Play the Game (Maine Marauders Hockey #2)

Prologue

TAYLOR

Sebastian Carruthers threw himself onto the couch next to me hard enough that the whole thing creaked.

Beer sloshed out of his cup and down his arm.

He licked it off and shot me that grin—the one that’d been doing weird things to my stomach lately.

And yeah, other parts of my body, too, though I couldn’t tell you why.

“Tay, my man! I haven’t seen you for hours.” He rolled his head and smiled at me, his warm brown eyes glassy and unfocused. “What time is it?” he murmured before looking around as if noticing the crowd for the first time.

I checked my watch, shocked to see I’d been sitting here for a couple of hours already. Instead of dancing with a bunch of sorority girls or doing keg stands with my teammates, I’d parked my ass here to avoid aggravating the injury I’d picked up a couple of months ago.

“Close to midnight.”

Sebastian scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’m getting too old for this shit. Never thought I’d be ready to bail on a party so early.”

“You? What about me? I’m the broken old man hanging out on the couch all night.” I tapped my abdomen where the muscle still wasn’t fully healed.

Sebastian’s eyes dropped, then quickly shot back up. Something flickered across his face before he cleared his throat and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m, uh, gonna head back to the suite.” He gestured toward the door but didn’t move.

“Yeah. Me too.” I set my drink down and stood slowly.

Sebastian stepped close, his hand out to steady me.

Ever since my injury, he’d been looking after me in ways no one else in my life seemed to. Making sure I was okay. That I was comfortable. Jumping in when he thought I might need something. And it made me feel good. Safe.

It also made me feel guilty.

I waved him off and headed toward the exit. “I’m fine.”

Outside, the air was cold as a witch’s fucking tit. I hunched into my jacket as we crossed the quad, watching for patches of ice.

The entire walk, Sebastian was quiet next to me, which wasn’t like him.

I swiped my ID at the front door and held it open for him, wondering why I’d bothered going out tonight at all. I probably would’ve had a better time staying home with the new fantasy book I’d been wanting to dive into all week.

“Is it just me, or is that whole scene not as fun as it used to be?” Sebastian asked, sounding as exhausted as I felt.

We took the stairs to our floor, and he punched in the lock code to our suite.

“Not just you,” I said, stepping inside and moving to the kitchenette to grab some water out of the fridge. I lifted a second bottle and tilted it toward him. “You want one?”

Sebastian nodded, and I crossed the room, easing down next to him on the small two-seater sofa that came with every suite. You’d think our school would have sprung for larger, more comfortable furniture in the sports dorms, but all their budget had gone to the new football stadium instead.

Sebastian spun to face me, bending his right leg so that the sole of his foot rested against his left knee, his shin pressing into my thigh. He rested his elbow on the back of the couch and set his cheek in his palm. “If you hadn’t gone to the party tonight, what would you have done instead?”

If anyone else had asked me that question, I would have said something snarky about hooking up with one of the girls who was forever trying to ride my jock, except I didn’t need to pretend with Sebastian.

He knew it’d been months since I’d last fucked someone and why.

Initially, there was my injury to consider, but even before that, it just seemed like a whole lot of effort to go through when I could get myself off without any unnecessary drama afterward.

And at least I liked myself.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same about most of my hookups. I had a bad habit of sleeping with girls with banging bodies and evil in their hearts. I was still reeling from the one who’d posted a picture of me passed out naked in her bed after a threesome with her roommate.

“Probably read,” I said, tipping the plastic bottle back to take a drink. “You?”

“Same.” Sebastian laughed. “We sound like an old married couple, wanting to stay in on a Friday night to read by the fire.” He scratched at his jaw. “Though my parents can’t stand to be in the same room together, so maybe not the best example.”

I’d met his parents a few times. They were the kind of people who made you uncomfortable just watching them interact. I was pretty sure his dad didn’t give a shit about anyone.

“Meanwhile, my parents are so disgustingly in love that Audrey and I text before we come home,” I said with a smile. “Trust me when I say walking in on your mom with her face in your dad’s lap is not something you ever want to see.”

Sebastian made a weird sound that was half-laugh, half-choke, his red, blotchy face turned away from me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” The red spread down his neck, disappearing under his collar.

I shoved his shoulder. “Dude. Are you seriously thinking about my mom right now?”

My mom was pretty, and she was young enough that Sebastian wouldn’t be the first of my friends to be weird about her. But ew. No.

“I assure you, I am not thinking about your mother.”

Something in his voice, or maybe it was the fact that he still refused to look at me, made me so fucking curious.

“Then why are you turning into a tomato?”

I waited. Sebastian was going to tell me—I could feel it—but then he shook his head. “Nope. Not happening.”

“What’s not happening?”

Why was he being weird?

“Seb, come on. Talk to me, man.”

He bit down on his bottom lip and rolled it through his teeth.

“Drop it.” His hand tightened on the water bottle, and he stared down at it for a second—like he’d only just remembered he was holding it—then set it on the coffee table with a shake of his head.

“You know what? Fuck it,” he said, turning to face me. “Don’t you miss it, Tay?”

“Miss what?” I asked, my brain not keeping up with the shift in conversation.

“Sex. Don’t you miss having someone’s mouth on you? Their hair in your fists? Coming down his throat?”

My dick responded before my brain caught up, and I reached down to adjust myself.

That was when I realized what Sebastian had just said.

His throat, not hers.

My eyes shot up at the exact moment Sebastian’s tongue flicked out to wet his bottom lip. He caught me looking and froze.

My heart was beating a mile a minute, and my face felt hot. My stomach dropped, that roller coaster feeling when you get to the top and then suddenly you are falling.

Oh.

I was …

I wanted …

Fuck, I was attracted to my best friend.

I’d always known Sebastian was hot, the same way I knew I was decent enough to look at. But I’d never actually looked at him before, not like this.

His broad shoulders made his shirt pull tight across his chest, showing off nipples that were hard little points.

And his stupid, handsome jawline. Jesus Christ, I wanted to bite it.

The thought hit me like a body check—sudden and hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.

This should scare you, I thought. Instead, all I felt was instant relief. Like I’d finally found the missing piece of a puzzle I didn’t know I’d been looking for.

The idea of him pushing me back against the couch, pressing his mouth to mine, his hand on my …

Shit. I was hard.

Really fucking hard.

Harder than I’d been in months.

My breath turned shallow, and I could feel sweat breaking out along my hairline. My hips shifted forward without me meaning for them to, looking for friction that wasn’t there.

Sebastian’s eyes dropped to the obvious bulge in my jeans, and he bit down on that damn lip of his again.

I made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a grunt, and his eyes flashed up to mine. As if on autopilot, I turned toward him, my knee touching his thigh.

The hair on my arms stood on end.

“I want you so fucking bad, Tay,” he whispered, his eyes flicking over my face.

I nodded, my head bobbing quickly up and down.

He shifted closer, his hand hovering near the button of my jeans.

“You sure?” he asked, his voice shaking a little, his expression uncertain in a way I’d never seen it before. He was scared I’d say no. Scared I’d freak out.

But I wasn’t going to. There wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t sure about this.

I reached for him, settling my hand on his knee.

We hadn’t actually done anything yet. Could still laugh this off as drunken stupidity between roommates if we wanted to.

But this didn’t feel like stupidity, and Sebastian didn’t feel like just my roommate.

He—this—felt like a whole lot more.

I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but there was something different about Sebastian Carruthers. Something different about me, too, when I was with him.

I was just better. Happier. More like myself.

And I was pretty sure he felt the same way.

How many times had he said he liked hanging out with me more than anyone else? How many times had I said the same thing back? How many times had I fallen asleep waiting for him to get back from the library, or missed him when I was at away games?

I probably should’ve figured this all out a lot sooner, but I was figuring it out now.

And instead of freaking out, I just felt right.

Like this made sense.

Like we made sense.

Like we’d been heading here the whole time, and I’d just been too stupid to see it.

I reached up and touched his jaw, then his neck. His skin was warm, and I could feel his pulse racing under my fingers. I slid my hand around to the back of his neck and pulled him closer, feeling his breath against my face.

Another inch and we’d be kissing.

It didn’t matter that Sebastian was a guy. Didn’t even occur to me that it should matter.

All I knew was that it was him.

My best friend.

And I needed to know what he tasted like.

“You want me, Seb?”

He nodded. “So fucking bad.”

“Then have me.”

Sebastian’s hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing over my bottom lip. Then he leaned in and kissed me, soft at first, his tongue peeking out to test the waters.

When I opened my mouth, everything changed. He groaned and pressed closer, his tongue sliding against mine, his hand tightening in my hair. There was nothing gentle or tentative about his mouth on mine now.

He kissed me like he’d been holding back for a long fucking time. Like now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop.

And lord knew, I sure as shit didn’t want him to.

Sebastian eventually broke the kiss with a low groan, his forehead dropping to mine. “Fuck, Tay.”

“I know,” I said, my hands curling into his shirt.

He pushed me back against the couch, following me down.

I pulled him closer, dragging my mouth over his.

And then we were both moving at once, his weight settling on top of me, and yeah.

That was better. His hips pressed against mine, and the sound he made this time wasn’t even a word, just a broken exhale as our mouths crashed together again.

The kiss turned messy and hungry, like neither of us could get enough, fast enough. I sucked on Sebastian’s tongue, and he made a low, growling sound in the back of his throat, his hand sliding down my side to grip my hip and lock me in place.

I rocked up into him, chasing the pressure, and his whole body shuddered. His mouth moved from my jaw to my throat, his fingers digging into me hard enough to leave a bruise.

Then his hips stuttered, losing their rhythm, and he went rigid above me, breathing hard, his face buried against my neck.

I was hard as fuck, my balls aching, my brain practically mush, but I knew exactly what that meant. “Did you just?”

“Don’t,” he groaned, his voice muffled against my shoulder. “Please don’t say it.”

I shifted, trying to get him to look at me. “Seb, that was—”

“Pathetic,” he finished.

I shook my head, but realized he couldn’t see me with his head in the crook of my neck. I moved my hand under his chin and lifted. “That was the hottest thing ever.”

“Yeah?”

“Spank bank material for life. So fucking hot.”

His hand drifted over my stomach, his finger rubbing over the waistband of my jeans. “You haven’t yet,” he said quietly.

“No shit.” I laughed, but it came out strained. I was so hard it hurt.

“Can I … ” He swallowed. “Can I suck you?”

My brain short-circuited.

I’d never imagined Sebastian would look at me like he was starving for a taste of me.

And I’d also never wanted anything more than I wanted his mouth on me.

That feeling from earlier—like everything that had happened tonight was always leading to this exact moment—washed over me again.

“Yeah,” I said, already reaching for my button. “Yeah, fuck, yes.”

I shoved my jeans and boxers down, and my cock sprang free. Sebastian stared at it for a second, then licked his lips, and that almost finished me right there.

He shifted down, settling between my spread legs. His hand wrapped around me, and I hissed out a breath.

“Tell me if I’m doing it wrong,” he said in the second before his tongue swirled around the tip a couple of times. Then he opened his mouth and sank down, his hand working what his mouth couldn’t take.

I’d had plenty of blowjobs. More than plenty. But this was different.

Maybe because it was Sebastian. Maybe because I could feel how much he wanted this, wanted me. Maybe because every time I looked down and saw him there, saw his lips stretched around my cock, my brain went fuzzy with how fucking good it was.

“Jesus Christ,” I groaned, my head falling back against the cushions as my fingers threaded through his hair. Not to guide him or anything—just to keep contact, to anchor myself as pure, undeniable want rushed through me.

He came off me just long enough to ask, “This okay?”

I nodded, wetting my lips, and his eyes dropped closed, sucking me deeper. He hummed around me, and the vibration shot straight up my spine.

The pressure kept building, my hands starting to shake, my breath coming fast, everything in my body winding tighter and tighter.

“Fuck, Seb, I’m gonna—” I tried to push him away, but he shook his head as I spilled down his throat, swallowing around me and working me through my orgasm until I was boneless and spent and couldn’t feel my legs.

When he finally pulled off, I still hadn’t caught my breath.

Sebastian sat back on his haunches and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking utterly fucking pleased with himself.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Holy fuck. We should’ve been doing this all year.”

He grinned at me, that same mischievous grin from earlier, but somehow better now. “I’ve wanted to.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded and dropped his eyes, his cheeks going pink. “Yeah, Tay. I really have.”