Chapter 5 #2
Yeah, right? Millionaires, my ass. They were considered one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful families.
“Big word, man. You finally ripping off pages in that word of the day calendar Ollie got you two years ago?”
“Fuck you. I’m smart.” His face turned pink as hell.
I cracked the fuck up. “Lies from a lying liar. Should I look for the extinguisher?”
He shoved me hard enough that I hopped a few feet across the lounge; the airport staff told us to wait inside while they did…something to the plane.
And that’s when I saw him—the sexy fucking hockey player Ewen swore flirted with me from the ice a few weeks ago.
Even out of all the hockey gear, I would recognize him from all the banners the school had strung up both inside and outside the arena.
His gorgeous face, stoic in the pictures, but some commercials they put out showed him smiling, like he was now, surrounded by several other big, broad guys in their early twenties.
They strode across the shiny floors of the airport as if they owned the place.
Fucking hell. The kid got more damn beautiful the closer he got to us.
Unlike the guys around him, he moved with a hip-rolling grace that made it look like he glided across the floor as if it were made of ice.
Long legs encased in denim with a Henley stretched snugly around his torso and down his arms. The visual might as well be pornographic, considering the reaction taking place in my pants.
They stopped at the desk, all of them fishing out their wallets, as the object of my sudden renewed interest in men other than my best friend—because I had needs that made me fucking cranky—smiled at the woman behind the counter.
He held out his ID and said, “Hi, we’re on the manifest for a flight to Nashville. My name’s Trey Malachek.”
I’d known his name, of course. You couldn’t live in fucking Manchester, Minnesota and not know the kid’s name, but hearing it come out of his mouth turned the low-key party in my pants into a fucking kegger. The low, growly sound somehow came out lyrical as hell.
“Oh, look. It’s the boy you swear you’re not absolutely obsessed with,” Ewen whispered from behind me.
His sternum suffered from me ramming the point of my elbow into it to shut his fucking mouth because what he thought was a whisper to normal humans was a regular speaking voice.
Too many deployments on loud-ass boats or too many blasts with shitty ear protection.
It was a toss-up as to the cause, but I couldn’t take the chance he would out me to what looked like the first line of the Manchester Maulers.
The pretty blond behind the counter preened, smiled, tucked her hair behind her ears, her gaze only leaving Trey’s handsome face to give the other guys a courtesy glance at him and their travel documents.
After checking them all in, she simpered some more, but none of the guys were falling for her flirtatiousness.
Her voice went from flirty to snooty. “Your plane was due for a safety inspection. It should be ready momentarily. You can join the rest of your party in the lounge area. Leave your luggage. The crew will load it when ready. And safe travels.”
I looked at Ewen, then around the lounge. The lounge held two people—Ewen and me. Unless there was another lounge I didn’t know about.
“What did you do?” I asked, and Ewen smirked with a shrug. “You’re a meddling old woman,” I said.
A moment later, the six guys walked into the open-air lounge tucked in the corner of the posh airport FBO terminal.
Not sure why they called the space a lounge.
What I knew of VIP lounges, they weren’t open to prying eyes, but I guess if you’re in a private FBO terminal, the whole building could be considered a VIP access-only area.
The guys finally caught sight of Ewen and me.
Their eyes widened, and their steps slowed subtly, probably only recognizable to people trained to watch people’s body language to gauge threat level.
Ewen, being Ewen, stepped forward, hand outstretched.
“I’m Ewen. You’re friends of Aiden and Alex, right? ”
“Alex?” a guy, whose face and name I couldn’t remember from his poster, asked.
All the guys but the puzzled one shook their heads. Trey answered, though, “Coach Storm. Sasha is short for Alexander.”
“Weird nickname.”
“Overlook him. Sometimes we worry Zane’s taken too many pucks to the head,” Trey said, shaking his head again.
His eyes focused on my face, and I couldn’t say mine weren’t doing the same.
“Hey!” Zane protested, drawing my attention long enough to notice all the other guys’ nods and pointing at Trey or laughing and shoving Zane until he lost his balance.
“Fuckers!” Zane yelled, pushing them back.
I tried not to laugh; I really did, but these guys, this hockey team, weren’t much different from Hayden, Ewen, Priest, Cam, Seth—when we could drag him out with us—and me at their age. They just carried hockey sticks instead of military-grade weaponry.
Not being subtle at all, Ewen moved so that his body segmented Trey and me from the others, and struck up a conversation about hockey, explaining that their head coach was his big brother.
“Coach Grigor is really his brother?” Trey asked, his teeth worrying his lip.
My hand twitched at my side with the urge to put a stop to him abusing his tender skin.
I want to be the only one…
Fuck!
The word flew at me like bright headlamps on a dark night, telling my brain to quit picturing him and all the things I wanted to do to and with him. But right behind the blinding light came a deluge of imagery depicting all the things I could do and with….
Fuck! What the hell is wrong with me?
This is absolutely ridiculous.
Clearing my throat, I nodded, then said, “Yeah.” Fuck.
I sounded horrifyingly obvious with the rough, gravelly tone of my voice.
Coughing again, hopefully to clear the raspiness away, I continued, “There’s a pretty significant age gap between Will and Ewen and Ewen and Ollie, their younger brother.
If I remember correctly, Will was ten when Ollie was born, and Ewen was five. ”
He smiled. Burying his hands in his front pockets and hunching his shoulders, he leaned closer before saying, “So evenly spaced?”
I nodded, and my face heated. What the hell? My body acted as if I had just turned fifteen instead of edging closer to forty than I wanted to admit.
“So…”
“Gentlemen?”
We turned comically as a group. A crew member stood before us, dressed impeccably, their arm outstretched toward the plane. “You may board at your leisure.”
“Hell, yeah! Let’s go, boys!” one twin with Trey yelled. He patted the crew member on the shoulder and said, “After you, my good man.”
The crew member chuckled softly and trailed out the door, and the rest of us followed. Trey fell in behind his teammates while Ewen and I brought up the rear, just like we always had with our recon unit.
I walked across the tarmac with my ruck thrown over my back since I refused to hand it over to the crew, preferring to keep it with me.
Instead of my military ruck, I carried a new, fancy one that was a garment bag.
One that Ewen demanded I move all my belongings into, as he refused to let me on a private plane with the one I carried in the service.
I had to admit this one was sweet, and per Ewen, not called a ruck, but he could suck it.
Old habits were hard to break. But I appreciated it now that we were traveling with…
Where the hell did that come from?
I’ve never cared what other people thought. Ever.
My eyes drifted to the kid walking ahead of us, surrounded by his boys, as they seemed to call each other.
I watched him, and Ewen watched me. I felt every year that stretched between him and me, but I couldn’t find it in me to give a shit that he had to be at least fifteen years younger than me.
The boy oozed sex appeal and a magnetic charisma that took my logical, organized, stoic brain offline, while simultaneously cranking the knob up on my libido.
I’d gotten half-hard when he walked into the FBO, and it appeared the situation would be the status quo, because nothing had changed.
If anything, my dick twitching in my tactical pants—yes, I wore them still, sue me—showed a greater interest than before.
Ewen chuckled. I glared at him, turning his chuckles into full-out belly laughs. Trey and his boys looked over their shoulders at us, but Trey’s face held a soft smile while the other guys just looked curious.
“I fucking hate you,” I muttered.
“I’ve seen you edge and fuck a brat until he cried and begged to come.
I’ve seen you tie them up and paddle their asses.
Hell, I’ve seen you sound a guy or two. We’ve spit-roasted more than one submissive over the years, but this…
” he paused to gigglesnort, which drew even more looks from the boys walking ahead of us.
When he calmed, he said, “This is the fucking funniest shit ever. You’re… ”
Before he could finish the thought, cracking his ass up, I stepped into his path, grabbed his dick and said, “If you utter another word…”
He leaned forward, put his lips right next to my ear and breathed out, “Well, and truly smitten.” He pulled away, catching me off guard with a loud, wet kiss on my cheek before walking off.