11. Chapter Eleven

We had three hours, two condoms, and one large tube of lube.

Also, we had a door that locked.

Which was important when you were stripping off your lover’s clothes.

“Does Kyleen sleep soundly?” I asked, his hands moving down over my bare ass as we struggled to get me as naked as he was. I fumbled to the left, smacked my knee on the nightstand, and cussed softly.

“Like a rock,” Marcus hotly replied and shoved me to his bed. It wasn’t a massive thing by any means, probably a queen like mine. It was the right size for two big men to get comfy, and we did. He moved between my legs, his cock leaking steadily, his dark eyes smoldering as he shimmied up over me, kissing as he went. I writhed under him, pulling at the covers as I pressed my heels into the mattress for leverage.

“Fuck,” I panted.

“Exactly,” he replied, using his teeth to tug at my nipple. My balls tightened in warning. As if he sensed I was on the edge, he licked a path to my throat and then to my mouth. My arms and legs went around him as his tongue and mine tangled. “I love how responsive you are,” he panted when we came up for air. “You’re so pretty spread out under me, your hair flowing over my pillow, your cheeks pink from my whiskers, the rosy—”

“Marcus, save the poetry for my sister.”

His head flew up, lips wet from his torture/adoration of my nipples. “Sorry, what now?”

“That came out wrong. Please get inside me,” I begged, yes, I begged, and he didn’t razz me about it. Teasing could come later. Right now, we have only so much time and weeks’ worth of pent up desire to unleash.

“You’re so pushy,” he said, his lips moving down to my jawline before he pushed back to sit on his heels. Without a wince or a yelp at tight hamstrings. I’d been with guys who couldn’t touch their toes without crying out. Limber goalies for the win.

“You love that about me,” I parried, taking my cock in hand. His nostrils flared as I stroked myself. I threw my left heel to his shoulder, opening myself up wider, an open invitation for him to get his fat dick into my ass if ever there was one. He stared downward, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“I love that about you,” he ground out right before wetting his finger and trailing it down over my balls to tickle my taint. My thighs and calves flexed, lifting my ass off the bed as he toyed with my hole. “Sexy as hell,” he breathed out and slid the tip of his thumb into me.

I wanted more. “Get the lube,” I huffed, working my dick steadily.

“Leave that be.” He slapped at my hand, knocking it off my dick. “I want to feel you come when I’m inside you.”

“Bareback?” I asked in confusion. “I’m not sure…”

“No, goofus, in a condom. Later we can go bare.” I sighed at the imagery of him easing into me, skin on skin, then pumping me full. His fingers left my hole for a second, then returned, slicked up and eager.

Later we can go bare.Holy hell, if that didn’t shove me even closer to orgasm, I wasn’t sure what would. Two lanky fingers sliding into me…that was what would shove me closer. He hooked his digits just so, found that lump of nerves, and I saw stars.

“So beautiful,” he roughly whispered, working me open with deft fingers.

“Close…” I gasped. He removed his fingers, wiped them on the pair of blue boxers lying beside my head—ah, so that’s where his underwear had landed—and then took his cock in hand. Arching like a witch’s cat, I ran my hands down over his forearms, clutching at his wrists.

“Easy now,” he said, easing my ass back to the bed before pressing the head of his cock into me. Just the head. The tease.

“More,” I rasped out, my grip on his wrists tight. He rocked his hips forward, easing his prick deeper. “Yes, more.”

“Easy, I don’t want to—”

“You won’t hurt me, Marcus. Give me that dick,” I snarled like a feral cat. He licked his lips, bent down to capture mine, and then gave me that dick. All of it. In one heavenly thrust that had him buried to the root. Something in a mixture of two languages burbled out of me. What it was I couldn’t say, and it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered other than his dick filling me so perfectly. Elbows locked, my foot on his shoulder, he picked up the pace, our gazes never wavering from the other’s face. He was so gorgeous in his passion, his shoulders bunching, neck tight, eyes hot as Vesuvius. I linked my other leg around his back, squeezing his prick as it moved inside me. His mouth fell open, long black lashes fluttering as he rocked in as deeply as he could and burst apart. I felt the rush of warmth as he filled the condom. I let my eyes drift downward to enjoy the shudders of the big man atop me but my lashes flew up a second later when he took my leaking cock in a huge hand, gave it a stroke, and moved up to one knee on the bed and one off.

The angle change was every fucking thing. His pulsing dick hit my prostate as his rough fingers tugged my dick. Without even a warning cry I came, hot ribbons of cum coating his hand. My whole body felt as if I’d stuck a fork into a toaster. White hot currents of pleasure streaked outward from my dick, searing all rational thought processes and a few involuntary actions. Like breathing. It was only after I sucked in a massive breath and my muscles began to unclench that I realized that I’d been holding my breath.

I melted into the bed, Marcus atop me, his brawny body wet with sweat. He lowered himself down, easing his belly to mine, so that he could kiss me. I relished that easy, breathless kiss. Each swipe of his tongue over mine was heavenly, his taste something that I had craved for all those long weeks apart.

“Holy…shit,” he muttered over my cheek, easing out of my body before collapsing to the bed on his side.

“Yeah,” I replied between shaky breaths. I reached to the side, my hand landing on his hip, and I gave the bone a soft squeeze, which made him jerk and snort. “Ticklish?”

“Pfft, no,” he parried. I tickled him again. He flailed and kicked. So ticklish. And that led to a rather erotic Greco-Roman inspired wrestling match between one fiery comet and one lovesick gladiator. When I had him pinned, he smiled up at me and I knew I was lost.

“I think I fell in feelings with you somehow,” I confessed, my hands holding his arms to the tangled bedding. He blinked at me, his grin disappearing. “I didn’t mean that,” I rushed to say, moving off him, my foot wrapped in the blanket as I tried my best to get some distance. He was having none of it though and caught my arm to hold me in place. A nice place for sure. His spent dick was under my ass, the used condom having been tied and tossed to the nightstand when we’d been tussling.

“Did you really not mean it?” His face was pinched like I’d slapped him. I saw the pain in his gaze, felt it deep in my heart, and shook my head.

“No, I meant it. I was just…you looked horrified, so I thought I would just glide back into the blue paint where it’s safe.”

He nodded in full understanding of the hockey talk. “Sometimes someone skates into our safe space and knocks us off our skates. Kind of like you did me.” He reached up to slide his fingers into my hair. They caught on a knot, but he used that to lead my mouth down to his. His kiss was soft but deep, rife with emotion. I dove into the moment, the kiss, never wanting to surface. But we did have to come up for air. When we did, I found his sleepy eyes opening lazily. “I think I fell in feelings with you somehow too.”

A funny sort of sound fluttered out of me. A goofy sound for sure, and not one that a person would associate with a hockey player. It was a sigh mixed with a whimper, all wrapped up in a blanket of bliss. I captured his mouth, this time with a tangle of tongues that soon had us both panting, hard, and rutting against each other.

“I want you inside me,” he said as I nuzzled at the warm, furry place under his arm with my nose. Lifting my head from his pit, I found him looking at me as if I held all the ancient secrets to the world. “Will you fuck me?”

“Yes, shit yes,” I gently replied, easing up to steal a few dozen kisses. Eyes, nose, cheeks, earlobe, shoulder, belly, and balls. I tasted him everywhere, swiping my tongue up and down his cock, where I picked up the lingering taste of his cum. I toyed with his hole, pressing my tongue against the furled edges, easing him open with just my mouth. He was a pliant mess when I sat on my heels, my face slick with spittle. He moved to his hands and knees, offering himself up, his dark skin stark against the tan sheets. I fondled his tight ass cheeks as I rubbed my cock up and down the crack. Somehow, I managed to boot up along with making a mess of the sheets with an overzealous squeeze of the lube bottle.

Seemed it didn’t matter to Marcus one bit. He was happy for the lube overload when I eased into him. His body tightened as I worked slowly past that tight ring, his back tight until I moved past it. Then he exhaled, a long feathery sigh of sorts that made me tingle down to my toes. He was tight, hot tightness, and vocal as hell, not that I was surprised by how toppy of a bottom he was, and he was magnificent. We moved as one, his body seeking more as mine strived to please him. We found the perfect momentum, his brow resting on the bared mattress as I held his hips in my hands, ensuring he wouldn’t go down just yet. I found the pace that we both yearned for, built upon it, and then threw myself into the fire as my balls contracted to fill the condom. His ass gripped my cock as he found his release, his hand pumping madly in perfect syncopation to my thrusts. Emptied of air and sperm, I folded over his strong back, shuddering like a buck rabbit. A thought that made me snicker.

“What the…hell are you…giggling…about?” he asked as his knees finally gave out. We fell to the bed with a grunt, me on his back. I rolled my hips, got a growl of pleasure from him, and then sadly pulled out of all that tight heat. I flopped to my back, breathing like a marathon runner who had just crossed the finish line, and peeled the rubber off my dick.

“Sir Numpty Noggin,” I answered, pawing around on the nightstand for something to drink. Damn it, I’d made coffee like forever ago but never managed to get it into the bedroom.

“Sorry, I think you fucked my brains sideways. Did you call me a numpty noggin?” Marcus moved to his side. I did the same so that I could look at his incredibly sexy face. Man he looked good after being soundly plowed. His eyes were lush ponds of contentment that called for me to wade out into them and simply float forever.

“Dude, not at all.” I chuckled as I wiggled closer so that his belly and mine touched. “My sister had two rabbits when we were kids. The doe was named Lady Arabella Carrot, and the buck was Sir Numpty Noggin. She named them. I wanted to call them Kiara and Kovu. It was my Lion King II phase…don’t judge me. I was like five or something. Totally underrated movie, by the way. Prove me wrong.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the rabbits tended to breed like…well, rabbits. And every time the buck would come, he would squeal and his hips would piston super-fast. It was hilarious. Of course, I had no clue what was going on, so I used to say Sir Numpty was kickstarting Lady Arabella like Dad did his beloved old scooter that he had brought over from Thailand. My parents liked to die laughing when I said it. My father laughed so hard, I thought he was going to pass out. My mom wasn’t at all impressed and Citra pinched me for saying Lady Arabella needed a kickstart.”

“Okay, that is pretty funny. Your family sounds amazing.” He smiled and pulled the covers up over our chilling bodies. I moved closer to rest my hand on his side. He slid a leg between mine. It was the most perfect moment I had ever known with a man. “Will they be okay with you dating me?”

I ran a finger up his side, enjoying the play along his ribs to his pit. He wiggled about like a worm, so I stopped.

“Do you mean because you’re a Comet?”

He shrugged as my hand wandered back to his hip, where it rested as if it had been crafted just for that dip on his body.

“Yeah, and the fact that I’m Black.” His fingers moved up to my face to tangle into my hair. “I love your hair. Don’t ever cut it.”

“Noted.” My toes curled into the bedding at his softly spoken words. “They won’t care that you’re Black. They’ve grown pretty liberal over the past few years. I mean, they still have some pretty conservative Asian things they cling to, but Citra and I are weaning them off all that. Having a gay son has kind of forced them to choose between bigoted, outdated views or loving their child. Nothing is more important to them than my sister and me. Well, maybe Banyu now that he’s here, but there really is no competing with a grandbaby, is there?”

“No, there isn’t. Okay cool, I was just wondering how they’d be when I showed up at their door for Easter dinner.”

“Well, we don’t really do Easter in the way you Christians do. We just tend to eat a lot of Thai food, gorge on chocolate bunnies, and then watch a movie or something.”

“Like the Lion King II?”

“I’d opt for one of the Star Trek movies now, but sure, why not a Disney flick? And if you have Kyleen, it would be perfect.” He grinned sleepily and then yawned. I did the same as we snuggled under the toasty warm and slightly dirty coverings. “So, is that what we’re doing? We’re seriously dating?”

“Are you into that?” he cautiously asked.

“I am so far into that you’d need a road map to find me,” I answered, burrowing into his arms and putting my mouth to his.

“Cool. Then yeah, we’re dating. Secretly for now. We’ll have to brainstorm how to handle telling the world about us.” He studied me for a reaction.

I merely smiled. “The world will just have to get over itself. I’m not letting you go.” And to prove that, I wrapped him in my arms, held him close, and in a totally unplanned but should have been expected happenstance, drifted off to sleep with the man I loved resting in my embrace. It was perfect.

Or would have been had I not woken up at the ass crack of dawn with a sore ass, a slumbering goalie spread out over me, and the knowledge that I had to somehow sneak back into the hotel without being made by anyone who would bust me. Staying out all night was not cool. Coach would chew me a new one if he found out that I’d broken curfew. He might even bench me for being out all night, which would suck.

Also, we had a bus leaving at eight to take us to our next game in Charlotte tomorrow night. Fuck.

I moved out from under Marcus and began looking for my clothes in the dark.

“You can turn on the light,” he mumbled as he moved around on the bed. “’Time is it?”

I found my briefs and pants on the floor and jumped into them, pulling up my zipper so fast it should have sparked. I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, only to find it dead as Darth Maul in Star Wars Rebels.

“My phone is dead. Near dawn?” I yanked my hoodie out from under his pants, tugged it over my head, and searched for my socks. They were on top of the dresser.

“It’s after six,” he croaked as he kicked the covers off to dress. “Are you in trouble?”

Probably. Deeply.

“Only if I get caught.” I played it off as a nothing, and it might very well be, or it might be a big something. We’d cross that bridge when we got to it as the old folks say. “I have to go. I didn’t mean to sleep here, but…”

“Yeah, it was nice, wasn’t it?” He pulled a pair of gray joggers over his ass as he looked my way.

“Incredibly nice.”

“Let me drive you to the hotel,” he offered as he located a sweatshirt in deep blue and yellow, a massive comet on the front.

“No, I’ll get an Uber. If someone saw you dropping me off…”

I let it hang. He sighed deeply, took my hand, and walked me to the door. The house was quiet. He pulled up the app and got me a ride.

“Three minutes away,” he informed me while I slid my feet into my sneakers at the front door. “Baskoro, we can figure this out. We just need time to work at it.”

“I know.” I leaned in for a kiss. His lips were soft, his arms comforting and strong. All too soon, a horn honked outside. “I have to go. I love you,” I whispered and broke free, dashing out into the bitter cold, my toque down low on my head. I waved once and then leapt into the back seat of a really nice Subaru Forester. Marcus lifted a hand and closed the door on the whipping winds. Heaving a sigh, I sat back, turtled up once more to avoid any possible recognition—I hoped—and rode in silence to the hotel. The driver didn’t talk. He just sipped on a massive cup of coffee while listening to the local morning newscast on the radio. I stayed in my shell as the newscasters moved from Wilkes-Barre news to sports. Yeah, the Comets had won. That was not going to please Coach Miles. I’d have to do better and maintain focus when we faced off against the Comets or someone was going to wonder why I sucked big old buffalo balls whenever I faced Marcus Newley.

The smell of the driver’s coffee was making me twitchy. I needed some caffeine badly, but I had to get to my room first, in ninja mode, and then hit up the coffeepot in the room.

When the chain hotel we were staying at appeared on the left, I dug out forty bucks and passed it to the driver after he pulled under the porte cochere to let me out.

“Keep the change,” I mumbled into the neck of my hoodie and sprinted into the hotel lobby, head down, eyes on the floor. I made it to the elevators without seeing anyone I knew, and when I scanned my card and slipped into room 509, I let out a long held breath. I’d made it.

“Hey, man,” Liam called from behind me. Shit. I steeled my face and turned to find not only my roommate, on the road and off, but also Fossie, DJ, Greck, and Bean, the team captain who was looking incredibly captain-y. “Think you can sit down and talk for a bit?”

Everyone was sending off this tense vibe. I yanked off my toque, wishing like hell that I’d had time to shower. My hair was stiff with spunk. I had to reek of sex.

“You guys all here for coffee and donuts?” I hesitantly asked. They all looked at me with such pity and concern it left me speechless. Then it hit me. “Seriously? Are you all here for an intervention of some sort?!”

Bean rose, his hands outstretched. “Baskoro, we’re just worried about you. If you are having some dependency issues, Fossie and I are reps for the players’ association dealing with mental health and substance abuse problems.”

My mouth hung open. No lie. I stood there like a trout as my sight went from one friend to the other. Their love and concern was beyond touching.

“Guys,” I breathed out, flung my toque to my empty bed, then scrubbed at my face. “I’m not doing drugs. I just…” Shit, this was awful. I couldn’t just tell them about Marcus because I didn’t have his permission to open that can of worms. Fuck. I hated lying to them. “I went to see a guy about a horse for Banyu, got lost, and slept in a hotel.”

The disbelief in that room was so thick you could spread it on your bread.

“A horse?” Greck said because he had to be Greck. “The kid is what, eight months old?”

“Yep, a horse. Pony actually, I fibbed.” Liam stared at me openly, not buying one word, his brow furrowed with worry. “But it was too expensive, and my sister doesn’t have room for a stable.” I shrugged and pushed some hair from my face. Man, I really wanted a shower. “So yeah, that was that. My phone died, which is an everyday thing, and so I just crashed at this two-star hotel where the bed was hard and there was no hot water, so I’m just going to wash up.” I jerked a thumb at the door to the bathroom, grabbed my suitcase, and made a move to exit stage left.

“Baskoro, we’re only trying to help,” Bean said, moving another step closer, then holding out his hand for me to shake. I took his massive mitt and shook it. He held onto my fingers tightly. “Please, if you don’t want to talk to all of us, which I can see would be intimidating, would you talk to Liam?”

I chucked a look at my bestie slash tandem goalie buddy, nodded, and rushed into the bathroom to catch my breath and text Marcus. There was about ten minutes of serious texting that took place, high speed, with all kinds of expletives. Then finally we hit the end of the panic texts.

Go ahead and tell Liam. ~ M

You sure? ~ B

Yeah. Then we’ll figure out how and when to tell the teams. ~ M

Okay. I’m sorry they’re such nosy asses. ~ B

Nah, they love you. Like I do. We’ll sort it all out. ~ M

He sent a row of heart emojis and then left to get his daughter off to school. Feeling like a flea on a louse on the backside of a hyena, I climbed into the shower, scrubbed until my skin was red, shampooed twice, and cranked off the taps. I stretched out dressing for as long as possible. When I stepped out of the steamy bath, Liam was opening a brown lunch bag.

“I ran out to get some breakfast from this bagel shop that had about seven hundred five-star reviews. I know you can’t go without coffee, so I stopped at Starbucks to get you whatever they had that might come close to the Thai coffee you IV drip into yourself all day long. Closest I could get was a quad—”

“I’m in love with Marcus Newley,” I blurted out as I stared at the breakfast buffet and massive cup of coffee he had run out to get me on a blustery winter day. “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months now and we’re having sex, so yeah, no drugs or anything bad is happening. I’m not hooked on anything. Guess you could say that I’m addicted to his love.”

The bad pun died a miserable death. Robert Palmer was probably rolling over in his grave…the poor man.

“Wow.” He sat down on his bed, his cup of hot chocolate in his hand, stunned to the core. “I did not see that coming at all.”

“Us either.” I grabbed my cup, dropped down beside him, and slowly filled him in on everything that had taken place since that stupid party in college. He sipped his cocoa as I verbally flooded him with words.

“But you guys literally were beating on each other yesterday,” Liam said after a long break where I had run out of words and was inhaling coffee like a fiend.

“It looked like a fight, but nah, it was just us feeding the stupid PR crap,” I huffed, staring at the bottom of my cup with longing. “I mean, it was kind of erotic in a way, but—”

“Holy shit, were you two getting in a public frottage sesh in front of all the fans?!”

“Liam, are you for real here? There were like four cups between the two of us.”

“Right, sure, yeah, sorry. Still, man, that is some freaky shit. So you two are serious?”

“Yeah, we are. We’re in love.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

He blew out a breath that puffed his cheeks. “Okay, so where do you go from here? I mean, you guys are terrible at lying, or you are at least. Everyone close to you knows something is up, and I wager the coaching staff is wondering why you tank when we play the Comets.”

“Hey, they lost the game before last,” I argued before sticking my finger down into the empty cup to try to catch the last drop. Liam stood, padded across the room, and pulled out another cup of coffee from the takeout bags. “I would seriously have your babies.”

“Tarcy might have something to say about that,” he teased as he sat down where he had been sitting and poked at the lid of his cocoa with a finger. “Look, I know how hard this must be for you, hiding things from the world. It’s a lot like being closeted, which sucks so badly. Why don’t you try talking to Coach Miles?” I grimaced. “No, hear me out. He’s still kind of youngish, he’s gay, and he has a husband who is HIV positive. He’s dealt with stigma for a long time. If anyone on the team coaching staff would know what it felt like to be stuck in a bad place like you are, it would be him.”

I thought on that long and hard, then bobbed my head just once. “Okay, yeah, maybe I’ll discuss that with Marcus. If he’s okay with it, I’ll talk to Coach Miles or someone. I just really want this to end, all the hyped-up public relations stuff about our simmering rivalry.”

“I’m guessing the only thing simmering between you two is the sex by the way your neck looks.” He reached up to flick a spot under my ear. It twinged. I felt my face warm. I’d seen the love mark but thought my hair would cover it when it was down. Guess not.

“It’s more than sex,” I piped up. The cup between my hands was warm.

“No, hey, I didn’t think that. Look, I get it. Sometimes people see a couple and make whatever kinds of rash judgments about them.”

“Like you and Tarcy?” I asked, hoping to steer this away from me. I wasn’t sure who to talk to about things or when or how or why or…yeah, I wasn’t sure about anything other than I wanted to be able to claim Marcus as my boyfriend in the future.

“Well, yeah, totally. People see an older guy with a younger guy and they’re all whispery about things as if me loving him is some taboo thing. It’s stupid. It’s not like our problems are due to our age differences.”

I glanced to the side. “You and Tarcy are having trouble?” I enquired, knowing that things between them had been tense of late.

“No, nothing serious,” he quickly answered and began rolling his cup between his hands. “It’s just…hard. It sucks being away from each other for so long. I don’t do distance well it seems. I see Bean coming home to Criswell, and DJ to Pastor Gabe, and now even Greck to Henri and they’re so happy. And there I am, coming home to you.”

“Dude, I am crushed.” I elbowed him playfully.

“Oh, hey, no, I didn’t mean it like that.” He chuckled softly. “I just…I’m ready for more. I need more, but more is hard when he’s racing. But things are going to get better now. He’s done for the season. I just wish we were on the same track. Ha, ugh, stupid racing pun.” He exhaled. “Okay, enough of that. Let’s get shit packed up and get downstairs for the free breakfast buffet before Fossie gets to the bacon.”

I nodded, downed my coffee, and gathered my scattered belongings, eager to get moving away from this morning yet dreading the long gap that would take place until I saw Marcus again. Liam was 100 percent right. Distance sucked.