Chapter 30
June
The two of them were on me in an instant, hands and lips touching every part of my skin. They didn’t want to take turns tonight; neither of them wanted to wait.
Yeah. They definitely needed this.
We moved to the bed without much preamble.
Cole buried his face between my legs, eagerly eating me out, while Rhett sucked one nipple into his mouth and swirled his tongue around.
Soon I was arching my back and crying out with sweet release, with Rhett clamping his palm over my mouth so nobody else would hear.
I had barely come down from that high when Cole flipped me over and drove into me from behind.
Another passionate moan escaped my lips, so Rhett grabbed a pillow and slid it under my face to muffle my cries.
Cole fucked me harder, pushing my head down into the pillow in a way that made my toes curl with pleasure.
After a few seconds, he released his grip and asked, “You okay? Is that too much?”
“Don’t stop!” I hissed at him.
He pushed me back down into the pillow and really let me have it, and I was thankful that the pillow was there to absorb all the blissful noise I was making.
He came quickly, and he had barely finished emptying himself into me when Rhett took over, somehow fucking me with more reckless abandon than Cole had shown, slamming his cock into me from behind until a second orgasm completely destroyed me all over again.
“That,” Rhett said afterward, “was exactly what I needed.”
Cole nodded emphatically while getting dressed.
I pulled my clothes back on and flashed a smile. “I figured as much. Everyone has been distracted by what happened. I can’t help everyone on the team, but at least I can help you two.”
Rhett waited until my shirt was back on, then pulled me close for a long kiss. “You’re the fucking best.”
“Agreed,” Cole said, leaning over to kiss me on the shoulder.
There was a knock on the door. All of us froze.
“Everyone look normal,” Cole whispered as he went to the door. I gestured at Rhett, and he quickly sat in the chair. When Cole opened the door, I was digging both of my hands into Rhett’s shoulder.
“O’Malley?” Cole said at the door. “What’s up?”
The redheaded player pushed past Cole and walked straight up to me. “June, I’ve had a headache for the past hour. Do you think I’ve been poisoned? The internet says headaches are a sign of poisoning. And the waiter at dinner was looking at me funny.”
“Funny how?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Just funny. I never get headaches,” he insisted. “Except when I’m hungover. Which I’m not. What should I do?”
I would have laughed at him, but the fear on his face was genuine. I let go of Rhett and made a show of examining O’Malley, lifting his eyelids and asking him to stick out his tongue.
After a few seconds of pretending like I was deep in thought, I said, “Nope. You haven’t been poisoned. My recommendation: take an Advil and drink at least three glasses of water. It might be dehydration.”
He sighed with relief. “Thanks, June! You’re the best.”
When he was gone, I smirked at Rhett. “He said I’m the best, and I didn’t even have to fuck him.”
“We all have different benchmarks,” Cole said.
I was afraid of making the walk of shame when I left, but the hallway was thankfully empty. I nodded to the guard in the elevator lobby and took the stairs down.
Halfway to my floor, I ran into someone walking up.
“Elias?”
He froze two steps below me, which meant we were at the same eye-level. When he saw it was me, he grinned widely.
“June.” My name was a deep rumble that came from deep within his chest.
“I thought curfew started an hour ago.”
Elias shrugged his broad shoulders. “Casey is too afraid to say no to me.” He let out a chuckle that might have been a giggle if it came from anyone else.
I frowned at him. His accent was more pronounced than normal tonight, and he was actually smiling. Either he had switched bodies with someone else, or…
“Are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “No! Never drunk!” Then he stroked his beard with his fingers. “Well. Sometimes drunk. But not now. I am only happy.”
“You smell like beer.”
“Yes. Beer makes me happy!” He let out another giggle-like chuckle.
“Oh my God.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I won’t tell Jay. But if you get caught on the way back to your room, that’s on you.”
“Thank you!” It was so weird to see his face light up with a smile. “For this. And for helping me. With my oblique.” He raised his shirt to reveal the ripples of muscle along his side.
“Of course.”
He put his finger to his lips. “Our secret! Yes?”
“Our secret.” I stepped to the side so he could pass. “See you tomorrow, Elias. Get some sleep.”
But instead of passing me, he wrapped me in a big bear hug. His body was warm and hard with muscle, and I allowed myself to enjoy it for a moment. He squeezed me tightly, holding the hug for a few heartbeats longer than I expected.
When he pulled back, he touched my cheek with his fingertips.
His hand was so big he could have palmed my entire head like a basketball.
Underneath the smell of beer was his scent, heady and intoxicating.
For a brief moment I thought he was going to kiss me, and I realized that if he did, I wouldn’t pull away…
Then he patted me lightly on the cheek and continued climbing the stairs, humming a tune I didn’t recognize.
I thought about him while trying to sleep that night. Elias shouldn’t have been getting drunk the night before a game. It must have taken an entire keg of beer for someone his size to get drunk.
His drunkenness aside, the interaction filled me with happiness. He’d said more words to me in the stairwell than he had all season. Cole once told me that he’d never heard Elias say more than a single sentence at a time, and he’d been teammates with the goalie for years!
The players trusted me. And that was immensely satisfying.
But I couldn’t help but think about the gentle way Elias had touched my cheek, and wondered if there was something more behind it…
The next day, Coach Jay announced that the backup goalie was starting the game. When I asked him about it, Jay said something along the lines of Elias needing a rest day.
I didn’t say anything, but of course I knew the truth. During the game, Elias looked like he might throw up all over the bench, and the other players gave him plenty of room.
When he caught me watching him, I quickly looked away.
We lost that game, as well as the next game in Montreal. Two days later, we scraped together a win against Toronto in a shoot-out, then flew to Vancouver for the last game of the road trip.
“I was thinking of visiting again tonight,” I whispered to Cole in the hotel lobby while everyone was getting their room assignments. “Your knee looks sore, in my medical opinion.”
“Ah, I’ve got plans tonight,” he said while texting on his phone.
“Plans? We have a game tomorrow. There’s a team curfew, captain.”
“Yeah, I…” He was preoccupied by his text. “I’ve got a thing. Coach knows.”
He turned away, but not before I got a split-second glimpse of the name he was texting:
Alice.
I turned on reruns of The Office to kill time in my hotel room, but my mind was racing. I shot a text to Cole to ask if he wanted to come back to my place when we got home from the road trip.
When he didn’t respond, I texted Rhett instead.
Me: Hey, does Cole have a sister?
Rhett: Don’t think so. He’s never mentioned one to me, if so. Why?
Me: Does the name Alice mean anything to you?
Rhett: Is this related to your last question, or a new train of thought? Because there’s Alice in Wonderland. Alice my middle school girlfriend. Alice Cooper, of course.
Me: Forget I asked. Want to come over when we get home from the road trip? I was thinking we could watch another Gene Wilder movie.
Rhett: Hell yeah. Blazing Saddles should be next, in my very humble opinion.
Me: Sounds good, but only if we watch Willy Wonka after that.
Rhett: Obviously.
My room overlooked the parking lot, so I turned off the TV and read my book in the chair by the window. I wasn’t a snoopy person by nature, and I didn’t consider myself the jealous type, but curiosity was getting the better of me. Especially since Cole wouldn’t tell me what he was doing.
It was eleven o’clock when a taxi pulled up and let Cole out. He had been gone about three hours. A few minutes later, he responded to my text from earlier.
Me: When the road trip is over and we’re home, want to come back to my place?
Cole: Sure
The one-word response didn’t set my mind at ease.