CHAPTER FOUR POWER LINE #2
At twelve minutes, Brock opened his knees slightly.
Tyler’s throat went dry.
“Cheap,” he said.
“Sitting.”
“Provocatively.”
“Didn’t know sitting had a moral standard.”
Tyler mirrored the posture.
Brock’s eyes dropped to the unmistakable shape beneath the towel. His jaw tightened. For the first time, the larger man looked affected enough to lose.
Tyler leaned back and let the towel slip one calculated inch.
Brock stood.
Victory flashed through Tyler—until Brock crossed to the door, opened it, and turned the lock.
Then he returned to the bench.
“Safety,” Brock said.
“You touched the door.”
“Rule was no touching each other.”
“Lawyer.”
“Captain.”
Fifteen minutes.
Tyler’s heartbeat had become too fast. The edges of the room blurred slightly. Pride demanded he remain. Captaincy demanded he recognize when endurance stopped being strength and became stupidity.
He stood.
Brock’s expression changed at once. “You dizzy?”
“A little.”
Brock opened the door and guided him out with one hand hovering at his back without making contact. Cool gym air struck Tyler like water. He braced himself against the glass and breathed.
“I lose,” he said.
“Sit.”
“Command?”
“Concern.”
Tyler sat on the mat. Brock brought water and crouched in front of him, still wearing the black towel and the unmistakable evidence of how much the contest had cost.
Tyler drank.
“Better?” Brock asked.
“Annoyingly.”
“Good.”
Brock took the glass. He did not collect immediately. That restraint made Tyler want him more.
“You could have stayed in longer,” Tyler said.
“Probably.”
“How long?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to the challenge.”
Brock sat beside him on the mat. The black towel opened slightly across one thigh before he secured it. “You said you were dizzy. Challenge ended.”
“Because I lost.”
“Because I wasn’t risking you for a line in a book.”
Tyler studied the profile beside him. Brock’s protective instincts usually arrived disguised as aggression: a retaliatory penalty, a body placed between Tyler and danger, a command that sounded harder than concern. This was quieter.
“You make surrender very inconvenient,” Tyler said.
“How?”
“You keep being decent about it.”
Brock looked over. “Would you prefer indecent?”
Tyler’s gaze traveled deliberately down the sweat-slick body and the poorly concealing towel. “Eventually.”
Brock’s reaction became more visible.
He stood and offered Tyler a hand.
Tyler accepted. Brock pulled him up too quickly, bringing them chest to chest. Their towels brushed. Tyler felt the same charged alignment the no-touch rule had denied them for fifteen minutes.
Neither man moved.
“Challenge is over,” Tyler said.
“I won.”
“Then why aren’t you touching me?”
Brock lifted both hands, showing empty palms. “Because you’re still recovering.”
The answer was maddening.
Tyler caught Brock’s wrist and placed one broad hand against his own chest. His heart hammered beneath it.
“Recovered.”
Brock’s fingers spread. “Liar.”
He removed his hand, stepped back, and picked up their clothes. Tyler stood alone on the mat, aroused, frustrated, and unexpectedly moved by the fact that Brock would rather prolong his own discomfort than take advantage of Tyler’s pride.
That was when Tyler understood the real punishment would be patience.
“What now?” Tyler asked.
“Dinner.”
Tyler looked at their towels. “Like this?”
“You’re getting dressed.”
“And you?”
Brock smiled. “You don’t get to know yet.”
Brock dressed in jeans and a fitted black shirt. Tyler was ordered into gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved base layer that clung everywhere the sauna had left him sensitive.
They ate at the kitchen island.
Brock cooked salmon, potatoes, and enough vegetables to satisfy the nutrition staff. He spoke about the next opponent. He showed no urgency. Tyler tried to participate while every minute of waiting intensified the physical tension beneath his clothing.
After dinner came film review.
Brock sat at one end of the sofa. Tyler sat at the other by command. They studied Minnesota’s penalty kill. Brock paused to identify gaps, rewound entries, and demanded Tyler explain three different reads. Whenever Tyler answered correctly, Brock nodded without reward.
An hour passed.
On the screen, Minnesota’s penalty killers rotated in a tight diamond. Their weak-side defenseman cheated high whenever the puck moved below the goal line, trusting the goaltender to control the near post.
“Freeze it there,” Tyler said.
Brock paused the clip.
Tyler stood and approached the television, grateful for movement. “If I carry behind the net, this defenseman follows. You’re here.” He pointed at the crease. “Their center tries to front you. I can use the boards to send it back to the point or cut inside your left skate.”
“Which do you choose?”
“Depends where your hips are.”
Brock’s gaze dropped toward Tyler’s gray sweatpants. “You’ve been paying attention to those.”
Tyler ignored the heat in his face. “Turn toward the puck, I use the wall. Stay square, I come behind you.”
“How close?”
“Close enough.”
“Technical term?”
“Professional one.”
Brock joined him at the screen. He stood immediately behind Tyler, not touching, and reached around to point at the frozen players. The position duplicated their drill without equipment between them. Tyler could feel warmth at his back and Brock’s breath beside his ear.
“If I shift here,” Brock said, “their defenseman loses your stick.”
His hand moved across the image. The other settled lightly at Tyler’s hip, guiding a half step as if they were on skates.
Tyler’s concentration disintegrated.
“That’s touching.”
“Challenge ended.”
“You said opposite end of the sofa.”
“You stood up.”
Tyler turned inside the loose circle of Brock’s arms. “You’ve become unbearable since discovering technicalities.”
“You taught me.”
For one second, Tyler thought the waiting was over. Brock’s eyes dropped to his mouth. His hand tightened at Tyler’s waist.
Then Brock stepped away and resumed his seat.
“Next clip,” he said.
Tyler considered throwing the remote through the window.
Tyler shifted.
“Still uncomfortable?” Brock asked.
“You’re abusing the system.”
“You signed.”
“Under thermal distress.”
“Would you like to use the word?”
Tyler knew what Brock meant. Frost remained available. The challenge, delay, and control would stop without punishment.
He also knew he did not want them to stop.
“No.”
Brock’s eyes warmed. “Then next clip.”
By the time the film ended, Tyler’s restraint had become brittle. Brock shut off the screen and walked toward the recovery room.
“Table,” he said.
Tyler followed.
He lay facedown while Brock opened a cabinet. The first touch was an ice pack placed between Tyler’s shoulder blades.
Tyler flinched. “Cruel.”
“Inflammation.”
Brock moved the cold slowly along muscles tightened by practice. His other hand followed with steady warmth, pressing into Tyler’s back, shoulders, and legs. Ice awakened every nerve; warm pressure soothed it. The alternation made Tyler unable to predict what came next.
“This is recovery?” Tyler asked into the face cradle.
“Mostly.”
“And the rest?”
Brock’s hand settled at Tyler’s waist. “Regret.”
The promise from the crease returned in full.
Brock turned him over. Tyler’s arousal stood clearly outlined beneath the gray fabric. Brock looked without pretending otherwise, then placed the ice pack against Tyler’s sternum and dragged it downward with agonizing slowness.
Tyler caught Brock’s wrist.
Brock stopped immediately.
“Frost?” he asked.
“No.” Tyler released him. “Warning.”
“Noted.”
Warm hands followed the cold. They worked across Tyler’s chest, sides, and thighs, never reaching the place his body demanded. Brock controlled pace as completely as he controlled the front of the net.
Tyler endured until endurance became impossible.
“Brock.”
The use of his first name changed the room.
Brock set the ice aside and leaned over him. “What do you want?”
The ledger said Brock did not need to ask.
He asked anyway.
Tyler caught the back of his neck. “You.”
Brock kissed him.
The long delay broke at once. Tyler pulled him down; Brock lifted Tyler from the table and carried him toward the bedroom.
The competition remained, but concern had threaded through it.
Every display of force ended in care. Every pin left Tyler space to choose.
The ice melted forgotten in its silver bowl while warmth took over entirely.
Later, Tyler lay beneath the open window with Brock’s hand resting on his abdomen.
“I regret nothing,” he said.
“Challenge worked.”
“You won because I developed heatstroke.”
“You lost because you were staring.”
“You were displaying.”
Brock kissed his shoulder. “Sleep. Game tomorrow.”
The following night, the power line received its first official opportunity with six minutes left in a tie game.
The path to that opportunity had been brutal.
Minnesota played without giving Milwaukee room to breathe. Every neutral-zone pass met a stick. Every rush ended against a shoulder. Brock spent the first period clearing bodies from the crease while Tyler fought through hooks and holds that disappeared whenever officials looked away.
Midway through the second, Minnesota scored on a deflection.
Tyler answered two minutes later by forcing a turnover below the goal line. He fed the puck into the slot, where Milwaukee’s center tied the game.
Assist.
On the bench, Brock leaned past the backup goaltender. “You earned a request.”
“Saving it.”
“For what?”
Tyler looked at the bruise showing above Brock’s collar from a first-period collision. “Depends what you earn.”
Brock’s attention sharpened.
The third period became a test of patience. Minnesota clogged the middle. Tyler tried speed, deception, and one reckless drive that ended with him beneath two defenders. Brock arrived, pulled the first man away, and stood over Tyler until he regained his skates.
“Stay up,” Brock said.
“Command?”
“Request.”
“You haven’t earned one.”
Brock’s glove closed around the front of Tyler’s jersey. “Then captain’s order.”