Chapter 7 It’s A Bet
Chapter Seven
It’s A Bet
GABE
I wanted to keep hanging out with him. Not just for the next couple of minutes.
Not for a single game of pool. I wanted to spend the entire night with him.
Wanted to kiss him and wreck him and rebuild him, only to do it all over again and again, until the sun came up and we were both left useless in puddles of sweat and cum.
I settled for a round of smacking balls around a velvet table instead, and it looked like I may not even get that much.
Eli considered my offer for longer than I expected. He chewed on his bottom lip, turning the plump, pink skin a papery white.
Maybe it was better if he left. This was a dangerous game.
There were tons of people in this bar, a lot of them regulars, a lot of them hockey fans.
They’d see me out on the ice with Eli. What if someone picked up on…
well, whatever energy was sparking up between us?
That would draw attention and raise questions.
None of which I wanted.
But I wanted to hang out with Eli more.
“Fine,” he said, as if he were giving in to some strenuous activity. I stifled my grin and moved aside so he could grab a pool stick.
His scent was still overwhelmingly sweet and intoxicating, but I found myself starting to get used to it.
My reaction to smelling him wasn’t nearly as visceral as that first night we met.
It was undeniably different than anyone else I’d ever smelled, but that didn’t necessarily mean much.
He could just have some extra-special body chemistry going on.
Maybe his sweat glands were made of rose petals, vanilla cookies, and bottled-up sex mixed with lightning?
It certainly didn’t mean fate had anything to do with it.
Eli rubbed the chalk against the end of his stick. “Don’t judge me. I’m terrible at this shit.”
“You’re in luck, then, because I’m a great teacher.”
He gave me a grin, flashing his white teeth. For a hockey player, he had some of the straightest and most-cared-for teeth I’d seen.
I wanted to lick them.
“Alright,” I said, using the pool table to block the way my body began to react to Eli’s presence. My head was an ally, but my dick was clearly a traitor. “So first, you want to hit the black ball against all the rest, and—”
Eli leaned forward, pulled the pool stick back, then sent it forward again, hitting the eight ball and sending it crashing into the triangle. He sank two solids and one stripe.
“I’ll go solids,” he said with a smile.
“Thought you said you didn’t know how to play.”
“I said I’m terrible at it. You just heard ‘I need you to mansplain this’ instead.”
I glared at him. “Must be because it’s loud in here.”
“Yeah, must be,” Eli said. He lined up another shot and sank a solid.
I cocked my head. “Your definition of terrible is interesting.”
“I think it’s probably just beginner’s luck or something.”
“Or maybe it was someone underselling their skills and prior life as a pool shark savant?”
Eli laughed at that. He hit the white ball with a clack. It bounced on the table, jumping over the ball he meant to hit and heading straight off the edge. I reached out and caught it without barely even looking at it. “Nice catch,” he said.
“I see what you mean now. About the whole ‘terrible’ thing.”
“I meant to do that, actually. It’s a very advanced technique.”
“Which balls were you aiming for, then?” I said, glancing down at my crotch.
My dick wasn’t pitching a tent, but my jeans definitely looked full.
Eli’s gaze flicked downward. His eyes flared open before he looked back up at me.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. A perfect target for my tongue and teeth.
Eli ignored me, but I couldn’t help but notice that strawberry-pink flush that began creeping up his neck.
How would that same shade of pink look across his chest?
Turning a darker shade with every touch, kiss, thrust.
His body tensing around mine, his legs wrapped tight around my waist, my cock pumping into him.
He coughed. “Your turn.” He smiled as he walked past me, brushing against me. His hip rubbed against my crotch. Was that an accident? Intentional? He had a smirk as he grabbed his beer off the high-top table and took a chug.
Control yourself.
The words were meaningless. Like tossing a palmful of water at a blazing inferno.
The fire in me only sizzled and flared. His scent, the same one I’d picked up on from miles away, flowed through me, filling me.
I looked around. The bar was packed, full of teammates, fans, random strangers who were equipped with phones that could document something at a moment’s notice.
Not a shred of privacy. If it were just me and Eli in this room, I would have him splayed out on the pool table in seconds. Fuck the fact that we were teammates and it would make things complicated. I wanted to lay him down and worship his body before I made it mine.
I could go to the bathroom… suggest he follow me. The stalls here reached the floor. It’d be easier to hide, easier to devour him. It’d be raw, dirty. It had me dripping. I could feel it against my thigh.
Still too risky, though. I squashed that idea and focused on the pool table.
I sank a ball, then two more, nearly sinking the eight ball by accident.
Thigh still wet, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Eli.
His scent was powerful enough to drop me to my knees.
Typically, when I was in my human form, my senses weren’t as heightened as they were in either my wolf or my were form, but with Eli, that was different.
It was as if I was standing there with a wolf’s snout on my face.
I scratched the bridge of my nose. “Looks like I might win this one.”
“I’m just glad you aren’t going easy on me.”
“I would never,” I said, a growl in my voice I didn’t intend to have. “You’re a big boy. You can handle it.”
Eli swallowed. I could tell I was nudging him off-balance a bit. I liked it, catching him by surprise, making him flustered. I wanted to keep pushing him, poking at him until he cracked, so then I could put him right back together again with my touch.
Calm. The fuck. Down.
“So,” Eli said, bending down to take the next shot. “About tomorrow. Anything else I should know about the Sharks?”
“Aside from the fact that the team’s our sworn rivals? Nah, sums it up.”
There was also the fact that the team was full of rock-brained and aggressive wolf shifters that hated the Burlington pack with the fury of a thousand suns, but I decided to keep that bit to myself.
“From the videos Coach showed, they seem to play pretty dirty. They’ve got a solid blue line too. That defense looks impenetrable—shit.” Eli watched as he hit the eight ball and sank it with three other solids still on the table.
I winked and grabbed the ball, placing it back on the table. “I didn’t see that.”
“No, you don’t—”
“And yes, their defense is fucking insane. But they also like to start shit on the ice, so try not to fall for it. They love to fight.” I hit a striped ball, bouncing it off the border and hitting another, the two of them dropping into the hole.
“But they aren’t invincible. Their offense can be a bit skittish, so we have to take advantage of that.
Whenever we get a whiff of caution from them is when we hit them hard.
” I took another shot and sunk my last ball.
I aimed at the eight ball but purposefully missed it by a couple of inches.
I didn’t mind it if the game kept going. Hell, I’d be happy playing with Eli all night if it came down to it.
Except I could think of a few other games that would keep us entertained for much longer.
Eli gave me a look. He was clearly suspicious about that shitty shot I just took.
He didn’t say anything as he lined himself up.
He bent over just next to me, aiming the pool stick between his fingers.
The curve of his ass looked delicious from this angle, and his shirt had lifted up slightly.
His lower back was dusted with a light brown patch of hair, disappearing under the waistband of his black briefs.
I licked my lips. It took everything in me to not reach over and grab him.
My entire body was on a knife’s edge. I wanted to slide my hand into his jeans and feel his skin against mine.
Wanted to suck that neck while I squeezed his ass, rubbing him between his cheeks, getting him nice and ready for me.
Fuck, I was getting so fucking hard. I stuffed a hand in the pocket of my jeans and subtly repositioned my stiff dick, holding it down.
Eli took his shot. The white ball bounced off the one he aimed for and hit the eight ball instead, sinking it. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I laughed. “Sorry, buddy, that one I did see.”
“Fair enough,” Eli said, smiling as he put his pool cue back into the holder on the wall. “I should stop embarrassing myself and just get some sleep before the game.”
No, no, stay awake with me. Let me unravel you until the sun comes up.
“You sure?” I asked. “I could go another round.”
“So you can keep spanking me? Nah.”
Fucking great. Now I was picturing what Eli’s pale white ass would look like with a strawberry-pink handprint on it.
This was getting out of hand. Pun not intended.
I couldn’t keep on fantasizing and drooling and gooning over this guy I’d just met a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe I just needed to get it out of my system.
Once my curiosity was satiated, then the lust would surely die down.
This could all be solved by one hot night together. Would he be down for that?
Only one way to find out.
“Let’s make a bet,” I said. This could have been a huge mistake, but I wasn’t thinking with my brain. Not the one on my shoulders, at least. “If we win tomorrow, then you and I have a private rematch. I’ve got a pool table at my house. Also a hot tub.”
He seemed to consider that. Eli crossed his arms, and I tried not to stare at the way his biceps flexed with the move.
I failed.
“And if we lose?” Eli asked.
“Then even more reason for us to meet.”
Eli chuckled. He ran a hand through his loose curls. “Fine. It’s a bet.” He checked his watch and gave me a smile I wanted to kiss right off his face. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you,” I said, giving him a bro-ey handshake, even though all I wanted to do was grab his hips and yank his body against mine so I could rut myself against him. So I could ease some of the delicious pressure that had built up inside me.
Maybe tomorrow, I’d get my wish.
Before leaving, Eli stopped and turned around, a curious look on his face. “Oh, before I forget, what cologne are you wearing?”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“Huh, really?” Eli said, leaning in and taking a deeper whiff. “I could have sworn… Well, you smell good.”
“You too,” I said.
Hah. If only he knew just how good he smelled to me.