Rites of Passage

by Catherine Gayle

  “You have to have a lot of dedication to get to where you have with hockey,” Darlene said. She was a business owner if I remembered correctly. Maybe a restaurant? Hard to recall. “That’s better than a lot of workers out there.”

  In these support group meetings, we all went by first names only, kind of like at Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a special case, though. Everyone knew exactly who I was—first and last names, plus my career.

  There’d been no point in trying to keep any of that secret since my story had ended up all over the news well before London had badgered me into attending. Everyone here knew as much of my story as the rest of the world did. The only part of it still a secret from them at that point was that my cheating ex-wife had been my means of contracting the disease. Not that it had remained a secret for long. Apparently, I had no qualms about opening up and spilling my guts to these complete strangers. It had been a hell of a lot easier to tell them than my teammates.

  “But there’s no reason you can’t still go out there and play hockey,” Chuck said. He was one of the first guys I’d met when I’d started coming to these meetings. The guy had been HIV-positive for well over a decade after contracting it from the partner he was still with. “I mean, unless you decide that’s what you want. But they can’t legally prevent you from playing. And there’s a higher risk of someone getting hep-B from playing sports than there is of transmitting HIV between players.”

  “Yeah, but those numbers are looking at all sports,” I pointed out. “And in most sports, you don’t have guys out there moving at thirty miles an hour, wearing knives on their feet, wielding sticks that they’re actively using to strike things, and slamming each other into unforgiving boards all the time. And that’s not even taking into account the hundred-mile-an-hour slap shots launching a piece of frozen rubber at guys’ heads.”

  “So you’re saying there’s more blood in hockey,” Chuck shot back, grinning to let me know he was joking around with me.

  But it wasn’t a joke. Not to me. “There is more blood in hockey. I mean, maybe in boxing and MMA you get a bit more, but—”

  “But nothing,” Chuck cut in, and most of the heads around the room nodded in agreement with him. “The facts are the facts. Once your blood hits the air and is no longer contained within your body, the virus dies fast. So the chances of anyone contracting HIV from you—whether you’re in a fight on the ice or you get some teeth knocked out by an errant puck or someone slashes your throat open with a skate again—are so slim as to be statistically irrelevant. Your doctors are in a lot more danger of contracting HIV from you than your teammates or opponents are, so that shouldn’t even be one of the things you consider when making your decision. Now, if this is just about the stigma since your secret is out—”

  “I don’t care about the stigma,” I interrupted, even though that was bullshit and everyone in this room knew it.

  “Right,” Darlene said, scowling at me. “Sure you don’t. Never mind the fact that you’ve got to face more of it than the rest of us combined.”

  Chuck nodded. “Look, none of us in here is going to pretend we have a clue what it’s like to be in your shoes. Because we don’t. For most of us, maybe our family and a few friends know that we have HIV, plus our doctors and a few other key people. Maybe for a handful of us, there are a few dozen people in our lives who know. But it’s not like we’ve got millions of people looking at us the way you do. But don’t try to lie to us and say that’s not playing a factor in whether you keep playing or not, because no one here’s gonna buy that.”

  “Everyone knows that’s why Magic Johnson stopped playing back in the ’90s,” Bill added. Bill was a high school biology teacher who’d been living with HIV almost as long as I’d been alive.

  “We don’t know that,” Darlene said.

  Bill rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we do. Even back then, we knew enough about HIV to know he wasn’t likely to spread it from playing sports. It was just because other players were scared. They wanted to listen to fearmongering, not to facts. Fear is what ran him out of the NBA, and it would be a damn shame if Drew were to allow fear to run him out of the NHL more than two decades later.”

  The discussion kept bouncing around like that for the rest of the session. By the end of it, I still wasn’t sure what I’d tell the team. I knew all the arguments for continuing to play, but I couldn’t shake the sensation that I should quit.

  The big positive to come out of the meeting was that this time, Ravyn stopped me before I could leave instead of the other way around. I’d started to unfold myself out of the chair, stretching my back after sitting in such an uncomfortable position for so long, when she reached out a tentative hand and placed it on my forearm. Her touch was so soft I almost didn’t feel it—more of a tickle than anything—but I glanced down to find her staring at me. And smiling.

  Her smile nearly buckled my knees. “You were right,” she said. “I didn’t have to talk.”

  “No one’s going to make you talk if you don’t want to.” Not if I had anything to do with it, at least. For whatever reason, I felt the need to protect her.

  The corners of her mouth quirked up again. I could get used to seeing her smile.

  “How’s the arm healing?” she asked.

  Without hesitation, I dragged up the sleeve of my T-shirt to show her. “No itching yet.”

  She looked it over with critical eyes. “What are you putting on it? And how often?”

  “Udder balm, just like you told me to. Two or three times a day.”

  She nodded, apparently satisfied with my answer. “It’ll probably start itching in a few more days. Don’t you dare scratch it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I started heading for the door, and thankfully, she walked alongside me. I wanted to get out of there, but I wasn’t ready to leave her company yet. “You hungry?” I asked, hoping she’d let me buy her lunch this time.

  “Not hungry, no.”

  Yeah, my heart dropped a bit on hearing that. There wasn’t any point in denying it. We walked out the main entry and into the parking lot, where the sun threatened to blind me. I should’ve brought my sunglasses inside, but they were sitting on the dashboard of my car. I kept walking that way, trying to figure out what else I could do to get more time with Ravyn.

  Because I wanted to spend more time with her. She’d started to open up to me—even if it was only a bit—and the more she revealed, the greater my curiosity grew.

  But then she surprised me again by placing her hand inside mine and stopping. On a physical level, there was no way that could have stopped me. But on a visceral level, there wasn’t a chance I could take another step. Not without her coming along with me.

  Even though we were standing in the middle of the fire lane cutting in front of the community center, I stood rooted to the ground and faced her.

  “You still don’t need to feed me,” she said. “But there’s something else I want from you.”

  The heat in her gaze made it clear exactly what that something was, and I’d be the biggest idiot on the planet if I even dreamed of telling her no.

  Whatever this thing between us was becoming, I didn’t have the first clue what to call it. Friends with benefits? Fuck buddies? I didn’t know. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was still a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, my voice thick with lust.

  She licked her lips and nodded.

  Well, fuck me.

  WE’D BARELY GOTTEN through the door leading from my garage into the kitchen when Ravyn threw herself at me, kissing me like a starving woman. She dragged my T-shirt free from the waistband of my denim shorts so fast it was a miracle she didn’t rip the fabric. Not that I would have cared. What was a torn shirt compared to a sexy-as-sin woman wanting me badly enough to rip my clothes off me?

  I picked her up by the thighs, reveling in her demanding kisses. She wrapped her legs around my waist, holding on to my shoulders as I carried her into my bedro
om. I kicked the door closed behind us and tried to lay her back on the bed, but she gave me a tug, and I practically fell on top of her.

  She gave a sexy squeak of surprise, as if that wasn’t what she’d intended, but I swallowed the sound up with another kiss. She smelled like a fall thunderstorm—fresh rain and crackling electricity. I could get drunk on her, especially the way she writhed beneath me, trying to get our bodies closer. But there were too many clothes in the way, and we were both in too much of a rush to slow down and take them off properly.

  I shoved her shirt and bra up, freeing her breasts, then fought with the button and fly on her jeans. Fucking skinny jeans. They looked hot as hell, showing off every curve of her body to absolute perfection, but they were a nightmare to peel away from her skin. I dragged them down to her knees before my frustration got the better of me. Denim wouldn’t give as easily as my T-shirt had.

  “Let me,” she panted, wiggling her hips beneath me to shift the material free. “You get rid of those,” she added with a meaningful nod toward my shorts.

  She didn’t need to tell me twice. I stood up, undid the fly, and discarded the rest of my clothes before I could think too hard about what we were doing. She was still struggling with her jeans, so I threw open the drawer of my nightstand, took out a condom, and suited up.

  Ravyn finally had one leg free. Instead of working to finish the job, she reached for me again, bringing me down on top of her and shoving her tongue into my mouth.

  I knew I should slow things down. If we kept going like this, I wouldn’t last very long at all. But damn if I could think clearly enough for that with Ravyn digging her fingers into my ass and clasping her legs around mine, writhing beneath me like a woman possessed.

  Still, I had to try. I grazed my hands down her sides, then up again to caress her breasts. She hissed against my lips when my thumbs brushed over her taut nipples and teased the bars piercing her there, which made me chuckle.

  “You like that?”

  She raked one hand down my hip and reached for my cock. “I’d like it better if you’d fuck me already.” She captured me in her small hands and stroked a couple of times, and my hips rocked into her almost involuntarily. That brought a sexy grin to her lips and a dark, lusty look to her eyes. “We’re both ready. Christ, Drew, I’m so fucking wet.”

  And she wasn’t kidding about that, either. I slipped a hand between our bodies, and it glided effortlessly along her core. I choked out a groan that was full of need.

  “I’ve been wet almost since you walked into that room,” she said, her hips grinding up against me while she squeezed my dick and rubbed her thumb over the head. “Kept trying to pay attention to what people were telling you, but all I could think about was how much I wanted you inside me.”

  “Fuck, that feels good.” I buried my face in the hollow between her shoulder and neck, breathing her in. One of her dreads flitted over my face. I shivered with a jolt of desire. Her dreads were surprisingly soft to the touch, and they smelled like coconut.

  “This’ll feel better,” she whispered, her lips brushing my ear. Then she fitted me to her entrance.

  I surged forward, finding my way home. And she was right. It did feel better, especially because of the soft whimpering sounds she made with every thrust, which she almost always followed with more dirty talk.

  “Harder,” she demanded. “I want to feel every inch of that big cock.”

  So I lifted her knees up until her ankles were over my shoulders, and I gave it to her harder and deeper. Which only made her tighter. Which felt like heaven to me. Which made the base of my spine tingle, like I was about to come.

  I couldn’t keep going like that. Not for long, and I was absolutely not ready for this to be over yet.

  I flipped us around, resting my head on the pillows and lifting her over me. She straddled me with her knees resting on either side of my hips, her hands braced on my chest to hold her steady while she rose and fell above me.

  Those gorgeous, round breasts bounced with every movement. I helped myself to a handful, swirling my thumb around the hardened nub. “Perfect fucking breasts,” I murmured.

  “Don’t you dare stop that,” she said, dropping her head back with a look of sheer bliss claiming her features.

  “I have no intention of stopping.” And my dick hoped she wouldn’t be stopping what she was doing anytime soon, either. She’d taken up a motion that was a mixture of bouncing over me and grinding against me, and I was about as close to heaven as I expected was possible this side of the grave.

  Ravyn kept changing things up, which turned me on more than I could have ever imagined. One minute she relaxed above me, going soft and pliant as she leaned down for a sloppy kiss. Then in the next moment, every muscle in her body would tense. She’d throw back her head, straining to get closer to me. To touch me in more places. To take me deeper.

  I got caught up in watching her ride me and feeling the way she squeezed me, and even though I was still on the verge of coming, it became even more important to me to be sure she came first.

  When she arched her back, I sat up and dipped my head so I could take her breast in my mouth and suckle her tit, shoving her bra and T-shirt up again, since we’d never managed to get them fully off. She let out a moan that made my heart stutter. Then later, when she leaned over me, her hair like a coconut-scented, lavender waterfall around my face as she kissed me, I held her tight around the waist and slipped a hand between us to thumb her clit.

  That slight contact was all it took to send her crashing over the edge. But this time, her climax was almost silent. Her sexy sigh was like a shot of adrenaline that went straight to my cock, especially with the way she shuddered in my arms and collapsed against my chest, spent and sated.

  And then, I didn’t even try to hold myself back anymore. I held Ravyn close and pumped into her with a shout, my whole body tingling with my release.

  We lay in a heap, tangled limbs covered in a sheen of sweat and lungs playing catch-up. After a while, I knew I needed to move, but I sure as hell didn’t want to move. Because Ravyn wasn’t trying to close herself off to me. She was as relaxed as I’d ever known her to be, her cheek resting on my shoulder, her full breasts pillowing against my upper abs.

  I stroked her back, trying to cling to the moment for as long as I could. Once one of us moved, the spell would break. She’d go back to pushing me away, only coming to me for a physical release.

  Sex was supposed to be more of an emotional experience for women than for men, but I must be the exception that proved the rule. In every relationship I’d ever been in, it had been these quiet moments after sex when I’d felt the most connected to my partner.

  That seemed to be happening again with Ravyn, only she and I weren’t even involved. Were we? Could two afternoon quickies, a week apart, be the basis for something more? Probably not, and I knew I had to be the world’s biggest idiot for wanting it.

  But I did.

  I didn’t understand it, and I sure as hell would never be able to explain it to another living soul, but it was the absolute truth. I wanted more than a weekly hookup.

  I wanted to learn all the sounds Ravyn made.

  I wanted to unearth the secrets she was keeping—about the baby that didn’t exist and about the meaning behind her adoption symbol tattoo and about any number of other things that hadn’t come up in any way yet.

  I wanted to find out how she made her hair so soft and kept it smelling so good.

  I wanted to watch her work so I could witness her artistry taking shape.

  I wanted to discover how long she’d been hurting herself and why she did it, and I wanted to help her stop.

  Damn if I had a clue how to go about making any of that happen.

  After a few minutes, the hand she’d been resting on my abs inched upward until she could fit it between her cheek and my body. “Your heartbeat is loud,” she said.

  I laughed so hard I nearly dislodged her. “My heartbeat is loud? S
eriously?”

  “Yeah. Loud and steady. It’s going to put me to sleep if I’m not careful.”

  I didn’t want her to be careful. I wanted her to stay just like this, maybe fall asleep on me, trusting me enough for that if nothing else. I knew that would be asking for too much, but it didn’t stop me from wanting it. “Would it be the end of the world to take a nap right now?” I teased, trying to keep things light. “It’s not like you have to go to work today.”

  She tensed. It was just a slight change, almost imperceptible, but I caught the tightening of her previously languid muscles. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

  “I saw the hours posted on the door. The whole place is closed on Tuesdays.”

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you last week,” she rushed to say.

  I blinked a couple of times, but then I understood. Last week, she’d told me she couldn’t stay afterward because she had to go to work. That was why she’d run off from the hospital as soon as she’d dropped off London’s wheelchair.

  Well, hell.

  “I wasn’t trying to catch you in a lie,” I said, but it was too late. The damage was done. She was already peeling herself off of me and sitting upright on the edge of the bed. I felt the loss immediately, so I sat up, too, and wrapped my arms around her from behind.

  She was still rigid.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself,” I said. “You don’t owe me anything, least of all a reason for not wanting to stick around last week. Hell, we’d only met that morning.”

  “I don’t normally lie about things,” she said.

  I wished she’d soften again, maybe lean back against me, but for now I’d settle for the fact that she wasn’t pulling away from me. “Well, I’d say that lying about having to work, to a guy you’d only known for about two or three hours, is pretty low on the scale of awful things to lie about,” I teased.