“Relax,” he murmured, looking up at me with dark eyes that held no judgment, only heat. “I've got you.”
He pulled my cock free, and the cold air hit sensitive skin for half a second before his mouth was on me, hot and wet and perfect. I braced one hand against the brick wall behind him and tried to remember how to breathe. His tongue worked the underside of my shaft, slow and deliberate, and then he took me deeper, his lips sliding down until I hit the back of his throat.
“Fuck—” The word tore out of me, and my hips jerked forward involuntarily. He didn't pull back, just hollowed hischeeks and sucked harder, one hand wrapping around the base of my cock to work what he couldn't fit in his mouth.
It was obscene. It was perfect. It was everything I'd been denying myself for years, and I couldn't stop the sounds escaping my throat—ragged breaths and choked groans and muttered curses that echoed off the alley walls.
He pulled off for a second, stroking me with one hand while he caught his breath, and his voice was wrecked when he spoke. “You taste so fucking good.”
Then his mouth was back on me, and this time there was no teasing, no slow build. Just relentless pressure and heat and the obscene wet sounds of him sucking my cock like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. My free hand went to his hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands, and I tried not to pull too hard even though every instinct was screaming at me to thrust deeper, take more, chase the release building at the base of my spine.
“Close,” I managed, the word barely coherent. “Ethan, I'm—fuck, I'm close?—”
He hummed around my cock, the vibration sending sparks up my spine, and that was it. My orgasm hit like a freight train, pleasure slamming through me so hard my vision whited out at the edges. I came in his mouth with a strangled groan, my hips jerking, my hand fisting in his hair as he swallowed around me and worked me through it until I was shaking and oversensitive and barely able to stand.
He pulled off slowly, licking his lips, and looked up at me with a satisfied grin. “Good?”
I sagged against the wall, my legs unsteady, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. “Yeah. Good.”
He stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and tucked me back into my jeans with surprising gentleness. “Told you. You needed to relax.”
I laughed, breathless and dizzy and riding the high of post-orgasm endorphins. For five minutes, I'd been completely free. Completely myself. No mask. No performance. Just want and release and the simple human connection of someone making me feel good.
Then reality crashed back in.
I was standing in an alley behind a gay bar with a stranger who'd just sucked my cock, and if anyone had seen—if anyone had taken a photo—if word got out?—
“Hey.” Ethan's voice cut through the spiral, and his hand landed on my shoulder, grounding. “You good? You look like you're about to pass out.”
“I'm good.” I wasn't, but I forced a smile anyway. “I just—I should go.”
“Yeah. Probably.” He stepped back, giving me space, and his expression softened. “For what it's worth, you should come back sometime. When you're not so wound up. You're allowed to have this, you know. You're allowed to want things.”
I nodded because I didn't trust myself to speak, and I slipped out of the alley before I could do something stupid like ask for his number or tell him the truth about who I was.
The taxi ridehome was quiet, the driver mercifully uninterested in conversation. I stared out the window at the city lights blurring past and tried to sort through what I was feeling. Relief. Guilt. Satisfaction. Shame. All of it tangled together in a knot I couldn't untangle.
We were two blocks from my building when I saw it. Coach's car in the parking lot of the practice facility, the interior dark but the vehicle unmistakable.
“Can you turn around?” The words came out before I'd fully thought them through. “Drop me at that arena instead.”
The driver shrugged and made a U-turn, and five minutes later I was standing in the parking lot staring at the building and wondering what the fuck I was doing. It was past midnight. I'd just gotten my cock sucked in an alley by a stranger. I should go home. Should sleep. Should do literally anything other than walk into that building knowing Coach was inside.
I walked inside anyway.
I used my key card to get through the employee entrance, and the building was dark except for emergency lighting and the faint glow coming from the practice rink. My footsteps echoed on the concrete as I made my way down the hall, and when I pushed through the doors to the rink, I found exactly what I'd expected.
Coach was on the ice, alone, firing shots at the empty net. His form was perfect—weight transfer, follow-through, the puck hitting the back of the net with precision over and over again. No misses. No hesitation. Just muscle memory and control, the kind that came from a thousand hours of practice.
I stood in the doorway and watched him for a full ten minutes before he finally acknowledged me. He didn't look up, didn't stop shooting, just spoke into the silence like he'd known I was there the entire time.
“You gonna stand there all night, Hartley, or you want to actually skate?”
My pulse kicked up. “I didn't bring my gear.”
“There's rental stuff in the equipment room. Go change. I'll teach you a few things.”
It wasn't a request. It was an order, delivered in that calm, controlled voice that made my stomach flip. I should have left. Should have made an excuse and walked out before this turned into something I couldn't take back.
