Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KELLAN
It’s one-thirty a.m., and I’m almost done with my first Monday shift at Mulligan’s. Checking IDs has come to a crawl, and the real work won’t begin again until I have to unceremoniously ask anyone who wants to keep the party going to get out.
One thing I’ve learned from working multiple nights a week is that college bars love a good schtick, especially on slower nights.
There’s Trivia Tuesday, which I have very mixed feelings about. They stay more sober than the usual crowd, but they’re obnoxious as all hell. I’ve had to break up more than one fight over alleged cheating.
Then there’s ‘penny pitcher’ Wednesday, complete with a ten-dollar cover of course. Though I do think some of the students are still able to make it work in their favor judging by how they stumble on the way out the door.
Thursday through Saturday nights have varying degrees of specials, though Mulligan’s doesn’t really need a reason to get drunken co-eds through the doors on those days. I’d make better money working on the weekends, but I’m not bent out of shape that hockey keeps me away on the wildest nights.
All that’s to say, I wasn’t prepared for tonight when I hopped up on my stool situated next to the entry to the bar five hours ago.
MonGay at Mulligan’s is the queer night, which I learned when men instead of women started hitting on me as they flashed me toothy smiles while handing their IDs over, along with far more appreciative–and overt–stares at my body.
I hear the last call bell ring inside, which signals for me to stand up an encroach on the door like I’m a goalie defending the net. At the same moment, I feel a body step into my space.
“No more entry,” I say without looking up.
“That’s a shame.” I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I flick my gaze up, my eyes meeting the glowing green ones that I was so sure I saw in the arena two nights ago. After wondering if I was truly going insane for the last forty-eight hours, I’d come to the conclusion that it was wishful thinking.
But now, looking at the small smirk tugging at the edge of Wells’ lips, I’m not so sure.
He’s alone, dressed in a dark jacket, not a hair on his perfect head out of place. I can feel my hackles rising. There’s only one reason that someone wanders into Mulligan’s alone, right before closing time. And it’s not for one more of their shitty mixed drinks.
“Having a nightcap?” I ask, trying to hide the jealousy in my voice. Who Wells chooses to fuck is none of my business. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself as I finally shove the hand holding his license back toward him without looking at it.
“I haven’t seen you here before.” He gives me the same, appreciative stare that I’ve gotten many other times tonight, only I feel it differently. Heat licks through my body, like he’s commanded it to be so.
I take a small step closer to him, wanting to revel in the warmth he’s created, a mixture of jealousy and desire burning through me. “Does that shitty pickup line work for you?”
“You tell me.”
A group staggers out of the door. They’re all exuberant, jovial energy, and I move to the side to let them pass.
It’s a wonder they didn’t collide into me, except that I realize it’s Wells who’s pulling me over, out of their path.
Our jackets press together, and I’d give anything to have the layers separating us removed.
He’s inextricably wound himself around my thoughts and my wants and my needs. And I’m desperate for it to feel the same for him. That he’s plagued with the same desire that’s coursing through my blood, which is growing hotter by the second.
My whole body is thrumming with anticipation when I lean forward, my lips ghosting across his ear. “If you want some relief, Wells, I’m done in thirty minutes. And you know that I’ll be better for you than anyone on the other side of that door.”
I’m not surprised to discover that Wells lives in the nicest apartment building downtown. It’s a high-rise, or at least, as high as anything is in Radford. Fifteen stories. Made of gleaming glass that cuts across the night sky as snowflakes begin to dot the early morning horizon.
From the very little I know about him, which feels weird to actually consider, it doesn’t surprise me that his family has money. The way he dresses. How he carries himself. The degree of separation that he seems to keep between him and the rest of the world. He would have fit right in in Warwick.
The lapels of my jacket snap against my chest as I push open the double doors into a large sitting area with twenty-foot-high ceilings and a lot of marble, if I had to guess.
Everything is clean and shiny, though the room is bathed in a low light at this late hour.
I always thought that my carpeted apartment in the athletes’ townhouses was nice but this is… something else.
And even if I have to be up for practice in four hours, all that I can think about is that Wells’ is fifteen stories above me, and I’m hoping I don’t look as frantic as I feel to close the distance between us.
A security person sitting at the desk near the elevators gestures toward me. “Name?”
“I’m here to visit Room 1501,” I say, hoping that will suffice. Wells told me that his building had security, but that he’d tell them that I was coming.
The tired-looking man wearing a nondescript security jacket similar to my own stares down at a clipboard and then points me toward the elevators without another word. Which I appreciate. I don’t want to explain what I’m doing here at two a.m. anymore than I’m sure he cares to learn.
I also don’t know what I would tell him.
I’m here to fuck this guy who likes to antagonize me?
Or maybe he’s going to fuck me? I’m not sure of the semantics.
Or how far things will go between us tonight.
All I know is that when I’m with Wells, everything makes sense in a way that nothing else in my life does.
And I’m addicted to feeling it whenever he’ll deign to give it to me.
Like he’s my supplier and I’m just hanging on for my next fix when I can get it.
No one would think it when they look at me, but I’m jonesing hard as I step onto the elevator and hit the button for the highest floor.
Surprisingly though, the tension in my neck and back from sitting all night is already melting away.
I’ve been calm since I stepped into the warm lobby, probably because I know that I’m so close to getting what I want.
The same way that I feel when I’m on the ice.
Like there’s nothing except for me and the puck against my stick.
I barely blink and the elevator is opening onto his floor.
I leaned my head back on the way up, and I wonder if I dozed off for a second.
The back-to-back games this past weekend, visiting my mom and brothers again on Sunday, and then my first full practice in over a week earlier today have me running on auto-pilot more than anything else.
I knock on his door, and just before it opens, I can’t stop the yawn that I try my best to swallow.
Wells opens the door then, giving me a look that my tired brain isn’t working fast enough to process. “Well, nice to see you, too. Come in.”
I’ve never felt attraction like this, and I’m acutely aware of it as he moves to the side so that I can step into his apartment.
He still looks perfect, though it’s clear he’s put on different clothing than what he wore to the bar.
I’ve never seen him so dressed down, in a pair of fitted joggers and an incredibly soft-looking t-shirt that accentuates his lean but well-defined muscles.
His apartment is massive, even compared to the digs that the athletes live in, which are already orders of magnitude better than most off-campus apartments and definitely the dorm rooms. I’m standing in the living room, which leads to floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the town and part of campus.
The snow’s falling persistently now, and I’m already dreading the twenty-minute walk back to my own apartment later, before the plows have made it out.
I can see the hockey arena, over in the distance.
It’s so small from this vantage point, and I wonder if this is how Wells feels all the time–above everything and everyone around him.
I’ve been in my fair share of fancy digs, and this whole place screams money. The soft leather sofa–I can tell I’d practically melt into it from here. A sixty-plus inch flatscreen, which has recessed lighting running across the ceiling above it.
Is this who Wells’ is? A rich guy who likes nice things and using people like they’re toys? I don’t know much about him, if I’m being honest. But I put that on him more than anyone.
It’s then that I notice hallways flanking both sides of the living area. “Do you have a roommate?”
“He speaks.” That stare again, like he’s trying to figure me out. “No, I don’t have a roommate. The other bedroom is a home gym.”
I roll my eyes, even though I’m crazy jealous. “Of course it is.”
Wells folds his arms across his chest, and it becomes clear just how often he uses said gym.
I’m standing next to the kitchen island to my right, and he takes a step toward me.
His eyes flash with need, and it sends a thrill through me.
“If I had a roommate, you wouldn’t be in my apartment right now, wondering whether you’ll get what you desperately need. ”
My mouth goes dry. I do need it. I need him. It’s been over a week since we’ve last hooked up, and it’s all that I’ve thought about.
“What were you doing at the bar tonight?” I know what he was doing there, and I don’t know what I hope to get out of making him say it.
He takes another step closer. Standing in front of me, he pushes my jacket off. I don’t know why, but I’m surprised that he lets it just fall to the floor instead of hanging it up. “What were you doing at the bar tonight?”
My whole body lights up from the inside out, now that I don’t have inches of fabric between us. “I work there? I thought that was pretty obvious.”
“Isn’t that… frowned upon,” is what he settles on, his brow drawn together. He gives me that look again, like he’s trying to figure me out. Like there’s some puzzle piece he thinks he’ll find that will make it all make sense to him.
“I didn’t know that you cared how I spend my time.” I don’t need to get into my family’s financial situation with him. It’s clear that our lives are worlds apart, even if when we come together sexually, it’s explosively hot.
He lifts an eyebrow, a smug smile playing at his lips. “The same way you don’t care how I spend mine?”
Heat flares through me. It’s not the same and he fucking knows it.
And even if I desperately want to touch him, I’m still pissed that he was going to try and find someone else tonight.
It was just dumb luck that our paths crossed, and that makes me just as angry. “Did you enjoy my game on Saturday?”
Wells’ lips twitch, and I make my move. I place my hands at his waistband and brush against his skin with my thumbs.
He doesn’t stop me. I move slowly, stroking the long lines of muscle.
They clench beneath my fingertips, and I can already feel my briefs getting tighter.
It feels like true power, knowing that I have this effect on him.
Is this how he feels, when he touches me?
Orders me around? I slide one of my hands across his stomach before dropping it lower, ghosting across his cock.
I’m glad we’re both feeling the effects of our proximity.
I shift my hand back so that I can hold the length of him, growing harder by the second. I miss his taste. I miss how well he filled my mouth. I miss being on my knees while his thighs strained under my fingertips.
“I want to watch you shower,” he says gruffly, his eyes cast downward so that he can watch me play with him.
My hand stills. “Is this your way of telling me that I smell?” As an athlete, I shower at least once, sometimes twice, a day. I probably don’t smell like a bed of roses after a five-hour shift, but still, his words make me feel dirty.
Wells’ fingers drag my jaw upward, and he forces me to make eye contact. I’m surprised at the intensity in his voice. “I want to see your perfect fucking body naked, in my shower, and completely soaking wet. Is that a problem for you?”
The trill that dampened roars back to life inside of me, assuaged by his surprisingly comforting words. I don’t want to need to hear them, but I do. “Lead the way.”