Chapter Nine

“Coke is great stuff,” I sighed after downing half a can in two gulps. Dan stood across the room. He looked damn good even if he did have helmet hair and no skates on his feet. He was working the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth. I wanted to nibble it for him but kept that suggestion to myself. “So did you get yourself something to drink?”

He nodded. The motion sent a shank of sweat-dried hair into his right eye. He tossed it aside. The need to roll my eyes was freaking overwhelming. Seemed he was in one of his reflective moods. I should have asked Brad the medic to hang around after the stitchery was completed. At least he’d talked.

“Diet root beer, right?” I said to try to lure him into making wordage happen.

“Yeah, diet root beer.”

“I knew it. That’s your go-to drink when you’re stewing.”

His plump lips flattened. “I’m not stewing.”

“Oh yeah, you are. What I don’t get is what you’re stewing about.”

Dan padded over to where I sat on the gurney. He looked even shorter than his five-foot-six-inches with me seated up so high. He was one sexy fucking Hobbit. Buggery in the Shire. I could get into that big time.

“He could have kicked you in the face, blinded you, or worse, hit you in the neck.”

“Pfft,” I countered. Dan’s scowl deepened. “That ignorant dickhead is still trying to recall his rudimentary English. Did you see how fucked up he was after I introduced his thick skull to the floor? Fucking homophobic bastard will think twice before calling you a fag, if he can even think once from now on.”

“Is that what started that? Him calling me a fag?”

“Yeah.”

I tipped up my soda can to drain it. When I’d finished it off, I found Dan staring at me with some emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Concern or maybe confusion, if I had to guess.

“You call me a fag all the time,” he said softly.

“It’s a term of endearment when I call you a sexy little fag in bed,” I replied, then tossed my empty into a trash can in the far corner. “Boom! Nothing but net, sweets.”

When he didn’t reply, I glanced from the trash to him. Okay, he was starting to jazz me up just a little. His eyes were shifting pools of blue, one minute filled with compassion, the next worry, and now, if I was reading them right, passion.

“Dan, you’ve got to know that no one talks bad about you within earshot of me. I’ll kill the motherfucker who dares to run you down.”

I slid off the gurney to my stocking-covered feet. My skates lay beside me on the table, taken off courtesy of Brad the medic.

“He could have blinded you.”

Dan moved fast. His hands fastened onto my head and he tugged my mouth down over his. Oh. Hell. Yeah. I was totally on board for this. I wrapped my arms around him and jerked him against my chest. The breath left him when his body slammed into mine. I sucked in that breath, took it deep into my lungs. His tongue slid over mine in a possessive manner that instantly sparked my dominant nature. The kiss fired up, engulfed us and became a battle that we both lost—or won. Depends on your POV. For me it was a major win. I backed him against a cabinet, then dove deeper into his mouth. He finally groaned. I’d been waiting for that sound and I broke the kiss so I could suckle on his salty neck. My hands roamed under his shirt and padding. His did the same. My cock was so hard it throbbed with each racing beat of my heart. I needed to be inside him.

“He could have blinded you,” Dan panted as he worked to get his hand down the front of my pants.

“You worry too much. Fuck, Dan, I missed you, missed this.” I buried my face in his neck, rubbed my rough cheek over the dark whiskers on his jaw and tasted his mouth repeatedly. He eagerly pawed for my dick. If he was up for this, then I would take him right there, bent over the gurney, without a second thought. He was about one cup from the prize when someone knocked discreetly on the door and coughed. It was a light cough, but Dan stiffened in my arms and jerked his fingers out of my pants.

“Brooks is waiting outside,” he huffed, his lips swollen from me assaulting his mouth. I ran my tongue over my lip to gather the faint traces of Dan’s taste lingering on it, my brow resting on his. “We shouldn’t have done this anyway. There’s too much shit between us still that has to be fixed.”

“Fuck Brooks, and fuck saying this shouldn’t have happened. This always happens with us, from the first time we roomed together.” I kissed him gently, trying to ease him into being more pliable and open to my suggestions. It never worked but I always had to try. “This is you and me, Dan. This is why no other man is ever going to take your place. No woman, either. I fucking swear it.” This time it was me cupping his face between my hands. “Please let me tell you my side of things. I need you back with me, Dan. Just give me an hour.”

“If I asked you to beg me on bended knee for an hour, would you?”

“Yeah, I’d beg,” I whispered.

Dan rose up to kiss me. “I’m sharing a room with my cousin. You got a single?”

“Like anyone beside you would room with me.”

I had to get one more taste before I let him go. It was a good sampling of Dan Arou’s charms, let me tell you. His tongue and mine swirled around each other, my hand on the clammy small of his back, his fingers resting on the band of my padded pants.

“Will you give me an hour?”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess an hour,” he whispered, his eyes lazy with lust.

Another soft knock made me mumble dirty words. I stepped away from my addiction. Hardest. Thing. Ever. Dan and I shared a long look before he went to meet his cousin. I could barely walk when he left the room a moment later. I grabbed my stiff dick and tried to get it hidden behind my cup so I could get to the locker room without drawing comments from the peanut gallery. I lingered for a bit, since my boner was not interested in being folded in half to stay inside my cup. My mind wanted to drift to erotic memoires of Dan and me. It took all I possessed to pace that room and think about anything other than feeling Dan writhing beneath me.

Once I had things under control, I headed for the locker room. The rink was quiet. I paused to look at the ice. The Zamboni had been over it. I love the look of new ice. All the gouges and flaws filled in with fresh ice gave me hope for my relationship with Dan. If only a person could drive a Zamboni over the pockmarks and divots in their personality. I turned from the ice and padded to the locker room. I could smell myself. I didn’t smell honkingly gorgeous by any means.

The small locker room was empty save for Buttonwood, who had showered and changed. I cocked an eyebrow at him as I began peeling off my gear. Each layer removed made the stink of unwashed hockey player grow exponentially. When I was down to my balls in the wind, I turned to look at our captain.

“What do you want?” I asked, my bottle of shampoo and my bar of soap in my hands.

“I just wanted to let you know that Prescott has been sent home.” He couldn’t look at me, it seemed, for his eyes danced around the locker room as he spoke.

“Man, you are really uncomfortable with us alternate lifestyle folks, aren’t you?”

His gaze flew from the cart of dirty towels to my face.

“A little, but I’m working on it. Just thought you’d like to know,” he said, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Wasn’t necessary to send him packing,” I threw over my shoulder as I headed to the showers.

“Well, he had a concussion, so yeah, he did have to go. But even if you hadn’t bruised that acorn he calls a brain, I would have sent him off. Professional ice hockey has no place for that kind of bigoted hatred.”

I stopped and turned to face Buttonwood. “You secretly want to join me and Dan, don’t you?” Mike’s eyebrows twitched and the corner of his mouth began ticking wildly. I snorted at his battle not to vomit into his mouth. “Dude, I was kidding. I know you’re as straight as McGarrity’s mother. Very cool sentiment. As one of the letters in LGBT, you have my thanks. Now get out of here before I kiss you on the mouth, you sexy fucking stud-horse you.”

“You don’t really want to kiss me, do you?” he asked, his skin growing more ashen with every passing second.

I glanced down at my limp dick then back at Buttonwood. The man was this close to gagging or passing out.

“Guess not, or little Vic would be all Chuck Connors.”

“Chuck Connors?”

“Standing tall? Fucking A, Buttonwood, if I have to explain the jokes they lose all the yuk-yuk. I’m outie,” I said, then disappeared into the showers.

When I emerged ten minutes later, bandage on my forearm wet and nuts sparkling clean, I found the place deserted. I dressed slowly, easing the wounded arm into a Metallica T-shirt. Jeans up over ass, then feet pushed into sneakers sockless went slowly. My arm hurt more than I would ever admit.

If I were smart, I would go to my hotel room, OD on Tylenol and sleep until I got bedsores. Being Victor Kalinski I was not going to do any of that. Well, maybe the acetaminophen abuse would happen, but none of the other goodness. There were explanations and amends to make. I could rest and recuperate when I was dead.