But I wanted to hang out with Eli more.
“Fine,” he said, as if he were giving in to some strenuous activity. I stifled my grin and moved aside so he could grab a pool stick.
His scent was still overwhelmingly sweet and intoxicating, but I found myself starting to get used to it. My reaction to smelling him wasn’t nearly as visceral as that first night we met. It was undeniably different than anyone else I’d ever smelled, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. He could just have some extra-special body chemistry going on. Maybe his sweat glands were made of rose petals, vanilla cookies, and bottled-up sex mixed with lightning?
It certainly didn’t mean fate had anything to do with it.
Eli rubbed the chalk against the end of his stick. “Don’t judge me. I’m terrible at this shit.”
“You’re in luck, then, because I’m a great teacher.”
He gave me a grin, flashing his white teeth. For a hockey player, he had some of the straightest and most-cared-for teeth I’d seen.
I wanted to lick them.
“Alright,” I said, using the pool table to block the way my body began to react to Eli’s presence. My head was an ally, but my dick was clearly a traitor. “So first, you want to hit the black ball against all the rest, and?—”
Eli leaned forward, pulled the pool stick back, then sent it forward again, hitting the eight ball and sending it crashing into the triangle. He sank two solids and one stripe.
“I’ll go solids,” he said with a smile.
“Thought you said you didn’t know how to play.”
“I said I’m terrible at it. You just heard ‘I need you to mansplain this’ instead.”
I glared at him. “Must be because it’s loud in here.”
“Yeah, must be,” Eli said. He lined up another shot and sank a solid.
I cocked my head. “Your definition of terrible is interesting.”
“I think it’s probably just beginner’s luck or something.”
“Or maybe it was someone underselling their skills and prior life as a pool shark savant?”
Eli laughed at that. He hit the white ball with aclack. It bounced on the table, jumping over the ball he meant to hit and heading straight off the edge. I reached out and caught it without barely even looking at it. “Nice catch,” he said.
“I see what you mean now. About the whole ‘terrible’ thing.”
“I meant to do that, actually. It’s a very advanced technique.”
“Which balls were you aiming for, then?” I said, glancing down at my crotch. My dick wasn’t pitching a tent, but my jeans definitely lookedfull. Eli’s gaze flicked downward. His eyes flared open before he looked back up at me. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. A perfect target for my tongue and teeth.
Eli ignored me, but I couldn’t help but notice that strawberry-pink flush that began creeping up his neck.
How would that same shade of pink look across his chest?
Turning a darker shade with every touch, kiss, thrust.
His body tensing around mine, his legs wrapped tight around my waist, my cock pumping into him.
He coughed. “Your turn.” He smiled as he walked past me, brushing against me. His hip rubbed against my crotch. Was that an accident? Intentional? He had a smirk as he grabbed his beer off the high-top table and took a chug.
Control yourself.
The words were meaningless. Like tossing a palmful of water at a blazing inferno. The fire in me only sizzled and flared. His scent, the same one I’d picked up on from miles away, flowed through me, filling me. I looked around. The bar was packed, full of teammates, fans, random strangers who were equipped with phones that could document something at a moment’s notice.
Not a shred of privacy. If it were just me and Eli in this room, I would have him splayed out on the pool table in seconds. Fuck the fact that we were teammates and it would make things complicated. I wanted to lay him down and worship his body before I made it mine.
