CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
The silver chain he wore around his neck was warm as it pooled against the nape of Sebastian’s neck and Sebastian shivered at the whoosh of Crawford’s breath against his own slick skin.
For a few moments they just stood there, neither of them moving a muscle until Crawford straightened with a groan. It quickly turned into a short, sharp gasp and Crawford froze, cock still inside him. “Fuck!”
“Uhh,” Sebastian said, straightening too and peering over his shoulder. “Are you okay there?”
The pain shooting through the back of Luke’s right thigh was strong enough to make a wave of nausea roll over him and he clamped his teeth together to keep from spewing all over Sebastian’s living room as he staggered to the front of the couch and dropped onto it.
He’d somehow managed to remember to hold on to the base of the condom when he pulled out and through the haze of pain and queasiness, he stripped it off.
Sebastian was there, holding out the box of tissues and a trash can and frowning at him. “What the hell happened?”
Luke cleaned up, then tossed everything in the trash. He glared, growling, “You were at the fucking game. You must have seen when I went into the boards.”
“Yeah. But what did the trainers say?”
“Just strained my hamstring. Some bruises. I’ll survive.” Luke shrugged even though he still felt like puking from the pain. “I made it through a couple of shifts with cracked ribs and a partially collapsed lung during the last playoff win Boston had. This is nothing.”
Luke glanced up to see Sebastian staring at him. He had his hands on his hips and he was still naked. The look on his face was a combination of disgust and horror.
“You fucking would.”
That was Luke’s fucking job. He put his body on the line to get the team where they needed to be.
“Did you just injure your leg worse fucking me?” Sebastian asked.
“Might have. Hopefully not.”
Should he have canceled their hookup tonight? Sure, probably. But all he’d been thinking about was being able to unleash the frustrations that had been building up all day with someone who would give back as good as he got.
It was worth every second of discomfort until Luke straightened and tried to pull out. Now, he wasn’t so sure …
“What do you need right now?” Sebastian asked. “Ice? Painkillers?”
“Wouldn’t turn the ice down,” Luke said gruffly. “I’ve got painkillers in my jacket pocket. Can’t take ’em until I get home though because I need to be able to drive.”
Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose, then stalked toward the kitchen, stopping long enough to pick up his underwear and tug them on.
He came back with a kitchen towel and a bag of frozen peas. “This is the best I can do,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I had a real ice pack at my place in New York, but I guess it didn’t come with me in the move.”
Crawford gave the frozen peas a look of disgust, but he wrapped them in the towel and slid them under his right thigh.
By the time he glanced up, Sebastian was gone again. He returned with a glass of water and Luke’s leather jacket. “Take the fucking pills.”
“I told you, I can’t. I need to be able to drive.”
He wasn’t fucking wrecking his car. The shit they’d given him wouldn’t get him high, but it did fuck him up and make him dizzy.
Sebastian tossed the jacket on the couch next to Luke and set the water glass on the table. “Can you even physically drive home like this?”
“Not … easily,” Luke admitted. The thought of shifting to change gears in stop-and-go Boston traffic with his thigh feeling like this sounded like torture. Hell, the thought of even walking down the stairs made him want to hurl. “But I’ll manage.”
“Either you can crash here—in my bed, while I take the couch—or I can drive you to your place. It’s up to you.”
Luke didn’t like either of those options. “My car is a—”
“1964 Pontiac GTO,” Sebastian rattled off. “I know. I’ll be careful with it.”
“It’s got a stick shift and no power steering.”
“I’ve driven vintage muscle cars before,” he snapped.
“Yeah?” Luke shot him a curious look. Half his teammates didn’t know what a manual car was and Tanner had informed him that his car was older than his mom.
Luke had chirped Tanner about his car riding like his mom too and it was the only time Luke had ever seen Tanner lose his shit. Then again, the woman was pretty much a saint for raising him, so …
“Yeah. My dad used to work on classic cars when I was growing up,” Sebastian said, still scowling. “Now, what are we doing here?”
Luke grunted. “You can take me home, I guess.”
“Very magnanimous of you.”
“I’m, uh, not supposed to take the pills on an empty stomach though,” Luke admitted.
“Oh, so now I need to feed you, too?” Sebastian lifted an eyebrow.
“No,” Luke snapped. “You don’t have to fucking do anything you don’t want to.”
He didn’t like this any more than Sebastian did. Hell, he probably liked it less. The thought of needing help, of letting Sebastian drive his car and go to his house … it made his guts squirm uneasily.
But what other fucking choice did he have?
He thought about maybe texting one of the guys on the team for help but then he’d have to explain to his nosy teammates where he’d been and what he’d been up to. And even if he got a rideshare, the car would have to stay parked on the street overnight.
Yeah, no.
“If you could grab me something to eat,” Luke finally said, his tone gruff, “I’d appreciate it. I’ll take the pill and once it starts to do the job, you can take me home. If you, uh, don’t mind.”
“Huh,” Sebastian said, turning away. “He does actually know social niceties.”
“I was nice to Harper,” Luke pointed out.
Sebastian didn’t say anything to that, but Luke did hear the sound of him opening the freezer and the rustle of plastic.
“Will a bean and cheese burrito do?” he asked.
“Sure,” Luke said, stifling a groan. Did the guy even know how to cook?
Luke heard a couple of beeps, then the whir of a microwave.
Sebastian appeared a moment later. “I’m, uh, gonna go get cleaned up and dressed. I’ll be back in a minute. You want your clothes? You must be freezing like that.”
He scooped the clothing up and placed it on the couch next to Luke’s hip.
Luke glanced down at his naked body and shrugged. “I run hot. Besides, you said you wanted to see my tattoos.”
Sebastian huffed. “Well, I was trying to be polite and not actually say I don’t really want your naked ass on my vintage couch, but whatever.”
He disappeared again and Luke carefully shifted to see if he could put underwear on without puking but as the pain ripped through him again, he decided no.
Sebastian’s couch would survive having his sweaty ass crack and balls pressed against it.
A short while later, Sebastian returned and Luke had a plate with a steaming burrito thrust at him.
“Thanks,” he said gruffly.
The burrito was too hot, but he took a few bites anyway, then tossed back a pill with some water and hoped for the best.
“Sure.” Sebastian took a seat next to him with another plate and burrito. “So, what did they give you for the pain?”
“Toradol, nothing too crazy.” It always made him dizzy once it hit though. Hopefully he’d make it home before then. It took about an hour.
Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “Do I wanna know what you were on when you played with broken ribs?”
“Nope.” Hell, Luke wasn’t even sure he remembered everything they’d given him. It had worked, that was all he’d cared about.
“Got it.” Sebastian took a bite of burrito, then looked him over. “So do the tatts have any stories behind them?”
“Sure,” Luke said. “You wanna hear them?”
“Well, maybe not all of them. You have a lot and I don’t have all night.”
Luke huffed and took another bite of burrito. He did have a lot of ink. His entire chest and stomach were covered. Both arms. His back. His legs …
Pretty much the only places without them were his face and his dick.
“Tell me about the first,” Sebastian offered.
“Well …” Luke pointed at the bird just above his hip. “I got this one when I was about sixteen.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had to be eighteen to get them.”
“Sure, but a fake ID works just as well.” He grinned.
“Why does that not surprise me? What did your parents say?”
“Took ’em a while to notice. My dad worked in construction. He was a foreman for a big company that did commercial work, so he traveled a lot. Hell, he worked on most of the major sporting arenas in the southwest actually.”
“Impressive.”
“And my mom, she, uh, she did her best, but I don’t think she really wanted to have kids. She was poor growing up, my dad was the guy with the cushy bank account who could get her out of that, so …”
Sebastian winced.
Luke shrugged, already regretting he’d said anything. His mom had never said anything outright to him but it didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. He cleared his throat. “Look, don’t get me wrong, they were good to me. They both were, they just weren’t super there, you know?”
His dad had been gone a lot for work and once Luke was old enough to stay home alone, his mom had gone out a lot with her friends. Cocktails at the casino with the girls and all that shit. Had his parents been faithful to each other? He had no idea.
But he hadn’t been surprised that as soon as he was done with high school, they’d gotten divorced. Less than a year after the ink was dry on marriage number one, they’d both moved on to marriage number two. And, in his dad’s case, that had turned into a third.
“So, how’d you get into hockey?” Sebastian asked. “I mean, it wasn’t that big of a sport in Nevada when we were growing up, right? And if your parents weren’t into it …”
“Well, my dad was,” Luke corrected. “He was originally from North Dakota and he made it as far as Juniors before he quit. Like I said, he was gone a lot for work, but when he was there, we did shit together. He taught me to skate and shoot and came to my games when he could.”
“Yeah, but how’d you get to practices and games?” Sebastian asked. “I mean, I remember how crazy that was. How much time my parents put into my hockey.”
“Oh, my cousins played too so it was my aunt and uncle who did a lot of that for me.”
“That makes sense.”
Luke set his empty plate on the coffee table. “Let’s see how this getting dressed thing goes.”
There was no way in fuck he was letting Sebastian help dress him.
He had to grit his teeth through the pain as he got his clothes on and was grateful when Sebastian disappeared to put away their dishes, like he knew Luke didn’t want him staring as he moved as slowly and awkwardly as a ninety-year-old man with arthritis.
By the time Luke was upright and dressed with shoes on, he was sweating and the throb of pain in his hamstring made him want to puke his burrito right back up.
Sebastian threw on a coat and slid on his shoes, then nodded toward the door. “You head down. I’ll lock up behind you.”
Luke was really sweating by the time he made it to the first floor, and he had to hold on to the wall and gulp down air. Fuck, this was bad. He’d really fucking irritated the injury tonight.
Probably shouldn’t have come over. Definitely shouldn’t have gone balls to the wall fucking Sebastian.
Christ, it had been good though. It had been a long time since he’d fucked anyone that thoroughly. Or come as hard. How he was going to explain it to the trainers tomorrow though … that was a problem for another time.
Sebastian appeared a moment later and Luke managed to make it out to his car, then tossed over the keys to Sebastian. Getting in the car was a bitch and a half, but he did it, leaning his head against the cool glass of the passenger window as the shaky, stomach-churning pain finally settled.
Despite what Sebastian had said earlier, Luke was surprised when he started the car and pulled away from the curb without any grinding of gears or lurching. He drove carefully too. Not granny-slow but careful yet confident as he took corners and changed lanes.
Huh. He was actually a pretty damn good driver.
Luke directed Sebastian to his house, the antsy uneasiness of having someone knowing where he lived creeping over him as they got closer. Not that he really thought Sebastian was going to do anything with that info, but he still hated it.
Still hated that he’d been backed into a corner this way.
By the time they pulled up into the small alley behind Luke’s house and into the tiny single-car garage, the pain was better but the dizziness from the Toradol was hitting hard.
Luke had to hold on to the car after he got out, his head swimming.
He groaned under his breath as he thought about the trek through the backyard to his house.
God fucking damn it. There was no way in hell he’d make it alone.