Chapter 10 #2
Tom squared his shoulders the same way he did when meeting an opponent in the face-off circle.
“I haven’t felt so good in years. It was like I…
like I wasn’t in charge, like I could just feel.
I want to feel that way again. I know you said I don’t need practice, but I think I do.
I don’t know if I could trust anyone else, you know? I feel safe with you.”
Jax sat next to him on the bed, primarily because his knees had lost the ability to keep him upright. He took Tom’s hand in his own. “You can practice with me as much as you need to.”
Tom’s fingers tightened around Jax’s. “Good. Can we, um…can we be lying down this time?”
Jax wouldn’t survive this. There’d be a scorch mark left on the bed where he’d burned to a crisp from wanting a man utterly unaware of the devastating effects he had on his surroundings.
They scooted up the bed until their heads rested on the pillows.
Jax made a face. “Why are there no good pillows in hotels?”
“I have a memory foam one at home.” Tom turned to his side to face Jax. “You should try it sometime.”
Was Tom inviting Jax into his bed? Was he aware of how those words sounded?
No, this was Tom Crowler. He would probably have Jax come over and lie in his bed and test the pillow, which would definitely smell of the shower gel brand he’d done a sponsorship deal with a couple years ago.
He had a dozen bottles of the stuff in his stall at the practice rink, but grimaced every time he used them.
Then, he’d wander off to the kitchen to offer Jax a Gatorade or something instead of kneeling over Jax’s face and letting Jax eat him out.
Tom was too oblivious to his appeal for his own good.
Jax turned so they were nose to nose. “Sounds good.”
With an impatient sound, Tom pulled him closer. “Aren’t you going to…”
“What?” Jax rubbed their noses together.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
Feeling a little puckish, Jax asked, “Why don’t you kiss me?”
Tom rolled onto his back and dragged Jax on top of him. “I want you to do it.”
If Tom’d had any sort of contact with any aspect of queer culture, Jax would have teased him for being a pillow princess. As it was, the combination of his pouty, pleading look and the full spread of his body under Jax’s sufficed to make Jax give in.
He leaned down and kissed Tom, long and thorough and so good.
It had been good yesterday, up against the wall with the hot line of Tom’s body against his.
Something could be said for the intimacy of a bed, though, with both of them in soft clothes at the end of a long day.
More adventurous this time, Tom let his hands trail up Jax’s bare skin.
Jax rewarded him with more neck kisses, which in turn made Tom tilt his head and arch up to grant Jax better access.
Six weeks ago, Jax had a hookup come to his hotel room and beg Jax to fuck him while wearing a jersey with his number on it. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been with someone who was absolutely desperate for him.
And yet, somehow, Jax had never felt more wanted, with Tom shifting his head back a little more and sighing in pleasure.
He kissed Tom’s neck again, with his mouth open this time.
Tom’s hands went tight on his ribs, and he pulled Jax up to his mouth.
So pliant, so eager. If Jax had thought about it, he’d have expected Tom to keep tight hold of his self-control.
The way he presented himself to the world—serious, masculine, kind of humorless—was so at odds with the way he gave in to Jax’s slightest touch.
Jax’s wrists started to ache, propped up over Tom, so he rolled to his side again and pulled Tom to him. Tom nestled closer, hands wandering up and down Jax’s sides, making Jax squirm.
“What?” Tom said against his lips.
“Ticklish.”
“Hmm.” His touch went even softer, even gentler, as if savoring the chance to touch Jax. The idea was so ludicrous Jax couldn’t take it without biting something. In this case, Tom’s neck.
Tom moaned, as sweet a sound as it had been yesterday.
This time, he dared returning the favor, letting his teeth scrape along Jax’s shoulder while Jax attacked his neck.
At the same time, he pressed in again, his leg brushing against Jax’s.
Jax threw his own leg over Tom’s, giving in to the full heat of Tom’s body.
He returned to Tom’s mouth, ravenous, and kissed him deep and hot, moving his lips and tongue faster and more demanding.
Tom met him step for step, seemingly satisfied for Jax to set the pace.
The end-of-day stubble on Tom’s cheeks scratched against Jax’s lips and jaw and would probably leave some intense beard burn, but Jax didn’t care.
All he cared about was getting more. More of Tom’s kisses, more of the little sounds in the back of Tom’s throat, more of Tom’s body clinched tight against his own.
He slid his hands under the hem of Tom’s T-shirt and touched warm skin, drinking in Tom’s shuddery intake of breath under his fingertips and in his mouth, and Jax—Jax was extremely close to being extremely hard with one leg thrown over Tom’s and nothing between his cock and Tom but a thin layer of flannel.
For a moment, Jax pushed his advantage, let his hips nudge toward Tom’s, and then pulled away reluctantly.
Tom hadn’t agreed to anything more than kissing.
Tom wanted someone to practice with, not someone to maul him in a nondescript shitty hotel room after he’d had several emotionally taxing days, including two back-to-back hockey games.
Jax could give him that.
Jax would give him that.
Just because Jax wanted him so badly he could feel it in his teeth didn’t mean he’d burden Tom with his desires.
He pulled his leg off Tom’s, leaving some distance between their hips. He slowed the tempo of their kisses, allowing them to become ever softer until their mouths barely slid against each other, lips closed.
Tom’s body grew heavier and heavier against Jax as his breath evened out.
“’S’okay ’f I stay for a bit?” Tom mumbled against Jax’s lips.
“Yeah.”
With permission granted, the last of the tension left Tom’s body, and he sank into the subpar hotel pillow completely, mouth still a hair’s breadth away from Jax’s.
Literally kissed a man to sleep. That was a new one, even for Jax. He tried not to take it as an insult to his prowess. He rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling, then turned the lamp by the bed off as quietly as he could. Beside him, Tom breathed in and burrowed deeper into the sheets.
Jax closed his eyes and tried to will his arousal into submission.
Lying in bed and thinking about Tom instead of sleeping had become a habit over the last weeks.
Jax expected he’d be awake for hours, so close to the real thing, but it turned out, with Tom lying beside him, the sound of his breathing and the heat of his body close enough to touch, he drifted off in mere minutes.
In the morning, Jax woke first slowly and then all at once, wrapped around Tom with his heart pounding and his cock hard enough to shoot pucks. So entirely subsumed in each other, with his arm slung over Tom’s chest and their legs tangled together, Tom woke up with him.
His eyes immediately went wide. “Shit!”
“It’s okay,” said Jax, a bold statement for a man who had no idea what “it” might be let alone how it was doing.
“I should never have fallen asleep. I’m so sorry. I—”
“Tom, it’s okay. Breathe. Breathe.” Jax searched for his phone and found it underneath his left knee. He checked the time. “It’s fine. We’re flying out late today, remember? No one’s awake yet.”
“Right,” Tom said, still breathing much too fast. “Right. I can just…sneak over to my room. No one will know.”
That hurt a little. Jax was aware of what he could expect from Tom and how deeply closeted Tom was.
He hadn’t pictured Tom dancing for joy at the thought of a hotel full of their teammates realizing they’d spent the night together.
Jax had reached a point in his life where he chafed against secrecy and pretending, but he couldn’t expect Tom to share his sentiments, especially when Tom didn’t feel the same way about him.
Still, a petty part of Jax wished Tom could be proud of being seen with him.
“Your first walk of shame,” he joked.
Tom rubbed a hand across his face. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I fell asleep here.”
“It’s okay. Hey, don’t tell anyone I’m such a boring kisser I sent you to sleep.”
“I wasn’t bored.”
“I’m kidding. It’s fine.”
Tom shook his head. “No, Jax, I don’t…I don’t even sleep on the team plane. I fell asleep here because it was the first time all day I wasn’t worried about anything.”
He sat up and rolled out of bed. Stretching his arms above his head, a little sliver of his treasure trail became visible where his T-shirt rode up, and Jax had to swallow hard against the swell of saliva. He was literally panting over this man like a fucking dog.
He had a problem.
He had a lot of problems.
In particular, he had six-foot-three of this particular problem, and it kept getting worse.
“Glad to be of service,” he said weakly, while his brain assaulted him with several other ways he could be of service.
Tom rewarded him with a heart-stopping smile.
On reflection, it looked no different than Tom’s usual smiles, but Jax had trouble imagining a time when he didn’t find everything Tom did heart-stopping. Thank God he hadn’t tried having feelings for someone earlier on in life. It was fucking debilitating.
“I’m gonna…” Tom said with a nod toward the door.
“Oh. Right. Of course. Um, bye.”
Ignoring Jax’s sudden inability to form full sentences, Tom leaned down and kissed him, just a little brush of their lips against each other. “I’ll see you later?”
“Uh-huh.”