Page 39

THIRTY-SEVEN

SWEETHEART

“Ready?” Nik whispers. I can feel the delicate burst of air right on my thickening dick.

Fuck, just seeing his face so close to the tip of my cock is doing half the work. I don’t know how, but I need to win this.

Nik has to have a real conversation with Gab, and honestly, there are few things I want less than having to tell her that not only did I not convince Nik to retire, but I told him about her scheme months ago and now we regularly swap fluids.

Thinking strategically, I think I can get him to blow his load in about a minute and a half, and that’s taking into account that I’m for sure playing with his ass, which is something he doesn’t have in his bag of tricks. So I just need to hold out for longer than that .

So yeah... I focus on the phone facing up right next to his knee, and nod down at him.

“Go for it,” I tell him through gritted teeth.

And go for it he does.

“Fuck,” I shout, surprise and pleasure warring inside me when he takes almost all of me to the back of his throat. “How—Nik—oh my God,” I moan, unable to get the words out. My dick is fully hard now, the traitor, and it feels like there’s nothing I’m going to be able to do to stop myself from coming way sooner than planned.

The smug twinkle in his eyes tells me he knows it, but it also reminds me of the purpose of this whole thing when all I want to do is lean back, relax, and let him pleasure me—quickly for once.

I grit my teeth, curl my fingers inward, and get ready to resist.

I can’t let him win.

But then, the bastard, he reaches over my hips and takes two strong grips of my ass and starts kneading the soft flesh.

“Nik,” I say in warning. Though I don’t know why, the asshole knows what he’s doing. “Fuck,” I spit out again, resisting with all the willpower I have, and focusing on not moving my hips.

He looks fucking good with my cock in his mouth, taking me down all the way until his nose almost touches my skin.

He stays there for a long moment, making me moan like the eternally horny blob I become for him, then he leans back and my cock slips out but he strokes me fast with his hand. He takes two quick breaths, then goes back in.

And when he does, he fucking swallows around me.

The new sensation is too much.

The pressure is perfect.

The heat around me, the suction . . .

“Nik,” I moan again, this time in defeat, but it gets drowned out by a groan of pure, white hot pleasure.

He pulls back while I’m still coming, and I stumble forward while my load splashes on the ground.

“What the?—”

“A minute and seven seconds,” he cries in victory.

Okay, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool, I hear the popular cop show’s words in my head as panic starts to ruin the great fucking mood the orgasm gave me.

I won’t fucking lose.

Without a word, I drop to the floor, forgetting about the come on the surface, and just attack Nik’s pants. I get his dick out—already hard, that’s an advantage for me.

“Sweet—” he starts, but can’t get another word out when I squeeze him.

Then I take the phone from him as I drag his stretchy sweatpants down his hips with my other hand.

I start the clock the second I see his knees appear.

I can’t take all of him to the back of my throat because I haven’t been training at the deepthroating school like he apparently has, but my finger will do the trick.

Without stopping my stride of stroking and sucking him, I manage to spit on my finger, and go back in so fast I doubt he even realizes it.

But I do get his attention when I slip the tip right in.

“Charlie,” he growls, and my only answer is to suck harder and bury my finger deeper. “No,” he snaps. “Just—fuuuuck,” he moans, long and loud when I press right against the bundle of nerves I’ve gotten so intimately close to.

It can’t take me more than ten seconds to make him come then, and I stop the clock without looking, right when the first spurt of come hits my tongue.

Breathing hard, I step back, leaving him to his own devices like he did to me, and I look at the number on the screen.

“No!” I scream.

“What?” he says, voice breathy because he’s actually going to get to enjoy his fucking orgasm bliss.

“One oh eight,” I admit.

“I won?” he asks, eyes wide. “Fuck yeah.”

“God,” I groan and throw my head back. “She’s going to kill me,” I whine.

“No she won’t. She likes you better than me apparently,” Nik says in a gentle tone he rarely uses. Then he cups my cheeks and kisses me softly. “Come on, let’s take a shower.”

I let my head drop and he takes on the weight, not letting me look away.

“It’ll be fine, sweetheart. ”

He pulls me up and drags me up the stairs to our bathroom. Yes, it’s ours, and that makes me feel a little better.

The only thing I need to feel better about... everything, is to maybe try and feel a bit more safe in us .

But how can I do that without spooking him into changing the subject?

Well, I can trap him in the shower and make him talk to me.

“The whole world’s about to know, Nik,” I whisper, trying to start the conversation in a way that won’t make him realize where it’s going.

“I know,” he says simply as he reaches for the shampoo.

When suds are covering his head and there’s no way he can run away, I just go for it.

“I don’t know if I want to retire, or if I want to play next year. I don’t know if I can go through this again.”

He freezes on the spot. And if I didn’t feel so fragile at the moment then I’d probably laugh at the picture he makes, scrambling to get all the soap off his face and head.

“What do you mean go through this again?” he demands.

“You know exactly what I mean, Nik. I’m tired. All the time. Everything hurts. And even worse, now I get to feel more fear than I thought possible just at the thought of you getting hit again. And of course I’d never tell you to retire, or to stop playing for me. I don’t want that. But do you remember what you said when I went down and hurt my wrist? ”

“Yeah,” he says softly.

“You said it was awful seeing me go down on the ice. Now just imagine what it was like for me, seeing you go down and not get back up . You were out, Nik. And I couldn’t even go in the fucking ambulance with you.”

“Sweetheart—”

“No.” I step back and hold my hands up. “This is not about convincing you or you convincing me. This is about the facts. And I don’t know what I want. My house is almost done in Crushville, and I do want to live there. But I also want to be with you. I’m just laying my very unclear cards on the table here. I want you to know that whatever we choose I will choose you.”

“Okay.” He looks like he wants to say more, like the words are about to brim out of him, but his mouth stays stubbornly shut while he goes back to washing.

I’m not mad about the simple response. I know it’s a lot. The implication, the fear of what comes next. So I actually prefer that he takes his time to think about it. As long as he does spend time thinking about it.

I just don’t want him to avoid shit any longer.

“I’m not ignoring what you said earlier,” he says suddenly when we’re getting into bed for our pre-game nap. It’s gonna be a quick one since we need to get to the arena before anyone else so I can talk to Gab.

“That’s good,” I tell him simply, and burrow in.

“But I’m wondering what your plan is for retirement?”

“Ah,” I sigh. “Well, my uncle Leo has earned his retirement. So I convinced him I’m a good enough chef to take over Lala’s restaurant.”

“You want to be a chef?” he asks, or more like screeches.

“I do,” I tell him, smiling and amused at his reaction. “What about you?”

“Oh, retirement?” he asks, shaking his head. “I have no plan. Only thing I already did is get my citizenship so I can stay here after Gab kicks me off the team.”

“She’s not going to kick you off the team,” I tell him, rolling my eyes at his dramatic ways. “If she went to all the trouble of getting me here, then the one thing we can assume is she cares about you. Even if her actions are suspicious, if she didn’t care about you, she would’ve told you to your face you’re no longer welcome.”

He stares for a long moment, and then shakes his head again. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah. If she really wanted to get rid of me, she could’ve done it in an easier way. Now...” He trails off.

“What?”

“I did have a thought about something else before we got home.”

“What thought?” I ask softly.

“That Max is going to find out I’m not straight.” The sharp change of subject almost gives me whiplash, but I go with it.

“Ah.” There’s not a chance of falling asleep now. Not until I can help him lose that pained look in his eyes. He stays silent for a long time, so I take my chances. “Do you think he’d have a problem with that?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I’d like to think he wouldn’t, but I haven’t seen him in seven years.” Then he lets out a big sigh and rolls over to face me. “Beau told me about the day after your father’s funeral.”

“What?” I spring up. “When?”

“When they were here. I apologized for calling Finn stupid, explained that I meant it as a joke, and we started talking about brothers. And about forgiveness. It just came up.”

“Huh,” is all I can say.

“I was . . . surprised, to say the least.”

“That I was such a shithead when I was fourteen?” I ask.

“No, that something so similar had happened in your life. And that your brothers knew so much more about being good brothers when they were little than what I know now. I was also surprised that they’re the same age as Max. And we’re the same age. It’s weird.”

“Nik,” I whisper, lying back down. He shakes his head and closes his eyes tightly, and I know I need to point something out to him. Something that I think will hurt him more before it gets better.

“Even before that weekend, when I first read the texts from him, your reaction to the messages was never to get angry.” He opens his eyes, sharp focus in them. “You looked guilty.” I let that sink in before I go on. “It’s the main reason why I thought you’d banged this person named Max. Because you looked guilty.”

He winces at that, and yeah, I get the disgust. I chuckle, though, and take the moment of levity gratefully, because then he crumbles right before my eyes.

“I left him alone. Just like he did to me. For fucking years. He was just nineteen, still a fucking kid as far as I’m concerned, and all I’ve done for years is send money so he would at least keep getting his education. But I left him alone.”

Like he’s done to me so many times, I wrap my arms around him and bring him close, squeeze him as tight as I can.

“But you can make it better, Nik. All you have to do is call. When you’re ready,” I murmur against his head. “When you’re ready and not a day before. It’s never too late.”

I walk down the hallway to the elevator at the end like a man walking to the guillotine.

“It’s going to be fine,” Nik says, back to acting like his normal self after the emotional roller coaster we went on at home. We only caught one hour of sleep, but when he woke up, he was as cheery as ever.

“Easy for you to say,” I mumble, not hiding my resentment for one second .

“I’m going to get on the bike and warm up.”

I turn to him after hitting the button to call the elevator that will take me to the top floor where all the offices for upper management are.

“I really hate you sometimes,” I deadpan.

He kisses me quickly, then steps back with a shit-eating grin.

“No. You don’t.” Then he spins around and walks away.

I sigh, turning back when the ding signaling the elevator’s arrival sounds.

“No, I really don’t,” I whisper to myself.

There’s no point in delaying the inevitable, so I just knock on the frosted glass door.

“Come in,” she calls out, and I do. “Charlie,” she greets me with a smile. “How are you?”

“Well, I’ve been better,” I admit and sit in one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“Why?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

I wonder where to start, then I decide to just go for it.

“So, remember how you brought me here to enlighten Nikolay to all the pros of retiring?”

“Yes,” she says slowly, eyes turning into slits.

“Well, I ended up enlightening him to the pros of gay sex instead?” I say like a question and wince. “And I might have told him about that favor the day you benched us and he moved in with me.”

She’s completely still for the longest ten seconds of my life, then a smile that’s dripping with smug satisfaction takes over her face.

She leans over her desk, takes the phone receiver, and pushes a couple of buttons without saying anything.

“Hey, can you come up here? Yes. And bring Santa, will you?”

She hangs up then turns to me.

“That’s not even the important part,” I tell her. “Silas found out a tabloid is going to post a... compromising picture of us tonight, right before the game starts.”

Her face turns to stone, and her words are like bullets.

“How fucking compromising?”

“Oh, we’re not fucking or even naked in the picture.”

She expels a big burst of air.

“Then don’t scare me like that!” she snaps at me.

I raise my palms in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry,” I mumble.

“So Silas knows already?” she muses as she leans back in her chair.

“Yes, he told us a few hours ago that we need to figure out how we want to deal with it, but he did say we had to tell you so...”

“And you drew the short straw,” she says with a snort.

“Something like that,” I hedge. There’s no way I’m telling her about Nik’s ridiculous bet, or that I went with it—like an idiot.

“Well, that was Silas I called, so we should be able to sort everything out soon enough.” Then she loses the amused expression and looks at me seriously. “I’m sorry this is happening.” I can hear true regret in her voice, so I nod back just as seriously.

“It’s not your fault.” I shrug.

“You’ll need to tell the team too,” she says with a wince. “And Laney.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna tell them after we’re done here. We didn’t want to say anything because we didn’t want to fuck up the team’s mood again, but...”

“It’s out of your hands now,” she says decisively when I trail off.

“Exactly.”

The door opens right then and Nik walks in, Silas right behind him.

“Let’s get to work. Silas, tell me what you know.”

“Right,” he says, completely focused as he looks down at his tablet and tells her about the specific tabloid, then shows her the picture and explains everything about his contact and all that.

“So, how are we handling it?” She directs the question to all of us.

“We will go to the press room after the game,” Nik says, in a low voice. He stares at Gab with narrowed eyes and she doesn’t flinch under his scrutiny.

“Are you sure you want that?” she double-checks. “Because you can just say nothing and let me handle it. You know I love putting these assholes in their place.”

“And you do it well,” Nik agrees with a nod. “But let me have my fun,” he drawls, and she smiles at him, all shark-like and scary.

I have no idea what fun he’s referring to.

I’m expecting rude and intrusive questions, so I don’t know what the hell he thinks is going to happen.

“Well, I was expecting this, so.” She shrugs carelessly.

“You were?” I ask, surprised.

“Yes. It’s why I hired him.” She points at Silas without looking at him.

“It is?” he asks, as shocked as me.

“Well, when I saw you two in the gym, I knew something was going on. So it was time for me to stop avoiding getting a head of PR, because this is about to be a shitshow. I did check the by-laws of the NHL and the ones we have here, and you’re all good there.”

“Yeah, we know,” I mumble, still surprised she’s known for so fucking long. “Is that why you kept texting me about where you were?”

“Well,” she hedges and Nik speaks up before she can continue.

“Is that why you benched me?” He sounds really offended.

“No.” She shakes her head at him once then turns back to me. “I felt responsible for you. I brought you here and thrust you into the shark pool without a life raft. I mean, I know it turned out all right, but I wanted you to know you still had me in your corner.”

“Okay,” I say even though I’m still confused .

“Now, Silas, Charlie, will you please give me a moment with Santa?”

I look at Nik, asking with my eyes if he’s okay with this. I won’t go if he isn’t, but he nods at the door, telling me it’s okay.

“I already told Laney,” he says quickly when I stand.

“You did?”

“Yes, he’s stressed but fine with it.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. Enormous gratitude has me leaning down and touching my lips lightly to his. Then I walk out... and wait.