4. Ben
BEN
Seattle is falling apart.
The team, definitely. The practice facility might be next.
The locker room is mostly deserted and so hot the air sticks in my lungs.
Steam pours out of the showers and crawls over the stalls like something is leaking behind the walls.
Maybe the building is rotting around us.
Why should it be any different from the team?
My body is too tired to care. My thighs ache. My shoulders feel packed with sand. I’m sick of losing and sick of Seattle, and if the showers flood the whole fucking building while I sit here, at least practice will be canceled tomorrow.
I close my eyes for a second.
When I open them, hot water is pounding down my back.
I’m naked in one of the showers with my palms braced against the tile. I don’t remember walking in or taking off my clothes. I don’t remember Fraser getting here either, but he’s leaning against the open glass door, naked and staring at me with a lazy, filthy smile.
His tattoos glisten in the steam. Black and gray ink curls around his left arm and spreads over his shoulder before climbing the side of his neck. I’ve seen every bit of it that his clothes leave uncovered. I’ve wondered what the rest looks like.
Now I know.
Ink stretches over his chest and runs down his ribs. I follow it with my eyes, already thinking about following it with my tongue. I want to start at his neck and lick my way down until I find out whether he tastes like soap or sweat or just hot skin.
My gaze reaches his cock. It’s thick and getting harder while I watch, lifting away from his body.
Fuck. I want to wrap my hand around it. I want to feel the exact moment it goes fully hard in my palm.
My own cock jerks at the thought.
Fraser sees. His smile deepens, and he starts flipping one of the green chips from casino night over his knuckles.
I can’t stop watching his fingers. Last night, they wound my tie around them. Now I picture that same slow curl around my cock, and the ache hits so hard I have to spread my feet.
A drop of water clings to the tattoo on his neck.
It slips over his shoulder and runs down his biceps, following the ink all the way to his elbow.
My tongue presses against the back of my teeth.
I want to catch the next drop with my mouth.
I want to suck at his skin until I can feel the muscle jump beneath it.
“Like what you see?”
His voice is lower than usual. Rougher. It runs through me and settles behind my balls.
He pushes away from the door. The chip hits the tile, forgotten, and then his wet body is close enough to mine that his cock almost brushes my hip. I can feel the heat of him through the steam. Smell his skin. See water shining on his bottom lip.
I want that mouth too.
Fraser reaches for me. His palm slides down my chest, barely touching, and every muscle in my stomach pulls tight beneath it. He passes my navel. Moves lower.
I know exactly where his hand is going.
I push my hips toward him.
I want his fingers around me. I want him to squeeze. I want to feel that first slow stroke while I put my mouth on the ink covering his throat—
My eyes snap open.
The team plane hums around me. The cabin lights are low, my seat belt is fastened, and my cock is so hard it hurts.
Fuck.
I yank my jacket over my lap. My hand bumps my erection through my pants, sending a pulse through it that makes me grit my teeth.
Nobody is watching. Bobby is three rows ahead, swearing at the game on his screen. Caleb is asleep across the aisle. Everybody else is busy or minding his own business.
What the fuck was that?
I’ve never had a dream about a man. I’ve never wanted a man. I’m not gay. I like women. I like their bodies and the way they smell and the noises they make when I fuck them. There’s plenty of evidence.
My brother Grayson is gay.
Hello, universe. Grayson Pope is the gay brother fucking a hot hockey player. If some cosmic message got switched, it needs to be redirected to Miami.
Hot?
Well, Vasily Korolev is objectively a good-looking man. Everybody knows that. He’s also my friend and my little brother’s boyfriend, so thinking about him naked is an excellent way to get murdered.
But was I thinking about Korolev or Fraser when I thought hot hockey player?
Fuck. I press my palms against my eyes. Fraser’s wet body is waiting for me there. The tattoos. His thighs. His hand reaching down.
It’s stress. It has to be. I got moved across the country with no warning and joined a team that can turn a three-goal lead into a public execution. Then Fraser followed me behind those trees last night and wound my tie around his fingers. My brain grabbed whatever was handy and made it weird.
My cock stays hard beneath the jacket.
The seat beside me dips, and Fraser drops into it before I can pull the jacket any higher. The seats are wide and plush. He still feels too close. His shoulder nearly touches mine, and his thigh is a few inches from the erection I’m hiding. He smells like soap. Of course he fucking does.
“Bobby’s trying to land a plane,” he says. “He’s killed all of us four times, and now he wants advice.”
I keep my eyes on the seat in front of me. “Then help him.”
“I did. He said I was making it worse.”
“He was probably right.” And I have no idea why I’m bantering about Flight Simulator with a man I… Nope, not thinking about it.
Fraser turns his head. I can feel him looking at me. “Good talk.”
I glance down the aisle. “There are twelve empty seats.”
“Fourteen.”
“Great. Pick one.”
He doesn’t move. “You wake up on the wrong side of your nightmare?”
My whole body locks. “What?”
His eyes flick to the jacket across my lap, and his mouth curls. Sleep erections are normal. He can’t know who was in the dream or where Fraser’s hand was about to land.
“Must’ve been a good nightmare,” he says.
“Go bother Bobby.” I nod toward the rows ahead.
“He’s wearing headphones.”
“Take the hint.” I pull the jacket higher.
His eyebrows go up. “You’re bitchier than usual.”
“You haven’t known me long enough to know what’s usual.”
“Two weeks has been plenty.”
I turn toward the window. There is nothing outside but cloud, which is easier to look at than him. Fraser crosses one ankle over his knee, pulling his pants tight across his thigh. My gaze catches before I can stop it.
The size of his quad explains the force he generates through a turn. That’s all I’m looking at. It’s part of my job to know how my winger moves. Wondering how that muscle would feel under my palm isn’t, so I stare out the window again.
I could call Mary, the team psychologist, after we land.
Yeah, Mary, I had a gay sex dream about my linemate, and maybe I want to lick his tattoos, but I’m straight. What’s that about?
No fucking thanks.
Fraser’s elbow brushes mine when he shifts. My pulse jumps like he touched bare skin.
“Are you planning to glare through the window for the entire flight?” he asks.
“I’m tired.” I lean my head against the seat.
“So sleep.”
“I was trying to.”
He stares at me for a few seconds. The memory of his mouth grinning through the steam makes my cock throb again, and I have to move under the jacket.
Fraser notices. “Okay,” he says, all the humor gone. “Whatever this is, enjoy it by yourself.”
He gets up and takes a seat across the aisle and two rows back. He puts on his headphones and doesn’t try to talk to me again.
Good. By the time my cock goes down, I’m pissed at him for leaving and even more pissed at myself for noticing.
Hours later, Fraser and I take our first shift together, and everything clicks.
He cuts toward the middle before I have control of the puck. I know where he’s going. I take the pass off the boards, pull it around the opposing center, and send it through a gap that barely exists.
Fraser is already there. One touch, and he snaps it under the goalie’s glove. The light goes on.
He turns toward me with both arms raised and a grin breaking across his face.
I hit him hard enough to send us both into the glass.
Bobby piles in, shouting against our helmets.
Fraser hooks an arm around my neck, his chest slamming into mine through our gear.
His visor knocks mine, and his laugh vibrates through me.
Then Bobby yanks us apart, and we’re skating toward the bench. I keep seeing water run down Fraser’s arm.
Our next shift is even better. Bobby wins a battle on the wall and chips the puck below the goal line. I backhand it through my skates without looking. Fraser takes it clean, drags it around a defenseman’s foot, and sends it back as I reach the post.
The goalie gets his pad down. The rebound kicks loose, and Fraser crashes in after it. We end up in the crease with the goalie across my legs and Fraser half on top of me.
“You weigh a fucking ton,” I tell him when the whistle goes.
“Pure muscle, Pope. Try not to sound so impressed.”
He plants a glove above my hip pad and pushes himself up. I feel the pressure through every layer.
We own the puck until the change. Next time out, I sell a pass to Bobby and send it behind my body to Fraser. He’s exactly where I expect.
For the first time since I got to Seattle, I understand why Gunderson put the three of us together. Bobby works until something opens. Fraser creates the opening. I make sure the puck gets there.
Fraser and I can barely talk without pissing each other off, but on the ice, our bodies agree about everything. That’s a hockey thought.
The third line takes the ice while we sit on the bench. Their right wing leaves the zone before the defense has full control. The first pass has nowhere to go and dies against an opposing stick.
“He left half a second early,” I say. “If he holds the wall, the defense has an outlet.”
Fraser sits beside me, breathing hard. “You want to say that louder? I don’t think he heard you.”
I turn. “I wasn’t talking to him.”
“Just about him.” Fraser reaches for his water bottle.
“It was an observation.”
“Right. Taking notes for the children.” He keeps his eyes on the ice.