“No! It’s on me,” Justin announces and waves at me to sit back down. “I might not be making millions to skate and score goals but I just got a promotion at work. Creative Director.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic, J!” Noah says, and his tone is a little tight with the tension I’m causing with my hand. So I do what I do best, make it worse.
As I settle back down on the bench, my hand casually shifts, and his moves along with mine, until I’m cupping his groin like a human jock.
“Congrats Justin,” I add with a smile.
“I’m so proud of him,” Kent says and smiles as Justin hands his credit card over to the server.
Noah Prince is getting hard under my hand. Fast. And that makes me start to get hard. Oops. I remove my hand because it’s one thing to make him stand up with an erection in a crowded restaurant, but it’s another thing entirely to embarrass myself like that. Still, I’m stunned he responded to my touch so easily.
I can’t wait to see what happens next.
CHAPTER 4
NOAH
That fucking asshole had the nerve to fondle me in a crowded room while my family sat across the table. And then he just went back to his hotel with nothing but a “see ya tomorrow”. And he’s been ignoring me the entire morning skate. I have never been so furious in my entire life. So I spend an unnecessary amount of time with the trainer, working on my moderately sore wrist, and then much longer than necessary in an ice bath. As a punishment to myself for letting Luke get under my skin.
On a normal day, the locker room would be empty by the time I get back to it. The whole team will have showered and headed back to the hotel for their pre-game nap. That’s what I want and at first I think that’s what I get. I strip down and grab a towel and take a long, hot shower. But just as I turn off the water and grab my towel to wrap around my waist, I notice Luke. He’s in a team track suit, leaning against the wall in the hall that leads from the shower room to the dressing room.
I force myself not to jump in shock. I cover myself immediately, tying the towel as tight as possible. He watches me with a dark, heated gaze, and I think about the way his hand felt on my cock. The shiver of relief I felt at finally being touched by him. And then I quickly shove that thought away. “What?”
“Come to my room.” There’s no warmth in the invitation. “When you get back to the hotel.”
“I need to nap,” I reply.
“Come to my room.” He repeats firmly, like I’m an obstinate child. “I think we need to talk more than you need a nap. And tell me that you’re actually going to sleep anyway.”
“I was going to try,” I mutter and start walking toward him, already doing the mental Tetris to try and figure out if I can slip by him in the tight hall without our big bodies bumping.
I don’t get to figure it out because he just steps left and completely blocks my path. “How about you come to my room and we clear this all up once and for all. Then maybe we can both sleep at night.”
Luke touches a hand to my bare side, fingers curling into the grooves between my ribs. His hand is strong and warm and my cock actually twitches to life at the feeling of his skin against mine. “Please.”
And then he turns and stalks away. And I just watch him go, mentally cursing his entire existence and the space he’s been taking up in my head since I was seventeen. And the space I’m going to continue to give him. Because I’m going to go to his room.
And that’s exactly where I find myself forty-eight minutes later. Knocking on his hotel room door, just as riled up as the last time I did it. But this time the agitation is at least one-third sexual. Because I’ve carried this thing for Luke like a goddamn backpack everywhere I’ve gone for the last seven years and it feels like I’m finally close to lifting the weight of it off myself. Maybe.
He opens the door right away. He’s still in the sweats he had on at the rink. Only not on top. He’s bare from the waist up. I’ve seen the man shirtless almost every single day since I got traded. I see it, but I don’t think about it. I don’t take it in. Work is work. Guys from work, even ones I’ve seen get their dick sucked, are still co-workers so the sexual side of my brain shuts off.
Right now, though? I look. I see. He’s got perfectly tanned skin with olive undertones. It’s pulled tight over strong wide shoulders, six cut rows of abdominals and round firm pecs. There’s a smattering of dark hair across those pecs, which he clearly shaves down to make it close cropped to his skin. The treasure trail is just as dark but a little thicker and wilder as it dips below the waistband of those team-issued sweats that seem to hang off his body much better than they hang off mine.
I wish I’d changed so he didn’t have to look at how badly I fill them out compared to him. But if he’s thinking that, assessing the way the Under Armour shirt clings to my frame or the sweats hang low on my hips, he doesn’t show it. His dark eyes are piercing and intense and hold a glimmer of light in them. Hope? Relief? Yeah… relief. He’s relieved I showed.
“Last night…” I start.
“Most awkward dinner ever.” He sighs.
“You should just tell Justin you don’t like me. Tell him it’s mutual. You don’t have to be my friend just because he wants you to be.”
“I never said I didn’t like you,” Luke counters as he walks a little closer to where I stand by the end of the bed. He’d been watching TV, probably lying on his bed, the sheets are rumpled and the remote is on one of the pillows. The curtains were half-drawn, leaving the room slightly dark despite the bright winter day outside. “I don’t even really know you, Noah. I just know who Justin thinks you are.”
“And who does my brother tell you I am?”
Luke’s hair catches a ray of sunshine, slipping through the curtains as he steps closer again. It’s dark, one might say black, but in the sunlight it has a glint of copper-brown to it. “A kid who got quiet, and focused, when his mom died. Used to be the jokester. The one with all the girls calling him, even the ones in Justin’s class. But then your mom died and you shut down. Hockey became your only goal.”
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t just about my mom,” I reply and fold my arms defensively. I hate talking about this shit. “Hockey was the only thing I was clear on. I knew what I wanted there. I didn’t know what I wanted with girls anymore.”
