Chapter Fifteen

RILEY HAD been nervous plenty of times—the first time he started in goal, his first shoot-out, the conference finals last year when they lost to the Renegades. He knew that nervous, aggressive feeling in his stomach. Like butterflies, but less cute. Angry moths maybe.

It wasn’t quite the same as being nervous about having sex with Ethan. Mostly because when he was in goal, Riley at least knew what he was doing. Theoretically.

“You’re—”

“Hunter, if you ask me one more time if I’m sure about this, I’m gonna punch you,” Ethan said from across the room. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked mad.

Riley sat on the bed, his hands pressed flat against the mattress on either side of him. He tried some breathing exercises. They didn’t work. “Then why are you all the way over there? Come over here. We can make out. We’re good at that.”

“Just make out? What is this? August?” Ethan’s chin lifted. “You want me, come get me. I’ve seen the porn you like. Don’t pretend you’re not into that.”

Riley put his face in his hands. “Problem solved. Who was I kidding?” He got up, walked across the room, grabbed Ethan’s arm, and pulled him toward the bed. “I want you to want it,” he said because, while he did like pinning Ethan to the bed and climbing on him, it wasn’t quite the same if Ethan wasn’t into it. “That’s kind of important.”

“Then make me, idiot,” Ethan said, and pushed his hips up so Riley could feel he was hard. He rolled his eyes. “You know how easy I am. Come on.”

Riley leaned down and kissed him, and he thought about saying something like “I’m going to fuck you so hard,” but he wasn’t sure he could say it without breaking into nervous giggles. And that was definitely not sexy.

Riley decided to distract Ethan with a blow job, because that had worked since the very first. He also liked the way Ethan moaned and writhed around on their king-size bed—the way he thrust his hips up and choked Riley and gasped an apology, even though he didn’t stop doing it.

When Riley reached down to stroke two fingers over him, Ethan tensed immediately, and Riley wasn’t sure what to do. Even if he didn’t like it, Ethan wouldn’t stop him—just on principle—and Riley couldn’t let him do that. “Ethan.”

Ethan pushed up on his elbows and looked down at Riley. “Yeah?”

Riley gently brushed over him again with his fingers. “Is this… um? Weird?”

“You’re gonna put your fingers in my ass, dude,” Ethan said. “Of course it’s weird. That’s why you should still be distracting me by sucking my cock. See? This really isn’t that hard, boyfriend.”

Riley pressed his face against Ethan’s stomach. “Maybe we should wait.”

“Maybe you should shut up,” Ethan chirped. “What happened to taking care of me? I need you to fuck me. So get to it.”

Ethan didn’t sound worried or unhappy, so Riley took a deep breath and went back to sucking Ethan’s cock. Then he tentatively pressed his fingers against Ethan and eased one inside.

It was weird, and doing it made Riley blush. But he took Ethan’s cock in his mouth again and deep-throated him. Those Internet videos he watched on sucking cock were turning out to be very helpful, indeed. It took him a few tries to get the hang of relaxing his jaw, but the noise Ethan made was totally worth the brief discomfort. While Ethan made happy, incoherent sounds, Riley gently began moving his finger in and out, glancing up to see if Ethan liked it.

“It’s not bad or anything,” Ethan reassured him. It was the least sexy thing he could have said.

“Good. I’m glad it’s tolerable.” Riley felt Ethan’s laugh as it vibrated through him. He pressed a kiss to the inside of Ethan’s thigh and added another finger.

He remembered something he learned and crooked his fingers slightly, so when he pulled them out, they brushed over something that made Ethan’s back snap up off the bed and make a noise that sounded like a howl.

Riley tried not to feel too smug about that and failed utterly.

With the help of some lube, Riley progressed to three fingers, and he stopped sucking him off just so he could watch Ethan react to what he was doing. Ethan writhed on the bed and cursed a lot. If there was anything weird about that, it was lost in how hot Ethan looked while Riley fucked him with his fingers.

Ethan’s eyes were all blurry as he blinked up at Riley, his face flushed as he gasped for breath. “Fuck me, Hunter. Come on.”

Riley might have made him wait for it, just for being so bossy, but he really wanted to know how all that tight heat would feel around his cock. So he bit Ethan on the thigh again and reached for the lube, still fucking him with his fingers while he slicked himself up.

It wasn’t the most graceful first time, and they had to stop and make some adjustments once or twice, but Riley was nothing if not patient. It felt amazing when he finally got inside Ethan, who was on his back with his legs pushed up to his chest, staring up at Riley with wide, hot eyes, and gripping Riley’s shoulders tightly.

It was obviously uncomfortable for Ethan at first, but he growled, “Don’t you dare stop. This is going to be great.” And all the trust Ethan was putting in him to make it good made Riley feel like he could do anything. It gave him the sense of control he felt in goal. He settled into a rhythm like he did when he had a perfect game and it was all instinct and movement. He watched and anticipated and trusted his body to do what it needed.

Maybe it was a little less graceful as it got harder and faster. Ethan moaned, and the headboard knocked against the wall as Riley found a rhythm and hit whatever that spot was that his fingers had found earlier. He managed to get one hand on Ethan’s cock and keep himself braced with his other hand. Ethan came with a shout, and his muscles gripped Riley’s cock so tightly that Riley lost his balance, collapsed on Ethan, and came—all at the same time.

Afterward, Ethan, sprawled naked in all his sweaty, sticky, tattooed glory, grinned lazily up at Riley and said, “I have good ideas.”

Riley snorted and hit Ethan on the arm. “We should shower.”

“Wait. Why?” Ethan put one arm behind his back and reached down to lazily stroke his cock with the other. “We have this room all night, Riles. You’re only going to fuck me once? Lame.”

“What if you’re sore, though?”

Ethan leveled a stare at him. “You remember our last four games? I got in a fight in every single one of them. This was like that but with an orgasm. Who cares if I’m sore?”

“I do,” Riley said, reaching out to run his fingers over Ethan’s mouth and jaw, down to his chest, and over his tattoos.

Ethan caught his hand with his own and laced their fingers together. He looked startlingly vulnerable. More so than Riley had ever seen. “It’s easier for me to say ‘I love you’ than to let you take care of me. You know that. Right?”

“Yeah.” Riley did know that. Ethan wasn’t exactly subtle. “I figured that out from the millions of hints you’ve given me.”

“If you say ‘problem solved,’ you asshole, I will punch you in the dick.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Riley said, but they both knew that was a lie.