Sugar and Ice - RJ Scott Page 0,22

like a typhoon.

My first mistake, which was one of many I’d made over the past two months, was to be stupid enough to think that Tate being in my home would somehow squash the attraction we had for each other. He fit into my condo well, looked far too good walking through my living room, his dark eyes rounding when he spied Frank.

“Does he talk?” Tate asked as he approached the huge cage in the corner. His jeans and tank top were nicely cut, baring his arms and most of his shoulders and neck. I loved a long neck on a man.

“Ublyudok!” Frank yelled, clicking his beak at this stranger staring at him.

Tate’s bright brown gaze swiveled from the macaw to me. “How cool! He speaks Russian. What did he just say? Hello or something?”

“Motherfucker,” I replied. Tate laughed aloud. A sound that felt warm and nice in my usually quiet condo. “Please do not stick your finger into the cage. He bites. It is a problem from his previous owner and I have not fixed it yet. We are working on it.”

“Got it.” He shoved his hands into his front pockets, but still stood there admiring the bird.

The timer in the kitchen went off.

“I must take out our dinner. Please, sit and be comfortable. Is a glass of white wine to your liking?”

“I’ll just have a beer, or…no, uhm, just some water with lemon.”

“Yes, of course. Sit.”

I scurried off into the kitchen to remove the garlic potatoes and chicken one-dish meal I had prepared. With a big salad, this was a perfect dinner for two athletes sitting down to talk. I placed the chicken on a trivet, moving around my kitchen to the fridge where I had the salad stored.

“So, you like Taylor Swift?” I glanced up from the inside of my refrigerator to see Tate now in the kitchen. Did he never listen to directions? “You own every CD she ever made? Or did you miss her kindergarten Christmas concert?”

“Snooping is unbecoming,” I mumbled as I pulled the big bowl of salad from the fridge. He chuckled. “My love for Taylor is a private matter.”

“Yeah well if you’re trying to hide something maybe you shouldn’t be so obvious.”

I knew that he meant that in reference to all the CDs and vinyl albums lined up on one long shelf on my bookcase. Or at least I thought he meant it in that manner. Hands filled with a cold glass bowl heaped with romaine, iceberg, radish slices, carrots, and tiny bits of black olive, I stared at him openly, unable to form a sensible reply. Which was my standard operating procedure with Tate nearby.

“He kissed me,” I said for some bizarre reason. It was important that he know that I hadn’t initiated anything like I had with us. “For a song about tits.” He arched any eyebrow. “It was…you should have been there to understand it best. You…this thing with us, this attraction…it’s making me off-center. Wobbly. I think perhaps we should not act on our lusts anymore until after the season is over.”

“Uh-huh. Is that what you really want?” He walked over, took the salad, placed it on the island, and then planted himself right in front of me. “I’m not going to pressure you. I have enough shit to deal with, let alone adding dating my team captain to the list.”

His eyes were lovely. Thick sweeping lashes and eyes that were brown with flecks of gold, like those little Russian chocolate caramel candies everyone always wanted me to bring back to the states.

“You should be in the living room.”

“Hard to eat in the living room when the food is out here.”

“I have meat.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

I lunged for him at the same time he moved toward me. I captured his head in my hands, slanted my mouth over his, and dove into his mouth like a man starved. Truly, I had been. It had been five weeks or so since we’d kissed at the party. A lifetime, to be sure. He gripped my hips, tugging madly to get our cocks aligned. When they brushed, he gasped. I inhaled his breath, savored it, and then moved from his lips to his neck. A throaty moan bubbled out of him. I rolled his head this way and that, lapping over his Adam’s apple, his new whiskers rough on my tongue. I nibbled an ear, tugged on the lobe, and felt him melting into my arms.

“Fuck yes,” he panted when I caught