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KAYDEN

“ E ight!” I grunted, teeth clenched, and pushed the barbell off my chest. Erik stood over me, his fingers curled just under the bar. “Nine!”

I suspended the barbell up high, feeling the tension—and exhaustion—in my muscles.

Did I have it in me to do one more rep? You’re damn right I did, but I held off for as long as possible.

The barbell weighed four hundred pounds, with four fifty-pound plates on each side.

It was now or never. I lowered the weights down onto my chest and squeezed my eyes shut, My face must’ve looked like a tomato, but I had to do this.

No way could I give up with one rep to go.

For a moment, I thought my arms would give out and four hundred pounds of steel would crush me.

That would make one interesting headline, wouldn’t it?

“HOCKEY STUD CRUSHED BY OWN BARBELL.” Even reminding myself that I was Kayden Preston, and therefore practically Superman didn’t leave me with much confidence.

“Come on, babe, you can do it,” Erik said.

That did it. I nearly dropped the weights on myself, but not for the reasons you’d think. I hated it when he called me babe. Ever since becoming a couple, he’d called me that way too many times, and no amount of correcting seemed to deter him.

And why not? That action alone was so Erik.

And it nearly caused me to lose control of the weights.

That would’ve been my excuse anyway. When the steel touched my chest, I tried pushing it up but couldn’t.

Oh, shit! I waited for Erik to pull the barbell back up—but he didn’t. The guy just stood there!

“Would you pull the weight off me already!” I grunted. “Jesus!”

My boyfriend snapped to attention like he’d been enjoying a snooze until that point. Then he reached down, helped to pull the barbell up, and set it back in the holder.

Whew! That was a close call. I laid on the bench for a moment, processing the fact that I’d nearly been crushed and debated whether to do the same with Erik’s skull.

When I sat up a little, I found Erik standing in front of me with his hand outstretched. I accepted it and he pulled me back upright.

“Next time, you’d better stick to benching just three hundred pounds,” he said.

“And next time, you’d better not fall asleep. And quit calling me babe, would you? You know how much I hate that.”

“What’s the problem, babe? There’s no one in the gym to hear me call you babe, babe.”

“You’re doing it again.”

He flashed one of those sly smiles that said he delighted in driving me crazy. That look would’ve annoyed the hell out of me if it hadn’t been twice as sexy.

“And why shouldn’t I call you that?” he asked. “We’ve been together a while now, and everything’s going great.”

“That doesn’t mean you should call me something stupid.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t call you anything dumb.”

“But I bet you want to.”

“What do you possibly think I could call you?”

I froze, realizing I’d opened a seriously ugly door.

“You can call me stud muffin,” he said. “Sex god. The king of hot guys everywhere.”

“That’ll feed your ego way too much.”

“How about calling me boo?”

“=Anything but that.”

“What’s wrong with boo? It’s cute. Lots of people give that nickname to their love.”

“My point exactly. It’s way overdone. And stupid.”

“Then what else do you want me to call you? Sticky buns?”

“How about nothing? Just Kayden. Can you handle that?”

He wrinkled his nose at me like I’m no fun. Let me set the record straight: I’m tons of fun, but I draw the line at ridiculous nicknames. And thank God no one had been around to hear any of the other ridiculous pet names he’d used.

Erik had been right about one thing, though.

The time we’d been together had been great.

The sex had been amazing and was in no danger of growing stale.

Also, I hadn’t thought about girls in all that time.

I hadn’t thought about any other guys than Erik, but I would’ve expected to at least check out an ass or two.

I should’ve longed for a woman’s touch. But so far, nothing.

The hockey season had pressed on, the Larkin Lions had kicked some serious ass, and we had become legit contenders to win a Division Three National Championship.

Attendance at home games soared. Our little school now received more media attention than it was used to.

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t used to that kind of attention either.

People even recognized me on the street.

Exposure to the national sports media was a big deal and felt a little intimidating, even for me.

So far, no one asked questions about Erik and me. That was just as well. I needed that time to get used to the idea of having a boyfriend—and thinking of him in those terms. Pet names would have to wait.

After we finished with the bench presses, we did dumbbell curls, and I couldn’t help admiring Erik in the mirror in front of me. I could get used to that.

Then we stepped onto neighboring treadmills, starting out slowly and working our way up. I leaned over and checked out Erik’s perfect ass. No matter how much time we’d spent naked together, my boyfriend still looked amazing in a pair of shorts, leaving me with an insatiable hunger.

“Gotta ask you something,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“When are we going to tell everyone?”

I turned to him, pretending to not know what he was talking about. Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same if backed into a corner.

“Come on,” he said, as if trying to coax an answer out of me. “I know that look.”

“What look is that?”

“The one that would do anything to weasel out of even having this conversation.”

“I’m not weaseling out of anything.”

“Yes, you are. I’m not stupid. We’ve been through this before.”

I increased my treadmill setting and started a light job. Erik matched me, as if not to be outdone.

How Erik of him.

“I don’t know why we’ve got to do that,” I said. “I don’t think anyone’s noticed.”

“Whether they’ve noticed isn’t the point. The point is that they should know about us sooner or later.”

I probably would’ve run in the other direction if I could. I’d been with Erik long enough to know I could never wiggle out of these conversations by saying nothing. He was persistent and would keep bringing this up until I caved in and addressed the topic.

“I really don’t think that’s such a great idea,” I said.

“Why not? And don’t tell me that it’s because we’re hockey players or that everyone would freak out. The national sports media is watching us all the time now. Don’t you know how cool it would be for them to know? Think of how it would look. Boyfriends on the same championship team!”

A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. That had only dawned on me now, but I couldn’t hesitate to answer. Erik would pounce on that.

“That’s part of the reason, babe—er, I mean, Erik.”

He smiled widely, like the name was infectious.

“You know how much of a distraction that would be to the team, don’t you?” I asked.

“I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“I knew you were going to call it a distraction to the team.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. I could’ve finished your sentence for you.”

I had to admit that he was probably right.

Like, I knew Erik far better than at the beginning of the season.

Constant sex with the same guy does that to a person.

It also meant that I would go along with things I normally wouldn’t.

But no way could I ever admit that he was right. I would let myself down.

“It’s the truth, though, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I’d love to hear about how it’s going to dash our opportunity at being champions now.”

“I never said it would dash our chances at a championship. I said it would be a distraction. There’s a difference. And it is a distraction that could lead to us losing our chance at being champions. You’ve only got one shot at this.”

“But think about the press we’ll get!”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

I aimed a finger at him to underscore my point.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “You did not.”

“Hey, if you can finish my sentences, then I can finish yours.”

He smiled, shook his head, and increased the speed on his treadmill.

I really did know Erik as well as he knew me. That meant I knew this conversation wasn’t over just because he’d fallen silent for a second—or an hour. He would always strike back just when you thought it was safe and in the most annoying way possible.

When we stepped off the treadmills, we grabbed a couple of towels and mopped our faces before heading to the shower. Much more of staring at his ass without peeling those shorts off would have driven me insane.

When he stepped out of those shorts, baring his ass, my mouth drooped open a little as if seeing it for the first time. My chest heaved, and I felt tense all over. Part of me wanted to take him right there and then.

My eyes practically glued themselves to his backside as I followed him into the shower. We stood under neighboring nozzles. The showers being as dead as the gym left us free to examine one another’s naked bodies and cop cheap feels of our asses.

“The way I see it,” he said, “the truth is going to come out sooner or later. We might as well do it on our own terms.”

“Yeah, well…”

I realized at that exact moment that I had no argument left. Nothing good anyway. I might as well have said, “ Yeah, well, I don’t like it,” and looked less stupid.

“You know Coach Hardison might have something to say about it,” I said.

“It’s not his business.”

“But it’s his team. Anything that distracts this hockey team from its one and only goal is his business.”

Erik didn’t shake his head this time. He knew how the team operated but would disagree with me anyway. Of course he would. He was Erik De Ruiter. On the other hand, I saw what little point he did have. We were allowed to have personal lives.

“What’s he going to do?” Erik asked. “Cut us from the team? I think not.”

“Don’t get too cozy, baby—uh, I mean bro.”

Erik cracked a smile. Dammit to hell.

“No one on our team’s untouchable. He’s made that point pretty clear, and I don’t think he was joking.”

“We’re his team captains, and we’re deep into the playoffs now. It’s so totally not happening.”

“I don’t think we should test that theory.”

“Really?”

“No, I actually have some common sense.”

As I watched water roll down Erik’s naked body, that insatiable hunger returned, and I could resist for only so long. With no one else in the gym or showers, we couldn’t let opportunity pass us by. I shuffled over to Erik and stood under his nozzle with him, our chests touching.

“There enough water for both of us?” I asked.

“You know there always is.”

Our lips met. We kissed with open mouths as water rained over our heads and our hard cocks brushed against one another’s legs. That was enough to make the conversation stop, but I was smart enough to know it wouldn’t vanish forever.