10. Chapter 10

I couldn't decide whether this was a punishment or the biggest swindle of the century. On the one hand, I was missing out on training camp with the other lads from my team.

Well, technically not missing out. Coach had ‘gifted' them the afternoon off to rest their aching muscles and ice their many bruises and pop ibuprofen like skittles, but I would have given my right bollock to be beside them, to be included in their little TC-club. To join in with practice instead of watching from the side of the rink and quietly weeping.

Yet, on the other hand, they weren't here with me. And Jamie. In the glorious September sunshine. With a blanket spread out on the sandy banks of the lake.

He'd brought a blanket, for fuck's sake. And I'd brought breaded-chicken wraps and a salad, and a couple of slices of brownie. I'd cooked, because these days, I had someone to cook for, and it felt good. It felt right.

But it also felt like I was cheating the system somehow. That any minute now, Coach Turner would poke his beaky nose in and split this up. "No, no, no, no. This isn't how you recover a rotator cuff. A fucking picnic? What's next? A hot-air balloon ride? Champagne? Chocolate-covered strawberries? BJs?"

I side-eyed Jamie, who took a bite of his wrap, and leant back onto his elbow. His muscular legs stuck out in front of him. The breeze from the lake rippled the cotton of his forest-green Henley over his twenty-four pack. He had his shirt-sleeves pushed up again. A glimpse of a bear's head poked out from underneath the fabric. Long, thick veins corded his forearm, tracking down to his wrist.

Okay, BJs were definitely getting added to the list of things that would aid my recovery.

So far I had met Doctor Jamie, and Drill Sargeant Jamie, and Drunk Jamie, and Fleeing for his Life in a Cart Museum Jamie, and Ex-Pro-Hockey Jamie, who was badass as fuck, but this Jamie, the one I was quietly sharing a blanket with under the mid-afternoon sun, was my favourite.

Chill Jamie, or Relaxed Jamie, or Just Jamie, exactly as he was. Just him. No distractions, no motives driving his decisions, no bits of my body to fix or flap over. No other people.

Me and him, and the glittering lake water, and the dappled sunlight sweeping over us, and the gentle autumn breeze, and bloody good food.

"Are we on a date?" I asked, biting into my wrap.

"Of course not. It's Wednesday afternoon. We're both on the clock." Typical Jamie answer.

"But you are going to kiss me again, aren't you?"

The kisses, both of them, but especially the one when Jamie wasn't completely wankered, when he pushed me up against the side of his truck and made every single nerve ending in my body feel as though it was on fire, was incredible, amazing, wonderful, yada yada.

Yeah, it was great. It was just … over too soon. If it were up to me, I'd wear away the skin on my face snogging him all day. Scratch it up against his perfect five o'clock shadow. I never wanted to not be kissing him.

I'd spent the past few days in his office being touched by him; in the weights room, being pretzelled by him; and a couple of times on the ice since Saturday, being watched like an uber-vigilant hawk by him; but not kissed. Never kissed. Because we were at work. His work.

So I"d suggested the lake again, for, you know, all its exercise potential, and because I didn't want to hang around HQ if I wasn't needed there. Jamie agreed instantly, and he seemed much more at ease. My plan to snatch another kiss was working.

For one, he was wearing a Henley and not a button-down. Serious Jamie had been left at the office.

And two …

He leant forward, threw an arm over my shoulder and dragged me closer to him, planting his lips on mine. I melted into him.

I never felt solid when Jamie touched me. Either flammable gas or molten liquid, but never a whole human, with substantial parts. Nor reasonable thinking capacity.

He placed a series of tiny butterfly kisses on my upper lip, and my arms broke out in goose pimples.

"That's also a no." Jamie rubbed his thumb along my jaw and pressed his mouth against the pulse in my neck. "No plans to kiss you today. None at all," he said before easing back into his reclined position.

In the distance, a couple of Canada geese landed on the glittering horizon. Jamie was quiet, staring out at them, his half-eaten wrap held in mid-air.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

He paused. "That what I don't understand is how there was an area of the museum called Trolleys of the Great Depression, when that guy …"

"Phineas Robertson?"

"No, the cart inventor guy."

"Sylvan Goldman?"

"Sylvan Goldman, that guy. When he didn't invent the cart until 1937. That leaves two years until the end of the Great Depression. I highly doubt carts were ubiquitous enough to warrant an entire section of a museum."

I side-eyed him. "Sure, grandpa. We should get you home, yeah?"

Jamie looked at me then and smiled, and I knew Sylvan Goldman hadn't been occupying his thoughts. "What were you thinking about?" he asked me. "I probably only need one guess, don't I?"

I mean, he wasn't wrong. "Actually, I was just thinking about your tattoos."

Jamie sat up straight and gazed down at his forearms as though only just remembering he had them. He flexed his muscles, and I watched the shoulders of a big black cat twitch.

"You want to know about them?" he asked.

"More than anything."

"Sure, okay. This sleeve." He held up his right arm, showing off part of his grizzly-themed decoration there. "This was to celebrate our 2007 win. That's why it's mostly bears. This sleeve." He held up the other arm. "Are reminders of my losses. Not the team's losses, the Bears', but mine. Bad checks, cheap shots, fighting, lots of fighting."

He blew out a breath. "I was the Rowan MacKenzie of my day. Maybe not as scrappy as him, but you know. I let my emotions get in the way. Like him. And when I saw red, that was that. Some of these"—his fingers trailed over ink—"were to remind me that losing control meant losing everything."

He laughed, but it was a humourless laugh. A snort. A pfffft kind of laugh, and shook his head.

I tried to imagine Jamie fifteen years younger. The control freak without control. An emotional wreck. Throwing down at every opportunity. Without his button-downs, and fancy wristwatch, and manicured hands, and shiny shoes. I tried to imagine him with raw knuckles, and split lips, and that permanent scowl not aimed at me for once. I couldn't do it. Couldn't picture it. Couldn't see how he went from Rowan-esque to this super-polished physio dictator.

There had to be a reason. Did he wake up one day and think, Fuck, I'm a big meanie? I doubted it. Something must have happened to change him this drastically. I wanted to ask him about it. Dig a little deeper, but I had the distinct impression he'd shut down entirely if I did. So I steered the conversation back to his tattoos. The added bonus: I got to unashamedly drink in that magnificent body of his.

"I like this one best," I said in a whisper.

"Which one?" Jamie's voice was soft again, as though he was brushing the last two minutes under the picnic blanket.

"This one." I pushed the hem of his Henley up over his stomach, and sucked in my breath. Jamie obligingly leant back onto his elbows, allowing me to push it higher, revealing the ink on his chest. A phoenix perched on top of a skull, its wings spread wide, surrounded by twisting Celtic knots that disappeared over his shoulders.

"Ah," he said, and now he was genuinely smiling. "This one is for my family. The phoenix for my mom, because she was born in Greece, and the Celtic pattern because my dad's family is Scottish."

"It's …" Beautiful. Incredible. Mesmerising. But I seemed unable to speak. I held my palm aloft over the dead centre of Jamie's chest, right above the phoenix.

Jamie nodded his consent, and when I brought my fingers down to caress his skin, his breath stuttered. His eyelids closed. My fingertips traced the inked pathways across his pecs, up near his shoulders, down over his abs, around his belly button. I could have spent hours admiring everything about them and him.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I asked.

"One brother, younger. Dave."

"Does Dave have a piece on your body?"

"Yeah," Jamie said, huffing out a laugh, and he turned onto one hip to show me a tattoo on the other, nearly in butt territory.

"Bart Simpson?"

"His middle name is Bartholemew, and he was a fucking troublemaker. When we were kids, we used to prank call our neighbour. Pretend to be Seymour Butts and Mike Rotch. I could never do it with a straight face or without laughing, but he was a pro."

"What's your middle name?"

Abruptly, he sat up rigid. "Oh, my God, is that a bald eagle?" He pointed into the distance, at nowhere in particular.

I slapped my hand against his massive bicep. "Oh, come on, tell me. It can't be that bad. Mine's Rex by the way. Which is really cool, so …"

"Nope. Hard pass on that."

"If you tell me your middle name, I'll tell you a secret."

Jamie looked off to where he had pointed and watched the geese for a few moments. "Fine, it's … Homer."

"Oh, my God. Homer and Bart!" I was already laughing so much I had to wipe tears away. "No wonder you don't want people knowing."

He sucked at his teeth, but he was still smiling. "She's Greek, my mom. Or my grandparents are." He shrugged. "Besides, it's not too bad. It's Jesus's middle name too."

I screamed with laughter and fell into a ball on the blanket. "Jesus's middle name is not Homer."

"It is too. What else do you think people mean when they say Jesus H. Christ? Harold?"

"Holy crap, you are so cute!"

Wait, did I say that out loud?

It would have been an excellent opportunity for Jamie to kiss me again, scratch up my chin with his stubble. Instead, he went with, "What's your secret, then?"

"I …" I flicked the edge of the blanket up with my trainer. "I'm scared shitless my shoulder won't be healed in time for the start of the regular season."

"Oh." Jamie's arm shot out to cradle my good shoulder. "Oh, Archie." Archie, not even Bowie. "I'm sure it will. You've been doing everything right. Stretching, massage, ice and heat therapy. There's not much more you could be doing."

"It's just … I came to America to play hockey. I thought … I thought I'd finally got there, you know? I'd finally achieved twelve-year-old me's dream. Things were going so well. I found a team I liked. A city I quite like. There's this super hot team physio too. You should see him. But, if I'm here on a sports visa, and not actually doing sports …" I shrugged. My unspoken Where does that leave me? hung in the air between us.

"You're worried they'll deport you?"

"No, not really. Well, not immediately. I'm just worried that Turner will decide he'd rather have the dollar than keep me on bench. And that I'll be sent to yet another team in another city. Another time zone even. And I realise that's how professional sport works. I get it. But I … I feel like I'm this tiny little fish in this massive country where everything is so humongous, and I miss home, and my family, and Tunnock's tea cakes. And I love hockey, and I love being here skating. And I'm so grateful that I am where I am, that I got a chance to do this thing that I love so much. But, at the same time, I'm worried it'll all be snatched away from me. And it'll be my fault because I didn't try hard enough. This is why I never bother to unpack."

Jamie's fingers rubbed my deltoid muscle. He didn't ask me what Tunnock's were. "That won't happen. You're too good to bench forever. In fact, I'm hopeful you'll be skating in the season opener. You've already gotten back on the ice. Trust me, Turner will have you back at practice the second I give him the go ahead."

"So you get to decide when I return to skating?" A bubble of unadulterated hope rose in my chest. If Jamie was the one calling the shots, well, surely I had nothing to worry about. He was in charge of my recovery. He knew how much this meant to me. He saw me giving it my all day after day. Giving one hundred percent of everything I had.

"Of course, I'm your doc." He landed a playful punch on my arm.

"Are you ready to tell me about why you quit hockey?" I asked him tentatively, like he was a wild animal that needed coaxing into a cage. He still flinched, regardless. "That's fine," I jumped in before he even had time to think no. "We can talk about other stuff."

Jamie flashed me a smile, which may have also been a thank you.

"So, when did you last have sex?"

He snorted. "Holy hell. Well—Oh, my God, is that bald eagle windsurfing?!"

I laughed, loud and hard. Jamie smiled too. "Shiiit." I drew out the word. He rolled his eyes playfully and leant back on his elbows. "That long, huh?"

I loved the moments when I rendered Dr James Homer Sullivan speechless.

"It's been a while for me too, you know?" I said. Jamie turned onto his side to look at me. "I was rather hoping you might end my dry spell."

"What's ‘a while' to a twenty-five-year-old fuckboy? Eight weeks?"

"Try months."

He pushed himself upright. "Eight months? Wow … I didn't expect that. How come it's been so long?"

I shrugged. "I haven't found anybody I want to fuck. And then about five weeks ago I did. But he never seized the opportunity to rail me over the edge of his physiotherapist's table. So … What's your excuse? And how long has it really been?"

"No. You don't need to know."

"But I want to," I whined. "More than a year?"

"More than a year," he confirmed.

"Two years?"

He buried his face in his palm. "More."

"MORE THAN TWO YEARS?! THREE YEARS?!"

A pause. A deep, dragging sigh. "Maybe more."

"Oh, my God!" I was on my feet. Why was I on my feet? "Ten years?!"

"Fuck off. Not that long. Four years, okay? It's been nearly four years since I had sex."

I dropped to my knees. Nudged my way between his. "Kitty, we need to rectify this immediately." I climbed over his legs and sat in his lap. Our bodies slotted together perfectly. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. Fiercely and hungrily. Only stopping when I felt the stir of Little Jamie through his sweatpants.

"We're not rectifying this," he said, panting breaths between us. "Not right now, anyway. We've got an entire afternoon's worth of exercise to get through."

"I can think of better exercise. Well, for you. I plan on just lying there. And can't I at least eat my brownie?"

"No, little winger. Burpees first, and planking, and a four-mile run up the mountainside."

"Urgh, not fair." I rolled off him. "One whole mile for every year you've been shagless."

"You can have the brownie as a tasty reward at the end."

I thought about this offer—threat—I wasn't sure what it was. Or whether I liked it, so I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I jumped to my feet, snatched up the little plastic tub with the brownies and took off.

"Bowman!" Jamie yelled, as the sand under my trainers morphed into pine needle strewn dirt. I dodged around tree trunks, over branches, sticking to the main pathway. I was not about to get lost in the woods in America, where there were probably bears and cougars and werewolves.

I spared one glance over my shoulder and, through the trunks and balding branches, I glimpsed Jamie hunched over. Was he … was he folding the blanket and tucking it into the backpack?

"Bowman! Get back here!"

"Come get me, Kitty!" I called, putting even more distance between us.

I ran until the air tore at my lungs. Until my quads screamed at me to stop. Until I thought every atom in my body might expire.

I ran like I was seven, and it was the running race at Bruton Willesbury CofE Primary School sports day. I ran like I was in the Olympic 100m final and stood a chance of beating Usain Bolt.

And when I turned again and clocked Jamie finally giving chase, I ran like there was a monster behind me.

A super hot, but very strict, and now probably pissed off, monster.

I reached a fork in the path and began to slow.

"Go left," Jamie yelled from behind. His heavy footfalls closed the space. Padded against the soft earth. Deliberate, practiced. This was his wood, I reminded myself.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

His wood.

I veered left and picked up my pace.

And I was the dumb foreigner who thought he could outrun a man half a foot taller than me. More probably. Jamie was an ex pro athlete. With a body he painstakingly kept in peak physical condition. He disappeared the gap between us like he was the fucking T1000.

Thudthudthud.

His breaths were audible now. Twigs snapping so close behind me. I slowed infinitesimally, and as I did, a fist closed on the fabric of my shirt. Pulled me to a stop. Spun me around. And pushed me backward, knocking me into a redwood trunk.

Jamie slung his bag onto the floor beside my feet, smacked the tupperware containing the brownies out of my hand, and half smiled at me. The man didn't even look out of breath.

"You're impossible," he said, brushing the sweat-glued hairs off of my forehead.

"I really am," I replied, trying not to wheeze too hard.

But it didn't matter, because the next second Jamie crashed his lips against mine. Already claiming my mouth with his tongue. Flattening my body to the tree behind me with his. Squeezing out any gaps between us.

Jamie groaned into my mouth, pulling apart just far enough to say, "Fuck, Bowie, you drive me so wild. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time I'm around you."

He took his open-mouthed kisses along my jaw, onto my neck, down the column of my throat, across my collarbone, and brought them back to my mouth. "I've never known anyone as beautiful and infuriating. I need to taste every inch of you."

Jamie cupped my ass cheeks just above my thigh and lifted me up, pinning me against the bark. I wrapped my legs around him. We were at perfect kissing height. Our lips exactly aligned. I wasted little time taking advantage of it.

"I want you so bad, Jamie. I've wanted you since the second I saw you." My breaths were shaking, my voice shaking. With pure, undiluted need. I needed him. Near me, over me, in me. I needed to know what all of him looked like, what it all felt like, tasted like. I needed to hear the sounds he'd make as he fell apart. See the faces he'd pull.

"I know you did."

"Did you want me?" I asked him, even though I already knew the answer. I just wanted to hear him say it.

"I thought you were a cocky asshole."

"But did you want me, though?"

He laughed. "You're still a cocky asshole."

"Answer my question, Kitty." I tightened the grip around his waist and Jamie rolled his hips, pressing his hard cock against my pelvis, squeezing the head against bone and hissing at the blissful friction.

"I want you, Bowie. I want you so fucking much it hurts. I don't stop thinking about you. About the way you always seem to find the single most inappropriate thing to say, that nobody in their right mind would ever dream to say, and you fucking say it. Every time. Just to wind me up.

"I think about that tight little body of yours. The noises you made in my bathroom when you were fucking your hand. You know, I had to go home and jack off. I didn't even make it to the bedroom, just did it right there by the door. And every night since then, I think about you as I come."

"Fuck, Kitty, that is so hot." I needed to see that at some point. Needed to watch it happen in real time.

He dragged his thumb over my lips. "And don't even get me started on this mouth, and that fucking accent." Jamie rolled his hips again. This time, holding the pinch against his cock for a few seconds longer, and trembling like I'd imagined he would tremble when inside me. He whined against my neck, and all my bones turned to liquid. Well, most of my bones.

I dug my fingers under the collar of his Henley, felt the hot, firm skin around his collarbone. "Do you remember the other night, outside The Lounge?" I took my fingers higher, twisted them into the back of Jamie's hair, holding his head down against my throat, relishing the way his stubble scraped the delicate skin there.

"We kissed," he said, and he was finally sounding breathless.

"Our first kiss."

"I wish I hadn't been so drunk. Wish I could remember it as well as you do."

I closed my fist. Pulled his head back so I could look into his lust clouded eyes. "We'll have so many other firsts, Kitty. And I'll make sure you'll never forget any of them."

"You swear?"

"I swear. You're sober now, right?"

"Yes," he drew out the word. "Why?"

I straightened my legs and touched my feet back down to the soft ground. I fisted the fabric of his Henley and spun us both so that his back was against the rough bark of the tree. Then I dropped to my knees in front of him.

"Oh, fuck, Bowie. Holy fuck. Jesus. Fuck."

"Can I …?" I pushed the hem of Jamie's shirt up over his stomach.

Damn, those muscles. I planted a kiss against a small Celtic knot at the top of his happy trail, and pressed my face into the warm, downy patch, breathing in the scent of him. That expensive cologne of his, and the salty tang of sweat.

Skin and sex. That was what he smelled like.

I breathed him in again, deep and long, and my cock reached near painful levels of rigidity.

I dragged my mouth lower, tracing ink and veins downwards, drinking in more of his scent, sucking it all in, cataloguing everything in case this would be the first and last time we ever did this. In case he came to his senses and realised he probably shouldn't be fucking around with his patient.

Jamie whimpered, his hands in his hair, his hips gently thrusting against nothing, as though he couldn't control them.

"Get this shirt off," I said, pushing the fabric up against his stomach.

"We can't do this here." But I didn't know who Jamie was trying to convince, since he had already pulled the Henley over his head and tossed it towards his backpack.

I took a few seconds to appreciate the view. Fucking magnificent. A masterpiece. My eyes could die happy now. I took my shirt off and threw it on top of his.

"Fuck, I love it when you undress for me."

Internally, I did a happy jig. I knew it.

I kissed the skin peeking out the top of Jamie's sweatpants. Teased my fingers underneath.

"Bowie, this … is a … public park."

"We're off the main pathway." I pulled open the tie of his waistband.

"There are … dog walkers?"

"Then you'll need to be quiet, won't you?"

By way of answer, Jamie groaned, lolled his head back against the bark and canted his hips towards my face.

I inched his sweatpants down and watched the soft charcoal fabric as it slid over his beautiful olive skin. Down, gently over his hips, his happy valley, the deep V of muscle.

There were tattoos there as well, curling around his buttocks, disappearing down his thighs. I kissed each new inch of Jamie's flesh as it was exposed.

I didn't make it halfway down. Something snagged on his sweatpants, stopping me from pulling them any farther. Something very large.

Fucking massive, actually.

I needed a breather. Needed to steady myself. Make sure I was still touching the solid ground beneath me. Not floating off into happy space. I buried my face into his crotch, closed my eyes and breathed him in one last time, before hooking my thumbs under his waistband and lifting his sweatpants down.

I took a hot second to commit the image of Jamie in his underpants to my memory. Glorious. Majestic. I would need a lifetime to explore his ink, those muscles, the small scars here and there. Make sure that no part of his body went unremembered by someone. I looked up and snapped another mental picture.

"Fuck, Bowie." Hands reached out to plunge themselves into my hair. "Look how fucking perfect you are."

"I'm going to worship you now," I said, looping my fingers around the waistband of his underpants and lifting them down to meet his sweatpants at the tops of his thighs.

Jamie's cock sprang free, bobbing. Long and thick and tan. His crown glistened with pre-cum. I had to jam the heel of my palm against the head of my own cock. He was magnificent. The type of magnificent I couldn't have dreamt up in my wildest, wettest, most preposterously indecent office-based fantasies.

I pinched the bead of moisture off his cock and licked my thumb clean.

"Jesus, Bowie. You're … I can't …"

I smiled, wrapped a fist around his cock, and pressed a feather-light kiss to his crown. He whined. I placed another to the base and dragged my lips and tongue up his length.

Jamie whimpered. His hands scraped down his face, pulled at his own hair, his decorated biceps on full display. He put on such a beautiful show for me.

This. This had been my intention all along.

To watch this man—control personified, master of his emotions, pedantically professional—come undone. Melting for me. Succumbing to me.

The control was mine now.

Mine.

I glanced up again. Jamie's hair was sex-mussed, his eyes half closed, his mouth parted, his chest rising and falling so rapidly you'd think he was the one that ran from the monster.

Perfect. And mine.

I licked across his head and buried his cock in my mouth.

Jamie cried out. His back hit the bark like he'd been shot. "Jesus. Fuck. Bowie. Fuck. Bowie."

The more nonsensical he became, the bigger my internal smile grew, and the harder I went. Alternating between sucking and flicking my tongue. Suck, flick, suck, flick. Jamie fingered my hair, tried holding my face where it was, so that he could fuck it.

"Nnn-nnnn," I said, and placed my left palm on his stomach, pushing back as firmly as I could. Trapping him against the tree and letting him know I was in charge.

Not him for once.

This was my victory to claim.

My own cock was practically screaming at me. It was so painfully hard, a gust of wind in the right direction would likely have me spilling. Still holding firm on Jamie's stomach, I frantically jiggled the waistband of my sweatpants. I wrapped my fingers around my cock and whined with relief onto Jamie's length as I began pumping my fist.

He peeled his eyes open, meeting my gaze for a second, before letting them travel lower.

"Jesus, that'll do it," he said, leaving me wondering what he'd been thinking about at that exact moment. "Bowie, baby, slow down. I'm so close."

But I couldn't stop, couldn't slow down. Because I was about four seconds away from coming so hard it would cause me temporary paralysis. My impending orgasm was building fast. I could feel it in my spine, my legs, my toes even, drawing everything to that one delicious spot.

"Bowie! Bowie!" Jamie chanted frantically. Fingers closed in my hair. Cock swelling in my mouth.

I took him in deeper until he hit the back of my throat. He continued to grow. Thrusting against my face. I didn't need to breathe. Didn't care about breathing.

"Fuck! Bowie! Fuck!"

I made the mistake of glancing up. Locked onto his agonised brown eyes. Brows knotted. Mouth hung open, etched with the ghost of his last "Fuck!"

My orgasm shot through me. Curling my back and spraying the leaf-strewn ground at Jamie's feet. I whined my ecstasy onto his cock. Jamie continued to swell, filling every millimetre of my mouth. Tiny fissures travelled along his shaft, and Jamie's hot release fired out. Over and over. His cry bounced off the trees.

I drank him down, softly sucking him through every moment of his orgasm.

Once our breaths had steadied, and we had both floated down to the soft dirt beneath our feet, I stood up, tucked myself back in, and kissed him square on the lips. Pushed my tongue into his mouth so that he could taste himself on me.

"Jesus, fuck, Bowie," he said once we eased apart.

"Glad to see you've resumed normal verbosity levels," I teased.

"You weren't lying, were you?" He swept his thumb over my jaw and pulled me by my hip into the curve of his body.

"About?"

"That's a first I'll never forget."

It was too much. Probably a dream. I never wanted to wake up. I probably shouldn't say something stupid and spoil everything. Definitely shouldn't.

But, I was me.

"You've got a massive cock, by the way."

Jamie rolled his eyes and pushed away from me to fetch our dusty shirts. "You had to ruin the moment."

But Dr James Sullivan, PT, DPT, was smiling.