Page 4 of Puck You Both

PATRICK

"EVERYONE'S GONE. YOU played like garbage. Let me fix your mood."

That's Theo's argument, in its entirety, delivered with both palms flat on my chest, walking me backward down the equipment hallway like I'm a couch he's rearranging.

I'm still in my base layers, and there's a 2–1 loss sitting in my stomach like gas-station lunch.

I open my mouth to point out that I didn't play like garbage, I played fine, my team gave up the game in front of me, but Theo’s already hooking the video room door open with his foot, shoving me inside.

I go. I could stop this with one hand. I never want to.

Eleven days. That's the whole lifespan of this thing. Eleven days of supply closets, hotel bathrooms, and one memorable incident behind the Zamboni, no labels, no plan, no fuss.

The room's dark except for one monitor, displaying a frame of my five-hole giving up the game.

"Turn that off."

"No." Theo boosts himself onto the desk edge. "I like it. It's romantic. Ambient losing."

"Theodore."

"Every time you look, you'll be motivated to impress m—"

I put my mouth on the spot under his jaw that turns him from a person who talks into a person who makes sounds.

"—mm. Unfair. Cheating. Do it again."

I do it again, recruiting my teeth this time, and feel the groan start in his throat before it makes it out of his mouth. He grabs a fistful of my base layer and hauls me between his thighs, and then his tongue is in my mouth and his hips are already working, grinding the hard line of his cock against my hip, patience a foreign concept.

Eleven days and I already know this body better than my own crease. The bruise on his left hip from Tuesday, purple going yellow, that makes him hiss when I dig my thumb into it.

So I dig my thumb into it.

I get a hand under his shirt and shove it up. His stomach jumps against my palm, abs tight, skin damp, and when I drag my knuckles down the trail of hair below his navel, his whole body follows the motion like I've got him on a string.

I do have him on a string. That's the entire appeal.

By the time my hand slides into the front of his pants, he's fully hard, cock straining against his briefs, a wet patch already bleeding through the cotton. Eleven days, and this is still my favorite discovery in professional hockey: Theo Moreau, the fastest man on my team, leaks like a faucet the second he’s slowed down.

I palm him through the fabric. His head drops back and he swears in French, low and filthy and continuous, a rosary of profanity.

That starts around minute three of anything. It's become one of my favorite sounds.

I pull his briefs down just enough to get skin. His cock springs up against his stomach, flushed dark, wet at the tip. I wrap my fist around it dry and loose, barely a grip at all, just heat and the suggestion of friction, and stroke him once, root to head, taking my time.

Theo hates it. And when he doesn’t hate it, he loves it. "You're doing the thing," he pants.

I lower my mouth to his ear. "What thing."

"The slow thing. The I have all night and several theories thing."

"I do have several theories."

"Test them faster."

I don't. I drag my fist up him again, tighter now, twist my wrist over the crown, slick my thumb through the mess at his slit and spread it down his shaft in one long pull. His thighs shake, and his cock jumps in my hand, another bead of pre-cum welling up for me like applause.

There's no version of Theo Moreau this obedient anywhere else in the Universe, and I'm the only one who gets to benefit.