Page 26 of Home Ice Advantage

For several long seconds he couldn’t even think about what was happening in a logical way. He’d never kissed a man before. He had never even considered it. Ryan had kissed a normal amount of girls as a kid, and then he’d met Shannon in his freshman year of college, and after that, he’d only ever kissed her.

Kissing Shannon that first time had felt like fireworks going off in his head, like the world had suddenly aligned into a way that made complete and perfect sense.

Kissing Aronson was like fireworks, too, but it felt like he was drowning, like nothing would ever make sense again. He was insanely conscious of Aronson’s five-o’clock shadow rough against his chin, of Aronson’s big hands gripping his shoulders, of Aronson’s tongue fucking his mouth, of Aronson’s furnace of a body pressed up against his, of the way Aronson had him bracketed in against the whiteboard, the metal strip where the erasers would sit digging painfully into his back, all of the pens clattering to the floor as he squirmed.

Ryan was shocked to find that Aronson wasn’t just kissing him, but Ryan was kissing him back, eagerly, hungrily. It wasn’t something he’d done consciously at all. His body reacted instinctively and before his mind could scream,what the fuck are you doing?, his hands had somehow made their way up to grab Aronson by the hair—it was thick and curly and easy to wind his fingers into—and yank his head down so he couldn’t escape.

He could hear his own breath in his ears, ragged and gasping, could feel Aronson’s wandering hands, grabbing his ass and pulling him in closer, hitching him up so that his feet weren’t even touching the ground, pinned between the whiteboard and Aronson’s body. His legs automatically hooked themselves around Aronson’s hips—

The whole thing was fucking nuts.

It wasinsane.

And Ryan couldn’t have stopped if one of their players had shown up at the door, shocked to find his coaches, well. The only way to describe what was happening to Ryan wasgetting mauledandloving it.

Aronson kissed like he used to play hockey, vicious and dirty and competitive. His mouth was hot and anything but giving; the kiss had teeth in it. Ryan was perfectly happy to bite back, and when he did Aronson shuddered and redoubled his efforts, his nose bumping Ryan’s, his glasses smudgy from breath and skin.

It was like being on the ice again in the middle of a game, when all of his senses felt heightened and he could react entirely on instinct, like every scrape of a blade on the ice and every flash of color at the corner of his eye was a secret message just for him, a map to a win.

Except now instead of the sound of metal on ice he had the deep groan Aronson made when Ryan let go of his hair with one hand and dragged it down his back. Instead of the bright blues and reds of jerseys he had Aronson’s brown-and-gold-flecked eyes, open and furious, his pupils huge and dilated. And instead of the goal horn, he had the hot length of Aronson’s erection, grinding into his thigh.

That was what finally snapped him out of his dazed, almost drugged haze. “Aronson,” he managed, his voice ragged. “We have to—we can’t—”

“Oh, fuck,” Aronson said, and immediately dropped him. He was breathing hard, his shirt askew where Ryan had pulled it out of its careful tuck, his hair wild where Ryan had yanked at it. He blinked, then said again, “Oh,fuck.”

It took Ryan a second to get his balance again. He lifted his hand to touch his mouth, his chin, a little red and raw from the scrape of Aronson’s stubble. He felt like he had to go through concussion protocol. “I—uh—well. That was. One way to handle a coaching dispute.”

“I didn’t mean—” Aronson started.

“What you should be apologizing for is being adickon the bench and messing up my goddamn diagrams—”

“That’s what you’re worried aboutnow? I should’ve kissed you fuckingharder.”

Strangely, Ryan could feel himself flushing, like he was a teenager again or something. “Youshould’velistened to me.”

“Oh my god,” Aronson was saying, looking at the smudged ink on the whiteboard. His smile twitched, so obnoxious that Ryan wondered what would happen if he kissed Aronson again to shut him up. “You only messed it like halfway up. You want a step stool next time?”

“The fuck do you mean, next time?” Ryan demanded, his heart beating so hard that he could hear it in his ears.

Instead of answering, Aronson took another step forward and leaned down. He took Ryan’s face in his hands and Ryan was aware that at any second, he could have slapped Aronson’s hands away, hit him in the stomach, pushed him to get him to stop. He didn’t do any of those things. He let Aronson kiss him again. It was slower this time, less angry, but no less world-skewing.

Ryan was forty-five years old and apparently learning some really surprising things about himself, like the fact that Aronson, obnoxious, annoying, frustrating Aronson, had a particular way of kissing him with full-out intensity and then starting to pull away in the exact manner that had Ryan’s body leaning into it. Chasing after it. It wasn’t until Aronson had stepped back again, smirking, that he realized what he was doing.

“Yeah. Like right then, Sully.”

“I—” Ryan started. He realized, belatedly, he hadn’t thought aboutwhathe was going to say. He was still pissed at Aronson for the game debacle, but he was also embarrassed. And hard. And—

“That’s what I thought,” Aronson said, grinning, and turned on his heel to leave.

“This isn’t the last you’re gonna hear about this, asshole.”

“Oh, I bet.”

And Ryan was left to sit there with dry-erase marker smeared all over his sweater, an inconvenient erection and even more inconvenient truths about himself to reconsider.

All in all. It had not been his best day.

Chapter Six

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