She hated the fact that Adam looked adorable when his upper lip was covered in wing sauce. She was almost certain she hated it, anyhow.

They’d had a day for sure. They’d spent it walking around downtown Buffalo, stopping near the harbor and three ships. He’d even signed up to skate in a hockey tournament, though nobody needed him in the end. Undeterred, he’d shrugged, rented a pair of skates and done a quick lap around the indoor arena, marveling at the tribute Buffalo paid to the winners of the NAWHL, the women’s hockey league, trophy.

“This is an amazing place,” he’d said as they walked around. “I mean. It’s…wow.”

She nodded and watched him reach for a wing and a napkin, wipe his lip, and breathe in.

She took refuge in business instead of his unique scent. “It is. Do you know this whole harbor area was basically pulled together out of nothing?”

He was focused on her, his eyes unmoving, as if he was trying to see beneath her skin…that or pull her in like a tractor beam. They were working, or supposed to be, dammit.

“Adam, seriously.”

She probably sounded like an angry schoolteacher, but she achieved the desired effect. He was no longer using x-ray vision, but sitting back, listening. Or at least she hoped he was.

“A bilateral council would be amazing, but it won’t ever work, not at all if Canada, meaning Ontario, focuses on the five boroughs instead of the needs of the whole state. It would be like…” She paused. “Like assuming Ontario began and ended with Toronto. You wouldn’t let that happen, right?”

“Right.” He swallowed, and there was fear in his eyes for the second time since he arrived in Albany. “Does that mean no?”

She shook her head. “It means that anybody who’s trying to create some kind of external structure, whether it’s on a national or international level, can’t forget that. We can’t forget those who would be left behind if we cut out the rest of the state. We can’t forget the children…the…”

She stilled. She couldn’t. She couldn’t let her emotions overwhelm her. She needed to take refuge in statistics. Not focus on her fear about the area’s fledgling industry and what leaving it would do to the school system, or the programs that helped the lower and working-class families. Not to mention what it would to do those who fell below the poverty line.

“And,” she began again, once she’d gotten control of herself, “I’m not talking about the fakakta morons who decided to give Crosby a one-way ticket to Washington. Crosby said people should leave to get jobs…leave this beautiful, booming place because he’s fakakta and…”

Suddenly Adam was standing behind her, his arms around her and Tam let herself lose the battle between impartial emotion and the pain she felt every time she thought about what Crosby and his party wanted to do to places like Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. She opened the floodgates and let out the tears. She turned and took shelter in the comfort of his arms, the safety he’d offered. Until she realized she had to say something.

Not about business, but about him…about them. She’d gone from standoffish, to kissing him, and now she was sobbing all over him. Poor man didn’t even know why. That was a mistake she needed to fix.

Words settled in her mind, she gathered the strength to say them. She sniffled, snuffled the sound a thick, clogged bit of a breath even to her own ears. “Adam?”

He looked almost broken. Tears. He’d never been able to handle her tears. He’d tried, desperately, but growing up the way he did, she knew he didn’t know what to do with them. And it helped now…it helped so much. He always did.

“What?”

She swallowed, and tried to make her lips wet enough to speak, to let her tongue move just that little bit more. “I don’t hate you. I never did.”

* * *

Tam’s words slowly sank into Adam’s brain, reminding him of the conversation they hadn’t finished the night before. The conversation they’d tabled. Were these the words she wanted to tell him then?

But with the hungry look in her eyes, the timing of the words didn’t matter. “Have you shown me everything you wanted to?” he asked. “Are we on the clock?

“I think—” She paused, clearly thinking. “I think we’re officially done.”

He didn’t need any more of an invitation to kiss her. Slowly, comforting, lips and tongue caressing. But the mewling sound she made and the way she pressed into him were clear signs she wanted more. So he gave it to her, his hands running through her curls; he’d always loved the way her hair felt under his fingers.

But she pulled back, looking up at him. “I think we need a check…”

He laughed. “We do. And maybe a different room?”

She nodded, smiled back at him. “Yeah.”

* * *

Tam couldn’t remember how they got back to the hotel. Rapid twists and turns while she was in his arms, kissing the daylights out of him, her hands cupping his ass beneath his suit pants, his hands circling her breasts under her sweater. She didn’t even notice when they pulled up to the hotel itself, didn’t realize he paid the cab driver and heard only snippets of conversation about how good hockey players pay cab drivers no matter how much or how little the fare is.

What she did realize was that she was wet and aching as she walked into the hotel, feeling brazen, and unfulfilled. She groaned, and Adam chuckled. “You think you’re alone in this?”

She dared a glance in his direction, grinning as he gestured to the way his erection was clearly tenting his pants. “You want help?”

He laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said, the moment twisting his words in a way that made her smile. “You can, just…”

She felt the burn of blush in her cheeks as she walked in front of him, feeling his arms wrap around her waist, holding her and letting him walk her to the elevator. “It’s fine,” she said, ignoring the curious stares of people behind the desk. “Your room is where?”

“The sixth floor. Yours?”

“You can survive four floors,” she replied, grinning back at him.

Behind the closed doors of the elevator, she kissed him again. This time, they moved to the back of the elevator, his hands rising up her thighs, under her skirt, caressing her hips. Her hands threatened to dive beneath the waistband of his pants.

Until the jolt of the elevator pulled them apart.

“Four?”

She nodded, and took her time untangling herself from him, and then kissing his cheek. She turned to leave the elevator, and him, behind.

Who said she had to? Who said this night had to end in the elevator, with her going to her room, sexually frustrated as he went to his? She needed to be bold to get what she wanted.

She faced him. “Wanna come?”

He laughed into her ear. “I thought you’d never ask.”

She grinned, running towards the rapidly closing door of the elevator, his hand in hers.

Suddenly he was kissing her and she did her best to walk him in the general direction of her room. Her boots made up some of their height difference, but she reached up, massaging his neck and upper back.

As they arrived in the small alcove not far away from her room, she pushed his back up against the wall, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him. She could feel the touch of his fingers as they rode up her tights, under her skirt.

“Higher,” she implored. “Higher.”

He obliged her, his hands caressing her hips through her tights, then down underneath the waistband, tunneling towards their intended destination. She shivered.

“You feel so soft,” he murmured, his voice caressing her.

“Mmm, I should tell you to stop but I’m not going to.” She kissed him instead, luxuriating into his mouth and his touch, the way his fingers found her wet and waiting.

She felt his finger’s slow entry, desperate for more but glad that he made sure she felt every single motion. His finger didn’t fill her, and she was aching, needing what his touch could do. Backwards, forwards, in and out, the words leaving her brain as her emotions and sensations took over. As she let him take her over the edge, she collapsed against his shoulder.

“My key,” she managed, “it’s…”

“Doing all the heavy lifting, am I ?”

She laughed. “Not my fault you have good hands.”

The sound of his laugh filled her up inside, even as he withdrew his finger. “Okay,” he said, after his lips brushed her mouth. “Give me the key.”

She’d put it in the pocket of her jacket, so she let him go for a second and so she could dig it out.

He put one arm around her, pulled her close, and inserted the key into the slot with the other. He twisted the handle and opened the door before he lifted her and carried her into her room.

“You move too quickly.”

“I don’t hear you complaining.”

And as the door closed behind him, she didn’t want to.

* * *

He managed to get her to the bed, and laid her down as gently as he could.

“You,” she said, gorgeous on that pillow, “are now moving too slowly.”

“Long day.” He lay next to her, his chin in one hand, and ran his fingers through her hair with the other. “Mmmm…”

“Let me take care of you,” she said.

He wondered whether he should push back or let her, and decided that he’d be an idiot to challenge her.

“Who am I to argue?”

She sat up, took off her shoes and leaned over him. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her, meeting her gaze with his. Just watched, those gorgeous eyes cutting through him like an x-ray machine. He was hers, completely. He hoped she knew that.

“Turn over. Take your jacket and your shirt off first.”

So he did. All he thought about as he got up from the bed was the way her voice made him hard. Adam followed her instructions; one sleeve, then the next, and let the jacket fall to the floor. His fingers unfastened the buttons on his shirt. One by one, slowly exposing his chest, and his scars, to her scrutiny.

She’d seen him before; they’d had fevered, passionate sex in the darkness of random hotel rooms and in the sunshine of his apartment in Toronto. But this was different. They were different. The injuries he’d gotten on the ice in Israel were clear on his skin, joining the many other remnants of years playing hockey. He’d gotten older, slower. His back hurt now, like an old man.

But now, in the darkness of her Buffalo hotel room, he felt her gaze as he exposed more of his skin. There was desire in her eyes. As his shirt fell to the floor, he let her watch him, see him.

He could barely breathe; he could barely even move. All he wanted was her, to watch her and…

Her kiss, her lips, and her tongue cut off his thoughts, captured his words, and he reveled in the moment. He didn’t want to move as her hands caressed his shoulders, moved down his back, followed the path of his spine.

When she broke the kiss, she smiled. “Lie down on your stomach.”

He wasn’t sure what she was getting at or where she was going, but he settled himself down on the bed. He stretched out, placed his head on the pillow. He didn’t want to close his eyes, not for a moment.

The coolness of her touch was unmistakable. Softly, at the back of his neck, her fingers traced a long pattern. Her skilled fingers kneaded his muscles, the tension eased out. Her touch made him feel boneless, his force of will and desire kept him from falling asleep.

“Now turn over.”

The command in her voice reinvigorated him and he flipped over. He caught the hungry look in her eyes. He watched as she bent down, as her tongue traced the lines of his chest, her fingers worked the buttons of his pants.

She was a goddess come to life as her feet hit the carpeted floor, tugged his pants down, and left them on the floor with the rest of his clothing.

Her hands caressed his hips beneath his boxers, grabbing his ass as she guided the unnecessary barrier between them to the floor. He was naked before her, and it felt glorious.

She put her lips on his hard dick, her tongue rising up the side, her lips sucking. As she increased the pressure, Adam got lost in the sensation, as her hands and her mouth worked in tandem. The tension built, and built, and Adam knew he wasn’t going to last long.

He burst inside her mouth. Relief, sweet and precious, flooded him. She’d always known how to undo him completely. And he was never going to let her go again.

* * *

Hours later, she was in bed next to him, skin to skin.

“What time do you need to leave?”

“Depends on where I leave from,” she said. “Niagara, Buffalo, either, both…”

“You don’t need to leave from Niagara though. Your trip’ll be easier through Buffalo, right?”

She nodded against his shoulder. “Yeah, I know. You?”

“First train is early out of Niagara Falls. But I don’t want to leave that early.” He put his arm around her. “I’m exhausted, and I need to check out of my room before we go. Feels weird, but I’m thinking we may need an alarm?”

She laughed. “I think we might.”

When it went off, she felt him leave, the chill of the morning on her skin. Reluctantly, she got out of bed and started to pack. She’d have to check out soon, too.

Not to mention, Adam would be back down, packed and ready to leave. And she couldn’t wait to see him.

* * *

Adam put his arm around her in the cab as they headed to the Buffalo train station. Two stops; she’d get out first and he’d continue on to Niagara Falls. She sat with her head on his shoulder the entire time. It was hard to see her leave, just as they were beginning again.

He kissed her cheek. “I’ll email you on the train,” he told her as she got out. “You won’t get bored.”

“See you soon. And Shanah tovah,” she said as she kissed him. “Definitely a Shanah tovah.”