Chapter 23
THEO
Theo never thought he would feel Rowan’s erection pressing against him again—weird hallway dry hump notwithstanding—but here he was, in a hotel bed, with Rowan’s trembling body under his.
What they were doing felt built on shaky ground to begin with. But he also knew that further under that was a foundation that was rock solid.
He kept kissing Rowan, updating his memory of what he tasted like, and what his body felt like under his. They were fairly evenly matched as teenagers. Theo was a little taller, but they had similar body types. Rowan stayed small. Theo hadn’t. He liked the difference.
“So, are we doing anything?” Rowan asked when Theo came up for a breath. His eyes were that intense, deep brown that was the reason people called him laser eyes.
“Eager.”
“We just talked about how no one has touched my dick since the dawn of time.”
“Alright, alright.” Theo slid a hand down to give Rowan’s dick a squeeze through his pajamas and listened to his gasp. His length was warm and hard and thick, and kicked a bit in Theo’s grip.
“Teddy,” he said, his tone of voice instantly filling Theo with the same protective streak he had for Rowan those many years ago.
When people would doubt him, or call him overhyped.
Or when they talked about getting drafted, and Rowan told him how much pressure he was already feeling to save an entire franchise when he’d never played a single NHL game.
“I got you, baby,” he said, tugging Rowan out of his t-shirt, and pulling his pajamas off. His own pajama pants were next, and he reveled in the way Rowan’s eyes had barely left his chest since he knocked on his door. He looked hungry for what he saw.
“What do you want to do?”
“Just...touch me,” Rowan said. Theo obeyed.
He slipped a hand into Rowan’s boxer briefs and wrapped his fingers around Rowan’s erection.
Theo was bracing himself above Rowan on one arm, and Rowan wrapped his hand around Theo’s bracing wrist. Theo couldn’t take his eyes off of him.
Slowly, he gave Rowan a couple of strokes, and Rowan let out a quiet, shaky moan.
“Let’s take your boxers off, alright?” Theo asked, keeping his voice as quiet as Rowan was being. They didn’t know who was on the other side of the hotel wall, but it was one of their teammates who was likely still awake.
Rowan nodded, and let Theo pull his boxers all the way down.
Theo’s teenage spank bank was solidly populated by this very dick.
Nineteen-year-old Theo would never believe what they were doing.
Seventeen-year-old Theo wouldn’t be surprised at all that even with the gap in their relationship, they had ended up in bed together again.
He had believed that Rowan was forever at that age, even though now he knew how na?ve that thought was.
Theo wanted to get his mouth on Rowan, but Rowan asked for his hand.
“Lick,” Theo said, holding his palm in front of Rowan’s face. Rowan complied, and since Theo had always read Rowan like a book, he could tell he was feeling shy. “Still good?”
“Good.”
“Alright,” Theo said, getting his hand back around Rowan.
A little spit wasn’t going to magically make what they were doing an easy-slide dream, but it was better than nothing.
Rowan was uncut, so Theo wasn’t worried.
He stroked Rowan firm and slow, but all he was getting out of him was a string of shaky breaths, and an absolute death grip on his wrist.
“Is this not doing it for you? Tell me what you like.” It had been years since he’d jerked Rowan off. Maybe he wanted something different these days.
“No, that’s good. It’s maybe too good.”
Theo gave him a confused look, but didn’t stop.
“I’m gonna come,” he said, the hand that wasn’t about to break the bones in Theo’s wrist coming up to cover his face.
Theo’s brain had just enough time to realize what was happening in order to speed up a little, but he barely needed to do anything special before Rowan was coming, almost completely silently, his body tense as his orgasm spilled over Theo’s knuckles.
It was alarming. Rowan wasn’t displaying any “I’m having a great time here” traits.
“Ro, are you alright?”
“That was embarrassing,” Rowan said through his hands. He had both his hands up now covering his entire face.
“What was embarrassing about that?” Theo asked.
He tried to move one of Rowan’s hands, but Rowan wasn’t budging.
Theo pulled back to give him some space.
He was straddling one of Rowan’s legs. Rowan forced himself to calm his breathing down before lowering his hands.
His eyes stayed on the ceiling, though. He wouldn’t look at Theo.
“That was, like, literally thirty seconds.”
“Yeah, and it’s your first handy in eight years. I kinda thought you might pop like that. It’s fine. You don’t have to impress me. The rest of the world, sure, maybe they’re always looking for you to impress them, but me? My feelings for you are not based on how long your dick can stay hard for.”
That got a little hollow laugh out of Rowan, and he finally looked at Theo.
Theo leaned over to give him a kiss, then got out of bed to grab a warm washcloth.
Rowan let Theo clean him up, which Theo was pleasantly surprised about.
Then he curled up next to Rowan and put his head on Rowan’s chest, pulling the covers over them.
He could feel how tense Rowan was still.
Rowan wrapped an arm around Theo’s big shoulders, and Theo snuggled against him.
“You’re not even hard anymore,” Rowan whispered.
“We have plenty of time, baby. No rush here. Honestly, it’s probably a good idea to take it slow. We are not free from shit we need to figure out.”
Theo didn’t need an orgasm from Rowan right at that moment.
What was better was feeling Rowan’s hands get to know his body again.
His new, grownup body. Fingertips followed the lines of Theo’s shoulders, the dip in his back, the pathway up his ribs.
Rowan settled a hand on his cheek, and he couldn’t help but nuzzle into it.
Theo hadn’t let himself have this—the touch of another man—in way too long.
And the fact that it was Rowan was flooding his brain with oxytocin.
“You got so furry,” Rowan said. His thumb swept across Theo’s bearded cheek. Rowan was not wrong. Theo had a thick dusting of hair across his chest, down his abdomen, all the way to his dick.
“Gotta keep warm out there on the ice.”
“Oh yeah. So cold when you’re skating around an NHL arena for three hours.”
“It would be cold if I shaved, so I can’t do that.”
“God no,” Rowan said, his hand running over the portion of Theo’s chest he had access to. It made Theo shiver. Rowan’s fingers ghosted over Theo’s nipple, and suddenly Theo was having a difficult time not getting hard. Rowan bit his lip when he felt the beginning of Theo’s erection against his leg.
“Do you want—”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want?”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Theo said.
He was rocking his hips against Rowan’s thigh, and he could probably come just like this, worked up from Rowan and the high of finishing the season strong enough to get first seed in the West. The hand Rowan had on his cheek slid down to his ass. Rowan still looked nervous.
“Good,” Theo breathed, looking at Rowan to assure him he wasn’t doing anything embarrassing.
“Okay,” Rowan said. Theo pulled his hips away enough for Rowan to slide a hand down the front of his boxers. Theo tipped his forehead onto Rowan’s chest and sighed, being careful to be quiet too. If Rowan was nervous about being heard, he could control himself.
On the ice, Rowan was the most confident player Theo had ever seen. He was a presence, a force. He was respected, and he carried himself like he knew every inch of his talent.
Right now, that Rowan was nowhere to be found.
“Can we get these off?” he asked, slipping his hand out from the constrictive elastic of his boxers.
“Yeah, baby,” Theo said, pushing himself back up to his knees.
Theo wasn’t shy in bed. He also wasn’t the most modest guy in the world, and the way Rowan was looking at him, his eyes trailing down the length of Theo’s body, sucking in his bottom lip to hold it between his teeth was only feeding his ego.
Theo teased him, hooking his thumbs under his boxers and pulling them down centimeter by centimeter, the vee cut of his hips leading Rowan’s eyes right where he wanted them.
Finally, he had pulled his boxers low enough to let his erection spring free, and Rowan’s mouth dropped open, his eyes glassy with lust.
There had always been a power imbalance in their relationship. When you were the “some guy” standing next to a superstar, there was no way to ignore that. When they were alone or outside hockey contexts, it was a little easier. But that imbalance had once pulled them apart.
Now, Theo felt like the one who had the upper hand. He had the confidence; he had the experience, and as the (as Rowan had assessed) injured party in their situation, he felt like Rowan was looking to him for guidance.
It kind of felt awesome, which was a scary thought. He wondered if they would ever feel truly equal to him.
“I think I need to work up to getting my mouth on you,” Rowan said, pushing himself up on his elbows.
His mouth was dick-height, and his lips were wet and inviting, and all Theo wanted was to push his cock between them.
Instead, he shimmied out of his underwear and flopped back onto the bed next to Rowan, pulling Rowan halfway on top of him.
It was Theo’s turn to get his hands on Rowan’s body, sliding down to palm Rowan’s smooth, firm ass before tickling his sides enough to hear him laugh.
“You have the best laugh,” Theo said, looking at Rowan with what he knew was bare adoration. He felt out of his skin with excitement and emotion, but Rowan was his person, and his heart was stitching together the cracks. It felt bigger in his chest than it had in years.
“No one has ever told me I have the best laugh.”
“Of course it’s the best. It’s yours. It sounds like Ro.”
“That is...very gay,” Rowan said, finally wrapping his hand around Theo’s dick.
“So gay,” Theo agreed, pressing his hips into Rowan’s grip.
He got another little laugh and nudged Rowan’s lips up to kiss his, and it felt just as magical as NHL-playing adults in a hotel room as it did when they were doing this exact thing in the basement bedroom of Rowan’s billet family’s house on a Saturday night after a home game.
Rowan had hockey-glove calloused hands that felt so good on the soft skin of Theo’s dick, and Theo let himself turn his brain off finally and sink into the feeling of being here and doing this with Rowan. His Rowan.
He kept his moans as small and quiet as he could, just loud enough for Rowan to hear, and when he came, Rowan looked a little less shy than he had when Theo had initially slipped a hand down his boxers.