14. Chapter 14 #3
“God, you’re beautiful,” Hank murmured. Stripped his own shirt off and leaned down, kissing Ethan again.
Finally in private, on a bed, skin-to-skin, it got heated really fast. Ethan’s hand stroked down Hank’s back, all the way to his ass, gripping the curve of it and pulling him in tighter.
Last time, they hadn’t even gotten naked. Just ground together, panting into each other’s mouths as they’d gotten off. But Hank wanted more this time. Wanted to get his hands—and maybe even his mouth—on Ethan.
Hank pulled back, taking in the flush creeping down Ethan’s chest. Reaching out, he began to undo Ethan’s jeans. Tugging them down, too, along with his underwear. Ethan didn’t say anything, just watched him with hungry eyes.
Ethan’s cock was hard, leaking at the tip, flushed even redder than his chest. Hank had spent so long just thinking about it—but never seeing it—and it hit him hard that this was finally, finally, happening.
It was a little intimidating to do this, though really not so much different than when he did it to himself, so after Hank gave himself a pep talk, he stroked a hand down Ethan’s abs. Watching, with fascination and intense interest, as Ethan’s cock twitched against his stomach.
“Please,” Ethan begged. And how was Hank supposed to do anything else, after that?
Ethan pushed into his touch, Hank curling his hand around him, giving an experimental squeeze and tug. He felt so good, better than all his fantasies put together.
Breathing hard, Ethan leveraged himself up, resting on one elbow, and started pushing at Hank’s pants. It was incredibly distracting, and even more so when Ethan got them down and wrapped his hand around Hank’s dick, too.
It took them a minute to get better positioned but then it was good, and then it was better, and then it was amazing.
His touch and Ethan’s touch, blending together, give and take.
Pleasure lighting up Ethan’s face, making his eyes flutter shut.
Hank leaned in, kissing him, deep and sure, and felt his orgasm approaching.
But he didn’t want to come yet. It was so fucking good all he wanted was for it to go on and on and on.
“Feels incredible,” Ethan murmured against his mouth. They were barely kissing now, distracted presses of their mouths and all heavy breaths. “God, I’m so fucking crazy about you.”
That was incredible, too, that Ethan could say that, with his whole chest, and Hank could not just listen to the words but accept them. Understand that whatever this intense craving was, taking over his body, one organ at a time, it was mutual.
“God,” Hank panted, and Ethan did something sinful and spine-tingling with his hand, and he was gone, shuddering through his orgasm.
Ethan followed only a few seconds later, and after wringing the last bit out of him, Hank flopped down next to him.
“Oh look,” Ethan said, glancing next to him. “Max knew what we’d be up to.” He reached out, grabbing a handful of the tissues from the box that Max had, God, thoughtfully set there on the table next to the bed.
“Don’t say that,” Hank begged, and Ethan just laughed. Clearly less concerned than Hank was about what their captain thought they’d be doing in this bed.
They cleaned up and then Ethan slid closer, not making any move to get dressed. Trailing a hand up and down Hank’s bare chest. If Ethan was going to keep touching him that way, they could just not get dressed ever again.
“I thought we were gonna take it slow,” Ethan teased in a low voice as Hank leaned in, pressing a kiss against his collarbone. His skin was so warm and soft. Hank wanted to kiss him all over. Which . . . maybe that had been the slow part. That he hadn’t started there.
“Maybe that was taking it slow,” Hank pointed out. Even though he knew what Ethan meant.
Ethan just chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. I kinda expected we’d pretend to watch Charlie’s stupid show and make out a little. But . . . well, I’m not mad about this, either.”
“We could’ve done that,” Hank agreed, “but I’m not mad about it either. And not only because Charlie’s show was so bad.”
“So bad,” Ethan agreed.
For a moment they were quiet. It was peaceful, Hank decided. The kind of being that he’d fantasized about so much when he was in Syracuse and Ethan was here, and it seemed, from what Ethan had said earlier, that he felt the same.
They were more, obviously, but they still had this rock-solid foundation of friendship, too. Hank didn’t think there was anyone he’d ever liked as much as he liked Ethan Barnes.
“You know,” Ethan spoke up, breaking the silence, “you’re probably going to be by yourself on the road. No roommate. We don’t have anyone else on an ELC who doesn’t already have a roommate.”
“Oh.” Hank had been rooming with Bo so long—tolerating his weird eccentricities he didn’t know how he’d feel, being alone.
Though he wouldn’t really be alone, because there was Ethan, but naturally Charlie had demanded that Ethan room with him, even though he had a contract that meant he didn’t have to share.
“What that means,” Ethan added with a smirk that Hank could feel, “is that I’m totally gonna crash your room. Like all the time.”
“Is Charlie—”
“Please don’t ask me if Charlie is gonna be okay with that,” Ethan huffed out.
Hank smiled. “Okay, then I won’t.”
“So what I’m saying is expect this, a lot,” Ethan said. He made it sound like a pseudo-threat, even though it was really more like a promise.
“Trust me, I will,” Hank said, and Ethan laughed.
It wasn’t like Ethan had expected everything about the Bandits to change the moment they brought Hank up from Syracuse.
Pre-Hank, the defense had issues, and Hank wasn’t enough to change everything, not overnight.
But Ethan had still expected better than this.
In the first, they’d scored three goals. Ethan had notched one of them, and Charlie the other two.
This wasn’t a must-win game, though in January, with the playoffs starting to really loom on the horizon and the Bandits in a tough division and an even tougher conference, they could use all the help they could get to stay in the hunt.
But then, despite their solid lead, the Bandits had come out flat in the second, and only Dom standing on his head in goal had prevented the Panthers from roaring back in a major way.
And now, in the third, despite Max pinning everyone with sad, frustrated eyes and reminding them that they needed to play three periods of hockey, not just one, during the last intermission, they’d just given up two goals in forty-three seconds.
Ethan leaned forward on the bench and tried not to make a face as the Panthers celebrated their second goal.
If he did, there was no question if the broadcast would catch it.
Barnes dramatics again, they’d say, and yes, Ethan was definitely pissed, especially because the second goal had happened because of a pretty shitty defensive move by Niko, compounded by Jonesy being not quite in position.
It was mistakes heaped on mistakes, and they looked like fucking amateur hour out there.
“Shit,” Emil muttered next to him.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed.
He didn’t need to look down the line of guys to see Charlie’s expression to know how it had flattened out.
Two-goal night for him, and the Bandits were still going to possibly blow the game.
Ethan had watched enough of these on his laptop last year, and that had been shitty enough, but participating in them was so much worse than Ethan had expected.
Losing always sucked, but the inconsistencies were just killer.
Of course, it didn’t help that Ethan and his line felt like it was under constant attack. It wasn’t new, but that didn’t make it any easier. Hard to get a play together when Ethan was just trying to stay alive out there.
Charlie leaned over, talking right over Emil, Joey, and Gabriel. “Watch it, okay?”
It was hard, but Ethan didn’t roll his eyes. His line hadn’t been giving the puck up. They hadn’t created as many opportunities in the offensive zone as he wanted, but they hadn’t been the problem, either.
“Tell Gian that,” Emil muttered.
And Gian had been struggling lately. Too many turnovers, too many shifts without a shot on goal. On one hand, Ethan had been pleased to get up to the third line, but it had sucked for Gian to be shifted down.
“They should put you on Max’s line,” Charlie complained. “He’d protect you.”
And that was the thing about Max—he was so gentle and sweet off the ice, and even on the ice, most of the time—but he was built big, too. Tall and broad and really fucking strong. He didn’t start fights, but if someone fucked with him—or fucked with Charlie, specifically—he’d finish the fight.
“I’m not a winger,” Ethan complained.
Emil shoved an elbow into his side.
“Not that being a winger is bad,” Ethan explained in a rush.
“You wanna be a winger or get your ass kicked?” Charlie asked archly.
Then before Ethan could reply, he went over the bench, and Ethan couldn’t even argue with him.
“Fucker,” Ethan muttered.
Emil shot him a commiserating look. “Like Barney even gets to decide who’s on Max’s line.”
But that was the most annoying thing about Charlie; he was so good, so dominant, with that huge-ass hockey brain, he kinda could dictate that.
He’d sidle up to their coach, Silas Gray, and put the idea in his head, and a week later, Silas would announce something that every single person on the team knew had been Charlie’s idea first.
“You know he can,” Ethan said. But he didn’t want to be on Max’s line.
He wanted to run his own line. He was a center.
Like Charlie was a center. He’d been working his ass off on faceoffs all year so that he’d stay a center.
He’d even made it to the third line, and now Charlie wanted to undermine all that hard fucking work.
Besides, he didn’t need protection; maybe it would be nice, but he didn’t need it.
“There he goes,” Emil said, as Charlie stole the puck from Sam Bennett and took off, entering the Bandits’ offensive zone with a speed that only a few guys in the NHL could match.