Page 33 of Locked & Loaded

My room is quiet. Standard team-hotel setup—king bed, desk, bathroom with decent water pressure. I let the door fall shut behind me, toe off my shoes, and sit on the edge of the bed. Suddenly, the silence feels a lot louder than it should.

The disappointment is familiar, which somehow makes it worse. It’s that hollow, nagging feeling in my chest that shows up whenever I’ve built something up too much and reality starts correcting me. Mads looked at me all night. He smiled at me during practice. He did everything short of putting it on a sign, and still, here I am, alone in a hotel room in Copenhagen, trying not to feel stupid for wanting him to knock.

I take a shower because my body aches and because standing under hot water is less complicated than therapy. The water hits my shoulders, and I close my eyes and let myself think about last night—overthink it, really, like if I replay it enough times, I can convince myself it actually meant something.

His voice in the dark. His little confession. The way he touched me and kissed me. How hard he was in my hand, hot and real and mine for a few impossible minutes.

The knock comes just as I’m considering wrapping a hand around my cock and making the whole night even more pathetic.

I turn off the shower and freeze.

Water drips down my back and onto the tile, and for one second, I think I imagined it.

Then the knock comes again, harder this time.

I get out of the shower, grab the hotel robe off the hook, and pull it on without drying off properly. By the time I leave the bathroom and cross the room, my heart is doing somersaults behind my ribs.

I open the door.

Mads is standing in the hallway.

He’s changed into a fresh gray T-shirt and jeans, simple enough that it should not be doing this much damage to my nervous system. His hair is damp at the ends, like he took a quick shower too, and he smells clean—that warm, citrusy smell that’s been living in my brain since I first noticed it three months ago.

“Hi,” he says.

His voice is quiet, a little rough. He looks almost embarrassed, which is insane, because I’m the one standing in a hotel robe with water soaking through the fabric.

“Hi,” I say back.

For a second, we just stare at each other.

Then Mads shifts his weight. “Can I come in?”

I nod and step back to let him in.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, Mads closes the space between us.

He crosses the room in two strides, one hand finding the back of my neck, the other catching me by the waist through the hotel robe, and then his mouth is on mine before I can breathe. The kiss is nothing like last night. Last night was discovery, tentative and breathless in the dark. This is something else—hungry, certain, his tongue already in my mouth, his fingers pressing into the skin at my nape.

I gasp against his lips, ragged and involuntary, and Mads makes a sound deep in his throat that goes straight through me.

I kiss him back because my body doesn’t know how to do anything else. My hands find his chest through the gray T-shirt, and the fabric is thin enough that I can feel the heat of him, the muscle under my palms, and Jesus Christ, I’m in a hotel robe with nothing underneath it, and Mads Holm is here, kissing me like he’s been thinking about doing it all day.

He probably has.

I probably have too.

His mouth moves to my jaw, then my throat, his teeth grazing the skin below my ear, and I groan, my head falling back. The robe starts to loosen, and his hand slips beneath the fabric, warm against the bare skin of my hip. My whole body shivers.

“Fuck,” I whisper, because it’s the only word I have.

Mads doesn’t answer. He just kisses me again, deeper this time, his hand sliding from my hip to the small of my back as he pulls me closer. I feel him through his jeans, already hard against my stomach, and the realization makes my cock throb.

I’m hard too, the rough fabric of the robe dragging against my dick. The friction makes me lose my breath, but it only leaves me wanting more. I want his hands on me. I want my hands on him. I want him to fuck me right now—against the door, on the bed, anywhere he’ll have me.

I grind against him, my hips pushing forward, and Mads makes that sound again—the rough, hungry one. His hand slides lower, cupping my bare ass, and I’m so far gone I don’t care that we’re still by the door, that the hallway is three feet away, that anyone walking past could hear every sound I’m making.

I reach between us, greedy and half out of my mind, getting my palm over the hard shape of him through his jeans.