Point Shot 01 - Two Man Advantage (11 page)

“You’re a lost fucking case,” he huffed. “Go out there and tell Arou I need to see him. Prescott is out for the rest of the year with a concussion and they just lost Cranston to a lower body injury. They’re pulling Arou up with Henderson.”

“They’re calling Arou up?” My voice sounded sickly.

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it? At least Dan will appreciate the fact he’s finally on a pro team. Now go finish getting dressed and try not to get another suspension tonight.”

Lambert motioned for me to leave. I tried, but my legs were locked. My knees wouldn’t bend. Lambert growled. I feared I’d have to manually move my sock-covered feet, but they finally kicked into gear, one shuffling step after another until I was standing behind Dan. He was engrossed in lacing his skates. The dressing room was raucous. The Mount Royal Mounties were in town. Tickets had sold out within days. The fans were hoping to see me and Dwayne go toe to toe. All I wanted to do was to go home with Dan and bar the door.

“Hey, Coach needs to see you,” I said, rapping Dan on the shoulder. His blue eyes grew warm when he looked over his shoulder at me.

“Okay, thanks,” he said, quickly finishing his taping then heading to Lambert’s office. I sat down in front of Dan’s cubicle. There was no way I was making it to mine. My shoulders caved in. I braced my elbows on my knees, plastered my hands over my face and waited. Dan’s hoot of joy sent a dagger of pain right through me. Lambert’s door whipped open with a bang. I raised my eyes from my palms. Dan stood about forty feet away, looking so fucking fine in his blue-and-gold sweater that I thought I would puke. The triumph on his face fluttered away when our gazes locked. I didn’t hold it against him that his joy had superseded the fact that he was leaving after the game tonight. I had been just as jacked when I had been called up. I made my legs lift my torso. Dan watched me walking toward him. I offered him my hand.

“Congratulations, Arou. Show those fuckers in Beantown what an insane Hobbit on skates can do.” I smiled as sincerely as possible, shook his hand, then turned him over to the rest of the team for his accolades. I opted to grab my skates and finish getting dressed in the men’s room across from the weight room. That way I could bolt the door closed on a stall.

I swiped at my eyes when I heard someone coming in. That would be all I needed, some assclown like the kilt-wearing McGarrity showing up to bust my balls. Once I was laced, I flushed, because why else would I be in there if I wasn’t shitting? I stepped out to wash my hands. Cliff Dwayne, the twine-minder for the Mounties, lowered his cell from his ear. The guy was seriously hot. Blond curls, pretty blue eyes, pouty lips. I’d bang him like a drum if not for Dan…who was leaving tomorrow. I had to talk or risk tearing up again.

“You missed your locker room, dude,” I told Dwayne. Whoever he was calling answered. I glanced at the cell lying in his palm. A guy was repeatedly calling out the goaltender’s name. “You might want to take that. I know how partners can be.”

Cliff nodded, the partner comment not going unnoticed. A yellow curl fell into his eye. Dan Arou exploded through the bathroom door like a rabid raccoon, all wide-eyed and frantic. I turned on the taps to wash up. Dan glanced at the Mounties’ goalie. They muttered a greeting to each other. Cliff stepped into a stall and it was all Dan could do not to embrace me.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered as the water ran full bore. I pumped the soap dispenser a time or two. Foam dripped through my fingers. I stared at the mound of bubbles.

“Yeah you do,” I replied, and started scrubbing. “You pack your shit. Simple as pie, man,” I informed him.

Dan stepped closer. He was pushing the hetero line of comfortable distance. If anyone came in, aside from the goalie in the stall talking to his boyfriend, they’d be giving us questioning looks.

“It’s not that simple, Vic,” Dan said. I scrubbed between each finger. “I can’t just pack up and leave you.”

“Like hell you can’t,” I snarled as I turned the taps off with a snap. “This is your fucking dream. You do
not
turn your back on it over some thirty-day man-fuck.”

“What we have is not just about the fucking!” Dan replied with volume. His words bounced off the tiled walls. “Don’t even
try
to make it sound like it was some cheap little fling.”

“It was, and you and I both know it. We were fuck buddies on the road—that’s it.” I rubbed my red hands vigorously with a handful of paper towels. I made the mistake of looking in the mirror over the sink. Dan was staring at me, his mouth a mere slash, his eyes leaking shock all over the place. I averted my eyes from the looking glass.

“I took you home.”

I shrugged a shoulder and continued drying. He shoved me. I bounced off a trash can, my eyes narrowing as I found my footing.

“No,” he barked, “you don’t get to pretend about this. I won’t let you. We are something special, you fucking moron!” Out he went with the trumpets of a thousand righteous angels blowing.

Cliff exited the stall. “I know it is not my business—” he began.

“You’re right, it’s not.” I stalked past him. My eyes stayed on the floor until I hit the ice. The fans rose to their feet. It almost gave me pause. Then I remembered that they were cheering because they wanted a fight or a cheap shot or a brilliantly destructive comment thrown at the nearest fat fan sporting a Cougars foam hat and finger. So yeah, sorry to all the folks who paid good money to see Vic Kalinski acting out this evening. My heart just wasn’t in being an asshole tonight.

* * * * *

My heart was into this, though. Dan was buried to the balls in me. I wanted him to come and yet I didn’t. If he reached his climax, we were that much closer to this ending. My fingers were white-knuckled and grasping as he rode me as if trying to exorcise me from his system. That wasn’t happening. Trust me. I had tried when we came tripping into my hotel room after putting another L into the column next to the big W.

I couldn’t get Arou naked and under me fast enough. It was like some sort of cog had snapped in two inside my brain. My fingers slid inside him as I assaulted his mouth. He moaned. It was a sweet-sick mixture of pain-pleasure as I got him primed. I kissed him wildly with disregard for that sore upper lip. His body responded with tremors. I worked him roughly. He raised his ass higher. I removed my fingers. His rosette was slippery with extra lube. There was a quick look as I positioned myself between his legs. Dan blinked when sweat ran into his eye.

“So hard I never forget you,” he panted. Far be it from me to not do as asked by my lover. It was not my finest TLC moment. Dan cried out several times. I tried to slow the pace, but some demonic force kept my ass humping like a piston. My seed filled him then flowed from him. I fell forward, covered his mouth with mine, kissed him deeply and whispered that I was sorry. Dan held my head between his strong hands, delved between my molars with his tongue then flipped me onto my back.

I went to my hands and knees like a bitch in heat, my cock still pulsing. He cupped my balls, squeezed, and suckled one then the other. I begged him to purge me from his system as I had tried to. Face buried in the pillows, I grabbed both corners of the mattress in preparation. His mouth moved over my ass cheeks, nipping and teasing, tugging at the fine red hairs that covered my buttocks. The tip of his tongue found my opening. My eyes rolled upward into my skull. It was ecstasy. When he was done orally tormenting and taunting my ass, I was beyond making words happen.

“So hard I never forget you,” I begged from amid the mound of pillows. He heard the request. Gripping those mattress ends for dear life, I braced for his entrance. It was fast, rough, shocking and glorious. He claimed me in a way that I had never been claimed before. Each thrust burned the Arou brand deeper into my flesh and soul. His orgasm sent my skull into the headboard. I clenched. Dan groaned as his last thrust went deeper than ever before. I yelped. He held my hips in place, pumped every drop of spunk his balls held into me, then dropped over my bowed back. I moaned. He licked my ear, his breathing hot and heavy. His prick kicked gently inside me. I reached back, grabbed a tight buttock and made sure he stayed where he was until each droplet of Dan Arou had been expelled.

We slid apart when his cock slithered free. I winced as I moved onto my back. Dan crawled over me, settling his body between my longer legs. We made out. We touched. We tasted. We curled up and cradled and clutched.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Dan said some time later. I held him to my chest. His pelvis rested on my thigh. His prick lay docile and meek on my leg. I had stroked his hair from his face for so long that it had dried standing up on one side. “I can’t leave.”

“Dan, you have to. You signed the contract,” I told him. I rubbed the back of his calf with my foot. The sheets were damp in spots, so we tried to lie between those wet patches. “Just go and be a star. Your folks, they’ll be so proud.”

“Fuck, this sucks.” He exhaled strongly. His cheek was abrasive against my nipple. I let my hand rest on the side of his head.

“Yeah, it really does.” I shucked him to the bedding, his leg gliding over mine. There was no need to say a word. We made love a second time. Then we grabbed a few hours of restless sleep. We showered separately and got dressed in the clothes we’d worn the night before. And then he left. It was a quiet parting. I pinned him to the hotel door and kissed him until he shoved me away with a hitched gasp.

“This isn’t over,” Dan vowed, then slid out into the corridor. I hated to be contradictory but it
was
over as far as I was concerned. It had to be. Daniel Arou had it all ahead of him. Me? I was careening in reverse. I stared at the evacuation plan for the third floor as the first rays of the new morning tried to sneak around the drawn draperies.

“I love you,” I whispered, proud as hell of my restraint.

Chapter Twelve

Practice sucked. Pretty much everything had sucked since the parting that morning. Dan and Henderson were probably being whisked through Boston at that moment. I could imagine those baby blues of Dan’s growing wide like a kid’s on Christmas morn as he drew closer and closer to stepping onto the ice as a professional player. It hurt to think about it, so I stopped thinking about it.

I was grabbing a breather by the bench. Big plastic straw between my teeth, I watched in some sort of morbid fascination as my teammates made like buffalos trying to hump cantaloupes. It was a serious WTF moment. I swallowed the mouthful of electrolyte replacer, tossed the drink onto the bench, then skated over. Lambert was down at the other end, trying to preach the sermon about sticking to your men in a one-on-one defense. Pity his church was filled with dimwits. The main problem with this group of buttheads was that they lacked spirit.

“You have to make sure you defend against the shot breakout,” our captain was saying to my blue group. Buttonwood looked over at me with furrowed eyebrows. “Thanks for rejoining us. Anything you’d like to add that might be helpful?”

“Give me the puck,” I said. Goodman flipped it to me. I caught it, skated behind the net and dropped it to the ice. Dunwoody glanced over his shoulder. I nodded at our starting goalie. “Okay, this is one of our problems. No one is hitting the men behind the net,” I said moving the puck back and forth with my stick. “That leaves Dunwoody trying to defend not only in front but at the corners. More than half our goals are being tucked in. So for the next sixty, I’m going to be the man you all hate.”

“And this is different how?” Goodman asked. The twenty or so men chuckled. I did as well, but my guffaw was tinted slightly with acid.

“Ha, ha, ha, yeah, you’re a real comic, Goodman.” My eyes rolled to the lights. “Why don’t you come back here and see if you can get this puck away from the pompous Pole? Or are you scared?” I asked as if I were talking to a tiny wittle boy. “I tell you what, I won’t even check you back, little fellow. Does that make the prospect of facing me less scary?”

Buttonwood made some sort of sound of disapproval but didn’t nix the idea. Goodman shoved his mouthpiece back in. I winked at the left-winger, made a fast juke to the left, then waited. He came around the net with fire in his eyes. I spun. He hooked me. Buttonwood called him on the penalty. I smiled sweetly. I might have batted my lashes. I maneuvered the puck behind Dunwoody and challenged Goodman again. This time when he soared around the goal I moved right. He dropped his shoulder and knocked me so hard into the boards that my fillings vibrated. I dropped to one knee to watch him skate off with the puck.

Buttonwood was beside me, hand extended. I didn’t turn down the assist to my skates.

“You looking to be the punching bag today?” our captain asked. I told him that I was. The other blue jerseys were slapping backs. “Sorry about Arou,” Buttonwood muttered.

“Who’s next?” I yelled. Hands went up like fireworks on July the fourth. This was going to be one long and painful scrimmage. Bring it.

* * * * *

No amount of water or massage therapy was going to help. That was okay. I stood under the pulsating showerhead in the Cougar’s locker room, my legs spread, my arms locked in front of me, my head bowed. This was where the trainer had propped me after an hour on the massage table. I was kind of fascinated by one particular stream of water that ran steadily between my eyes, split when it hit my nose, then continued downward to my chin. Every miserable inch of my body ached. It felt as if I had been slammed into a wall over and over. Imagine that. Somehow I found this horrible pain to be a step up from the emptiness that swirled inside my chest. The bruised ribs masking the inner agony sort of BS.

“Hey,” someone said. It sounded like Mike Buttonwood, but my neck was having trouble loosening up. I chuffed like a bear. “What you did today? That was the stupidest thing I have ever seen a man volunteer for. The other guys got it, though, you know?”

“Yippee.” I’d need a fucking wheelchair to get to my ride, I mused.