Page 45 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

“That’s great news!” Dakota beamed. “Now, you’re safe to do any of these poses at home on your own. There’s no danger of overdoing it, although I’d be cautious of the ear pressure pose. I wouldn’t do more than we did here today. And no more than once or twice per day.”

“Okay,” Mickey agreed. “Thanks. This went a lot better than I expected actually.”

Dakota’s mouth quirked up into an amused smile. “I get that a lot.”

When Mickey left the yoga studio, guys were coming off the ice after practice. The familiar smell of cold air and ice resurfacer fluid made his chest ache. He watched his teammates tromp down the hall, big and lumbering in their skates and gear, and he rubbed at the Harriers logo on his T-shirt.

Rafe was laughing at something Tanner said, and a flash of jealousy went through Mickey. Not jealousy over them having fun together, but because he wasn’t a part of it.

There was a chance he might never be a part of it again.

He was only twenty-three. What if his career was already over?

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked a few days later as he sat up. His lips were swollen from kissing, and his hair was a mess from Mickey’s hands. He was shirtless in nothing but a snug pair of briefs that showed off his hard cock.

He was the most beautiful thing Mickey had ever seen.

But if he hadn’t been reading his lips, Mickey would have struggled to know what he said. As is, it was hard to tell for sure what he said with that damn ringing sound in Mickey’s ear but since it was only the one ear and he’d been facing Rafe and staring at his lips when he spoke, he’d caught it.

Rafe leaned in. “Is it your head?”

Mickey bit back the urge to snarl, “Of course it is. What else would it be?” but he knew Rafe was simply worried about him.

“Yes,” he admitted aloud.

“You should lay down,” Rafe said. Or at least, that was what Mickey was pretty sure he’d said because he started to turn away.

Mickey grumbled but he carefully shifted to his side, hoping Rafe would want to keep going. But he reached for his sweatpants instead, pulling them on.

“No,” Mickey protested, even as his stomach swooped dizzyingly at the change in position. Yoga had helped, but it hadn’t helped for long.

Mickey had done yoga and deep breathing until he was thoroughly sick of it but it hadn’t fixed anything. It hadn’t cured anything. No one had promised it would. Not Dr. Pope or Dakota. They’d only said it might help. Offer him temporary relief.

But a small part of him had been hoping for a miracle.

“ Yes ,” Rafe said, settling beside him, gently forcing Mickey to lie still.

He pulled Mickey closer, and Mickey buried his head in the crook of Rafe’s neck and breathed him in. Rafe ran a large, warm palm up and down Mickey’s back. It was soothing, as was the scent of Rafe’s body.

But Mickey hated this. He hated it because this wasn’t what he wanted.

He wanted to pin Rafe to the bed. He wanted to play hockey. He wanted life to go back to normal .

He let out a frustrated groan and Rafe pulled him closer. He whispered something but he was talking in Mickey’s left ear, and he couldn’t hear him.

“What?” he said, drawing back.

Rafe winced. “I said I’m sorry. This has really got to suck.”

“You have no idea,” Mickey grumbled.

“Well, I kinda do. Like I said, I’ve had concussions before,” Rafe said, propping himself up on one elbow.

He was good at reading Mickey, good at knowing how to make things easier for him.

He’d picked up on how helpful lip-reading was almost immediately.

Sometimes he forgot and turned his head, but he tried , and Mickey both loved that he made the effort and hated he had to.

And he was way better about it than most of the guys. Mickey couldn’t even be in the locker room right now. The noise was too much, blending together into a messy soup of sound he couldn’t pick individual words out of.

He couldn’t even play video games with Tanner and Rafe anymore.

He was so fucking bored . Baking was his only other hobby, and it was too dangerous for him to bake with the level of dizziness he’d been feeling. The last thing he needed was a serious burn on top of everything else.

“We don’t even fucking know for sure this is a concussion!” Mickey protested, a flash of frustration shooting through him, although he immediately felt guilty for taking it out on Rafe.

He didn’t deserve it. He’d been nothing but wonderful.

Rafe shrugged. “Okay, well it sure seems like it and it’s what Dr. Pope said is the mostly likely cause, so …”

Mickey sighed.

Rafe was right. Mickey just didn’t want him to be.

It was true they didn’t know for sure that this was a concussion. They’d ruled out tumors and brain bleeds, but the CT scan and MRIs had shown nothing at all. No obvious bruising or swelling of the brain.

Mickey didn’t have a lot of the classic symptoms of a concussion either. No light sensitivity, no memory issues, no headaches.

And Mickey was grateful. The thought of dealing with all of that on top of the rest was too horrible to contemplate.

But none of this was getting better , either.

And with every day that passed, every game Mickey’s team played without him, he worried more that it never would.

Rafe gently touched his face, cradling it in his big hands and softly guiding Mickey to look him in the eye. Mickey blinked and focused on his face.

“Why do you look so sad?” Rafe asked.

Mickey closed his eyes, but only for a brief moment, because he didn’t want to miss anything Rafe said.

“I want … I wanted things to be different,” he said.

“What things?”

Everything ? Mickey thought dully. “The start of our relationship,” he said instead. “I can’t give you what either of us want.”

“You will,” Rafe said, because he was being endlessly positive about this. “Give it a little time and?—”

“What if it doesn’t go away?” Mickey asked.

Rafe shrugged, stroking the skin beside Mickey’s left ear with his thumb and making him shiver. “We’ll figure it out.”

But Mickey wasn’t so sure. How long would Rafe be willing to put up with this shit?

“Do you want a blowjob?” Rafe asked after a few minutes of silence.

Mickey gave him a disbelieving look. What kind of stupid question was that? Of course he did. He said as much, and Rafe rolled his eyes.

“Do you feel up to it though?”

Because Mickey had apparently spent far too much time with crude hockey players, his immediate instinct was to grab his dick and say he’d be up to it in a minute. But he hadn’t quite descended to their level yet, so he merely nodded and said, “Yeah. If you do all the work.”

Like he’d expected, Rafe’s eyes lit up.

Mickey managed a small smile. Rafe was so easy for him, as Tanner liked to say.

Rafe was so careful as he stripped off Mickey’s underwear and settled between his thighs. Mickey hated that. He didn’t want Rafe to treat him carefully.

He didn’t want to lie there passively while Rafe did the work.

He wanted Rafe lying there with his hands bound and his chest heaving as Mickey worked him over until he was a sweaty, panting mess of desperation.

But this is what he had to work with. This is what his life was right now.

Please let it be just for now , Mickey thought desperately as Rafe lowered his head and took Mickey’s cock in his mouth. Please let this stupid concussion end before I lose him.

Because despite Rafe’s optimism that it would pass quickly and everything would be fine even if it didn’t, Mickey wasn’t so sure.

They hadn’t had time to be together. Hadn’t had time to do much of anything. It seemed grossly unfair that they’d barely begun the relationship before this happened.

Mickey hadn’t had a chance to shift from Friend Mickey to Relationship Mickey. He hadn’t been able to take Rafe out on dates and truly woo him.

Mickey had always been a little bit of a romantic at heart. He enjoyed making his partner feel special.

But he hadn’t had a chance to do that with Rafe. They’d gone from being teammates and D-partners to friends to boyfriends to lovers. They were sharing a bed now every night and were as inseparable as they could be with Mickey out on injured reserve.

It was all good and Mickey wouldn’t take back any of it.

He’d liked getting to know Rafe as a friend first. But he’d missed the opportunity to actually date Rafe. To surprise him with little gifts and take him out to nice dinners and find all of those little gestures that made Rafe light up.

“Hey,” Rafe said, tapping his thigh to get his attention. Despite the hum and ring playing a weird harmony in his head, Mickey could hear the word, but he appreciated Rafe trying to be helpful. “Are you still with me?”

Mickey bit back a flood of emotion at the question and cupped Rafe’s head in his hand. His cock was on board, even if his head wasn’t. “Yeah, I am,” he said hoarsely.

He threaded his hand through Rafe’s soft, thick hair and gently pressed his head down over his cock again, encouraging him to suck.

Rafe did. He did it beautifully too, with a soft, eager thoroughness that, despite everything going on in Mickey’s head—real and imagined—had Mickey’s cock hardening.

Despite all of his fears and worries, watching Rafe and the way he bobbed over him, glancing up occasionally with those big dark eyes, made Mickey tremble.

The width of his broad shoulders spreading Mickey’s thighs apart, and the broadness of his hand wrapped around Mickey’s shaft were devastating enough. But he had full lips that looked almost obscene as he sucked the head of his cock.

And when they stretched wide to take him deeper …

“Rafe,” Mickey whispered roughly.

Rafe glanced up through heavy lidded eyes and Mickey suddenly noticed he was flexing his hips, subtly grinding his cock into the mattress.

Despite feeling anything but in charge at the moment— of anything in my life , Mickey thought ruefully—he gripped Rafe’s thick dark hair and said, “Are you getting off on this?”

Rafe looked up, allowing Mickey to lift his head from his dick, and the sight of his lips all reddened and spit-slicked made Mickey draw in a sharp breath.

“Yeah,” Rafe said. He licked his lips and Mickey wanted to lean forward and bite at them. But that damned ringing in his ear reminded him why he couldn’t.

“ Don’t ,” Mickey said, a little more harshly than he intended.

“Don’t … enjoy it?” Rafe asked, looking a little confused. “Because I’m not sure I?—”

“No, don’t get yourself off,” Mickey replied. “You don’t come until I say so.”

“Okay.” Rafe shot him a smile. “I won’t.”

He was so good it made Mickey want to cry. He deserved so much more than Mickey could give him right now.

Rafe even lifted his hips, resting on his elbows and getting his knees under him so there was no friction for him to use. He focused his sole attention on Mickey, sucking with dizzying eagerness.

It wasn’t long before Mickey came in his mouth with a hoarse groan and realized no, he was actually fucking dizzy from his stupid head.

It dulled some of the pleasure of his orgasm, reality crashing over him as everything around him lurched sickeningly.

“You’re not allowed to come tonight,” Mickey blurted out.

They’d talked about it. Rafe liked the idea of Mickey choosing how and when he came and he’d said he was totally fine with Mickey denying him sometimes.

But it felt like Mickey was cheating.

Not cheating on Rafe but cheating because it didn’t feel quite honest.

He should tell Rafe he felt worse, that he didn’t feel up to making sure Rafe had an orgasm tonight, but it was galling to have to admit that, and he didn’t want to see Rafe’s face fall.

He liked it better when Rafe was smiling at him like that, all eager and horny but so willing to be good for Mickey. To do whatever he said.

I’m doing it for him , Mickey thought but the sudden twist in his stomach made him wonder.