Grace
The Iris Festival sprawled the length of three football fields, with two grand stages and a playground of fair-like games and rides in-between. We heard the music before we even parked, and now that we were inside, it thumped through me like a heartbeat.
“This is heaven,” I said, eyes wide as I took in the sparkly outfits, the creative flags flying from poles in every direction, the bubbles and the glitter and the lights. Everyone was smiling, laughing, dancing, and just… vibing.
“You think God likes to party, huh?” Jaxson asked, looking around with a mixture of awe and concern. He had on dark aviator glasses and had pulled his ballcap low to hide his face. I hadn’t even thought about that — him getting mauled by fans — until we’d pulled into the parking lot. But when I’d given him an out, he declined, saying it would be fine.
He assured me he wasn’t as recognizable as my brother was, that only real hockey fans tended to realize who he was.
Still, that had to be hard, to have to think about that any time you wanted to leave the house.
“Oh, she definitely does,” I said. “She also approves of cute rave outfits and house music.”
“God is a woman now?”
“Always has been. Keep up,” I teased, and then I threaded my arm through his and dragged him toward the Ferris wheel.
Fortunately, no one realized who Jaxson was. My bet was they were likely high and wouldn’t recognize their own brother if he were here, let alone a hockey player from Tampa. It may also have been that even if he had been recognized, everyone left him alone.
Whichever it was, I was thankful. It felt like I had Jaxson all to myself.
We didn’t talk about how long we planned to stay, but hours passed in what felt like minutes. We rode the fair rides — bumper cars, the zipper, a huge slide we rode down on something that looked like a burlap sack. Our favorite was the Gravitron, a spaceship-looking contraption that spun us around so fast we stuck to the wall inside it. I tried to hold my hand out and ended up having it come back and slap me right in the face because I couldn’t fight the centrifugal force. I’d never seen Jaxson laugh harder than he did then.
We ate turkey legs and funnel cake and drank blue lemonade out of a cup shaped like an alien.
We wandered the vendor booths, where I found a light-up pink cowgirl hat and a pair of yellow star sunglasses that I immediately had to purchase. I also wrangled Jaxson into an LED mask with lights that danced to the beat of the music.
Now, he definitely didn’t need to worry about being recognized.
All the while, music blasted from each stage, the crowds around them bobbing in time with the music. Hands, flags, signs — all moving together like they were floating on the same wave.
“We should get going soon,” Jaxson said when the sun started to set. It lit the festival up in a golden glow with a brilliant pink sky as the backdrop.
“What? We can’t leave yet! Trust me — it’s even better at night.”
Jaxson chewed his lip, debating, the light-up mask flashing in his hand at his side.
“Come on,” I said, stepping in front of his thinking face. “We’re less than two hours from St. Louis. If we leave here at ten, we can drive an hour, get a hotel for the night, and head the rest of the way in tomorrow. When is your tee time?”
“Eleven.”
“See,” I said. “We’ve got plenty of time. Come on, Brittzy,” I goaded, stepping a little closer. “Don’t you want to dance with me?”
I was already tugging him toward the main stage, one brow lifted as I started winding my hips. We both knew damn well I couldn’t pull him with me if he didn’t want me to. He was twice my size and weight at least.
But he let me drag him, a smirk finding his lips as he looked up to the sky and shook his head.
Then, he took his hat off long enough to put his mask back on, and I knew I’d won.
I laughed, keeping his hand in mine as I turned so I could navigate us through the crowd.
I wanted to be close, to make my way as far as I could toward the stage. The trick was to just dance your way through, which was exactly what I did.
I held Jaxson’s hand over head, twirling myself underneath it before I shimmied my shoulders and rolled my hips. With every step, I danced with the crowd, and this was what I loved about festivals — everyone danced right along. No one was upset, no one shoved us back like they had a right to their place by the stage. They all made room.
Everyone was welcome.
Still, the closer we got to the stage, the thicker the crowd was. Soon, there was barely enough room to wiggle through, and the dome of the stage stretched high over us like a bubble shielding us from the world.
The music was louder, heavier, every beat vibrating through me.
The lights were blinding, the fog swirling beneath them in a hypnotic dance.
Body heat surrounded us from every angle — hips moving, hands in the air, every person just surrendering to the music.
I found a small opening as close as I felt we could get, and then I turned to face Jaxson, making sure he was alright.
The last bit of sunlight was fading, the sky beyond the festival a dusty blue now. The crowd began to glow, costumes and signs flashing to the beat just like Jaxson’s mask was. And it didn’t matter that we were surrounded by thousands of people.
All I could see was him.
His hair was a mess when he whipped his hat off, the brown strands damp from sweat and a bit longer than they’d been that night in Austin. He removed the mask next, scrubbing a hand over his face on a smile, eyes cast up toward the lights streaming overhead. Those eyes were wide and curious. He was taking it all in, feeling this moment we had somehow found ourselves in.
I loved seeing him like that — relaxed, happy, free.
The throng of people around us pulsed like a living thing, slowly pushing in on every side. I was bumped from behind, and I braced my hands on Jaxson’s arm to steady myself. He took a step to help right me, dropping the mask to the ground and putting his hat on backward as he did. But as soon as he moved, someone slid into the space behind him.
We were sandwiched together, every beat pushing us closer and closer, until there was barely an inch of space between us.
I studied the ink sprawling on his arm I held onto, the blue and black illuminated by flashes of yellow and white lights. My eyes traveled up from there, roaming his taut forearms, the swells of his biceps, all the way up to the neckline of his t-shirt.
I didn’t realize my fingertips were tracing the same path my eyes were until I just gently touched his throat, and I felt him swallow, the motion tight.
My eyes shot to his, but I didn’t remove my hand.
Instead, my other came to join it, just as another person squeezed behind me trying to make their way closer to the stage.
That annihilated what little space was left between us.
I shivered as his body heat encompassed mine, my hands against his chest as his just barely rested on my hips. It was like he was torn between only holding me enough to keep me steady or pulling me flush against him.
My fingertips drew circles on his chest.
Lazily.
Daringly.
And I didn’t have a single ounce of alcohol in me, didn’t need any drug. I was high off the feeling of him trembling beneath my touch as I dragged it lower.
Ecstasy was the way his hands grabbed my hips, grip tight enough to bruise as he warred between holding me where I was or pulling me closer. My buzz was driven by the low groan I heard even over the music when I kept one hand on his abdomen, but the other brushed over the seam of his shorts.
He was rock hard.
He was also fucking massive.
I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t enough to just barely touch him, to just tease him when I knew my touch was affecting him like that. It was empowering, and that kind of power made me so greedy I couldn’t hold back.
Slowly, I dragged my gaze up the entire length of his body, until I was staring up at him.
His eyes were dark blue like the night around us, his jaw set, body rigid beneath my touch like he was fighting with every ounce of willpower he had to stay still.
I kept my eyes locked on his, and then I slid my hand fully around him, palming his cock through his shorts.
His nostrils flared, his eyes darting between mine like he wasn’t sure I realized what I was doing.
But I knew.
I knew when I gripped him firmer that it was me he was hard for. I knew when I slid my hand roughly over the long, thick length of him, that I wanted more than just a touch. I knew when I tilted my chin up, and his eyes fell to my mouth, and I licked my lips as my hand worked him through his pants that we were in big fucking trouble.
But God, I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t stop.
Not when it felt this good.
Jaxson’s hands had been frozen at my hips this entire time, but the longer I touched him, the more impossible it was for him to stay still. I felt his hands roughly roam my body as if they were being dragged against his will — along the slope of my waist, trailing the bones of my rib cage, brushing up over my arms and shoulders. They traveled up still until chills broke along my neck when he framed my face.
His hands were enormous — his thumbs spanning the entire length of my jaw as his fingertips curled around the back of my neck. He tilted my chin up so much it made my neck ache, his eyes ricocheting between mine with that same warning.
Stop this, he begged me without saying a word.
Instead, I squeezed him through his shorts, reveling in how his cock jumped against my palm.
His Adam’s apple bobbed hard in his throat, nose flaring again as he slid his thumbs along my jaw. He smoothed one thumb along my lower lip next, spanning the length of it at a slow, heart-pounding pace.
My tongue darted out to chase that touch, and I tasted the salt of his skin for only a second before a growl ripped through him, and I swore all the music was gone because I heard that sound like it was the only thing that existed.
It was the sound of surrender.
His hands slid roughly back to frame my skull, fingers curling in my hair and pulling hard until I arched and gasped.
And Jaxson muted the sound with his mouth crashing down on mine.
We both inhaled, breathing each other in as his lips molded to mine — warm and bold and perfect. I wound my arms around his neck as his moved to envelop me at my core. He crushed me to him, my hands sliding up to twist in his hair enough that I knocked his hat off while his wrapped around me like he was trying to meld us together.
It was a kiss that shattered time.
I felt it stutter to a halt around us before snapping back with such intensity that it warped, taking us into a new dimension.
It was as punishing as it was reverent, brutal and yet tender, like Jaxson was pissed he was doing it just as much as he was certain he never wanted to stop.
One arm held me to him while the other slid down and palmed my ass, taking one cheek in a handful that he squeezed roughly. My leg hiked up automatically, dress riding up with it, and he slid his thigh between mine, biting my lower lip as I moaned into his mouth.
God, it was all-consuming. His hands rocked me against him, and I shook at the sensation, at the forbiddenness of it all.
This was my brother’s teammate, his friend.
But right now, he was kissing me like he owned me — like there was no other choice for either of us but to give in.
His lips were so big, so warm, firm in their insistence, but soft in their execution. He kissed me long and slow, and then in a feverish frenzy, his tongue sending jolts of electricity straight between my legs with every swipe against my own.
And it wasn’t just his mouth that was magic — it was his hands, his arms, his thigh pressing between my own. He didn’t kiss me with only his lips. He touched me, squeezed me, ground against me like we were fucking with our clothes on.
It was the kiss to end all kisses, the kind that marked you like a tattoo, like a scar.
And it ended on a curse, Jaxson’s hands sliding back up to cradle my face — except this time, he held me still, his hands trembling a bit as he pressed his forehead against mine.
I wet my lips, fingertips curling in the sleeves of his t-shirt. I held onto his biceps and pulled, trying to get him to touch me again, to meet my desperate rolls against his body with his own, to let me tilt my chin up enough for our lips to touch once more.
But he blew out a hot breath through his nose, shaking his head.
“We should go,” he croaked out.
Three words. Three words that ripped through me like rusty scissor blades.
He winced as he released me, and my body shook at the loss of heat, at the loss of him.
Oh, God.
The realization of what we’d just done swept through me in a bolt of anxiety.
Jaxson swiped his hat and mask off the ground, tugging the ballcap on backward like he was angry with it. I half-expected him to just leave me there, horny and panting for him in the middle of a throbbing crowd, but he forced a deep breath before calmly, gently, taking me by the hand.
He made a path through the crowd toward the parking lot, tugging me along behind him in a daze.
I could feel so many emotions rolling off of him — regret, guilt, fear. But all of that was overpowered by what I felt burning through his touch the most.
Desire.
His body was still humming with the same energy mine was.
That wasn’t just a kiss. That was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my fucking life, and I knew without asking that it had been the same for him.
Right?
God, I needed to hear it. I needed him to look at me, to tell me it wasn’t just me who felt that. I needed him to hold me. I needed him to kiss me, to touch me.
Whatever line existed between us, we hadn’t just crossed it — we’d plowed over it, running so fast and so far it might as well have never existed to begin with.
Only one question existed as we climbed back into the SUV and headed toward St. Louis.
What now?
