by Eden Finley
“As cute as you are when you’re sleeping, you promised me you’d keep me awake until my roommate came back.”
I bolt upright, looking frantically around the empty hotel room. “Roommate?”
Ollie laughs. “It’s okay. I messaged Kessler, and he said Petrov took off with some puck bunny. He probably won’t be back tonight at all.”
“Then why are you waking me?” I grumble and settle back onto the pillow.
“Because you’re in my bed.”
Surely, the sleep deprivation and half-passed-out state I’m in is imagining the sexy growl in his voice.
“My bed is, like, an hour away,” I complain and close my eyes again.
“Isn’t it down the block in the next hotel over?” Ollie asks.
“If you make me get up and crawl my ass in that direction, it’ll take an hour to get there.”
“Fine. Stay. But just … I don’t want to be a dick about this, but can you, umm … set an alarm, and—”
My eyes widen when reality sets in. “Shit. Meathead can’t have gay journalist sneaking out of his room in the morning. What was I thinking?”
Ollie grabs my wrist as I try to make an escape from the bed. “You think I’m a meathead?”
“If the skate fits.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that.”
I sigh. “I don’t mean it in the brainless jock kind of way. I mean, I joke about you being brainless, but we both know you’re not. You’re actually quite articulate.”
“That totally feels like you’re calling me a smart dumb person.”
“Hey, you think I’m a bloodsucking journalist when I’ve proved I’m anything but.”
He nods. “Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that. And it’s true you probably shouldn’t be in here, but I want you. Uh, here, I mean. I want you to stay, but I … umm …”
There’s the awkward guy I met six months ago.
The hand on my wrist relaxes, but his thumb makes circles on my palm that send a shiver through me. “If you keep sleeping next to me, I’m probably gonna do something I shouldn’t.”
I blink at him a few times, still a little out of it. Do something he shouldn’t. Like me? He should do me.
“Fuck, totally do something you shouldn’t” falls out of my mouth.
“Wait, wha—” He doesn’t get his whole sentence out before I’m moving in close and capturing the mouth I kissed all those months ago.
Can I blame the sleepy haze on why I’m throwing myself at this man who up until not that long ago hated me? Maybe.
But, damn, how many times have I fantasized about these lips since the first time this happened? His playoff beard scrapes my skin, not quite long enough yet to be soft, but his mouth is hot and messy and all consuming.
He sucks in a breath, but a strong hand cups the back of my head, holding my face to his.
Everything clicks into place as if making out with Ollie Strömberg is the only thing that makes sense in the world, while at the same time, everything wrong with the situation tarnishes it around the edges.
Hooking up with a hockey player: bad idea.
Closeted hockey player hooking up with a journalist in his hotel room where his entire team is staying: terrible idea.
Running my hand down said hockey player’s hard chest and glorious muscles: fucking brilliant idea. Or stupid, because I know we have to stop it. But right now, I’m going with brilliant.
Ollie grabs me around my waist and pulls me on top of him. His tablet gets thrown to the floor, hitting it with a thud. If it were mine, I’d be worried about it breaking, but Ollie doesn’t give a damn. He only kisses me harder and pushes his tongue into my mouth.
It reminds me of the kiss we shared six months ago, only this is way hotter. And more horizontal.
Horizontal is good.
Another brilliant idea.
Ollie’s hand slips between us, and his fingers make their way under my shirt.
I shamelessly grind over the hardness in his pants, and his free hand goes to my ass.
Breaking our lips apart, Ollie breathes heavy. “Damn, I’ve been thinking about this for six months.”
Wait, what? I pull back and stare down at him. “Even when you found out who I was?”
“Especially then. I think my cock thought I despised it with how many hate jerk-off sessions I had thinking about you.”
“Aww, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” My sarcasm might be real, but the image of Ollie getting off to the thought of me makes me both pause and want to rip his clothes off.
“Kiss me again.” Ollie leans up to take my mouth. He doesn’t quite reach because I bring my hand up and put my fingers over his lips.
“What are we doing? We can’t do this.”
“Can we … not think about that right now?” To emphasize his point, Ollie rolls his hips beneath me.
“Fuck. Best argument ever. Let our future selves deal with this shit.” I move my hand and kiss him again, and I find myself in a heavy make-out session as if we were teenagers.
Ollie doesn’t try to take it further, just keeps teasing me with his perfect lips and probing tongue.
Needing more skin, I sit up, straddling him. My hands bunch in his T-shirt and push the hem up toward his throat. “Goddamn it,” I whisper, and Ollie smiles.
His body is insane. Muscles on muscles and decorated in tattoos across his chest that stop just above his pecs.
Mi Vida. My fingers trail over the words written across his chest, but he grabs my wrist to stop me.
I want to ask what they mean and why he’s suddenly staring at me with widened eyes, but a dark bruise catches my eye on his side. “The hit you took in third?”
“I’ve had worse. It’s fine.”
“Damn, that’s hot.”
Ollie chuckles. “Me being injured is hot?”
It plays right into my jock fantasy, but I won’t be bringing that up any time soon. “Uh-huh.”
“I’ll try to get beaten up on the ice more often. Maybe become an enforcer.”
I shake my head. “Nah, you’ve got more talent than that.”
He stares up at me with nothing but appreciation in his soft gaze. I don’t know if it’s from the compliment or my hand skimming over his skin and giving him goose bumps.
My hand trails over his pierced nipple, and he shudders beneath me. “This wasn’t in the night you got super drunk,” I say.
“Playoffs. Need it in or we’ll lose.”
Ugh, hockey players and their superstitions.
“Worked tonight then,” I say dryly.
In the blink of an eye and with the strength of a hockey player, he rolls us over so I’m pinned underneath him.
“If this is supposed to be some sort of punishment for mouthing off, I have to say you suck at it.” My finger, still hovering on his nipple under his shirt, trails down his hard chest. “Isn’t that like … I dunno, a safety concern? You guys are so violent.”
“Eh, I put tape over it, and then we wear so much protective gear we can’t feel anything anyway.”
“Still. It’d be a shame to lose a nipple.” Especially ones as pretty as his. I don’t say this out loud though. Who tells a person they have pretty nipples?
Ollie laughs. “Would it now?”
His hazel eyes lock with mine, and the air between us becomes serious. Ollie’s face slowly falls. When his mouth comes down on mine, it’s soft and no longer urgent or exploring. It feels like a promise we both know he can’t keep.
His fingers make slow work of my buttoned shirt, and then they trail down my chest. They continue their sweet assault to my stomach and then lower to my pants.
“Your belt buckle is in the way,” he whispers against my mouth.
“That’s not my belt buckle.”
Ollie groans and collapses on top of me, burying his face in my neck. “Who knew you’d be a tease?”
“I’m full of surprises.”
His hand cups my cock over my suit pants,
and I try not to yell out when his grip tightens, but a grunt escapes.
“Full of lots of big surprises.” He strokes my cock so slowly, and I let out a whimper. “Damn,” he whispers. “I want this inside me.”
That building anticipation, the soaring to higher heights, and that feeling you get while chasing an orgasm plummets, and his words sober me.
My eyes fly open and meet his half-hooded, lust-filled ones. “I’m a bottom.”
His hand stops moving on my aching dick, and I can practically see the moment his need crashes too. He sits up, straddling my lap, much like how I was on him only a few minutes ago. “So am I.”
We stare at each other at an impasse, neither of us knowing where to go from here.
“Blowjobs?” Ollie whines, and I laugh.
“How are you a bottom?”
He narrows his eyes. “Are you about to get stereotypical on me?”
“Well, shit. Yeah, I guess I was. I just … you look like a top.”
“And what exactly does a top look like?”
“Domineering.”
Ollie snorts. “Ash had been out for four years before we got together. He already knew what he liked and didn’t like, so …”
“So, you got the short end of the stick? So to speak.”
He barks out a laugh. “I’m not discussing Ash’s stick with you, but I will say if you ever met him, you’d think he’s the opposite of domineering.”
“Wait, does that mean Ash was the first guy you were with?”
Ollie cocks his head. “Ash is the only guy I’ve been with. I thought you would’ve known that.”
“But …” I think about all this time that’s gone past since we met. “No one?”
Ollie leans over me. “No one’s even come close to tempting me since I met this pain in the ass reporter a few months ago.”
“Not even when you hated me?” My voice is small.
“I’ve never hated you. Far from it. I’ve wanted you every day since we met.”
He kisses me again, slow and tender, his tongue massaging mine, and I try to savor it. Just because he’s admitted he wants me, that doesn’t mean it can happen.
I’ve been down this road with closeted guys before, and I can’t do it again.
But when he lowers himself on top of me fully, a little voice in the back of my head begs, “Maybe just for a little while?”
I’m about to surrender when—
Bang, bang, bang. “Strömberg. Open up.” The thick, Russian accent must belong to—
“Petrov’s back.” Ollie scrambles off me.
“Shit.” I get up as fast as I can and start putting on my shoes that are beside the bed.
Petrov bangs on the door again. “Wake up. I forgot key and need to piss.”
“Just a sec,” Ollie calls out.
“Fuck, what do we do?” I whisper.
Our interview excuse won’t fly when we’re both half-undressed, breathing hard with flushed cheeks.
There’s a knock on the door again. Now I’m struggling with the small-ass buttons on my shirt. I give up about halfway done and stand to throw my laptop bag over my shoulder.
Ollie steps forward and whispers, “He needs to use the bathroom, so hide and sneak out while he’s in there.”
“Hide?” I hiss. “Where?”
More banging. “Ollie!”
“Shit.” Ollie grabs my arm in a rough way like he did that day we met at the arena. Still don’t mind the manhandling.
Not the time, Lennon.
He shoves me behind the door as he opens it, and I hold my breath.
“What the fuck took you so long?” Petrov asks and charges with his big-ass feet pounding on the carpet toward the bathroom.
Once the bathroom door’s shut, I make a break for it, and Ollie steps into the hall with me.
He glances left and right down the hallway and opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
I fake a smile because I know what’s coming. “Don’t worry about it. Didn’t happen.”
Apparently, making out with me has rendered him speechless. I wish I could say that’s a common occurrence with me, but this would be a first. The sucky thing is it has nothing to do with my skills.
“It … that … I mean, that was too close,” he finally says.
“I know.”
The toilet in the room flushes, and Ollie’s head twists faster than the girl’s from that old movie The Exorcist.
“Good luck in game two.” I turn on my heel and hightail it down the corridor to the elevators, all the while wondering how the hell I’m supposed to forget tonight ever happened.
Chapter Eleven
OLLIE
Getting that night with Lennon in my hotel room out of my head is next to impossible, and every time I think about his lips or how amazingly hard his cock felt under my hand, I can’t help wanting more. I imagine kissing his naked skin, having him inside me, and wonder what he looks like when he comes. None of that can be turned into reality, so like it always has, hockey helps me block out the real world.
Games two and three, we pull off wins. Barely. Both times are a struggle, but we manage. Game four is a fucking mess, and game five isn’t any better.
“What happened to us out there?” Petrov asks as we make it back to our hotel room for the night.
We’ll be in New York for game six, and if we make it to game seven, we’ll be in Boston next week. I’m not getting my hopes up we’ll be back.
“We’re getting progressively worse,” I say.
Petrov loosens his tie and takes it over his head, throwing it like he doesn’t care where it lands. “I’m going out. Going to find hot chick and wham, bam, thank you ma’am her like I did after game one.”
I try not to laugh. “Petrov, who taught you that saying?”
“Bjorn.”
Ah. Figures.
Petrov is quick to get dressed and leave, remembering his keycard to get back in this time.
The superstition thing isn’t so bad during the regular season, but when the Stanley Cup is at stake, some of us take it a little too far. Nearly all of us have our routines and little quirks.
Redoing what happened the night of game one isn’t an option for me though. No matter how much I want it to be.
Since that night, I’ve only seen Lennon in a professional capacity, and even though I beg him silently to ask me a question at press conferences, he’s only directed his questions at Coach.
Maybe I could go to his hotel under the proviso of being superstitious …
No, don’t go over there.
But what if it was to talk and hang out and nothing more?
I shake my head. After last time, I don’t think I could just hang out with him. I’m going to be strong.
That doesn’t stop my fingers from flying across my phone screen.
You happen to know Lennon’s number?
Damn it.
Jet: Whhhhhhhy?
Should’ve known Jet wouldn’t be easy and hand it over no questions asked.
Me: Because I’m asking. That’s why.
Jet: Did he write another article you want to ream him for?
Depends on what type of reaming he means.
Me: I just wanna hang out. It’s depressing when we lose, and all my teammates are bringing me down.
Or I assume they would be if I were with them.
Jet: You lost? Damn.
Me: You know, just because we aren’t playing in our arena, you should at least follow the series …
Jet gives me the number, and I’ve never been more thankful.
Me: Guilt trip for the win! Thanks, man.
Now I have to decide if I’m going to use the information or not. I shouldn’t, but I’m also not going to try to lie to myself again by saying I won’t.
I could text, but that’d give him a chance to not reply. I hit dial on his number instead.
It rings numerous times, and I imagine him staring at his phone debating
whether to answer the unfamiliar number. I imagine the adorable concentration line over the frame of his glasses which he gets during press conferences.
Although, he must’ve got his contacts prescription refilled finally, because he hasn’t worn his glasses all week.
I prefer the nerdy glasses.
“Lennon Hawkins.” When his voice finally hits my ears, the professional tone does things to my groin.
This is not good.
“Hello?”
Shit, I’ve been too quiet. “Your reporter voice is hot.” Fuck, not what I was supposed to say.
“Thank you?” Lennon sounds unsure, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s being sarcastic or he doesn’t know who it is.
“It’s, ah, Ollie.”
“I know.” He’s smiling now. I can hear it in his voice. “What’s up?”
“Ah … Petrov’s gone out for the night.”
“Thanks for the scoop. I’ll write it into my article right now.”
“Smartass,” I grumble and let out a loud breath. “He has this … theory.”
“Okaaay.”
“That to not suck in game six, we need to do exactly what we did the night after game one.”
He’s silent for a beat, and I begin to wonder if the call dropped out. Or maybe he dropped the phone. “Umm …”
I know exactly what he’s picturing right now. Us, fooling around on my bed, kissing as if we were told the world was going to end, and leading to something we should be thankful got interrupted.
I hesitate before saying, “I’m not saying he has a point, but it’d be kinda fun to see if he did.”
Lennon stays silent.
I sigh. “Okay, yeah, not a great idea.”
“Ollie …” His tone is soft, but his voice has an edge to it, and I know what’s coming.
My eyes fuse shut, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know why I called. I wanted to see you, but talking to you right now, I remember why that’s a bad idea.”
I can’t be with him in the way he deserves. It’s not like we could go on a date like a real couple or do any of the shit Ash wanted me to while we were together. Pursuing Lennon would make me an asshole, but all I want to do is find out what room he’s in and go over there and finish what we started five games ago.
“I think Boston is the issue,” Lennon says.
