Coast to Coast (Raptors Book 1)

by RJ Scott

  “Ah… fuck… me… shit… hurry,” Mark cried out, reduced now to merely shouting single words to express himself. Popping off his lovely cock, I then slid off the bed, found my pants and wallet, and hurried back to him. “Christ, I’m so close,” he mewled as I rolled a condom down over my dick, then ripped open the lube packet with my teeth.

  “Don’t you come yet. I want you to come when I’m inside you, not before.”

  “Mmmm Mmmm.” He hummed as his ass moved in a side to side motion. I doused his spittle-coated hole with lube, then worked it slowly into him, using my fingers to rub and coat him internally. When he was slicked up and muttering vowels only, I took his hips in my hands and pulled him back onto me, inch by inch, giving him a second to adjust to my possession. God above but he was hot and tight. I bent down over his back, nipped at his shoulder, then leaned back and pumped into him with a passion. He yelped when I drove home, my fingers deep into his flesh, keeping him still as I reveled in the feel of his body stretching around me, accepting me, and then gently constricting around me.

  “Ah… Oh… more. More. Ahh, god… more! Fuck me harder. Rowen, oh shit, that’s… yes!”

  He was shouting now. A more vocal, beautiful bottom I’d never had the pleasure of being with. The man was wildly passionate, his cries and shouts spurring me on. I gave him harder and faster, pounding into him with such force that he was now resting against the headboard, his fingers digging at and shredding the worn wallpaper over the bed. Someone in the next room shouted at us to be quiet, so I fucked Mark harder. He pounded on the wall, his brow resting on the headboard. My balls tightened up, and I thrust one final time, as deep as I could go. A low, keening sound escaped him. I fumbled around under him, finding his cock. He fucked my hand for a moment, then shot all over the pillows and sheets. I wiped my fingers on his throat and jawline, then jerked him upright and licked off the thick, warm lines of his cum from his overheated skin. He was salty and musky, a wonderful taste. I went back for more, cleaning off his neck and jaw. Mark sagged in my arms, spent and coated with sweat. We tumbled to our sides, my cock slipping free of his ass. He made a sad little sound at the loss.

  I peppered his chin and eyelids with kisses, easing him closer to my side. I felt something soaking through my hair to dampen my scalp.

  “I think I’m lying on your cum puddle,” I informed him. He snorted weakly as he battled to catch his breath. I was too satisfied to care overly much. “You’re a wild little bottom, aren’t you?” I rolled my head so that I could enjoy his profile.

  “Sometimes,” he confessed, rolling to the side to look at me. “Do you always top?”

  “Mm, usually. You okay with that?”

  “Yeah, I am.” He pushed up to rest on his elbow, his hand bolstering his head. “Can we do this again?”

  “Give me ten minutes or so. A little water would be nice.” I gave him a wink, then left the bed, padding into the bathroom and flushing the condom. As much as I needed a shower, the scummy residue on the shower door gave me second thoughts. The cum drying on my hair overran my worries about soap scum, and I jumped in, using a small bar of soap to wash both my body and my hair because someone had not stocked any shampoo. The towel smelled a little funky when I dried my face. I found a small tube of toothpaste that I prayed had been put there by the management, and brushed my teeth with my index finger. Tying the towel around my waist, I walked back to the room, finding Mark seated on the bed, wonderfully naked yet, his legs stretched out in front of him, nursing a cold bottle of water. “Where did you get that?”

  “The machine outside.”

  I tossed the towel to the floor and crawled into bed with him. We still had an hour to kill. “Did you dash out with your balls bouncing in the wind?”

  “No, I pulled my pants on. Then I took them off because I thought I might want you again.” He passed me the bottle, his brown eyes making all kinds of carnal promises I hoped his hands, mouth, and ass were planning on keeping. “Do you do this often? Hook up in questionable motels with men you don’t like?”

  I drank most of the water, handed it back to him, and then ran a finger down his still tacky chest. He had a fine line of hair running between his pectorals down over his flat stomach, then ending in a neatly trimmed bush of dark curls.

  “Not really. I don’t really date much.”

  “Too busy with hockey?” He finished the bottle, then tossed it to the floor beside the wet towel.

  “No, too busy not caring about it.”

  His eyebrow danced up his forehead and got lost in damp curls. How cute. “Are you recovering from a broken heart?”

  I cupped his chin, hoping he’d stop the inquisition, and led his mouth to mine. He opened with eagerness, leaning up and into the kiss, his arms slowly coming around my neck. I took him down to the bed, sliding a leg between his and licking into his mouth with lazy passion.

  “Tell me.” He sighed when my lips traveled down his throat. “Tell me why you don’t date. Are you snakebit?”

  I paused in my seduction, lifting my head up from the joy that was his clavicle. “Can we shelve this for a later time. We have less than fifty minutes now, and I can think of much better ways to spend that time than rehashing old romances that went down in flames.”

  “So you’re so averse to romance because you were hurt. See, that makes—where are you going?” He sat up when I left the bed to find my pants. “I didn’t mean to open up any wounds that might not be healed. I just want to know more about you.”

  I stepped into my underwear, then yanked my jeans up over my ass with attitude. “All you need to know about me is what I put on my résumé.”

  “You never filled out a résumé. You signed a contract that was negotiated with my father and you and an agent who I suspect used her wiles on my father to get you some of the most outrageous provisos I have ever seen included in an NHL coach’s contract.” He threw himself off the bed as he barked at me. “What do you really know about hockey coaching contracts? Or hockey for that matter?”

  “I know enough to see that yours is going to be the death of this club,” he snapped back. Oh my, I did love seeing that fire in his eyes. Such a sexy man he was when his dander was up. Speaking of up, my dick was getting nice and hard now. I unzipped, shoved my pants and underwear down to my ankles, and took my cock in hand. Mark’s gaze flew down to my dick, and he ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip.

  “Forty minutes now,” I said, and he nodded, his eyes roaming over my chest, then slowly closing as he crawled back into the bed, lay down on his back, and reached between his legs to play with his glistening, slicked-up hole. I fell on him, ravenous, claiming his mouth and his ass again in bed and then once more in the shower, which he used but only under extreme duress.

  We were an hour late checking out. I grabbed a book of matches and tossed them to Mark as we walked to my car. “Call them when we get home. Set up a weekly rendezvous time for us. And next time make sure you bring lots of condoms, lube, and toys.”

  He gave me a dour look, but I knew he’d call. “When you say toys, do you mean rope?”

  Now it was time for me to raise an eyebrow. “Do you want it to mean rope?”

  He smiled that devil’s smile and got into the car. I grinned at the sun slowly sinking in a beautiful purple and pink desert skyline. I suspected that this man was going to keep me on my toes. I couldn’t wait to return to the Gila Monster Motor Court next week to see what kind of dance he’d lead me through next.

  Thirteen

  Mark

  I didn’t like to be laughed at. I was used to it, but I didn’t have to like it.

  In New York, everyone had laughed at the newbie model who wanted to go it alone. In my family I was always the youngest, the baby and fodder for everyone’s jokes. Also, I was sure out there in Hockey-land the fact that a former model being part of a team attempting to drag the Raptors into order was enough to cause all kinds of hilarity.

  So yeah, I had thick skin
that not much penetrates, but what I’d just come across was enough to have me seeing red.

  “You can go,” I told Henry.

  Aarni took one look at me and smirked before turning his attention back to Henry. “You can stay.”

  “Henry…” I warned and stared until he realized who he should be listening to.

  Henry extricated himself from where Aarni had him blocked in a corner, and hurried as fast as he could on skates with the guards on, back toward the locker room without a backward glance. Aarni turned to face me fully, propped up on the wall, smug as shit.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Westman-Reid?”

  “You want to repeat what you just said?” I asked and crossed my arms over my chest. I was already shorter than Aarni, add in the fact that he was on skates and he towered over me.

  He tilted his head as if he was examining me, and he still had that smug grin on his face.

  “What part?” he asked.

  “The part about Mark, the pansy-ass pretty boy who thinks he can call the shots when he’s a waste of fucking space?”

  Oh yeah. I’d heard the whole thing or at least the last of whatever poison Aarni was pouring into Henry’s ears. I wasn’t even supposed to be down here, but when I’d received an email with yet another coaching change from Rowen, you’d better believe I’d worked up a head of steam and was heading straight for his office. Which is when I took a wrong freaking turn in this maze of corridors, which took me right through the locker room, much to my embarrassment, and then out the other side to whatever this was.

  I waited for Aarni to be embarrassed, mortified, apologetic, but he laughed in my face, then pushed himself from the wall and mirrored my stance. He was daring me to say more, and a small prick of uncertainty had me wavering a little. He was intimidating and laughing at me, and I felt like a stupid little kid. Then he leaned in closer and whispered.

  “Maybe you and me could get some time at Gila Monster Motor Court, huh?”

  The bottom fell out of my world, and my shock must have been visible because he winked at me and then crowded me back, much as he had Henry.

  “Step away,” I managed, but he didn’t do as I asked. Instead he stared down at me. I could smell his cloying aftershave up this close and see the derision in his eyes. He didn’t respect me; he didn’t respect the team. I doubt that he respected anyone but himself.

  “Mr. Westman-Reid?” A voice from behind us had Aarni moving away smoothly, to reveal Ryker Madsen. “Henry just came in looking weird. Everything okay?” he added.

  Aarni smiled at me, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes and with the animosity in his gaze, I couldn’t help but feel threatened.

  “Management stuff,” Aarni said dismissively and stalked past Ryker, brushing the younger man’s arm with enough force that Ryker had to steady himself on his skates. For a second Ryker tensed, and I waited for a smackdown between the two, but then Ryker shook it off.

  “You okay, sir?” he asked again with the greatest respect.

  I nodded because that was about the limit of communication right now, and Ryker frowned.

  “You want me to get someone?”

  I shook my head mutely, then pulled my shoulders back. What was I going to say? That right about now I felt like an idiot, and a big part of me wanted Ryker to fetch Rowen so that he could calm me the hell down.

  “Everything’s okay,” I said and pasted as confident a smile as I could manage on my face. It must have been convincing because Ryker headed back to the locker room, only stopping just outside the door and turning to face me.

  “Aarni’s not worth it,” Ryker murmured. “You should watch him, sir.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Since when was advice from someone fresh into their twenties so insightful? I continued on to Rowen’s office, but he wasn’t in there. I found him waiting on the ice, and I knew I couldn’t interrupt him as the team headed out for a game-day training session. He didn’t even look my way, and I was restless and angry and ashamed at not being able to handle Aarni’s shit.

  When Aarni skated by and winked at me through the plexiglass, I turned tail and fled back to my office like an idiot.

  “What happened?” Jason asked as I passed him by the coffee machine in the management complex. He looked exhausted, but then he was juggling being interim general manager of the team with his own work for the Westman-Reid foundation.

  “What?” I tried for innocent, but Jason got that big brother expression on his face. With a sigh, I admitted to myself that I needed to talk to someone. “Can we talk?”

  “In there.” He pointed at his office, and I slipped in, and it felt right to want to talk to him, and maybe I needed some big brother wisdom. He followed me in, passed me a coffee of my own, then shut the door with his heel. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  How much did I tell him? How about the fact that I was sleeping with the head coach or that actually it was less sleeping and more fucking each other into oblivion. We’d just passed week three, and I’d yet to take ropes or toys or anything with me to our hookups that wasn’t vanilla.

  Not that what we did was vanilla, and I squirmed in my seat at the memory of the last time. Me, over the bed, unable to move, and Rowen explaining what he was doing to me in such exquisite detail as he fucked me hard…

  Nope, I wasn’t going to tell Jason about what his little brother was getting up to in a no-tell motel with dirty ceilings. Which meant how could I begin to explain Aarni and his intimidation techniques? I sipped the coffee, the caffeine delicious and much needed. Drinking gave me a few moments to think, and by the time I was halfway through the cup, I was ready to talk.

  “We need to check the Aarni contract again.”

  There, that was easy enough. No mention of rough-and-ready sex, or the fact that I thought Aarni had threatened me with revealing what he knew, or questions as to how the hell he knew at all.

  Jason sat back in his chair, reaching down for a folder and placing it on his desk.

  “A cap hit of four million for each of the two years remaining on his solid gold no-move contract. Which means Aarni can’t be traded or sent to the minors without his permission. The only way out as GM, is to buy out his contract and then place him on waivers without permission. He won’t go for it, and we don’t have the money to do it. That is our only out.”

  “Eight million.” I exhaled noisily because that was insurmountable for the Raptors right now. With falling ticket revenue, lack of sponsorship and investment, and a failing team, we didn’t have eight thousand to waste, let alone eight million.

  “Not that it will be that up front, but it could cost us big-time, stop the team from having the money to spend on someone good to fill his spot.” He scrubbed his eyes. “I’ve checked the rules—we have to multiply the remaining salary by the buyout amount, which is all dependent on age, and that gives us the total buyout cost, which we can spread evenly over twice the remaining contract years, so that’s four years.” He checked the piece of paper on his desk. “Something about subtracting the annual buyout cost by the player’s salary, which gives us a cap hit, which you then take off annual average salary. I don’t fucking know what I’m talking about.”

  “What the hell was Dad thinking?”

  “You really want to go there?” Jason asked and joined me in a sigh. “And he doesn’t even have a morals clause in his contract. But then, that would be ineffective anyway. Believe me, I had the lawyers at Westman-Reid check every detail. They told me that hockey is a game where violence and intimidation on ice wasn’t something that would trigger a clause anyway, so Dad didn’t have one put in.”

  I sunk into the soft chair and rested my coffee on my belly. Something in what Jason had said made me think. “What about a crime? What if he assaulted someone or threatened assault?”

  Jason straightened in his chair and very deliberately placed his coffee on a coaster emblazoned with the Raptors logo. “Did he threaten you?” he asked. “Is tha
t what got you so rattled?”

  “No, but he…” I paused and checked behind me to make sure the door was shut. “I think he has a weird kind of coercive control over Henry.” I didn’t add that I’d just had a taste of the same shit and had very nearly crumbled. Aarni was a big, threatening presence, and there was a scary hate in his expression. God knows what his anger and pressure did to the younger guys on the team.

  “You think? Do you have actual proof?” Jason picked up a pen, and I thought he expected me to detail what I knew. Which was nothing but what I instinctively thought.

  “I don’t have anything explicit.”

  Jason put the pen down, but he didn’t seem angry, just disappointed. “Maybe Coach Carmichael can pull Aarni around, and we’re worrying about nothing?”

  I thought Rowen wanted to kill the guy, not pull him around, which led me to the next issue I needed to tell my GM, or my brother, or in whatever capacity Jason needed to know.

  “Rowen and I have been seeing each other.”

  Jason raised his eyebrows. “Define ‘seeing.’”

  Hot, sweaty, desperate sex, in the dirtiest, nastiest way, very often three times in one visit, and oh yeah, I’m addicted, and I don’t think I hate him anymore, and actually I might like him a bit.

  “Seeing,” I repeated meaningfully and added a nod, which appeared to allow Jason to understand.

  “Well, uhm. Okay,” Jason murmured and picked up his pen again, tapping it on the Aarni Lankinen folder. “Stay safe and… yeah.” He looked embarrassed, and I decided to let him off the hook.

  “It’s okay, big brother. I wasn’t asking for permission or needing guidance. I just thought as GM you should know.”

  He blustered a bit and then gave me a rueful sigh. “Just be careful, and I don’t mean in a condom kind of way. Shit”—he scrubbed at his eyes—“I didn’t need to add that, did I?”