“Good boy.”
I peel his shorts down to mid-thigh. I peel mine after. Grab a condom out of the pocket of the quarter-zip that former-me always had on hand.
“Lube,” I say. “Sorry. This is going to be fast.”
“Spit.”
Jesus.
I spit into my palm. I work him with two fingers. Quick, not cruel, just enough to open. He's been open for me for more than a week now. His body knows me. His body opens under my hand before his brain has caught up with the ask.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, now, now.”
I push in.
He bites his own forearm to keep quiet. His other hand grips the edge of the desk until his knuckles go white. I bend over him. Mouth on the back of his neck. My cage is gone, my helmet is gone, but my chest plate is still on under the quarter-zip and it presses into his back with every thrust. He loves it, I can feel it, the weight of me in gear is doing something to him that can't be done any other way.
“Mad Dog…”
I kiss the back of his neck.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Fast.”
“I know.”
I go fast. I won a game with him ten minutes ago and my blood is still full of adrenaline and his coach just told me I don't get to have him and I'm going to have him anyway. The desk creaks. Theo's forehead drops to the wood. He's making small sounds into his own arm. His skates are gone but he's still in stockinged feet on the industrial carpet and his base-layer top is rucked up to his shoulder blades and my gloved hand, because I still have one damn hockey glove on—I didn't even notice—slides up his spine and leaves a smear of ice dust on his skin. I peel theglove off with my teeth and drop it. I put my bare hand where the glove was. Warm skin. Sweat. The divot at the small of his back I have kissed in a bed multiple times now. Different room. Same body.
“You close?”
“Yeah.”
“Touch yourself.”
He gets a hand under himself. The angle's terrible and he doesn't care. I watch his knuckles move. I reach down and help, my hand over his, and his back arches up off the desk and he says my name, my real name,Maddox,into the wood like he can't help it.
“Come for me, sweetheart. Now. Right now.”
He does.
I follow him over. Two strokes, three. My face pressed between his shoulder blades. My teeth on the cotton of his base layer, biting down on nothing because I can't bite him where someone will see it.
The desk creaks one last time. Settles.
We breathe.
The door handle rattles.
Both of us freeze.
The thumb-turn is on the inside. It's locked. It's?—
A fist hits the door. Three hard knocks.
“Theo.”
Paul's voice. Paul on the other side of the door.
