Block Shot (Hoops 2)

“I want you to do something for me, Ban.” I feather kisses down her neck, and she tilts her head, baring her throat to me.

“What?” She’s heavy-lidded, and if I slipped my fingers into her pants she’d be soaked. My mouth waters, remembering those sweet juices flooding my mouth when she comes.

“Tonight in your new bed across the hall from Zo, or wherever it is,” I say, my voice husky, needy. “I want you to touch yourself.”

Her breath catches and she leans into me, cupping my neck with her cool palm.

“Touch yourself and think about me,” I urge, taking her earlobe between my teeth. “I want you to slip your fingers in and think about how it’s not enough. How it’s not me.”

“Jared,” she gasps, her breath hitching.

“Think about how my mouth looked on your pussy. My head between your legs. Remember when you were on your knees under that table, choking on my dick.”

“God, Jared.” She shakes her head, her fingers trembling when she presses them to my chest. “This is already hard.”

“Did you say hard?” I grab her hand and press it to the crotch of my suit pants. “This is how I’ll be for the next three months.”

I pull back to look in her eyes and run my thumb over her full lips.

“Waiting for you.”

She tucks into my arms, her head on my chest, and I stroke her hair. We stay that way for the last few minutes we have together, before she has to go meet him, help him, be with him. Neither of us says that word, but if there’s another word for the way I feel when she’s close, for the way I miss her when she leaves, for the raging fear that someone would take her from me, then I don’t know what it is.

It’s only after she’s gone and I’m back in the conference room, like the most important person in my life didn’t just traipse off to be at another man’s side, that I realize what has happened. It’s an irony that tilts my mouth into a smile of grudging respect.

I have to reassess my opponent. Zo may be dying, and who knows, he may only have a year or two left to live, but he is not done yet. And he may be a good man, but he is not above leveraging even the worst circumstances in his life to get what he wants.

That I can respect. He did something very few men have gotten away with.

Son of a bitch blocked my shot.

Part III

i cannot love you gently,

it’s not in me

to love in part,

so I will love You

completely,

and a little madly . . .

* * *

– Matt Spencer, Poet

33

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When you walk through hell with someone, you burn, too.

The flames don’t respect your privacy, your boundaries. They consume your time, torch your dignity, and turn your peace of mind to ashes. The last six weeks here in Palo Alto have been the most difficult of my life. I feel bad even saying that because compared to what Zo is enduring, I have nothing to complain about.

I cannot imagine him navigating this alone. It’s not that Zo doesn’t have friends. He does, many, but he’s such a private man. Such a proud man, and this disease has stolen so much from him already. He hates that I see him this weak, much less that anyone else would.