Page 29 of Home Ice Advantage

No matter what he did, Sullivan was always there, always in his personal space. It was frustrating and annoying, and it made him think, again, of just picking Sullivan up and slamming him into the wall. It made him think of things he had promised himself he wasn’t going to think about, and it didn’t get any easier once practice was over and the team had showered and headed home to rest.

The coaching staff usually stayed after the practices to discuss tape and the progress the players had made; today was no exception. Petey especially had a lot to say about the progress, or lack thereof, with their veterans. Some of them were adjusting. Some of them weren’t. The deeper they got into November, the more it became clear who was going to work with the new system and who would need to be on the way out at the trade deadline. Conroy liked to have weekly updates.

There was always something to do.

It was the same there, too. Sullivan was always too close. He shouldered Eric aside like he wasn’t the one who’d just gotten into his space. He was close enough that Eric could smell his hair, fresh from the showers. It was infuriating and he could feel his eyebrows drawing down in a deeper and deeper frown.

He didn’t say anything. Not in front of Petey.

But then Petey rubbed his eyes and said, “All right, boys. You got my updates, and I got a splitting fucking headache. I’m going to head home to sleep it off. You’ll be all right finishing up here without me?”

“Perfectly fine,” Sullivan said, grinning a foxy grin, all of his teeth flashing.

All of the hair on Eric’s arms stood on end. The premonition of disaster. But he ignored it, fist-bumped Petey as he shuffled out of the room, squinting and rubbing his eyes again.

Once they were alone, Eric turned on him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re really shit at staying out of the way,” Sullivan said. He was smirking, that little bastard, like he knew exactly how much he’d gotten under Eric’s skin, exactly how much he’d been trying not to think about what had happened the night before.

For a second, Eric had a flash of doubt as to where this was going. Whether all of the incidental touches, the inability to get out of the fuckingwaywas an encouragement or another form of torture, a reminder of what he couldn’t have.

“You,” he said, “are a pain in my fuckingass.”

Sullivan set the papers he was holding down on the desk. He was still standing so close that Eric could feel that irresistible current between them, like a magnet. It was chilly in that room, always, because it was so close to ice level and mostly cinder blocks on the wall and concrete on the floor, and no one had bothered to make sure the heaters worked efficiently. It didn’t matter, because Eric’s entire body was on fire just from the proximity.

Sullivan opened his stupid, annoying mouth and said, “That sounds like a personal issue you need to work on,” and before Eric could even think about what he was doing, he had closed the distance between them and grabbed Sullivan by the shoulders. At first, he was intending to shake him, like everyone said you should never do with a child, but before he could do anything else Sullivan had looked up at him with that stupid challenge Eric found impossible not to meet.

It was worse this time, because he already knew exactly what Sullivan felt like when he was opening his mouth eagerly to a kiss, exactly the way Sullivan tasted, exactly the way his hand felt winding into Eric’s hair and yanking. He already knew, and it somehow still blew even the last kiss out of the water. It should have been impossible, that one person was so fucking annoying and also felt so fucking good under his hands, under his mouth.

Every resolution he’d made not to do this again went up in smoke as Sullivan’s hands eagerly explored his body, grabbing his ass to yank him closer. Somehow during the initial onslaught, he’d backed Sullivan up against the desk, didn’t realize it until there was nowhere else to push him. Sullivan didn’t seem to mind, kept making these stupid noises against Eric’s lips, gasps of encouragement, urging him on.

It had been a long time since he’d kissed anyone like this, openmouthed and biting and desperate, like the clash of tongue and lips and teeth was as much the point as any further destination. It was just his fucking luck that it was Sullivan that did this to him, that it was Sullivan who was panting into his mouth, his hands grabbing at any part of Eric that he could reach.

Leaning forward, Eric pushed at the papers, scattering them away, then lifted Sullivan up to set him down there. He tried to pull back a second, so he could see what Sullivan looked like, rumpled and debauched in the middle of all of his stupid plans, but he could only manage a second before Sullivan grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him back down. Fine. If Sullivan wanted to play that way, Eric could up the ante.

With the small amount of space Eric had left, looming over him, he managed to get his hand down Sullivan’s pants and immediately discovered how fucking easy he was for all of this, already hot and hard in Eric’s fingers. As soon as he touched Sullivan, he was rewarded with a long, ragged groan, with Sullivan finally relenting on the bruising kisses. His head drooped forward against Eric’s chest, like he was looking down at Eric’s hand where it was hidden by fabric.

“Fuck,” Eric managed, although his voice sounded strange, too strained and high, “you horny little bastard, this was what you were after that whole practice?”

“Shut the fuck up and just—and just—”

Eric didn’t have any words for the way it felt to have Sullivan firmly in hand, thrusting up into his grip, like he would die if Eric didn’t jerk him off. He was already leaking, sticky on Eric’s fingers. Eric was suddenly furious again, by the fact that this had just happened to him without his really thinking about it, how easily Sullivan had turned the tables on him. Eric might have had the upper hand the last time, but as soon as Sullivan had put his mind tocontinuing this, Eric was thrown off-balance.

He pulled back far enough to disentangle himself, ignoring Sullivan’s attempts to pull him back. Yanked at Sullivan’s pants and was rewarded when his eyes widened a little, like he was unsure about where this was going, not confident about what he wanted. For a second, Eric wondered, in his stupid, lust-fogged head, whether this was a bad idea.

Of course it was a bad idea. They were at work. They were in the arena. Anyone could walk in. But he simultaneously needed Sullivan’s dick in his mouthandto prove to Sullivan himself that he had no fucking clue what he was doing, who he was messing with—

And then Sullivan was shifting his hips to help Eric along, his hands gripping the edge of the desk for support, mumbling, “Come on, come on, oh my god, please—”

It was thepleasethat did it. Eric knelt. He was tall enough and the desk was low enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable for him to be in this position, to reach where he needed to reach. He ran his hand up the length of Sullivan’s dick, thumb dragging through the wetness leaking at the tip, rewarded by a groan and another jerk of his hips. With a bruising grip Eric pushed him down again, hands pressing into his thighs where they were trapped by the sweatpants, and then leaned down to take him in his mouth.

The noise Sullivan made when he did it was worth all of it, ragged and wanting and completely obscene.

Eric was aware of so many physical sensations just then. The cold concrete uncomfortable against his knees, Sullivan’s hands twisting in his hair, Sullivan’sinsanethigh muscles shifting under his grip, the shape and taste of Sullivan in his mouth, the way it felt completely right and completely wrong all at the same time. Sullivan was noisy in this too, even while Eric was taking him apart with his mouth: incoherent but moaning, wordless but gasping.

Eric looked up and realized he was going to be jerking off to this image for a long fucking time: Sullivan with his thighs spread wide for Eric’s body, arms shaking but holding himself up, head thrown back and mouth open, slack and stupid with what Eric was doing to him. He shifted, uncomfortably hard himself, had to press his palm flat against his own cock to keep things under control.

“God,” Sullivan was saying, “Jesus fucking god,Aronson—I’m going, if you don’t want—”

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