by Eden Finley
The home crowd roars with cheers, presumably because the enemy is fighting between themselves.
“What’s their deal?” I ask.
“I have no idea. I’ve faced Healy a few times, and he can be a bit of a dick, but not any more than the usual trash-talking shit that goes on or the sneaky penalties we all try to pull off. Not sure about Soren. He was traded from the West Coast last season.”
Other players from New Jersey pull their teammates apart, and when they skate back to the bench, their coach sends both players off.
“That’s weird, right?” Granted, I’m new to hockey, but I don’t think I’ve heard of teammates fighting during a game before.
“Fights break out all the time during practice,” Ollie says, “but we’re always told to leave that shit off the ice. Maybe their egos are too big for their helmets. Apparently, us hockey players are known for that. Who knew, right?”
The squabble between teammates is quickly forgotten when Boston gets the breakaway and flies down the ice. Tommy lands a slap shot to the top right of the net, and from that first goal, all the way through to the third period, Boston doesn’t let up. New Jersey puts up a strong fight, but the thirst Boston’s had all season doesn’t waver.
I’d think Ollie would be distracted, watching his old team kick ass, but he’s more interested in distracting me.
While the game seems close, and both teams take about the same amount of shots on goal, Boston dominates, sinking three of them. Boston’s goalie is on point, not letting a single shot through.
I don’t see New Jersey turning this around.
While the after-game press conferences drone on and on, all I can think about is Ollie in my hotel room waiting for me. I sent him with my room key as soon as the game finished so we wouldn’t be seen together, and as promised, as soon as I get back to my hotel room, Ollie greets me with no words but his mouth on mine, his fingers working my shirt buttons, and an obvious mission to fulfill his annoyingly hot promises he kept hinting at throughout the game.
“Please tell me you got your article written and sent off,” he says breathlessly.
“I purposefully stayed back to get it done.”
“Good. Because I need your ass again.”
“I’ve created a monster.” Not that I can hate that.
“Nope. I just like having a new toy, so I’m gonna play with it as much as possible.”
I snort. “My ass is your new toy. I’m sure that’s supposed to sound wrong somehow, but right now, I can’t think of why.”
And speaking of my ass, he grabs my cheeks over my suit pants and brings me closer to him.
“Warning you now,” he whispers. “This isn’t going to be like last night. I’m gonna take you hard and fast, because all I’ve wanted all day was to be back inside you, and I don’t have the fucking patience for you edging me.”
I try to say “Same here” or “Hurry up” or some other affirmative, but all that comes out are mumbling sounds that make no sense.
It’s obvious he understands anyway when he strips off the remainder of my clothes and pushes me on the bed on my hands and knees.
In a daze of want and need, I don’t know where the lube comes from, and I don’t care. When one of Ollie’s fingers breaches my hole, there’s no exploring like last night. No going slow. He aims for my prostate and immediately starts pegging it.
My cock goes from happily interested to achingly desperate.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I hiss.
My ass clenches around his finger as if trying to trap it inside me.
“Not yet,” he says playfully, but I get the feeling he’s gritting his teeth as he says it. “As much as I said hard and fast, I’m not going to make it painful for you.”
“A little pain is good. I need … just need more …”
He adds a second finger, the sting of stretching a welcome ache. Last night, we went so slow, and Ollie was so cautious, I barely felt it this morning. After tonight, I want to ache for days. I’m going to leave for game three and four in New Jersey, and I doubt Ollie’s coming with me, so I want to feel him until I see him again for game five.
Ollie gives me exactly what I want. He somehow manages to get himself sheathed one-handed while his fingers continue to prep me and turn me into a quivering mess.
My forehead falls onto the mattress as I rock back and forth onto his fingers. “You need to hurry up before I come already.”
I whimper at the loss of his fingers until he eases inside, and the noise coming from me turns into a grunt.
Ollie whispers under his voice, words I don’t understand, which turn into rambling about my ass having the ability to kill him and that death by sex would be worth it if he’d already won a Stanley Cup. Then he starts rattling off hockey stats, and it takes a minute for me to realize he’s trying to distract himself.
We’re both fighting against our own control, both getting lost in the empty thoughts running through our heads where we can only concentrate on one thing, and that’s the feeling of each other. His heat, my want, our combined urgency and need.
Ollie’s cock pulses inside me, harder than steel, and my hips move on their own. Stretching out, I raise my hands above my head, slipping them under the pillow and gripping the sheet tight as I continue to fuck myself slowly on his dick.
Ollie starts moving, his quick detour from hard and fast over with, and he meets my movements, thrust for thrust—the reason I love bottoming. There’s no better feeling than being turned out until I’m walking funny and I can’t remember my stupid name.
Soon he’s taking me at a punishing pace, and hard breathing and the slapping of our bodies are the only sounds to fill the room. Ollie’s grip on my hip tightens, and I lose myself to him a little more. It’s not that I get off on pain but more the possessive way in which he takes my body. It’s the claiming bruises, the lasting aches. Last night was sweet, but this is primal, and I’d be happy to take Ollie either way. Last night, I was cared for. Tonight, I feel needed.
And when he wraps his hand around my cock while shouting his release, it only takes a few strokes for me to fall over the edge after him.
We stay like that, Ollie slowing his thrusts inside me as he continues to empty into the condom. My chest and the bedding are covered in cum, but instead of making a move to clean up when Ollie pulls out of me, I roll onto my back and collapse onto the bed.
A warm tongue licks at my spent cock. I moan as Ollie laps at the overly sensitive flesh, but I don’t stop him.
“Mmm, babe, you taste amazing, but fuck, you came hard. I think you might need to shower.”
“Shower sounds good,” I say, but my eyes drift closed.
Ollie laughs against my skin. “We’re totally the reason these hotels need black lights. You’re lying in a pool of cum.”
I wave him off. “Legs jelly. Brain broken. Sleep now. Bodily fluid cleanup later.”
“I love it when you’re romantic.”
“Sunshine, flowers, candy, semen … it’s allllll romantic.” I’m rambling now, and I don’t even care.
I’m vaguely aware of Ollie leaving the room and coming back with a wet towel to finish cleaning me and the bed up, and as he rejoins me and wraps his arm around me, something niggles at the back of my mind, but I’m too sated to let it come to the foreground.
It’s like that sense when you leave the house and can’t remember if you turned the iron off, or when you needed to do something but totally forgot.
Sleep pulls me under before I remember exactly what it is or why it’s important.
The incessant buzzing of a phone comes from somewhere in the room. A grumble comes from beside me as Ollie rolls over and throws an arm around my waist.
“You should get that,” he mumbles but holds me tighter. “I’ve been ignoring it for, like, ten minutes now.”
“How do you know it’s not yours?”
“Mine’s dead. Died last night, and I forgot my charger.”
&
nbsp; “I don’t wanna,” I complain.
“I know. But I guess we better get up. When’s your flight?”
My eyes fly open. “Shit, what’s the time?”
“It’s early. I think.” Ollie slowly releases me and clambers to his feet. On his way to the bathroom, I admire the view, especially when he bends down and picks up my pants off the floor.
I sigh when he throws them at me and they smack me in the face.
“I’m gonna shower. Hurry up and check your messages so you can join me.”
My protest is weak, but after the water starts running, I force myself to get this done, because a wet, naked Ollie should never be passed up.
I pull my phone out of my pants pocket, and my stomach rolls at the sight of numerous notifications on my screen. As someone who doesn’t have many friends, it’s never a good thing when your social media is lit up like a Christmas tree and you have missed calls from your boss, your coworker … and Damon.
But it’s the notification with the preview of a news article that catches my eye. I squint and click the link and hold my breath.
There I am splashed all over Sporting World News staring at Ollie next to me in the press box like he hung the damn moon. I look love struck, Ollie looks smug, and that means we’re both completely screwed.
I only catch the headline Strömberg Switching Teams? when my phone starts vibrating with another incoming call.
Kevin.
“Hawkins,” I say into the phone, my voice thick from sleep and worry.
“He’s gay, isn’t he?”
My stomach sinks, and I want to vomit. “What are you talking about?”
Do you really think playing dumb will get you out of this?
“We just need confirmation, man. The article’s already written and ready to go.”
“You can’t do that!” I bolt from the bed and start pacing until pain shoots through my foot and I remember my stupid ankle.
“Why not?” Kevin asks.
“You can’t out someone. Harry won’t go for it. We’re not that type of magazine. Do not print that article.”
“He practically outed himself with the shit he pulled last night.”
I knew sitting with me in the press box was a dumb idea.
My legs give way, and I land my ass on the end of the bed.
Ollie’s going to hate me. Six years he’s played professional hockey. He hid a relationship for four of those, and one night after we get together, his news is all over the damn internet.
“Besides,” Kevin says, “Harry’s already signed off on it.”
“Well, he’s not going to get it from me.”
“What the fuck, Lennon? Is this some sort of us against you people thing?”
You people? I want to scream, but I don’t have a voice.
“Just confirm yes or no.”
“No,” I rasp.
“No as in it’s not true, or no as in you won’t confirm?”
“If Harry runs that story, he can expect my resignation in his inbox within the hour of him publishing it. That’s all I have to say.” I hit the end call button and resist the urge to throw my phone across the room.
I bite back a sob. Not for me—I can worry about what this means for my job later—but for Ollie. This is the one thing he didn’t want—to be thrown out of the closet the same way Matt was. He wanted to do it on his own terms, but I somehow came along and screwed that up without even trying.
I stay perched on the end of the bed, but I can’t bring myself to look at my phone anymore.
This is it. This is all I’m going to get from Ollie. A couple of nights of smoking hot sex, a connection I’ve never felt before, and what I’m sure is going to result in a broken heart when he tells me he never wants to see my face again.
The shower turns off, and I can’t catch my breath. The second Ollie steps out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist, his smile drops. There’s no mistaking the guilt written all over me. I think it’s coming out of my pores.
All I can do as I contemplate Ollie hating me is beg. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
OLLIE
My first thought is something has happened to Lennon’s parents or his family or something, but he’s apologizing to me. Why would he need to do that if—
“What happened?” I ask, more frantic than I intend. My mind jumps to the worst conclusions, all of which involve him and his stupid magazine.
“There was a photo,” he whispers. He can’t even look at me.
“Photo?” I croak.
Images of Matt Jackson getting a blowjob flood my mind before I shake them away. I haven’t done anything in public.
“What kind of photo?” I say cautiously.
“Of you and me.”
“No, I was careful. I’m always careful.”
Ask Ash. He was constantly bitching at the lack of PDA.
The treehouse springs to mind, but paparazzi wouldn’t have been able to see in, and that’s if they even knew where my parents lived and if they had a reason to follow me. Which they don’t.
Lennon still refuses to give me eye contact. “The game. The press box.”
“All we did was talk.”
“People are already speculating, and the photo … I look half in love with you, for fuck’s sake.”
“Only half?” I mock.
There has to be some mistake. They can’t come to the gay conclusion just because I sat next to Lennon during the game.
Lennon thrusts his phone in my direction, and it’s open to an article about me supposedly switching teams. And he has a point. The way he’s looking at me … hell, it makes me fall for him even more.
I’m not sure I’m ready for what that means though, and the way my heart beats erratically in my chest, I know I can’t deal with this right now.
That doesn’t stop me from reading the article.
I huff. “Babe, did you actually read this article?”
He lifts his head. “No, but—”
“One of the guys near us in the press box must’ve seen us being close or whatever and figured I was asking questions about being a journalist. It speculates I’m leaving hockey for journalism.” I give his phone back to him to let him read. “Apparently, I only set off gaydars of the queer variety.”
Damon and Maddox already knew, and Jet figured it out, but whoever wrote that article is oblivious.
Just when I think I can relax, Lennon shakes his head.
“I got a phone call from my coworker. They’re running a story. They said you were gay and wanted me to confirm.”
All the air leaves my lungs. His magazine is running the story?
“Can’t you stop it?” I yell and then hate myself when Lennon winces. “I’m sorry. I’m not yelling at you. I’m freaking out.”
“Yell at me,” he whispers. “Yell at me because I deserve it. You’ve been risking more than you used to, and I don’t want—”
“That was my choice. This is neither of our faults, and right now, we need to focus on the more important thing of either beating this story to the press or getting your editor to squash it.”
Lennon stares at me with an expression I can’t read. Surprise, maybe? Shock? All I know is he doesn’t start moving.
“Do you want to call your editor or should I?”
Finally, he snaps out of whatever’s holding him back and he starts tapping away on his phone. His finger hesitates over the number.
“Damon,” he says. “We should call Damon first and see what he knows. I don’t want to give away anything to my editor if we don’t have to. If we call and tell him to squash it, he’ll ask why we need to.”
“Yeah. Do that. Call Damon and put him on speaker.”
It rings a few times before Damon picks up. “Where’s Ollie?”
No hi, no how are you, just where’s Ollie. That can’t be good.
“Uh, I’m right here,” I say. “You’re on speaker.�
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“You two have got to be more careful. That photo of you guys—”
“It’s so hot,” a voice calls out from the background. I think it’s Maddox. “It’s like foreplay porn.”
“Ignore him,” Damon says, “but he has a point. Unless you want this to come out—”
“Well, that’s just it,” Lennon says. “It has. Or … it will. I got a call from a guy I work with. He’s running a story about it, but they want confirmation from me. Which I didn’t give. Obviously.”
Damon hesitates, and I can practically hear his gears turning from here.
“Where did the story come from? If this photo is the only source, there’s no way they can print that without opening themselves up to a lawsuit, because it’s nothing. You’re smiling at each other. Yeah, we know it’s more, but that’s only because we know.”
“Wait, so there’s been no talk in the media this morning about this?” Lennon asks.
I don’t let the hope trying to claw at me take hold, because no news means they haven’t beaten us to the punch yet.
“I have Google alerts for all my clients, and this was the only thing this morning.”
“I want to beat them,” I say.
“Like, beat them up?” Damon asks. “I know that’s a hockey player’s MO, but I don’t think it’ll work off the ice.”
Lennon smiles, but it quickly falls when I glance at him. He also looks away as if I’ve scolded him. I want to reassure him, but at the same time, I can’t even focus on us right now. I need to get my head in the zone. I need to salvage my career.
My worst fear for the past six years is happening, so I need to focus on that first and foremost.
“No,” I say. “I mean I want to come out before they can out me. It’s been the one thing I’ve wanted—control over how my news comes out. They can’t force me out like they did to Matt.”
“Okay,” Damon says, slipping into full-on business mode. “First thing we need to do is get you back to New York. We need to track down your PR department and the GM, and then we’ll need the head coach for the press conference. If we do this right, we can have it over and done with by tonight.”
