EIGHT
“Anyone got money on this?” Bren asked as the UNC-Michigan game broke for commercial.
Cade eyed their captain from his seat on Remy’s sofa. “Is that your way of saying you’d like to make a wager, Highlander?”
The dour Scotsman shot Cade a rare grin. Usually they got along fine, but lately there’d been tension between them, and while Cade knew the reason, he wasn’t in a position to change the dynamic just now.
“Fifty bucks says Michigan takes it by an eight-point spread or more,” Bren said.
The rest of the crew present—Jorgenson, Callaghan, and Petrov—exchanged glances. As was often the case, Callaghan said what they were all thinking.
“UNC is currently ahead by seven after the first half, is seeded first, has the Bryson Beast in amazing form, and you want to bet against them?”
“Take my money.”
Two hundred buckeroos were soon making a nice little pile on Remy’s coffee table.
“Any chance we could eat soon, DuPre?” Cade called out, earning a grateful look from Erik. Their goalie was either eating or talking about eating or dreaming about eating.
“I’m not serving you couyons,” Remy called back, “so come and get it.”
Mouths watering and stomachs rumbling, they all trooped into the small kitchen in Remy’s apartment and grabbed bowls for the jambalaya. At least once a week, Remy invited the team over for a home-cooked meal, video games, and bro banter.
Their host shook his head at Erik, who per usual had elbowed his way to the front. “Fish, we’ve got ourselves a first-timer, so how about you hold up there and let him partake of the feast I’ve laid on for you?” He gestured to Vadim. “Petrov, you’re up.”
The Russian smiled, one of those piratical half grins he used in his underwear commercials. The guy had endorsements coming out of his ass, which was pretty funny because he was already rolling in rubles thanks to his late father’s billions.
“Thank you, Remy,” Vadim said politely as he ladled a serving into a bowl. Everyone watched while he took a bite, as if the outcome wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
“This is good,” he said around his chewing. “Almost as good as the borscht my babushka used to make.”
“Oh no, you didn’t,” Cade muttered, drawing soft chuckles from Ford and Erik.
An affronted Remy snatched the bowl from Petrov. “Have some respect, Russe.”
“I jest, Remy. Your cooking is unrivaled.” Petrov was no fool.
“That’s more like it.” As the servings were doled out, Cade felt his phone buzz in his pocket. On extracting it, he almost dropped the sucker at the sight of the name on the screen.
Dante: You watching the game?
Mr. You Need to Leave Now was texting him? On purpose? Two days had passed since they’d chatted in his office, the sexual tension between them thick enough to cause spontaneous orgasms. Flirting might be their default setting, but Cade was not going to push for more. Like Violet advised, he shouldn’t be that guy.
He shoved his phone back into his pocket before anyone noticed, not that it was so unusual to receive a text from your boss—all the players had access to the management’s contact information. But your GM didn’t usually check in to shoot the shit about the game.
Your GM didn’t usually finger bang you to another dimension, either.
Erik elbowed him. “Violet, yes?”
Cade hated lying to his friend, but he’d painted himself into a corner a long time ago and this was who he was now. A fucking fraud.
“Yeah, she’s just wondering when I’m finished here.”
“So, what’s the deal with you two?” Ford asked. “Just doing the friends-with-benefits thing?”
“Friends, sure. As for benefits, she’s a lot of fun to be around.” He kept his tone light, neither confirming nor denying that he and Vi were sleeping together. Violet had given him permission to imply all he wanted when the subject of their coupledom came up, but Cade was always careful to do nothing more than hint at it. Bragging—even about fake sexploits—had never been his thing, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to disrespect Violet when she’d been nothing but a sweetheart to him.
All the same, a part of him still enjoyed Bren St. James’s reaction whenever the topic of Violet Vasquez came up.
Their captain was broody at the best of times. A recovering alcoholic, he’d suffered through the collapse of his marriage, separation from his beautiful daughters, and barely concealed whispers doubting his ability to lead. The org had his back, as did most of the players, though there were always some who questioned his right to still hold the captaincy. Notably Leon Shay, the team’s resident asshole.
And then there was Violet.
Something had gone down between Bren and Vi pretty soon after she arrived in Chicago six months ago. Those two were like oil and water, and the mouthy Latina got off on teasing the Scotsman mercilessly. Cade’s jokes were never funnier than when Bren was around to overhear Violet’s raucous laughter. Violet’s tactile expression of her affection for Cade ramped up to 110 percent whenever Bren happened to be walking by. As for Bren’s reaction to Violet? Every cell in the man’s body appeared to be working overtime not to strangle her—or kiss her.
Even with the tension it created, Cade found it pretty amusing to be the third wheel in the budding romance that Bren and Vi didn’t even realize they were a part of.
“Tell the truth, mon ami,” Remy said with the slyest of looks toward Bren. The Cajun knew full well that St. James had a thing for the youngest Chase sister. “What are your intentions toward her? She and I are practically family, so I gotta ask.”
Cade eyed Remy, who always seemed to know more than he let on. Sometimes Remy had this way of looking at a guy—into a guy—that made Cade want to give up all his secrets. If there was ever anyone on the team that Cade would feel safe with knowing he was gay, it was the Cajun.
“We’re just having fun. Sure, she might not be sticking around Chicago after the season’s over—she’s got itchy feet, wants to travel—but we’ve got a good thing goin’.”
Cade’s phone vibrated in his pocket again, like a straight-to-his-balls text message from Dante Moretti. Jesus. Every last shred of Cade’s willpower was spent not extracting that rectangle of plastic.
“She said that?” Bren ground out. “She’s leaving soon?”
She had hinted as much. Violet wasn’t the kind of girl who stuck around in one place for too long. About two years ago, and before Cade had met her, she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and had come out the other side with a new lease on life. While things seemed to be going well with her sisters, she missed her mom, who’d returned to Puerto Rico a year back, and she expected her cut of Cliff’s inheritance soon. Cade was crazy about her and loved having her around, but this was her life.
“If we don’t make the play-offs, then she’ll probably be out of here in a month.” He rolled his tongue around his mouth, squinted at Bren, and waited a moment before adding, “She said she wanted to climb Machu Picchu. Might go with her.”
Pokin’ da bear, Burnett.
Cade’s phone vibrated again, and unable to hold on a moment longer, he took it out, ensuring the screen wasn’t visible.
Dante: My place. After the game.
Cade felt like he’d swallowed a horse pill. Speak of the devil, Vi had totally called it. Looked like Dante had figured out how to align this—whatever this was—with his worldview.
Kind of presumptuous, though, and maybe Cade should play hard to get. No sooner had that thought entered his brain than he nixed it. He wanted Dante with a fierceness he hadn’t even known was possible. It was a big deal for the boss to make a move like this, so Cade would cut him some slack. This couldn’t last, but while it did, he intended to squeeze every drop of pleasure from that man’s body.
He peered up to find the Highlander with murder in his eyes. He looked to be searching for something to say, and finally huffed out, “Sounds like she’s using you, brother.”
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take, Bren. The guy would figure it out soon—hopefully before Violet left the Rebels and Chicago in her dust.
Cade waved his phone, then put it back into his jeans pocket, implying a booty call had just been requested—just not the one Bren and his boys assumed. “Then I guess we’re using each other.”
Dante threw open the door, his hormones in chaos, his heart flipping out.
Cade stood on the threshold, one hand midrake through his copper-brown hair. Dante searched his face. Was that annoyance? Anger? Cade was always so . . . amiable. That he might be here because he didn’t so much want to please as he couldn’t help himself gave Dante hope that they were on the same page. They were both being driven by forces neither could control.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here,” Cade said, a direct answer to Dante’s prayer. Oh, God. He fisted Dante’s tee and pulled him in for a crushing kiss. Lips and teeth and tongues clashed in overwhelming need.
Messy, yet absolutely necessary.
Dante wasn’t sure what had possessed him to start texting. One minute he was watching the game, the next his fingers were getting him into all sorts of trouble. Sitting on the sofa, scene of last week’s crime, Dante could barely focus, his brain stuck on every hot, dirty, special moment with Cade.
Cade’s hungry mouth, his rampant cock, his perfect ass.
God, his ass.
But mostly, Dante’s memory was overrun with images of Cade’s eyes as Dante figured out the best way to blow his mind. The trust he saw there had unsettled him, but had also made him feel powerful. Both in and out of control. He wanted to feel that potent mix again.
He wanted Cade.
Dante separated his lips from Cade’s, but kept his hands on the man’s ass. “Thought you wouldn’t come. Thought I’d scared you off.”
“Scared,” Cade whispered, “but not off.”
Oh. Let’s take a moment here.
“Do you want to talk first?” Dante asked, because Cade did look scared. And maybe Dante was a little, too. Taking a couple of steps back might be the only way to grasp on to sanity here.
But then Cade shook his head, and within 0.5 seconds they were kissing again. And it was so good that if Dante could live on these kisses instead of food and whiskey and wine, he would.
He pulled at Cade’s jacket and shrugged it off his shoulders. His tee came next, and then his belt was unbuckled.
Cade grinned, his confusion a thing of the past. Another kiss. Another stupid grin.
“What’s so funny?”
“So far, it’s been me getting naked, Moretti. When do I get the pleasure of viewing all that hot Italian muscle?” He pulled at the hem of Dante’s Yankees tee. “No suit today.”
“I don’t sleep in it, you know.”
“What do you sleep in?”
“Tonight? You.”
Cade groaned. “Bed. We need a bed.”
They could kiss their way to the stairs, then kiss their way up them, but that would take forever and might result in a sprained ankle. Dante had to protect his player’s health. Best to make a run for it.
“Come on. Upstairs.” He grabbed Cade’s hand and led him to the master bedroom. He’d left a lamp on, hopeful that . . . Dante couldn’t believe Cade was here. He’d been given a second chance, one he didn’t deserve.
He pushed Cade down on the bed. “I need to know what you want.”
“You. Everything and you.”
Dante peeled off his tee and threw it on the ground. Cade’s mouth went slack-jawed.
“What?”
“You’re so . . . oh man, you’re even better than I hoped.” He yanked Dante on top of him and rolled him onto his side so they faced each other. “This chest. These muscles. All this hair!” And then he rubbed his cheek against Dante’s pec like a fucking kitten.
He drew back. “Sorry, but that’s been on my list.”
“It has?”
“Weird, right? But I hoped you were as hairy as you looked that night in the gym.” He moved a hand, almost reverentially, down Dante’s stomach until he reached the waistband of his sweats. He didn’t go any further, just traced a finger along the border. And Dante realized, as down to fuck as he was, he wanted to take this slow.
“You don’t work out at night anymore,” Cade murmured.
So he’d noticed. “It seemed the best decision. I’m liable to make dumb choices when I’m alone with you.”
Cade’s smile faded. “I won’t tell anyone, Dante. I know this is risky for you, but I’ll protect this. I’ll protect us.”
Dante’s heart squeezed. “I’m supposed to be protecting you—”
Cade cut him off with a kiss. “We’re both consenting adults. No one is being taken advantage of, okay? And I meant what I said.”
“What?”
“About how you’re the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. I kind of had a crush on you when I was younger. I thought you were hot the few times I saw you at away games and on TV. But the day you walked into the Rebels’ viewing room to give your intro speech, I was bowled over by how much I wanted you. Not just your body, but this whole persona you project. This guy who’s got his shit together, who knows who he is. That confidence you ooze is so sexy.”
Yet that confidence faded in the face of one Cade Burnett, just as Dante knew that this man, despite all his swagger, was filled with doubts of his own and was looking to Dante to show him not just pleasure, but intimacy. It was a heady responsibility.
Dante cupped Cade’s cheek, tracing a thumb along the bone and down to his sensual mouth. This has no future. Don’t for a moment think it has. Except Dante wasn’t exactly sure whom he was sending that warning to.
They would start with pleasure, and hopefully it would never graduate to pain.
“I want this to be perfect for you, Cade. You’ll trust me to make you feel good?”
“I’d trust you with anything and everything, borchia.”
Boss. Stud. Dante blinked back the emotion that statement produced—not the endearment, which was silly, but the trust Cade was giving him so freely—and instead funneled it into the physical. Starting with Cade’s mouth, he joined their lips in a kiss for the ages, then got busy ensuring his guy was unencumbered by clothes.
“You, too.” Cade unfurled Dante’s sweatpants, every inch revealed widening those hazel eyes. When Dante was completely naked, Cade’s gaze roved greedily, and soon his hands followed suit.
Cade spent a few minutes that felt like hours running his palms, fingertips, and knuckles all over Dante’s body. Murmurs of “fuck” and “beautiful”—strangely synonymous in a tone of veneration—burst from his mouth every few seconds. It was like he’d never had a chance to take his time exploring before.
Dante remembered what that was like. Quick, furtive hookups in alleys and parked cars. When your life was circumscribed because of your family, your job, your fear, you found yourself grateful for glimpses of anything beyond dicks and asses. Seeing the guy you wanted fully naked was a luxury only afforded to the truly brave.
Cade Burnett was choosing to put himself out there, and Dante intended to reward him with the hottest experience of his life.