Chapter Ten
Adler
I turned to look at Layton, thinking that maybe I’d toss out something glib about more coffee and see if he’d actually-maybe-possibly go with me for a real coffee. Hell, maybe I could sweet-talk him into saying it was a date. He’d been receptive to my touches during the presser. If I was lucky, I might be able to sneak in another kiss. Talk about something my taste buds would enjoy. I bet he tasted fantastic. A sexy combination of man and coffee beans…
He leaned in a bit, his chest lightly brushing mine. My breath hitched as his cologne and the feel of his lean, hard body mingled. His gaze darted from my mouth to the two doors leading out of the press room. My focus was wholly on Layton, because holy shit he was sending out vibes that my cock was receiving loud and clear.
He wet his lips, a nervous habit that turned me right on. A group of loud males walked past the door to our left. A bit of the fire in those pewter depths disappeared.
“Can I talk to you in my office?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I followed him, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. It must have been something. Why else would he want to see me alone? Shit. Had my mouth engaged without me knowing it? We rounded a corner, my longer legs pushing to keep up with Layton’s hurried pace. Dammit. I must have really hosed something up. That look I thought was desire must have been anger.
“Lockhart, you knuckle-dragging hoser,” Brady Rowe shouted when he spied us coming. He’d been talking with a small group of Railers. Layton skidded to a stop in front of me. I walked up to stand at his side. He was unreadable now.
“Rowe.” I slapped my hand into Brady’s. He was a big guy, like me, and one hell of a defenseman. “How go things in Bean Town?”
“I can’t complain. I was shocked to read you’d been traded.” He gave Layton a polite nod of the head.
“Such is life in the salary cap era. It’s their loss. I’m enjoying things here. You meet Layton Foxx yet? He’s the Railers social media troubleshooting guru. He was the one that set this whole press thing up.”
I peeked at Layton as I spoke to Brady. He looked uncertain trapped between two hulking hockey players. Not the first time I’d seen his discomfort. Why was the man so skittish? It worried me to see reserve on his handsome face. I wanted to see him only smiling. I’d work on that.
“Ten speaks highly of you, Layton.” Brady shoved his big mitt at Layton, who grabbed it and gave it a quick shake, then released it. Yeah, the man was really looking hemmed in. That concerned me for reasons I didn’t dare to explore right now.
“I noticed that you and Baby Brother are starting to click on ice.” Brady folded his arms over that big old Boston emblem he so proudly wore.
“Ten is an amazing center. Great eyes and soft hands. Reads a play five seconds before the other losers on the ice do.”
“Which means you’re always scrambling to catch up,” he teased.
“Not unlike you. Defenseman are known to be a little slow, you know, up here.” I tapped my temple.
“Speaking of slow, did you see that shit blowing up about Greg Davies down in the ECHL?”
“Dude, that man has issues. When he played in Columbus with me for that year, he was always wheeling chicks that I thought looked way too young to be—”
“Wait,” Layton slid into the hockey talk. “This man ran over a woman with a wheel?”
Brady and I laughed. “Nah, wheeling means trying to pick up chicks,” Brady explained.
“Hockey has a language all its own,” Layton said, then pulled out his iPad to type something into it.
“Yeah, it does. So, look, I have a couple of hours before I have to head back to Boston. Want to meet up with me, Ten and Jared for some lunch? I guess a lot of the Railers are going too.”
Hooking up with the guys and Brady sounded good. Much better than getting chewed out for some stupid social media gaffe I hadn’t even been aware of making. But Layton looked set.
“Give me thirty minutes.”
“Cool. We’ll be hanging around talking to the press and shit. Layton, nice to meet you.” Brady smiled, then went off to do his “I’m a Proud Brother of a Gay Man” thing.
Layton took off at a clip that I had to jog to match. He blew into his little office. I stepped in after him feeling like a dog about to get whipped for stealing a pork chop from a plate left on the floor. I mean, whatever I’d said, he should know better than to give me access to a pork chop. I was making no sense now. How had I got from Layton to pig meat? I needed to reel my rambling thoughts back in.
“You okay with me closing the door?” I asked.
He nodded.
I gave it a soft nudge, and it slowly drifted shut. “Okay, so here’s the thing,” I opened, “whatever it is that I did or said, I will apologize for it. Just write up some Tweets or something and I’ll send them right out.”
He made a lap around his desk, his eyes flickering from me to the door. “Lock that.”
“Huh?”
“Lock the door.” He stood behind his desk, smoky eyes afire. Christ. I must have really screwed the pooch. Damn pork chops.
Adler, dude, enough with the dogs and chops already.
I did as he’d asked. He walked around his desk, his gaze locked with mine, came right at me, grabbed my head with both hands, and pulled my mouth to his. The instant my lips settled on his, something shifted. The Earth’s tectonic plates slid dangerously. The planet listed to the left, then came back. Layton tongued the seam of my mouth, his fingers firm on my skull. Right then I knew that whatever was happening at the core of the Earth would engulf us both. I grabbed him and slung him against the door, ravenous for more of him.
He grunted at the impact. The huff of moist breath over my face only fanned the fire. I slapped my hands against the door, his dark head resting on the wood as my fingers spread and I leaned in to him. My gaze was with his. A flare of something that had nothing to do with magma, earthquakes or lust overtook the passion in his gaze.
He was scared. Of me. Of being cornered or crowded. Okay, right. That was why he’d looked like a rabbit cornered by a couple of hounds when Brady and I had had him boxed in.
I shifted myself to the side a bit, let my hands drop, lowered myself a few inches to get us on the same eye level, and nipped gently at his lower lip. I rolled my hips to hopefully entice him back into the moment.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
I sucked on that lush lip of his, nothing touching him but my cock as it bumped over his hip bone. We both sucked in a short breath. I felt one hand settle on my side, then the other, as I toyed with his open mouth and rubbed against him.
“You make me wild,” I confessed when his fingertips slid under my jacket. I pressed my fingers into fists to keep from being grabby.
“Same here,” he replied, then yanked the back of my dress shirt free from my pants.
His hands slipped under the cotton fabric, his fingers bouncing off each rib. A rumble rolled from me. I covered his mouth with mine, probed as deeply as I could, eager for him to respond. He did, and it was glorious. His tongue stroked mine, inciting me to a frenzy. I pulled away from the kiss. He chased it, his grip on my ribs tightening. I let him catch my lips. He purred lightly when I lapped at his open mouth. Seemed he liked that, so I kept doing it, tonguing his lips and the corner of his mouth as he licked at my rapidly moving tongue.
“God, Adler,” he moaned.
Something inside my brain broke hearing him hotly calling my name. I kissed him hard, my teeth skimming his. He grew a bit wild after that kiss. He shoved me and I instantly backed off. I didn’t want to see anything but white-hot lust in those beautiful eyes of his.
“I’m sorry,” I huffed. He shook his head, and then went to his knees, tugging at me to turn me. My shoulder blades kissed the locked door. “Shit, shit, shit,” I growled when my fly was opened and my cock freed in one smooth-as-hell move.
Looking down. Nope. Should not have done that, but I had. Seeing him on his knees, his steely eyes heavy lidded as he took me into his mouth, almost did me in.
“Slow, Layton, please.”
He bobbed his head but did not go slow. He sucked me hard and fast, using that tongue of his in ways that had me gasping and whimpering his name within seconds. God, he was good. So good…
“Layton… shit!”
I kept my eyes on him as I came. I dug my fingernails into the doorframe. He pulled me over the edge faster than any man ever had. He grabbed the silver-blue handkerchief from his breast pocket and spat into it, his gaze averted.
“You okay?” I asked between shudders and pants. He nodded, then got to one knee and pushed to his feet. He seemed uneasy now, his handkerchief wadded in his hand.
“I’m sorry… about this.” He waved the handkerchief around.
“Dude, you’re not the only man who doesn’t swallow,” I replied as I straightened back up to my normal height. He threw me a look that screamed that he thought I was placating him. “Seriously. Shit, I don’t always, not all the time. It’s fine.”
I reached out to touch his cheek. He drew back a bit, then stepped closer, his eyes roaming over my face.
“Think I can do the same for you?” I cupped his cheek, then ran my thumb over his bottom lip. Man, his mouth was a work of art.
He looked like he was about to agree, and I was desperate to get my hands on him.
A knock on the door and an accompanying, heavily accented “Layton?” from Stan was enough to shake us free of the cloud of arousal that hung around us.
“Give me a moment,” Layton called back.
“Lunch,” Stan added.
“I brought my own,” Layton said, all the while staring right at me. What was it with Stan? He seemed to be way too interested in what Layton was eating.
A very distinct sentence in Russian—saying what, who knew?—and then everything was quiet.
I looked at Layton with my most hopeful expression, but he shook his head. The moment was gone.
“You sure? I mean, you obviously need some relief, and I would love to get you into my mouth, among other things.”
“No, no, not now. Later, maybe. Okay?”
“Sure, yeah, whenever you’re okay for it.” We were back to anxious Layton and sorely confused Alder status, which sucked. “Maybe we can go meet the guys?”
Oh-kay. That look was a for-sure no.
“Coffee, then? You and me? You do owe me a klatch.”
“I have to watch social media, the phones…”
“You can take an hour; bring your phone.”
He fumbled around for a reply. “I have to, uh… do something with this before we go.” He lifted the hand holding the dirty handkerchief. No shit, I nearly jumped for joy just hearing him say he’d have coffee with me.
“Give it here.” I opened my hand. Eyebrows knotted, he dropped the dirty square into my palm. I crammed it into my pocket, then reached around him. “Here, let me fix you up.”
He watched as I opened the box and took out the perfectly folded handkerchief with the rainbow edging. I stepped close, eyes holding his, and slid the silky gift into his pocket.
“Now you look all sorts of hot.” I plucked at the hankie, adjusting it a bit. He stole a kiss. It was nothing like the others we had shared, but it was just as powerful.
“Thanks for not being put off,” he said.
“Thanks for finally taking my gift.”
I let him step in to me. He began tucking my shirt back into place, his gaze flitting to touch mine several times as he worked on getting me presentable. Seemed that was his lot in life. Making Adler Lockhart presentable to the world. Lucky me.
“I’m, ah… what happened with us? I’m not sure about anything right now,” he murmured as he tucked.
“I am. I’m sure we’re going to get some coffee and celebrate you rocking the shit out of that presser. We might even get wild and have a muffin with our coffee.” I gave him a wink, and he smiled. Pretty much right then I knew I’d fallen for him. When a man’s little shy smile makes you feel like you lassoed the sun? You’re already in freefall.
* * * * *
I drove us to this tiny little coffee shop about ten blocks from the barn. There were no hockey players in sight. Layton seemed okay with the place, although I felt cramped. It was tiny and trendy with little tables and retro seats that I knew would not hold my gigantic self.
“Are you going to sit down?” Layton asked as I stood balancing my coffee and a blueberry muffin.
“You think that spindly chair will hold me?”
He appraised it while cutting his muffin into four neat quarters. “It should. Things that look weak are sometimes stronger than you think.”
“Wow, that was deep,” I murmured, and cautiously lowered my weight downward. “Was that about chairs or you?”
He lifted his gaze from muffin-readying to me. “Both, maybe,” he admitted.
“That’s cool. So, here’s the thing, okay. I like you. And I think you like me.”
“Maybe.”
I chuckled at his aloof reply. “That wild blowjob in your office suggests that you find me somewhat adorable.”
“You’re like an Irish setter,” he blurted out, then returned to fussing over his muffin.
“You mean I’m bouncy, beautifully ginger, and I tend to bark before I think?” He gave me a coy smile, and what do you know, there was the sun again, shining into my soul. I was so done for. “Okay, I accept that. You always cut your muffin?”
“It’s easier to keep under control that way.”
He shook out a paper napkin with the coffee shop logo on it and placed it on his lap. I peeled the paper off my muffin and shoved the whole thing into my mouth. His eyes grew as round as the plate his quartered muffin sat on.
“This is how I control things,” I managed to say around all the muffin.
He shook his head, then picked up one slice of his cranberry muffin. “That explains a lot,” he said dryly, then nibbled on the edge of his muffin. It took me four tries to swallow. When I was able to breathe, I washed the glob of dough down with some really good coffee.
“Okay, so back to the thing,” I said. “I like you and you like me. No, don’t quibble. I’m still wobbly from the oral sex you perpetrated upon me.”
He might have blushed just a little. A couple of women walked past us, chattering about kids. They sat down by the window. We’d chosen a more secluded spot by the counter. Layton had asked me to take the seat by the wall. He was checking his phone, his expression changing from smiling to angry and back again as quick as you could say internet idiots.
“I think we should date,” I told him.
“You’re not out,” he keenly pointed out, placed his cell on the table, then took a tiny bite of muffin. “And even if you were, I’m not sure we should see each other. It’s not professional.”
“Okay, yeah, I’m not out, but I could be. I could reach over this table, grab you by the scruff of the neck, and kiss you right here in front of everyone walking up and down Susquehanna Street. Then I’d be out and that would be that.”
“And I’d be left handling a situation that could be blown up into all the players on the Railers team turning gay overnight.”
“Bullshit.”
“You know it’s true. And there would still be the fact that I work for the Railers management and you’re a player.”
“Was it not you that just put on that killer presser for a coach and a player?” I waved at the barista and asked for another muffin.
“That was different, and you just inhaled one muffin.” He sounded like my mother would if she’d ever cared about what I ate or when. It made me feel special.
“Getting great head always makes me hungry. You should see what I ingest after fucking pretty men with smoky eyes all night.”
His bite of muffin froze an inch from his mouth. “You like talking dirty just to rattle me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I really do.” I grinned as my second muffin arrived. I tossed a five at the server and told her to keep the change. “Back to us. I was thinking that maybe we’d just date once or twice a week. Movies and dinners mostly, because with our schedule more than that is about impossible.”
“You’re pretty presumptuous. I think I just said that we’re not dating.”
“No, you tossed out some silly rebuttal and I blew your lame argument out of the water.”
His nose wrinkled. It was adorable.
Oh man, Adler, really, the saccharin level at this table is giving me diabetes and I’m just a voice in your head. Stop it, dude.
He lowered his fork with the muffin bite still on it. I saw the belligerence in his eyes. “I don’t really appreciate you being so pushy. It’s not an attractive trait and— Shit, now what?” He picked up his ringing cell and made the crinkled face again when he saw who was calling. I hoped to hell it wasn’t someone calling to cuss him out over his work. But was he cute? Oh my God, yes.
“Mom, hi, I’m busy at the…” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. I took a bite of my second muffin and eavesdropped on the mother-son call.
“No, I haven’t picked up anything for any of the kids yet.”
I chewed as he deflected.
“Can we talk about Christmas dinner later? I’m doing a coffee thing with a— Uh, well, he’s a player for the Railers.”
“I’m his date,” I shouted.
He was not amused. “No, he’s— Well, a date is a stretch. Serious? No. No, it’s not serious because we’re not— Bring him home for Christmas dinner? Ah, Mom, I’m not sure if that’s—”
“I’d love to! Thank you, Mrs. Foxx!” I leaned on the table and yelled to make sure she heard me. Oh man, the look I got from Layton. It was simmering and sexy all at once. Just like he was. I chewed on my muffin as he stammered and tried to cook up some excuse. Guess Mrs. Foxx wasn’t buying anything he said, and he ended the call looking like he’d sat on a hedgehog.
“That was out of line,” he snapped. “You just can’t invite yourself to my family’s holiday!”
“First thing,” I held up a finger, “I didn’t invite myself. Your mother invited me, and I politely accepted.” The furrows on his brow grew deeper. “Second thing,” I added another finger and shook them at his cute nose, “it will be great. Do you have brothers and sisters? Nephews? Nieces? Oh man, is there a big tree? I bet there is. I’ll have to go shopping. What does your mom like? I’ll send Apollo to Cartier with a list. What?”
“You honestly cannot be that excited to spend Christmas with my family. It’s loud and cramped, kids everywhere screaming and crying. It’s not your thing at all, I’m sure.”
“Sounds great! My Christmas memories are of me and the staff rattling around the Maine house until I went back to school. Loud and crazy sounds awesome.”
He stared at me long and hard. “I’m sorry for that. It sounds lonely.”
My last bite of muffin wedged in my throat. “It was what it was. So, dinner tomorrow night? Dinner. A movie. More oral sex?” He seemed a little overwhelmed with me. “Should I tone down my inner setter a bit?”
“Maybe a little.” He inhaled and let the breath go slowly. “Dinner is okay. No movie. We’ll see about the oral sex.”
Now it was time to smile so brightly I blinded him.