Him

I wasn’t exaggerating before. I’m addicted to Ryan Wesley. And right now I desperately need a fix. A couple of weeks ago, getting it on with a dude had freaked me out. Now it’s as obvious as breathing that everything about this guy turns me on—his raspy voice, his powerful body, the tattoos inked all over his golden skin. My mouth is on his in a heartbeat, my tongue down his throat as I straddle his muscular thighs.

He sighs against my lips. “You’re such a horndog.”

I totally am. I rock into his lower body, my palms skimming up and down his broad chest. The question now isn’t whether I want to fool around with this man. The question is how I’m ever going to give it up. I push that thought overboard, though, because I’m about to combust.

But I might have been too hasty with my choice of hook-up spots, because the front seat is too small to accommodate two horny-as-fuck hockey players. My legs are already starting to cramp, and when I shift around trying to get more comfortable, my back hits the horn and a blast of sound hits the air.

Wes bursts out laughing. Then laughs harder when I make another attempt to reposition myself. “Backseat?” he chokes out.

Much better idea. He climbs over first, his butt cheek smacking me in the face as he heaves himself into the back. I land on him with a thud, and now we’re both laughing our asses off. It’s just as cramped back here. We can’t lie side by side, so I’m on top of him, and when I bend down to kiss him, my forehead slams into the door handle. And when I grab my head in surprise, I manage to elbow him in the eye socket.

“Holy fuck!” Wes yells. “You trying to kill me, Canning?”

“No, but—”

“Abort!” he says between laughs.

Screw that. All this shifting and maneuvering has succeeded in my rubbing my aching dick all over his body. If I don’t get off soon, I’m going to lose my mind.

“We’ve got this,” I tell him. Then I sit up and bump my head on the car roof.

“Uh-huh,” he says solemnly. “Seems like it.”

“Hockey players like it rough,” I argue, reaching into the front seat for Wes’s shorts. In the back pocket I find his wallet. A second later, I flick a condom at him and order, “Suit up.”

“Yes, Coach.” He still looks like he’s trying not to laugh, but his gray eyes are now glittering with lust. Keeping our gazes locked, he eases his boxers down his hips.

I shuck my briefs as he covers himself, then curl over and take him in my mouth. The medicinal taste of the latex fills my mouth, but I ignore it. This is the first time lube hasn’t entered the equation, so I want to make sure the condom is nice and wet before I dare ride his cock.

God, and that’s something I never imagined I’d be doing. Riding another man’s cock.

“Baby,” his voice is low and husky. “I’m loving that, but you don’t have to do it. Give me my wallet.”

I fumble into the front seat one more time and pass it to him. He removes another packet and tears it open. This one is full of lube. A second later, a deliciously slippery hand slides up my crease, rubs my taint and makes me shiver.

“That’s handy,” I rasp.

He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy working me open with his fingers.

When we do this, there’s always one awkward moment when he first breaches me. Before my body gets the joke. But now that I know how this works, it doesn’t even slow me down. I’m eager for it. And it’s only a couple of minutes later when I’m pushing Wes’s hand away and straddling his lap again.

The way I handle him is nothing like the way I’d touch a woman. He’s as big and strong as I am, and I don’t have to worry about hurting him. His broad shoulders make a sturdy place to put my hands. Rising up, I wait for him. He positions himself beneath me, and we both hiss when I slide down over his hard cock.

For a moment I don’t move. We’re nose to nose, blinking into each other’s eyes. Wes’s tongue emerges to slick my lower lip. And I dive onto his mouth, jamming my tongue inside. There isn’t a lot of space for me to move, but it doesn’t matter. I’m riding him in short, fast strokes. The angle is heaven—I can bear down on him just where I need him.

Wes is cupping my ass in strong hands, and with each thrust, he lets out a sexy grunt. Our chests rub together as our mouths lock again. My dick is trapped between our stomachs, slicking us both with pre-come.

My climax takes me by surprise. One second I’m fighting Wes over whose tongue belongs in whose mouth. The next, I’m fighting the urge to explode. And losing. “Fuck. I have to come.”

Wes moans into my mouth, and I jam myself down on him one more time. That’s when I feel it—the whole-body orgasm. My limbs tingle unpredictably as I slump forward, my face landing in Wes’s neck. The world goes fuzzy at the edges, but I feel myself shooting all over him while he bucks beneath me.

He lets loose a growl, and the muscles in his neck tighten all at once. Then he drops his head back and shudders through his release.

Heavy breathing and thudding hearts are all that can be heard in the car afterwards. I’m lazing against his sticky chest, too blissed out to move. His hands trace lazy patterns over my back.

I could get used to this. I really could.

After a bit, Wes slaps me on the ass. “Up, baby. We can’t stay here forever.”

I hate the way that sounds, but it’s hard to argue the truth. So I peel my satisfied body off his, and we begin the ridiculous process of trying to clean up in a confined space without further injury.

We manage, but just barely.

Wes and I drag our bleary selves out of bed the next morning and book it over to the rink, where the other coaches already congregate.

The parents are arriving at nine, the first scrimmage is scheduled for ten, and Pat has a prep list that’s a mile long. He begins to bark instructions once Wes and I round out the group, then stops midsentence when he notices Wes’s face.

“What the hell happened to you, Wesley?”

I press my lips together to fight a laugh. Our sexual circus act in the car last night left Wes with a nice shiner on his left eye, courtesy of my wayward elbow. It’s not black, but definitely purplish, and visibly swollen.

“Canning beat me up,” he says gravely.

Pat flicks his gaze to me, then back at Wes. “What’d you do to piss him off?”

Wes mock gasps. “You saying I deserved it, Coach?”

“I’m saying you’ve got a smart mouth and it’s a miracle you don’t get wailed in the face every day of your life.” But Pat’s grinning as he says it. Then he claps his hands and gets back to business. “Maybe you boys can kiss and make up on the trip to the supermarket. You’re on ice duty. Make sure you use some of it on that eye.”

I feel my neck heat up at Pat’s mention of kissing. Coach, if you only knew…

Wes lifts a brow. “Ice?”

“Machine in the cafeteria broke down, so I need you to drive to the market and grab a dozen bags.” He’s already dismissing us, turning to Georgie and Ken. “Check the equipment—we need the extra helmets and pads out of storage for any parents who want to scrimmage with us later.”

Wes and I head out while Pat is still playing drill sergeant. I slide into the passenger seat of his car, grinning at him as I remember last night’s automotive adventures.

He casts a rueful glance over his shoulder. “I can never look at that backseat the same way again.”

“Wait, you’re saying you never hooked up in your car before yesterday?”

“Nope. I had a single at Northern Mass, so I usually brought hook-ups home. Or I went to their place.” He pauses. “That was the better option. Means I didn’t have to kick ’em out when they wanted to spend the night.”

I furrow my brow. “You’ve never spent the night with anyone?” He and I have been sleeping together regularly.

“Nope,” he says again.

“Why not?” I’m suddenly curious to know about his love life. Not the sex—the idea of him with anyone else bugs the shit out of me—but the relationship stuff. For as long as I’ve known him, Wes has been single. Now, knowing he’s gay, it makes sense why he never had a girlfriend. But has he had a boyfriend?

“I didn’t want anyone getting too attached to me,” he says with a shrug, his eyes focused on the road.

The response only makes me more curious. “Did you ever get attached to them?”

“Nope.” This is his go-to answer for the day, apparently.

“Have you ever gone out with anyone?” I ask slowly.

He’s quiet for a moment. “No,” he admits. “I don’t do boyfriends, Canning. It’s too messy.”

For some reason, my gut clenches. I want to ask him what I am, then. An extended hook-up? A summer fling? I knew this thing with us was bound to end eventually, but I at least thought the time we’ve had together has meant something to him.

Because it means something to me. I’m not sure what, or why, but I do know that this isn’t just about sex for me.

“And once I’m in Toronto, I won’t be doing anything,” he says glumly. “Celibacy is gonna suck.”

An uneasy feeling washes over me. “Did you talk to your dad about the Sports Illustrated thing?”

“Haven’t told him yet. But I’m not doing the interview. That’s not a can of worms I’m interested in opening.” He swiftly changes the subject, as he usually does when the conversation is too focused on him. “What about you? Have you bought a ticket to Detroit yet?”

Great. He picks the one topic I don’t want to discuss. “No.”

“Dude, you need to get on that.”

Wes parks in front of the supermarket and we hop out of the car. I hope he’ll drop the subject now that we’re here, but he’s still talking about it as we walk into the air-conditioned store.

“You’re supposed to report there in three weeks,” he reminds me as he grabs a shopping cart. “You thinking of renting a house in the suburbs? Where do the Detroit players tend to live?”

I nod, thinking about my conversation with Pat. He pulled me aside a couple days ago and said he’d put some feelers out in the coaching community. We’re supposed to talk again on Monday, but I still haven’t told Wes about it.

Deciding to test the waters, I grab another cart and say, “Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about going to Detroit.”

He looks startled. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning…” I take a breath. Screw it. Might as well tell him.

We head for the freezers in the back, and Wes listens with no expression as I pretty much repeat everything I discussed with Holly—how I don’t want to play backup my entire career, my lack of enthusiasm about going to Detroit, the possibility of being sent to the minors and not even playing a pro game. The only part I leave out is that I’m toying with taking a coaching job. I’m not ready to talk about that yet, especially when nothing is even official.

Once I’m done, he still doesn’t respond. He chews on his lips, thoughtful. Then he opens the freezer and heaves out a bag of ice. “You’re really considering not playing this season?” he finally says.

“Yeah.” The cold air hits my face as I grab two more bags and load them into my cart. “Do you think I’m fucked in the head for throwing away a chance at the pros?”

“Yes and no.” He drops another bag in his cart. “I think all your concerns are valid.”

The conversation halts when a woman pushing a cart pops around the corner. Her step stutters when she notices Wes’s black eye, and then she continues on with a wary look.

Wes glances at me, chuckling. “She thinks we’re hooligans.”

I roll my eyes. “She thinks you’re a hooligan. As she should. I, on the other hand, am a saint.”

He snorts. “Should I flag her down and tell her how I got the shiner, Saint Jamie?”

I give him the finger, then grab two more bags. We push our carts side by side and wander over to the checkout counter, where we get in line behind an elderly couple with a shopping cart full of cereal boxes. Just cereal boxes and nothing else.

“So my concerns are valid,” I prompt as we wait our turn.

He nods. “Goalies have it tough. I can’t deny that.”

“But?”

“But this is your one chance.” His voice softens. “If you don’t take it, you could regret it for the rest of your life. Look, if I was in your shoes, I might be questioning my decision too, but—”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d report in a heartbeat, even if it meant spending years waiting for your shot.”

“True dat.” He rests his forearms on the cart. “But that’s because I love the game. Even if I get to play only five minutes in a whole season, it’s worth it to me. Hockey is everything to me.”

But is it everything to me?

I’m even more troubled as I think of all the hard work that goes into a professional hockey career. The constant training, the rigid diet, the grueling schedule. I love hockey, I really do, but I’m not sure I love it as much as Wes loves it. And if I compare the level of satisfaction I get from stopping a goal to the pride I feel teaching someone like Mark Killfeather to become a better goalie, a better man… I honestly don’t know which one means more to me.

“I just think you need to give it a shot,” Wes says, jolting me from my thoughts. “At least go to training camp, Canning. What if you’re there and suddenly they’re like, ‘We’re giving you the starting job, kid.’”

Right, and then I’ll fly to work on a Pegasus, befriend a genie, and get paid in leprechaun gold.

Wes notices my expression and sighs. “It could happen,” he insists.

“Yeah, maybe,” I say noncommittally.

The old couple pushes their cereal cart away, and Wes and I step forward, charging the ice to Elites’ account. Five minutes later, we’re loading the bags into Wes’s trunk.

I’m no closer to reaching any sort of conclusions about my predicament, and Wes seems to sense that. He nods at the gas station fifty yards from the supermarket. “Let’s grab some slushies,” he suggests.

“The ice’ll melt if we leave it in the trunk for too long,” I point out.

He rolls his eyes. “It’ll take us all of five minutes. Besides, science has proven that slushies are conducive to the making of important life decisions.”

“Dude, you really need to quit quoting ‘science’ all the time.”

Laughing, we lock the car and make the short trek to the gas station, where Wes grabs two empty cups and nudges me toward the slushie station. He fills his cup with the cherry flavor and then waits. But I haven’t had a slushie in a long time, and I can’t decide. So I put some of each flavor in my cup.

At the counter, the middle-aged clerk chuckles at the sight of my rainbow concoction. “I did that once,” he remarks. “Felt sick for days afterward. You’ve been warned, son.”

Wes snickers. “My buddy likes a little bit of everything.”

I give him the side-eye for that awful joke. We pay for our drinks and leave the store, but we’ve barely taken two steps when Wes slaps his forehead. “We forgot the straws. Wait here. I’ll grab ’em.”

As he ducks back inside, I linger near the door, admiring the sleek, silver Mercedes S-class that pulls up to one of the pumps. A gray-haired man gets out of the Merc and smooths the front of his silky tie. Shit, the guy’s rocking a suit that probably costs more than my parents make in a year.

His gaze flicks in my direction. “Are you the attendant?” he barks out.

I shake my head. “It’s self-serve,” I call back.

“Of course it is.” His tone is condescending as fuck, and there’s a sneer on his face as he twists off the cap of his gas tank.

Frowning, I turn away from Snobby McSnobbers just as Wes pops out the door. He hands me a straw, his forehead wrinkling when he notices my expression. Clearly he thinks my frown is a result of my Detroit dilemma, because he lets out a quiet sigh.

“You’ll figure it out, babe,” he says softly. “You’ve still got time.”

Then he leans into me, gripping my shoulders with one arm. He brushes a reassuring kiss over my cheek, and my entire body tenses, because Snobby McSnobbers chooses that exact moment to glance our way.

The look on the man’s face cuts through me like a blade.

Disgust.

Pure, malicious disgust.

Jesus. Nobody has ever looked at me that way before. Like I’m a piece of dog shit they’ve just had the misfortune of stepping on. Like they want to wipe my very existence off the face of the earth.

Beside me, Wes stiffens. He’s just realized we’re being watched.

No, that we’re being judged.

“Do you know that guy?” he says warily.

“No.”

“He looks familiar.”

Does he? I’m too stuck on his expression to know.

“Ignore him,” Wes murmurs, taking a step toward the car.

My breathing is shaky as I follow him. Unless we walk all the way around the gas station to get back to our car—which I’m unbelievably tempted to do right now—we have no choice but to pass the Mercedes. As we near the man in the suit, I find myself bracing myself the way I do on the ice right before a puck flies toward me. I’m in defense mode, ready to protect myself at all costs, even though I know I’m being ridiculous. This man isn’t going attack me. He isn’t going to—

“Fucking faggots,” he mutters under his breath as we walk by.

Those two words are like a blow to the gut. From the corner of my eye I see Wes flinch, but he doesn’t say a word. He keeps walking, and I struggle to match his brisk stride.

“I’m sorry,” he says when we reach the car.

“Nothing to be sorry about, man.” But I can’t deny I’m shaken up. That bubble Wes and I have been living in all summer has just burst. If we somehow managed to keep seeing each other after camp, I might encounter this type of shit all the time.

Unbelievable.

“People are assholes.” His tone is gentle as we get into the car. “Not all of them, but some.”

My hand shakes as I place my slushie in the cup holder. “This happens to you a lot?”

“Not often. But it happens.” He reaches for my hand, and I know he feels it trembling as he laces our fingers together. “It sucks, Canning. Not saying it doesn’t. But you can’t let jerks like that get to you. Fuck ’em, right?”

I tighten my grip on his hand. “Fuck ’em,” I agree.

Still, the drive back to the rink is subdued. We don’t say much as we drop the ice off at the cafeteria. I really wish I could just brush off that bigoted comment—that look—but it stays with me. Gnaws at me. Yet at the same time, I feel a burst of pride for Wes. No, it’s awe, because it takes true strength for him to be so unflinching about his sexuality. His own parents refuse to accept it, and even that doesn’t keep him down.

“Coach Canning, Coach Wesley!” Davies calls when Wes and I arrive outside the rink. “Come meet my dad.”

The front steps are littered with teenagers and their folks, all of whom are eager to meet the coaches who are grooming their kids into champions. Shen is in the middle of an animated conversation with his parents, grinning wildly as he talks about his progress. A few feet away, Killfeather stands alone, his teeth worrying his bottom lip as he looks around.

Wes and I have just reached Davies and his father when a flash of silver catches my peripheral vision.

I shift my head, and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach when the Merc from the gas station suddenly speeds up to the curb. I notice Killfeather take a step forward, looking even more agitated now.

The driver’s door opens.

The bigot gets out of the car and addresses Killfeather in an annoyed voice. “Isn’t there a closer parking lot?”

My goalie visibly gulps. “No. Only the one behind the building.”

“I’ll leave the car here then.”

“It’s a fire lane,” Killfeather protests. “Just park in the lot, Dad. Please.”

Oh shit. Dad?

Dread floods my stomach at the same time Killfeather Senior registers my presence. His head turns sharply, those dark eyes landing on me. Then on Wes.

As his lips curl in an angry sneer, only one thought runs through my head.

Fuck.