Chapter 9 #4
Then soap slicked warm over my shoulders and down my arms, his palms broad and sure as he worked it into my back and lower. My head fell forward. “Oh, Christ.”
A low sound, like he was pleased with himself or me. “Good?”
“You have no idea.”
His hands moved lower, thumb nudging lightly between my cheeks while his other hand held my hip. I exhaled and closed my eyes, kept breathing through the flush of arousal.
“You’re gorgeous, you know?” His voice was low and soft, almost lost to the hiss of water. “Noticed it as soon as we met. I didn’t want to notice. But I did.”
I turned around, tiles cool against my shoulders. “It was part of the job.”
“Maybe.” Water had clumped his lashes, jaw rough with stubble. “But it’s not just that.”
My ribs felt tight and heavy. I grinned through it. “You don’t have to sweet-talk me, you know? I’m a sure thing.”
“Stellan,” he said. Just that—my name. Then he pulled me into a kiss that felt like an answer to a question I hadn’t actually asked.
We toweled off, stumbled back into the bedroom, and fell onto the covers with our hair still damp. City light cut him into planes of shadow and skin—broad shoulders, mouth slightly parted as he studied me.
I shot him a smile. “How do you want me?”
“Wrong question.”
“Says who?”
“Me.” He leaned in a little, close enough to brush his nose along my cheek, breath warm. “The much better question is: How do you want me?”
Oh. I swallowed. “Honestly? Any way you want.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Matt.” I let it sit between us for a moment. “I actually like this, okay? I like you.” Shit. Too much. I continued quickly. “This isn’t me doing charity work for closeted athletes, all right? Or guilt, or whatever. I want to be here. I know you’ll make it good.”
For a beat, he didn’t move. Then he reached down, still watching my face as he ran his knuckles along my cock, fully hard already from kissing, from watching water cascade down his chest. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay.”
Not casual, no—but right now, it felt like we were on the same page about that.
“Okay,” I echoed.
He moved away just long enough to fumble through the nightstand drawer, then returned with lube and a condom.
“Good boy,” I said.
It got me a gentle bite to the jaw, which, honestly? Hardly a punishment, try again. I told him as much, and he laughed a little as he slicked his fingers and asked, “You nervous?”
“What? No.” I was. “Why?”
“Seems you talk more shit when you’re nervous,” he said, and that—okay. Yeah. Probably true.
“I’ve done this before, you know?” I aimed for a breezy tone, nothing that would give me away. Because, well. Yeah, I’d done this before. But this was Matt. His first time with a man, and fuck, that meant something. I wanted him to remember it. Remember me.
God, I was an idiot. Couldn’t help it, though.
Our bodies pressed together, facing each other on our sides with one of my legs thrown over his, opening myself up. He brought his fingers down between my thighs, pausing just enough that I could stop him. As if.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
“Just checking,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.
“Checking what?”
“If you’re gonna beg.”
I laughed, then lost my breath when he pressed a finger inside. Yeah. God. Okay. I closed my eyes just long enough to relax into it, then shifted back into his touch. “I don’t beg,” I said out loud. “Might make some empty threats, though.”
He kissed me through the careful stretch of a second finger, then pulled back to watch my face. “Scary,” he said softly, as if it were praise, and I nodded.
“I am.” My voice sounded like it had been scraped over gravel. “Also, keep—yes. That. Keep doing that.”
He grinned a little. “That a threat?”
“You bet.” I put my hand on his wrist, not to stop him, just there, feeling the hectic flutter of his pulse. It lit something in my belly, like a sudden burst of fireworks, like the explosion of color on his wall. “One more.”
“You—”
“I’m sure.”
He kissed my throat and complied, and something in me flashed to the way I’d seen him on the ice—committed and intense, no room for other thoughts to crowd in. And this, now? God, it felt just like that. Like I was at the very center of his world.
How the hell am I going to recover?
“Stellan.” He shaped it like a prayer. “I want—can I?”
Yes.
I kissed him, and the whole room seemed to swing off its axis. Mouths opening, his free hand sliding up my back, one of mine curling around the nape of his neck. He pulled me closer until I could feel him hard against my thigh and—yes. Right.
“Put the condom on,” I told him.
His breath hitched. Then he pulled out his fingers, and I rolled onto my other side, foot propped up, and tugged him against my back. “Like this.”
Things went quiet for a moment, soft jazz still floating somewhere around the distant edges of the place. Then he pressed close, mouth open against the back of my neck. I twisted my head to watch his face as he slicked himself.
The first inch stole my breath.
It didn’t hurt—God, no. But his face changed, focus shattering into something open and bright, hands clamping hard on my hips. “Fuck.”
“That’s the idea.”
He laughed, rough, and pressed deeper. I exhaled into it, shadows shifting in my mind. Matt. This—him and me. It wasn’t supposed to feel real, but fuck, it did. Felt like something that could bring me to my knees.
I craned my head and kissed him instead. He rose on one elbow to meet me, his hips shifting with the motion, and that… oh. Fuck, yes. I twisted back into it. “Come on, I’m fine. Move.”
He gave a careful, rolling thrust that punched the breath out of me. Yep, ruined. Almost dizzying now, the way each slow stroke sharpened the pleasure, how it spread and brightened.
“Stellan,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question or something else altogether. Either way, I kissed him.
He wrapped one arm around me, hand flat to my chest, and fucked into me with a hint more confidence. Decisive, not rough, and that, God, yes. I let my head fall forward on the mattress, tried to keep quiet and couldn’t.
“Good?” he asked, just smug enough to make my cheeks go hot.
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Pun intended?”
I laughed, sheets sliding silky-smooth against my face. He gave a particularly hard thrust that hit exactly right, and I made a noise that broke somewhere low in my throat. “Okay,” I managed. “Listen, whatever I said about—”
He rolled his hips again, sure, and I lost the end of my sentence. “Yeah?” he prompted, teeth against my shoulder.
“About kale and protein shakes and whatever?” I dragged in a breath. “Keep doing it. Because it’s working.”
He laughed, rough and low. This. Bodies slotting into a rhythm and the soft noises he tucked into my skin. One of my arms reaching back to pull him even closer, his fingers warm on my ribs. Darkness and the shift of covers under us, the low orange glow of a cloudy night sky.
“Close,” I told him, and he got a hand around me, my fingers slotting into the gaps between his. Quick, a little out of sync with his thrusts, but God, yeah, good. Heat like liquid gold, muscles pulling tight. His thumb brushed over the tip of my cock, and I swore out loud.
“Jesus, Stellan,” he murmured, almost awed.
I got my thoughts into a straight line, if only for a second. “Thought hockey was your religion?”
He laughed, then raised himself up to kiss me just as his hand tightened, the angle of his hips a little sharper. And that—there. A clean drop straight to the bottom, city lights behind my lids. Shadows and heat and the space between us. Where we begin. Lyrics, maybe. A poem. Maybe nothing.
Behind me, his whole body locked and then shuddered loose, mouth open against the back of my neck. A soft groan as he held on to me like nothing else made sense.
I…
Heart rabbiting hard behind my ribs, breath fluttering. An oddly weightless amount of space in my chest, and—no. God, no. I wasn’t falling. Couldn’t be. Too big, too impossible.
For a few seconds, the world went still. Then he made a low, helpless noise into my skin, halfway to a laugh and doused in disbelief. “Okay, fuck. That was…”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
He kissed my shoulder, then pulled out, and I rolled onto my back to get a real look at him. Darkness softened all contours, but even so, I caught the way he seemed a little frayed around the edges, like something in him had blown wide open. My stomach pulled tight.
“I should get going,” I said, not even sure where it’d come from. Animal instinct, maybe. Some deep-rooted part of me that recognized the taste of danger.
Something flashed across his face—hurt, plain to read even in the shadows. “Wow,” he said. “Okay.”
Shit.
“No, I didn’t mean—Matt.” I grabbed his elbow, fingers digging in. “It was good. Really fucking good. It’s just late, and you’ve got practice tomorrow, and I’m working. I just meant I should clean up.”
“Right.” He glanced away, voice offhanded. “What time do you start work?”
My stupid heart tripped over itself. “Tomorrow?”
“No, next January.” He snorted. “Tomorrow, yes.”
“At ten.”
“Plenty of time in the morning to go home and change, then.”
He… That…
Wow.
I swallowed. “Stay here, you mean?”
“If you want.” He shrugged one shoulder. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the guest bathroom. And last I checked, an alarm works the same all over the city.”
I smiled through a sense of vertigo. “What a pitch.”
“Not trying to sell you on it. Just…” A rare beat of hesitation. “Just offering.”
I shouldn’t. I really fucking shouldn’t, lines blurring in my head in ways I couldn’t undo. But his gaze had returned to me, eyes dark and steady, waiting. And I—I wanted to. Breath tripping over the stupid thud of my heart.
I’d love to.
I roped the words back in—too much, too close to the fire. Nodded instead and smiled. “Okay. I’ll stay.”