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  He pushed to his feet, intending to intervene, but Alex grabbed his wrist, tugging him back down. “You’ll only draw more attention. Dane’s on it.”

  Beside Jacob, Big Red had leaned half across the table, a placating hand raised as he spoke too low to be overheard. After another minute, Jacob and Leah stood and moved their argument into the main winery building, the heavy wooden door banging shut behind them.

  Straightening, Dane snatched up Jacob’s phone and waved off the scene with his disarming smile. “Nothing to see here,” he said. “And why aren’t you fools eating?”

  The spot-on impersonation of Coach drew raucous laughter and eased the tension that had fallen over the crowd. As the team tucked back into the meal, Dane strolled between the tables to where Alex was angled toward Bas. Stopping behind his boyfriend, Dane tapped the back of Alex’s shoulder, ordering “Scoot.”

  Alex slid forward toward Bas, making enough room for Dane to straddle the bench behind him. “What the hell was that about?” Alex asked.

  Dane snaked an arm around his waist, Jacob’s phone faceup between the three of them. “Pup was showing her pictures of UT, and she swiped through to this one.” Displayed on screen was a picture of Jacob kissing an attractive young man on the cheek. Playful, from a UT basketball game looked like, and definitely flirty. Bas swiped the screen. Texas to the left. More pictures of Jacob and the mystery man to the right.

  “Boyfriend?” Bas asked, dreading the answer more than he should. Jacob had never mentioned anyone special back home, and surely if there had been someone, he would have visited when they were in San Antonio.

  “Some guy he briefly dated last year,” Dane answered.

  “But?” Alex followed up, conveniently covering Bas’s relieved sigh.

  “Leah had no idea he was bi,” Dane said. “Was none too happy about it.”

  Bas rewound to the first time he’d told a girl that Christian Bale was on his freebie-five list too. They hadn’t dated much longer, and she hadn’t been the last, of the men or women, who didn’t get it. By the way Leah came storming back out of the winery, Bas guessed she didn’t get it either. She bypassed her original seat and squeezed in with her girl posse at the other table, their heads diving together. A few whispered words from Leah, and they all turned to glare at Bas, Alex, and Dane.

  “Fucking hell,” Bas muttered, at the same time Alex ordered, “Damage control.” Pocketing Jacob’s phone, Bas stood, Alex right after him.

  “I’ll deal with Leah,” Alex said. “You got Jacob?” Bas nodded and turned on his heel. “Keep me posted,” Alex called behind him.

  Charging inside the winery, Bas startled at the sudden blast of AC, a dramatic shift from the humid air outside. Rubbing his goose-bumped arms, he looked around for Jacob but didn’t see his Chia Pet head anywhere. “Which way did the guy go?” he asked the host. “Tall, buzz cut, tattoo here,” he said, tapping his upper arm where Jacob’s ink peeked out from beneath his polo sleeve.

  The host pointed toward the glass front door. “Down the hill toward town, I think.”

  Hurrying out, Bas was halfway down the hill before he spotted Jacob, the pup’s rangy form disappearing around a shadowed street corner.

  “Pup!” Bas cautiously hustled down the hill. Cobblestone was a recipe for broken bones, of which they’d had enough already. Jacob, however, didn’t seem to care, moving at a faster clip. By the time Bas turned the same corner, Jacob was gone.

  A car horn blared a street over.

  Bas’s thoughts careened toward his worst nightmares. Risking broken bones, he ran flat out to the end of the street and hung a left. Then nearly lost his dinner. Up ahead, Jacob wove unsteadily on the curb, arms flailing as he wiped angrily at his face. On these narrow streets, he was a side-view mirror away from a crushed hand, or an uneven stone away from far worse.

  “Jacob!” he hollered, heart in his throat.

  The younger man startled, his unbalanced turn setting off another chorus of car horns. Bas didn’t think, just acted. Darting forward, he wrapped an arm around Jacob’s waist and hauled him back.

  Spitting mad, Jacob struggled in his hold. “Let go of me!”

  “Hey now.” Bas dragged him into a covered shop entry and held him pressed against the darkened storefront. “Enough of that.”

  “It’s always the same fucking thing.”

  “What is?”

  Jacob lifted his arms, as if to rail, then suddenly deflated, letting them collapse at his sides. “I mean, I haven’t been out that long, just a couple years, but I’ve always known. I didn’t think it’d be this hard, though. That it would doom me to dating hell, not that I wasn’t there already. They just don’t get it.”

  Another page to Jacob’s story. One Bas knew the words to by rote, from his own miserable love life. He brushed his thumbs through the tear tracks on Jacob’s cheeks. “I know.”

  “It’s not an either-or thing. It’s men and women,” Jacob said, blinking rapidly as more tears threatened.

  “Jacob, I know,” Bas repeated. “I’ve been there. I’ve heard it from men and women too. Let me guess what she said. ‘You’re checking out the guys too?’ And I’m sure you’ve also heard, ‘So I have to compete with twice as many people for your attention?’”

  “Like it’s some sort of fucking percentage. And the denominator isn’t even right when you include nonbinary and transgender people.” Jacob angrily wiped at his running nose, then dropped his head back against the storefront glass, a watery chuckle escaping. “God, I’m never gonna get laid at this rate.”

  A barrage of images assaulted Bas, foremost of which was where that night in the tattoo parlor might have led to if he’d pushed. He hadn’t then, and he couldn’t now, no matter how tempting. “You’re only nineteen, Pup.”

  “And still a virgin.”

  “That’s not a bad thing.”

  Jacob righted his head and his tired eyes looked closer to forty than twenty. “It is when it’s another thing added to the mountain of not good enough. Something else the dorky kid can’t do right, on top of a shit week. Dad has a flashback. I fuck up at Martin’s, and you freeze me out.” Bas winced, but Jacob didn’t notice. “I suck in the pool. You can say it doesn’t matter, that it’s all fine, but it’s not. Hell, Terrence should be swimming with you guys, not me.”

  “That’s something else we need to talk about,” Bas started, but Jacob rambled right over him.

  “I just wanted to forget all of it, for one night. Before we got to Madrid and Leah realized how not cool I am. This was my last shot.”

  Christ, did he have no idea what he was doing to Bas? Standing this close, this vulnerable, this beautiful, and offering up everything Bas had wanted the past three and a half weeks. But Bas couldn’t—wouldn’t—take advantage. Not when Jacob was this upset, and not when it was Leah on the pup’s mind. It was her affection—not Bas’s—he’d wanted. As much as it burned Bas’s gut, Leah was a safer bet for Jacob, if she came around. She didn’t have deserter stamped on her DNA like Bas did. He stepped back, out of Jacob’s space. “I can go talk to her,” he offered. “See if I can explain things.”

  Jacob shot out a hand, grasping the front of Bas’s shirt and halting his retreat. “No,” he said, voice small yet sure. “We shouldn’t have to explain.”

  No, they shouldn’t.

  Bas did the only thing he could. He hauled Jacob in and held him tight. “You’re right,” he mumbled against the top of his head. “You shouldn’t have to explain or change, for anyone.”

  Hands fisting in Bas’s shirt, Jacob finally let the sobs loose, his shoulders hitching as the dam broke. Face buried in his chest, Jacob hid from the world, seeking refuge in Bas’s arms.

  Bas gladly provided it, cradling Jacob’s head and rubbing his other hand over Jacob’s back. “Let it out, Pup. It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  Like this, Bas would give him anything. Everything.

  Wrapped in Bas’s arms in the back seat of a
cab, his senses flooded with everything Sebastian, Jacob made his decision. Stupid, awkward, and likely a long shot, but Bas understood what Leah didn’t, what Emily and Wes hadn’t. Bas had said it was all right. That Jacob didn’t have to change. That he had him. Jacob had asked Bas to stay before and he had—back in San Antonio. He’d be asking more now. Jacob prayed the answer would be different than after Martin’s the other night.

  Bas’s hand on his back as they exited the cab was a shot of confidence. As was Bas standing close as they claimed their room keys from security, and Bas, hand still on his back, leading him past the lounge to their room, on the same side of the closed door for the first time in two nights.

  In the short entry hall, Bas stepped past him, reaching for the light, and Jacob acted on his decision. His maneuvers, when focused, in the water or in combat, were far from awkward. Using one of the martial arts moves his father had taught him, Jacob caught Bas’s raised wrist and spun him around, slamming his back against the wall. Holding his outstretched arm against the wall, Jacob curled his other hand around Bas’s neck.

  “Jacob,” Bas gasped, lifting his free hand between them.

  Had he said Pup, Jacob might have stopped. But Bas didn’t. So neither did Jacob. He slanted his mouth over Bas’s, crashing his lips against the ones he’d barely brushed the other night and had wanted every second since. They were warm from the outside, chapped from the chlorine . . . and unmoving.

  As was the man he held pinned.

  Fuck.

  Had he read this wrong again?

  Ready to walk the plank of mortification once more and claim that underwater locker, Jacob pulled back to gauge Bas’s anger. Only it wasn’t anger he saw. Bas’s blown-wide pupils blotted out his blue irises and a deep blush stained his high cheekbones. Add to that the pounding pulse beneath Jacob’s hand, and the stiffening cock against his thigh, and Jacob didn’t think he’d read this wrong after all.

  Parting his lips, Bas ran his tongue along where Jacob’s lips had been pressed.

  Jacob watched, enraptured, his own cock aching. “Please, Bas,” he whispered. “I just want somebody to fuck me. For one night.”

  Bas inhaled sharply and retreated as much as the wall would allow. “‘Somebody’?”

  “You.” Releasing Bas’s wrist, Jacob trailed his hand slowly up Bas’s arm, tracing the colorful designs. “I watched you on TV four years ago, and I thought you were the most gorgeous being I’d ever seen. And then I met you at Trials, and you were even more gorgeous in person.”

  The hand against Jacob’s chest pushed him away. “So this is some kind of fan fantasy?” Bas’s clipped tone sent Jacob reeling back another step.

  “Yes,” he said, trying to pay a compliment, then brain catching up to his mouth, corrected his stalker-ific mistake. “I mean no!”

  Shit, he was screwing this up. Raking a hand over his head, cursing again his hair that was no longer there to grab, he took a deep breath and started over.

  “I know you now. You get me. But yes,” he admitted, because fuck, it was out there already, “I’ve fantasized about you, for years.”

  Bas growled, the good kind, and the sound went straight to Jacob’s dick. Lifting his hands, he approached slowly and laid his palms on Bas’s chest, running them over the hard, toned muscles beneath the cotton polo. “It was you I was thinking about that night in the tattoo parlor.”

  Eyes flashing, Bas grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him closer. “I am not a fantasy.”

  “I know.” Jacob rubbed against him, from chest to cock. “I want the real thing, not the fantasy.”

  “What about Leah?”

  “You’re the one who gets me. I want you.”

  In the blink of an eye, Bas forced them across the foyer, and Jacob’s back hit the opposite wall. Despite the strength unleashed, the hands that rose to cradle his face were gentle.

  As gentle as anyone had been with him in years.

  “Are you sure?” Bas asked.

  “Stay tonight, please.”

  Bas answered with a deep groan and a breath-stealing kiss. Fierce and gentle at the same time, Bas drove his tongue through Jacob’s lips, plundering his mouth, as he cushioned Jacob’s head from the wall with his hands. With a thigh shoved between his legs, crushing the rest of him between a hard body and cool plaster, Jacob hummed contentedly as Bas pinned him. Face caged between colorful arms, body warmly trapped, he was safe in the cocoon of Bas’s creation, the other man always looking out for him, even in this.

  But the cocoon wasn’t quite complete. Snaking his arms around Bas’s neck, Jacob reached up and blindly unwound the rubber band holding together Bas’s topknot. Loosened, long blond dreads tumbled around them. Jacob had seen them down so seldom, he took a second to admire, but only just, as Bas’s mouth coasted lower, lips and tongue teasing his throat.

  The strangled “ungh” he made was humiliating, but Bas’s deep chuckle in the crook of his neck wiped the embarrassment clean. Jacob had missed that sound. Head lolling to the side, gaze snagging on Bas’s arm, Jacob eyed the tattoos he so badly wanted to touch. And taste. He tugged at the back of Bas’s shirt, trying to get it off.

  Bas stepped out of his arms, and the cocoon shattered.

  The rising panic—that this was all just a dream, that Bas would change his mind, that Jacob had asked too much and would be left alone again—must have shown on his face. Bas finished yanking off the shirt and rushed close, framing his face. “Hey now,” he whispered. “I’m right here.” Bas kissed him, unhurried and deep, and Jacob’s panic receded, reassured of the here and now. When next they broke, it was Jacob who wandered south, trailing his mouth down Bas’s neck to the top of his right shoulder where the tattoos started.

  Jacob’s fingers led, touching; his lips followed, tasting.

  The dark line work brought to mind licorice, chocolate, and the Turkish coffee Bas loved so much.

  The reds and purples, summer berries.

  Yellows, sun and sweat.

  The blues and greens, water and chlorine—neither a figment of his imagination like the others, the hours they spent in the pool impossible to wash away.

  Their lower bodies began to rock, finding a rhythm as Jacob continued his exploration, torturing them both with fingers and lips. Until he neared the lonely initials on Bas’s chest. Bas cut off his tour, hauling him up, and Jacob feared he’d done something wrong.

  Bas silenced his doubts with another claiming kiss. A noise escaped, another mortifying “ungh,” when Bas slid a hand down between them and palmed Jacob’s cock through his jeans, stroking him up and down. Jacob was lucky he didn’t come right then.

  Bas snickered against his lips. “Think you’re ready for bed.”

  Jacob nodded furiously but couldn’t reason how to move off the wall. Bas, of sounder mind and body, peeled him from the plaster and led him into the room, hand at his lower back. They shuffled to the side of Jacob’s bed, where Bas left him with a gruff, “Undress.”

  Shedding his clothes, Jacob was suddenly struck shy, which was ridiculous since he and Bas had shared a room and countless locker room showers. But everything about this moment was different—the intent, where it might lead, what it might mean. He kicked his jeans and boxers aside as doubt resurfaced. Was he really going to do this? Live out his fantasy? Risk the morning, the team, the medley relay gold for one night for himself? And what if this one night went horribly? What if he embarrassed himself more? Handjobs and blowjobs were one thing, but Bas was experienced, and he was still—

  A bottle of lube hit the bed, and Jacob gulped back his runaway doubts. He was sure Bas heard them. “Gonna ask one more time. You sure, Pup?”

  Fifty-fifty, but when rough hands landed on his hips and a hard cock nestled against his ass, uncertainty fled, burned away by raging desire. Seizing Bas’s left hand, Jacob drew it down to his cock. “Yeah,” he panted, thrusting into Bas’s grip. “I’m sure.” He angled his face, kissing the underside of Bas’s prickly
jaw. “We need condoms.”

  “Not the only way to fuck.”

  Jacob only had a second to be disappointed before Bas dipped his head and captured his lips, all gentleness gone. Tongue plunging into Jacob’s mouth, hand stroking his cock, Bas rocked against his backside and shuffled them forward. When his shins hit the mattress, Jacob climbed up on the bed, Bas following behind him, never once letting go of his mouth or cock. They stroked, rocked, and kissed until Bas broke away, nuzzling the spot behind Jacob’s ear. “Grab the bottle.”

  Bending, Jacob reached for the lube, and Bas’s hand coasted over his backside, fingers tantalizingly close to where Jacob wanted them most. He fumbled the bottle but came up with it on the second try. The hand on his backside disappeared, then reappeared in front of him, palm up. “Pour it,” Bas ordered.

  Hands shaking, Jacob managed to snap the lid open and up-end the bottle, squeezing a generous amount into Bas’s palm. Jacob thought he was going to use it on his cock, but Bas began to jack himself instead.

  Jacob nearly shot. “I want to do it,” he begged, starting to turn.

  Bas had other ideas, slapping Jacob’s hip with his other hand. “Legs in a little tighter.”

  Confused but willing to follow Bas anywhere, Jacob did as told, and promptly had his mind and world blown. Bas’s slick cock eased between his thighs, rubbing across his taint and nudging the backs of his balls.

  “Oh God,” Jacob groaned, head falling back onto Bas’s shoulder. Slick hand reaching around, Bas jerked him off, drawing out more incomprehensible sounds, until he claimed another deep, devouring kiss, dreads falling all around them.

  Rough and gentle.

  Everything of Jacob’s fantasies.

  “Not gonna last,” he panted when they came up for air.

  “You don’t have to last. Lean forward and grab the headboard.” Bas splayed a hand in the middle of his back. “Ride it, Jacob. Ride my cock, and let go.”

  Words were too hard. The pressure in his balls was too hard. His cock was beyond too hard, bordering on painful. He tightened his thighs and bore down, loving it when Bas rocked harder. Switching hands, Bas jacked him faster, while his slick fingers trailed over Jacob’s ass and down his crack, teasing his rim. Jacob’s muscles clenched, trying to draw him in, and his cock exploded, come filling Bas’s hand and dripping through his fingers onto the sheets. Bas grunted behind him, thrusting until a surge of hot, sticky wetness coated Jacob’s thighs.