Crossing the Line
1718 Words
JAMIE
"Is this seat taken?"
He looks up, and for a second I forget how to breathe. Marcus Kovač. Up close, those dark eyes that have glared at me across the ice for four years now staring at me with an intensity that makes my pulse spike. His jaw is clenched tight, dark stubble shadowing it. The hood of his jacket is still up, like he's trying to hide, but there's no hiding the exhaustion carved into his face.
Dark circles under his eyes, tension radiating off him in waves. Something haunted lurking in his expression that I recognize because I see it in my own mirror every morning.
He looks wrecked.
He looks like he's barely holding it together and he's looking at me like I'm either his salvation or his destruction, and he hasn't decided which yet.
Tell me to leave, ell me to f**k off, make this easy for both of us.
"Free country, Hartford," he says instead.
His voice is rough, scraped raw, and the sound of it does something to my chest that I refuse to examine..I sit, and order whiskey same as him. The bartender pours without comment and retreats to the other end of the bar, leaving us alone in our corner of amber light and bad decisions.
We sit in silence. Five minutes pass, just two rivals who are supposed to hate each other, drinking. The quiet is heavy, charged with four years of animosity and something else. Something that makes the air between us feel too thick, too warm, too dangerous.
I can feel the heat radiating off his body even though we're not touching. I can smell his cologne, cedar and something darker. I can hear every breath he takes, slightly uneven, like breathing hurts.
The silence is getting to me, making me hyper-aware of everything. The way his left hand is wrapped around his glass. The way his right arm is still tucked against his body, completely immobile. The way he won't look at me directly but I can feel him watching me from the corner of his eye.
"You hit like a f*****g accountant," he finally says.
The words break the silence, and despite everything—despite the guilt, the phone burning in my pocket, the knowledge of what I'm supposed to be doing here, I almost laugh.
"Funny," I hear myself say. "You fell like you've got glass bones." The second the words leave my mouth, I want to take them back because his jaw tightens. Something flashes in his eyes. Pain, anger, or maybe both and I see it. The moment my words hit too close to home. The moment he realizes I know something's wrong.
"f**k you," he says, but there's no real heat behind it just exhaustion, hust defeat and suddenly I'm not thinking about the information I'm supposed to gather. I'm thinking about the way he looked on the ice tonight, the way his body gave when I hit him, the way he tried so hard to hide how badly he was hurting and failed.
"Is that an invitation?" The words are out before I can stop them, before any rational part of my brain can engage. They just fall out of my mouth and hang in the air between us and we both freeze.
What the f**k did I just say? What the f**k did I just imply?
Marc is staring at me, I'm staring back and suddenly we're not rivals anymore. We're two men sitting too close at a hotel bar, and the air between us is crackling with something I have no name for.
Something dangerous, and something inevitable. He turns to face me fully, and now we're way too close. Close enough that I can see every shade of brown in his eyes. Close enough to notice the gold flecks scattered through them. Close enough to see the way his pupils dilate as he looks at me. Close enough that if either of us moved even slightly, we'd be touching and my heart is slamming against my ribs.
"You don't want this," Marc says quietly but he stays right where he is and so do I.
"Because I've been thinking about it all night," I say, and my voice comes out rough and uncertain. Nothing like the confident tone I usually project.
The truth of it surprises even me but it is the truth. Ever since I saw him go down on the ice. Ever since I stood over him and saw that flash of vulnerability in his eyes. Ever since I watched him limp off the ice trying so hard to pretend he was fine. I've been thinking about him and about this.
About what it would feel like to stop pretending we hate each other and admit there's something else here. Something that's been building for four years underneath all the violence and rivalry.
"Thinking about what?" His voice has dropped lower.
"You. Me. This thing that's been building between us.” I say and he scoffed.
"We hate each other," he says, but it sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than me.
"Yeah," I agree. "We do."
But neither of us moves, neither of us looks away. The air between us crackles with electricity, dangerous, and wrong in every possible way.
We hate each other, that's the natural order of things. He gave me a concussion four years ago. I've been trying to destroy his career ever since. We're enemies but right now, looking at Marcus Kovač's mouth, watching the way his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, all I can think about is what it would feel like to kiss him.
What it would feel like to have him, to take something I want instead of doing what I'm supposed to do for once in my goddamn life.
"This is insane," Marc mutters.
"Completely insane," I agree.
Someone moves first or maybe we both do but suddenly we're kissing, and the world tilts sideways.
His left hand fists in my shirt, yanking me closer with a force that knocks the breath out of me. My hand tangles in his hair, finally messing up that perpetually disheveled look, and he tastes like whiskey and bad decisions and something that's purely him.
The kiss is hard, desperate and angry. Everything we've been holding back for four years pouring into this moment of contact.
His teeth catch my bottom lip and I groan into his mouth. He makes a sound in response that goes straight through me, and I'm kissing my enemy in a hotel bar and it's the best thing I've ever felt.
We break apart, both breathing hard, both staring at each other in shock.
What the f**k did we just do?
Marc's lips are swollen. His eyes are dark and wide and the expression on his face, raw, unguarded and stripped of every wall he's ever built, makes something in my chest crack open.
"My room," I manage, my voice is completely wrecked. "Now."
Every rational part of his brain must be screaming at him to say no, to walk away and to not cross this line we can never uncross but he looks at me with those dark eyes, and I see the moment he makes the decision. The moment he decides to stop being rational.
"Yeah," he says. "Okay."
I leave cash on the bar without counting it. I stand and Marc follows, keeping a careful distance as we walk towards the elevators.
Two hockey players heading in the same direction, nothing suspicious except my skin is on fire and my heart is racing and I can barely think past the need thrumming through my veins.
The elevator doors open and we step inside, then the doors close and we're alone. The small metal box suddenly feels impossibly small. Marc glances at me sideways. His throat moves as he swallows. I can see his pulse jumping in the hollow of it.
"What floor?" he asks.
"Fourteen."
I press the button, my finger shakes. I missed it on the first try. The elevator lurches upward and my stomach drops with it. Three floors pass, four but the silence between us is a physical weight, pressing against my chest, and making it hard to breathe.
On the seventh floor, the doors open, a woman steps in with a rolling suitcase. She smiles pleasantly and takes her place on the opposite wall. Marc goes rigid beside me. Every muscle in his body tenses at once and his breathing changes. He becomes hyperaware of the stranger in the space.
His eyes go forward, his jaw clenches, his left hand hangs at his side and then his fingertips brush against mine. The contact is so light it's almost nothing but it's precise. A question pressed into my skin in the language of touch.
My heart stops, one full beat of silence in my chest before it slams back to life so hard the shock of it makes my vision swim. I press my palm against the elevator wall to steady myself.
The woman gets off at ten then the doors close. I turn my head and Marc is already looking at me, and his expression is stripped bare. Want, fear visible in them and then something that makes the ache in my chest flare so bright I can barely breathe through it.
"Fourteen," the elevator chimes and the doors open.
I walk down the hallway with Marc right behind me, he is close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. My hands shake so badly it takes me two tries to line up the key card with the reader.
The light blinks green and I push the door open.
Marc crowds in behind me, the door swings shut, the latch clicks into place.
We're alone in my hotel room, and my heart is beating so hard I can feel it everywhere. In my chest, my throat, and my fingertips.
Marc's mouth finds mine before the door has fully settled against the frame and I forget everything. The blackmail, the threats, my brother and the information I'm supposed to be gathering.
All of it disappears.
There's only this, only him, only us crossing a line we can never uncross.
- Writer
