“What?” I quip, my voice thick. “It isn’t all fast cars and willing women?”

Women I will punt if I catch them touching my man.

I can almost feel him smile and wonder if he knows the direction of my thoughts.

“If you want only one woman, the rest is just noise.”

He gets a kiss on his big pec for that, and his little nipple draws tight in response. I’m tempted to play with it, torture him a bit. But his words give me pause.

“I just…I thought I’d be happier at this point,” he says. “Content, maybe.”

Lifting my head, I meet his troubled gaze. It would be so easy to encourage him to quit. I can feel it in my skin. Part of him wants that prompt, for me to give him a reason.

The power I have over him hurts my heart. It might unnerve me except that I suspect he has a similar power over me.

I could do it, tell him to quit, to try something that doesn’t put him at risk of concussions and spinal injuries, that doesn’t send him away from me every week. I could have all of him without having to compete with football.

“Do you love the game?” I ask him.

“Always,” he says without hesitation.

“Then, as you said, it’s worth it.” I kiss the crook of his neck, where his skin is smooth as fine satin. He loves that spot, and shivers now, pressing his cheek to the top of my head.

“Fi, I promised you honesty. Truth is, my desire to have you blinded me to the hard fact that these short moments are all we can have during the season. When I’m not playing, I’m practicing, reviewing footage, working out, eating, sleeping. Free time is a myth.”

He looks down at me, and there’s pain in his eyes. “I wanted to give you more. But I can’t. And I don’t know what to do about that.”

I’ve always known this. It was what I expected when I let him into my life. I kiss him again, putting all my faith in him, in us, behind it. “Live your dream, Ethan. We’ll find a way to make it less lonely.”

But even as I make the promise, the fear that we’re both lying to ourselves remains. Because it’s clear this relationship isn’t working the way we need it to, and something will have to give before it breaks.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fiona

Some people hate New York. I get it—the place is loud, busy, dirty, swarming with activity. But I love it. The very second I step out onto its streets on Saturday morning, I feel energized, my pace picking up and my back getting straighter. Walking down Park to catch the subway downtown, I can almost pretend my time with Dex was a dream.

Except my nipples and thighs are sore. Every step I take sends a pleasurable little twinge through my sex, which aches as though I’ve been battered from the inside out with a large, blunt object.

I smile, remembering the thick length of Dex’s cock pounding into me. And I almost want to stop walking and squeeze my thighs together, as if it will keep the feeling with me for just a bit longer.

I miss him. It’s been less than a week, and I miss the sound of his voice, the warmth of his skin, the sly way he teases me. I miss teasing him. And I really just want to be back in that bed with Dex, tracing the lines of his tattoos, getting him to suck in a sharp breath when I play with his nipple ring.

None of this is good. He doesn’t live here. We’ll only see each other when he can fly into town. I need a distraction, and I aim to get it.

My steps grow quicker as I leave the Subway on 9th and make my way to Horatio Street. By the time I make it to Jackson’s apartment, I’m in desperate need of a fix. Thankfully, he lets me in quickly and is waiting for me as soon as the industrial elevator rolls to a stop on his floor.

Handsome and fit, he gives me a smug grin. “Not back in the city for a day and already you’re here. I told you you’d become addicted.”

I give his sandy jaw a peck. “Yes, yes, you’re very smart. Now shut up.”

Jackson slings an arm around my shoulder. “Did you just quote The Princess Bride to me?”

“If you have to ask, you’re not worthy, Jax.”

The apartment is part of a vast, renovated warehouse. Astrid Gilberto croons about a girl from Ipanema, and the fragrance of fresh coffee and baked bread mixes with the prevalent scents of wood chips and varnish.

Jackson lets me go and calls out. “Would you stop playing that shit? You’re going to turn us into a cliché.”

Hal walks out of the kitchen, holding a tray and wearing a glare. “You keep that up and I’m going to Chinatown to buy us matching silk robes, asshole.”

Then Hal grins at me, his blue eyes twinkling. “Fi-da-lee,” he drawls as I give him a hug. “Jack’s right; you’re addicted.”

“Maybe I just come here for the food.” I grab a croissant and take a large, obnoxious bite.

Jackson leans against the steel kitchen countertop. “So then you don’t want to see your table?”

“It’s ready?” I say around a mouth of food, though I’m pretty sure it really sounded like, “Pits meddy?”

“Breakfast first,” Hal insists, pouring me some coffee.

Which makes Jackson and me roll our eyes and head toward their workshop, Hal calling us barbarians as we go.

I’ve known Hal and Jackson since my senior year in high school when my mother stopped in their studio to look at some dining tables. Known as Jackson Hal Designs to the rest of the world, the couple creates some of the most beautiful modern furniture I’ve seen.

They work out of their apartment and have a studio on the ground floor, both of which Jackson inherited from his uncle, who bought the place in the ’80s when the Meat Packing District was, as Jackson puts it, “The domain of queers and steers.”