Page 104 of The Locker Room

primal sort of scream was ripped bleeding from his chest, and he came

and came and came, as Christian spasmed around him.

He couldn"t seem to stop kissing Chris. Small, tender, pepper-

sprinkled kisses scattered on his cheeks and his chin and his nose and his

forehead and his lips. The last one on the lips, Chris stopped him, opened

his mouth, and let Xander plunder, and Xander did, a sort of desperate,

mangled softness in the touching.

Finally, they had to stop. Xander rolled to his side and pulled Chris

next to him. He reached behind him and gasped as he divested himself of

what felt to be a pound of stainless steel up his keester. He let it drop on

the nightstand to clean later, and then they just lay still. Their breathing

evened out, and they grew quiet as Chris pulled the comforter over their

hips.

“That was a surprise,” Xander said quietly, and Chris nodded his

head and burrowed his face into Xander"s chest.

“The other way hurt so much,” Chris murmured in explanation. “I

thought I"d try something else this time.”

Xander nodded, like that made sense, but lovemaking had left him

open, vulnerable, and susceptible to stoically hidden pain. His vision

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grew blurry, and he dropped a kiss in Chris"s hair, and then a tear, and

then another one of each. He felt tainted, and soiled, and like he"d

corrupted that entire wonderful moment between the two of them.

There was a reason they tried not to touch on the third game day of

the month.

But he wouldn"t taint the moment further by recrimination, or by

reprimand. It was bad enough that the pressure bandage had been ripped

off by the act of making love, and the wound was open and bleeding and

infected and it hurt too much to bear.