Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 (25 page)

Denny finished his modified cardio and headed into the locker room before Rafi did. Because worry about that boy had eaten holes in his fucking brain like that video they’d showed everyone in his high school about what meth did, Rafi punched up the speed on his treadmill. His feet pounded so fast and hard on the belt whizzing beneath him that the frame shook.

As soon as he hit six miles, he jumped off the machine and headed to the showers. Obviously Denny was not going to be lying on the wet tile, water pouring over his pale skin, head bleeding from where it had split open when he’d slipped and fallen and smacked it on the floor.

He doesn’t fall down when he walks, you idiot.

Rafi didn’t know what was wrong with him. Some switch had flipped when he’d helped Denny down that mountain and then sat in the back of the neighbor’s car all the way to the hospital, stroking Denny’s hair back from his clammy forehead. He hadn’t given a damn if anyone else could see there was clearly something going on between them. That his hands on Denny’s skull were soft and cradling.

He didn’t know how to stop wanting to take care of Denny.

How to stop wanting him, period.

In the locker room, Denny was already in the showers, so Rafi grabbed a towel and headed into the cubicle next to him. The soft cursing began a minute after he turned on the hot water.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” He stared at the partition between them as if he had X-ray vision and could see through it if he looked hard enough.

“Nothing. I got the damn sling wet. Shoot.”

Rafi poked his head over, tall enough to see, if not all the way to the ground, enough of Denny’s naked, wet body to make his tongue swell up in his mouth.

Other things were swelling too.

“Do you need a hand?”

Denny’s face popped up from where he’d been peering at the water dripping off his elbow. “What?”

“Want me to dry it off under the hand dryers?” The question was so stupid as to make him wish he could snatch the words out of the air and stuff them back in his mouth. Denny wasn’t incapacitated. If the sling was wet, he could dry it himself. Rafi wrapped the tips of his fingers over the top of the partition and stayed standing on his toes.

“No, I think I’m all good?” But Denny’s voice rose, like maybe he wasn’t sure. Like maybe there was something he did need from Rafi, if only he could figure out what it was.

Their gazes locked, Denny’s pupils dilating as Rafi watched. His chest rose and fell quickly, the roar of the showers blocking out any sounds from the rest of the gym.

“Sure you don’t need a hand?” The words rasped out of his throat. There was too much spit in his mouth, and he swallowed it before licking his lips.

Denny’s eyes followed the drag of Rafi’s tongue across his mouth.

“Maybe.” The husky word barely floated loud enough to rise over the rush of the water.

Rafi dropped back down onto his heels. Now that he couldn’t see Denny, wasn’t mesmerized by the cut of that muscle over his hip, pulling his gaze down to where his dick had been getting hard as Rafi watched, he could get his own brain under control. Maybe.

Because this wasn’t the middle of the night in Vermont. Or Boston. It was 8:00 p.m. at the gym on a Tuesday, and Denny was interested in letting Rafi get his hands on him for the first time in almost a month.

Was he doing this?

Hell, yes, he was.

He turned off his shower, then slipped out past the curtain and into the cubicle next to him.

Impossible to figure out where to look first. Water streamed down Denny’s naked body, his arm held carefully at his side in a slightly extended position that was supposed to make it easier for his tendon to reattach to the bone postsurgery.

Even though it had been weeks since the accident, Denny didn’t look like he’d lost much muscle tone at all. The sharp ridges of his pecs, his abs, and all the muscles lower down were highlighted in relief by the fluorescent lights shining from the high ceiling.

That one pair of muscles in particular, the hip flexors, whose distinct line drew his eye every time right…there.

“Rafi.” Denny’s voice rasped harshly, his name ripping free of Denny’s teeth before they bit deep into his own lip. Under Rafi’s hot gaze, Denny’s dick got harder, long and thin and cut, curving just enough to make Rafi wonder what it would feel like, fucking him.

And God, did he want to drop to his knees right there and suck Denny’s cock until he choked on it. That he had hesitated at all about this at the beginning of the semester made him the biggest idiot on campus. But it was like they’d given directions to the locker room’s architect to make it as difficult as possible for two six-foot-plus, two-hundred-pound guys with plenty of muscle to get it on in one tiny shower cubicle. Not to mention the plastic shower curtain, that was currently slapping wetly against his ass as it billowed in the spray, stopped six inches short of the floor.

For sure his size fourteens were going to stick out, extremely visibly so, if he got on his knees. There might not be anyone else in the showers
now
, but the gym was open until eleven o’clock and someone could walk in at any moment.

Don’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care.

He pushed Denny up against the wall, palm flat against the cool tile over Denny’s shoulder. The smell of Denny’s soap, sharp and spicy, made him dizzy. He tucked his head against Denny’s neck and sucked on the clean, wet skin as Denny clutched at his shoulder. A hair-roughened thigh slid between his legs and he rocked against it, scraping his dick against the smooth skin-over-bone of Denny’s hip.

Making sure not to bump Denny’s healing arm, he pushed and rubbed against him until Denny locked an ankle around his leg and started humping his thigh. Rafi shoved a hand between them and wrapped it around both of them, squeezing them together, shaking with the effort of holding back groans.

When the heat of Denny’s orgasm spilled over his hand, Rafi sank his teeth into Denny’s shoulder as his own climax rocketed through him like a thunderclap.

Warm water pelted them as they clung to each other, letting the shower wash away the evidence of the pleasure they’d snuck in front of what he certainly hoped was still an empty locker room.

“Okay. We can train twice a day if you’ll let me do that every time,” he muttered into Denny’s neck and got a snort of laughter in return.

“Twice a day. Three times on the weekend,” Denny promised while Rafi groaned, hoping he was kidding. Rafi turned off the water. “We’re gonna get you in that varsity boat, I promise.”

The whole thing was more important to Denny than to Rafi, but he didn’t have the heart to tell him. If it would help distract Denny from all he was missing out on this year, then Rafi would bust his ass until it broke.

He owed it to the man to give his all.

Rafi shook his head and didn’t say a word, grabbing the towel out of Denny’s hands and drying him off with it. He knew it was hard for Denny to dry off everywhere using only one hand. Extra grumpy days were ones that started with Denny getting dressed in clothes that stuck to him because his back especially was still dripping wet when he put them on.

So Rafi took his time. He held the towel in both hands and ran it all over Denny’s naked, pink body, skin still flushed from the hot water and the orgasm. And Denny stood there and watched him, a soft smile blooming on his mouth, holding out each arm and leg for drying as Rafi turned and turned around him. They were quiet, not saying a word now, and it felt special. Like the moment Rafi had been waiting for, when Denny let the walls down and let him back in. Let him help.

When Denny was completely dry, Rafi helped wrap the towel around Denny’s waist and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck before letting him out of the shower. Denny tipped his head back for a moment, and his damp hair was cool on Rafi’s shoulder. They headed back to their lockers, silent still, as if prolonging the moment.

Maybe tonight he would go back to Denny’s room again with him. There might not be room on Denny’s bed for him yet, but they could study or watch a movie, and Rafi could sit on the chair or the floor, and they could start finding that way back to normal again.

Voices broke into the quiet of the locker room as people entered from the workout rooms. Rafi and Denny had taken lockers at the end of the row farthest from the locker room entrance and exit. He didn’t know if they’d done it intentionally, heading back to the distant corner most often unused. But he was enjoying the privacy as Denny got dressed slowly, a seductive combination of moving carefully because he had to and because he knew Rafi was openly watching him.

It felt like luxury, facing Denny as he dried himself off and pulled on his own street clothes again. Rafi stared and stared until he was sure he must have memorized the shadow of every muscle on Denny’s body.

After getting them off in the shower, he was even too mellow to tense up much at the deep voices echoing across the room. They were unlikely to be noticed back here, and weren’t doing anything risky right now anyway.

So Rafi didn’t stress at the sound of other men in the locker room. Not until he heard what the voices were saying.

“I’m telling you, he’s coming for you.”

“Fuck off. He can come all he wants while he’s sucking my dick.”

Typical macho bullshit. Rafi indulged it locker room shit-giving as much as anyone.

“He wants your seat, man.”

Rafi only had a split second to recognize that they were probably eavesdropping on rowers before the second guy growled a reply, his voice deep and low.

“That is not fucking going to happen.”

He didn’t need to hear another word to know who that was. Boomer. And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who the other guy thought was gunning for Boomer’s spot in the varsity eight.

Rafi was.

“I don’t know. Did you see the time he posted last week?”

Some rowers bragged about sprints they’d blown through in Olympic times during their off-hours practices, but the only thing that counted was the one Coach clocked during their time trials, and she wrote those suckers in red on the whiteboard. Rafi had burned with a secret pride to see how awesome his last time had been. Whether or not he made varsity in the spring, he knew Lawson was keeping a closer eye on him than ever before. She’d taken him aside after practice more than once to talk about what extra training he was doing.

She’d noticed.

For the last couple of days, the glow from that attention had been the one thing elevating his mood on the days when Denny’s frustrations had beaten him low.

Boomer was angry now, his voice louder than ever. Rafi didn’t even have to listen hard to hear every word like he was sitting next to the man. “Listen, just because Winslow is a PrEP whore who pulled strings to keep his piece of island ass within reach, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to pretend he belongs here.”

Rafi’s stomach clenched so hard air whooshed out of his mouth like he’d been punched in the gut. So much for wondering if their teammate had heard the gossip or not. Denny spun around to face him, hands lifted as if Rafi were going to go after Boomer.

Face burning, Rafi was
almost
that fucking stupid.

“Hey, Castro’s a good oar.”

“Sure, for a charity case who started rowing a year ago, he’s fucking awesome. But you think he’s the best we could get with a new full-ride scholarship on offer? If it wasn’t for this affirmative action bullshit, we could’ve had one of the top freshmen in the country and you know it. But Winslow wanted someone to blow him in between races, so now we’re stuck with a token black guy?”

“No way. I think they’re just friends.” But Rafi could hear it in the second voice. The guy was losing his certainty. “Besides, Denny doesn’t have that kind of pull.”

“Maybe not. But his cousin does. My dad said Cash Carmichael’s dad put the hammer on the board. A total inside job.”

Rafi was sick. He braced a hand against a locker and ignored Denny, who’d moved closer. Boomer’s words kept spilling onto the tile floor, the echo of his laugh now ringing in the highest corners of the locker room.

“Listen, you like the kid. I get it. But don’t bullshit me. He’s nowhere near the best oar we could’ve gotten, and if we’re gonna start letting people fuck their way onto the team, then I vote we offer the Swedish women’s Olympic eight an audition.”

The voices trailed away as the guys headed for the showers. Quiet fell again, but this one wasn’t sweet and intimate. It was cold and barren and the only sound was a faint buzzing in his ears.

Denny tried to break it. “Rafi.”

“Don’t.”

“He’s full of shit.”

Rafi shuddered. God, that was what made it awful. “No, he isn’t.” He shook his head and forced the words out. “He didn’t say a damn thing that wasn’t true.”

Now Denny was pissed, jaw clenching while he bit off the words. “You’re not my piece of island ass.”

Rafi’s voice was flat as he pulled on his clothes and emptied out his locker, shoving his shit in his backpack. The buzzing in his head was getting louder. “Close enough.”

“No, it goddamn isn’t.”

At the touch of a hand on his arm, Rafi swung, pushing Denny away and then freezing in horror at Denny’s yelp of pain.

“Don’t use your fucking arm!” He’d needed a reason to yell and seized this one like it was made for him. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“I’m not, but you are.” Denny blinked away the shininess in his eyes and didn’t flinch as he moved forward again to get in Rafi’s space. “That guy is full of shit. Don’t you listen to him.”

“What did he say that wasn’t true, huh?” Rafi swallowed the spit that was filling his mouth. “You guys pushed for me to get this scholarship. No way I’d have even known about it without you and your family. And you know they didn’t really look for anyone else. Jesus, it was tailored for me. Diversity in rowing, my ass.”

He stuffed his feet into his shoes, desperate to get out, to be gone, before Boomer and the other rower returned from the showers. He ignored Denny, who was arguing as if he thought words still mattered.