flex of his hand, the intensity in his eyes even in a moment of rest.

“How long have you drawn?”

“For forever. It helps me think.”

“And you think about hockey. And about me.” He turns a sly look up to me, one I’ll have to capture in graphite later.

“I do, a lot.”

For one wild second all those nights alone replay in fast-forward: sleepless hours spent chasing lines across paper while wishing for this exact moment—him, here, looking at me exactly like this.

“Is this really how you see me?” he asks quietly.

I nod, unable to find words for the way I see him. He is the axis my world tilts on, and my drawings are a poor substitute for the truth of him. “I’ve always seen you,” I say quietly.

He turns another page, where I’ve captured him mid-celly, arms raised. The charcoal smudges slightly under his fingertips. “I’m starting to understand that,” he whispers.

Then he closes the sketchbook and adds it to a small stack on the coffee table and stands, gathering the books. “Is this everything you want to take?”

“Yeah, I’m all packed.”

“Not much for eight months.”

“Everything that matters is coming with me or driving me home.”

Blair’s eyes soften. He takes my duffel from me. “Then let’s go.”

When we’re home, he helps me unpack, clearing space for my things among his. He plugs my phone charger into an outlet by what will be my side of the bed and sets my sketchbooks in one of the nightstand drawers. He lines up my sneakers next to his boots in the closet.

He glances over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “Now you’re officially moved in.”

I lean against the doorframe as he fusses with my shoes. There’s pride in the way he arranges my life with his. “That easy, huh?”

“That easy.”

He takes my hands in both of his. The calluses on his palms rasp against mine, hockey hands touching hockey hands. “Welcome home,” he says softly.

I kiss him. “Wherever you are is home to me.”