1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

Cormac

T here were two things I loved most on this earth: sweaty guys and swords. And on Thursday evenings after work, I got to enjoy both.

The late afternoon sun bore down on my shoulders, and my shirt was already sticking to my chest. Summers in Philly got disgusting, what with the heat and humidity that liked to masquerade as air soup. And as a big guy, I always ran furnace-hot, even in the winter. Not that the temperatures bothered me much either way. With my work in the family contractor company, I was used to getting exposed to the elements.

Once a month, we met up for sword fighting class, which had become my favorite outlet for any pent-up aggression but also for seeing hot guys in action.

Definitely more than I was getting.

“Cor, are you going to hit me or just keep swinging your sword around?” Felix’s voice drew my attention.

Right, the drill.

Felix Ruiz stood a few yards away from me, his wooden sword in hand. I’d been practicing charges while he practiced feints, and then we swapped. He was the person I always paired up with, even though every session turned into a long, slow torture.

Slender and shorter than me, Felix was my type to a T. His bronze skin glowed in the sun, and his tousled black curls tended to drift over his forehead. Combined with his warm eyes, charming, smooth voice, and intense stare, he was a looker. And I was a goner.

I’d met him four months ago when I’d started these classes and had been smitten from the get-go.

Unfortunately, Felix had a girlfriend.

Even more unfortunately, he was straight.

“Ready?” I gripped the base tight and lowered into the stance to charge.

“For hours now,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

I rushed forward, muscle memory snapping into place as the wind whistled through my hair.

My focus switched to Felix, and I swung down.

The clack of the wooden swords echoed, each smack reverberating up my arms, and I pivoted away. The sun beamed overhead, and the clatter of everyone doing their drills filled the air. We launched into an easy rhythm. I steadied my stance and darted toward Felix again and again and again. The scent of wood, of sweat, of the decaying leaves from the fall filtered through my senses. I whirled through the motions, and pure endorphins rushed through me.

“All right, wrap it up,” Ezra, our instructor, called.

I slammed down with one more strike that Felix easily defended.

“Not too shabby.” Felix gave my shoulder a slight push. “Maybe next time you’ll get past my defenses.”

“Shove it, Ruiz.” I shoulder-checked him in the side, craving the contact more than anything. After a workout like this, my adrenaline pumped hot, and the need to fuck it out burned strong. If I were more of a hookup guy, I’d hop on Grindr, but I’d been struggling with that lately. The more I lost myself in nameless guys, the more invisible I felt, and I’d had middle-kid syndrome my whole life.

Except my last attempt at a relationship still followed me. Literally.

I pushed away thoughts of Luke and the mess of our breakup.

We all brought our practice swords to the collection box with the wipes, lemon-scented cleaner filling the air as everyone took care of sanitizing their gear.

“Good job today, guys,” Ezra said. He was an older silver fox on the slender side, lanky, and just as much of a geek as the rest of us. A few years back, I’d tumbled down a rabbit hole with medieval weaponry, devouring books on the subject, going to find what I could at the art museums, and when this HEMA sword fighting class popped up in the city, I’d jumped on the opportunity.

My shirt was glued to my chest, sodden with sweat, and I would need to wring it out before driving home. Otherwise, I was in for a long, uncomfortable trip to the burbs.

“Felix put you through the paces today, didn’t he?” Regina gave me a slow up and down. Girl was flirty as fuck, even though we both played for the opposite teams.

“You know I like to run this big guy hard.” Felix patted me on the back.

Ngh.

His hand remained there, even though I had swamp back, and I didn’t dare try to extricate it, savoring all these small touches. My brother Ollie and his best friend Liam were touchy and feely like this too, always had been, so at first, I’d figured I was reading into Felix’s constant presence.

Except now Ollie and Liam were dating, and that shift in dynamics fed the hope monster in my chest.

“You look like you can take it.” Regina winked, laying on the flirtation thick.

I licked my lips. Little did she know that lit my fires even more.

“Are you guys clearing out right after?” Felix asked as he let his hand drop.

I took the opportunity to whip off my shirt and wring it out, and a ridiculous amount of liquid poured from the flimsy Brannon Contractors tee. “I don’t have immediate plans. What’s up?”

When I glanced up, his gaze lingered on my chest, and heat flushed through my body. He just stared because I was a big guy, that was all. Brawny and covered in fur, I stood out in a crowd.

“Unfortunately, I’m out.” Regina blew me a kiss. “I’ll catch you guys next time though.”

“Maybe we could grab a bite to eat?” Felix asked, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. The frisson of vulnerability in his tone had me paying attention. I’d drop anything for him in the first place, but especially if something was going on.

“You pick where. Let’s go.” I wrinkled my nose, waving out my sweaty shirt. “Maybe not anywhere nice though, because I doubt they’ll let me in like this.”

“You want to join?” Felix asked Ezra, who was in the middle of a conversation with one of the new guys.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to head home.” He gave an up-nod. Secretly, I was relieved. Wanting more solo time with Felix was masochistic, sure, but I couldn’t help myself. Kind of like picking at a scab. Even though you knew it’d get infected, you kept at it, which was a vicious tendency of mine.

The sweat cooled on my skin, gluing like paste, but the brisk breeze already helped make me more presentable. The scent of early fall drifted by, one I craved. The shirt was pretty sodden, so I continued waving it around. Pulling the damp fabric back on at a restaurant would feel fucking gross, but it wasn’t the first time I’d had to it.

“Tacos at Granita?” Felix poked me in the stomach.

My skin quivered at the touch, his effortless tease. His constant closeness did things to me, lit me on fire, even though it would never amount to anything.

Even if I desperately wanted it to.

“Yeah, we can sit outside,” I said, gesturing to my sodden shirt.

“Please, you know it’s not a no-shirt, no-service sort of place. Strip down all you like.”

Torture. Pure, unadulterated torture.

I swallowed hard and rubbed my beard. “All right, let’s go.” I lifted a hand in a wave to Ezra and the others. “See you around next time, guys.”

We set off across the green toward the street. Granita was a few blocks from here, a spot Felix and I had fast started to frequent when we realized how many calories you burned from sword fighting practice. Who knew my geeky historical hobby would replace a gym day?

Felix buzzed beside me, suspiciously quiet.

“How’s—” I started.

“Aria broke up with me.” Felix’s shoulders were hunched, his gaze on the grass beneath our feet as we hoofed it over to asphalt.

“Shit, when?” I hooked a thumb into my pocket. As much as I tried to tamp it down, hope bubbled to the surface. Since I met him six months ago, Felix had been in a relationship, which made him off-limits.

Guilt splashed over that hope because clearly Felix was hurting over his breakup.

“Last night. I would’ve texted you, but I figured I’d see you today.” He ran his fingers through his glossy black hair, the late afternoon sun bringing out deep brown shades. My fingers itched to do the same, but guaranteed that’d be a bridge too far. The guy had been dumped, but that didn’t mean he was queer.

“Fuck, that sucks.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. The sweat had cooled on my skin, and even my shirt had dried a little. By the time we reached Granita, it should be just damp.

The bricked buildings all stood out in the near distance at the roadside, crammed together, intermingled with a mix of restaurants and houses. The scents of crisp autumn leaves blended with exhaust fumes, flooding through my system. As much as I loved living in the suburbs, I appreciated these jaunts into the city with Felix. Even though it was just an hour away, Philly was a different landscape than Kennett Square, with activity every which way.

“She kept trying to throw it on me,” he muttered, scrubbing at his face. “Said I wasn’t interested anymore, that we’d gone in different directions.”

I placed my hand on his shoulder, not sure what I planned to do beyond that. We stopped along the sidewalk, and a second later, he was plastered against my chest. My bare chest. My arms moved on automatic, wrapping him in a sweaty-as-fuck hug, and my heart thumped so hard he must’ve heard it. We stayed like that, hugging it out in the middle of the sidewalk, and I didn’t want to move an inch.

Felix fit in my arms like he belonged there, and the tug in my gut was undeniable. I rarely felt it around the guys I dated, which was probably why none of them had ever worked out. The chemistry part of the equation had always been lacking, and no matter how much I tried and for whatever length of time, it couldn’t be fabricated.

Too bad it occurred as often as the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup.

Felix pulled back first, and I reluctantly let him. He lifted the fabric of his shirt off his chest. “Thanks for the extra sweat stains, champ.”

Heat flushed to my cheeks, but the impish grin on Felix’s lips calmed me down. He hated having his issues brought to attention—I knew that much about him—so the fact he mentioned his breakup to me in the first place meant something. I leaped for any scrap of attention from this man.

“Figured I couldn’t have you showing up at Granita looking all put together while I’m a mess,” I said. “Why am I the one who always ends up a bucket of sweat?”

Felix looked me up and down, his gaze so intense I shivered. “Have you seen you, big guy? You’re a hundred percent brawn. I’m just lucky I’m scrappy enough to keep up.”

We continued down the sidewalk and made the right turn onto the block with Granita. The salmon-colored overhang stood out, along with the three wire tables and chair sets scattered in front of the place. My sneakers caught on the occasional chip in the sidewalk as we headed toward our goal.

“Scrappy is underselling it,” I said. “You’ve put me on my back more than once.”

Ngh.

It had been a long, long time since I’d wanted to bottom for someone. Most of my boyfriends liked me to top, and hell, sinking into a pretty hole was no hardship. However, once in a while, I met guys who inspired a bone-deep craving to bend over and let them fuck me senseless, but it was rare.

For some reason, every touch from Felix, every teasing comment flared that desire to life stronger and stronger.

“So, how many grief tacos should I eat?” Felix asked, his voice taking that sharper edge when he aimed for flippant yet still sorted through some shit.

“Why don’t you get the trio you usually do to start? I’ve got you covered.” I tugged my shirt, which was somewhat drier, so I wasn’t a complete barbarian.

“Now they’re pity tacos? Please, I’m not that sad, am I?” Felix slipped his hand into his pocket.

“Completely. Like a poor, bedraggled puppy,” I teased. I wanted to see his eyes light up or catch the faintest grin.

“Brutal.” Felix shoved me to the side and entered the hole-in-the-wall taco joint. It was all checkerboard flooring and stained wall interior, but the scents of seasoned, juicy meat were mouthwatering. A few people crouched in the two seaters wolfing down their tacos, but this was more of a “drop in, get the hell out” sort of spot rather than stay and linger. Even though we usually did.

I walked to the counter and placed our order.

“I’ll go snag a table outside.” Felix jerked a thumb. “Thanks for the pity tacos.”

I shook my head, an unavoidable grin rising to my lips. After waiting barely five minutes for our food, I carried the two trays out, my heart thumping hard—and not in anticipation over the meal.

No, the second I stepped outside to spot him sitting there at the wire-rimmed table, my mouth went dry.

He leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, face toward the sun. The light accentuated those dark eyelashes, those pursed lips, that slender neck.

Felix Ruiz was the hottest man on the planet, and I got sucked into his orbit every time.

And now he was single.