Page 31 of Goaltender Interference

And then Matt was crouched over him, leaning down for one last, messy kiss before he pressed against Aiden’s body, slowly pushing forward.

Aiden exhaled one long gasp of breath. It felt different like this. Uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. Matt went slowly, centimeter by centimeter, but steadily and without pause, and it was the best kind of agony. Not pain, just an awareness of the way Matt was deliberately opening him. The way his body had to struggle to adjust. How full he was and how sensitive every part of him was and—

Aiden opened his eyes to look at Matt’s face. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open, almost like he was in pain, or a concentration so intense he couldn’t bear it. Aiden couldn’t help himself; he reached up to push a stray piece of hair away from Matt’s eyes and Matt tilted his face into Aiden’s hand.

When Matt finally bottomed out, they paused, frozen like that. Matt stared down at him and Aiden was the one who had to look away.

“Matt, come on, comeon—”

Matt didn’t say anything, but Aiden could hear his labored breathing, feel how much effort it took to hold himself back as he moved, sliding out and then in again. It was slow, still, slower than Aiden wanted, and he forced himself to wait, to let Matt set the pace. It was so fucking deliberate,patient, that he was practically shaking out of his own skin anyway. The occasional rough push had him gasping and whining. His fingers dug into the muscle of Matt’s shoulders, half for leverage, half to pull him closer. Matt’s head dipped down, his forehead bumping against Aiden’s.

“Fuck,” Aiden could hear himself saying, as if from a distance, “fuck, Matt, ten fucking, fuckingyears—I need—harder,please—”

When Matt started fucking him in earnest, finally, Aiden threw his legs around Matt’s waist and his head back against the pillow and gave himself permission to stop fuckingthinking. He lost track of time, lost track of everything except the way it felt now that they finally had the rhythm of it, now that every thrust and every drag and every teasing swivel of Matt’s hips, every slow, dirty grind, drove him out of himself. It was what he wanted—needed. Even if it was going to destroy him, he would saythank youfor it.

He was sayingthank you, the words ragged and crazed, over and over again. “Thank you—thank you, thank you,thank you, thank—”

Matt groaned, “Aiden,Aidy,” and stopped thethank youswith his mouth, his teeth digging at Aiden’s lip.

An interminable time later, Aiden came without Matt’s hands anywhere except his wrist and his throat, fingers pressed against the throbbing pulse at Aiden’s neck. And for a time, he was free—floating somewhere blissfully outside of his own skull.

For a time.

A little later Matt, on his back, his chest still heaving, said, “JesusChrist, Aiden.”

Aiden exhaled. His hands were shaking. His mouth wasn’t cooperating with his brain. It was fine. They lay in silence for a time, sweat cooling, goose bumps rising in the air-conditioning.

It wasn’t fine.

Matt watched Aiden stumble out of the bed and into the bathroom and couldn’t bring himself to get up. If he thought too much about the absolute disaster of a situation he’d just created it made his head and chest ache. If he thought too much about how irresistible Aiden had been, talking about his stupid comicbooks so seriously and with such passion, it made his head and chest ache. If he thought too much about the glimpse of the boy Aiden had used to be, the hyperfixations that he’d seemingly set to the side in the fog of depression, it made his head and chest ache. If he thought about Aiden falling apart underneath him, begging first and then sayingthank you, it made his head and chest ache.

Ten fucking years,Aiden had said, and Matt felt every single one of them. It was surreal how they had fallen right back into it like nothing had changed. How Aiden’s body still felt the same, how he still liked the same things, how fucked up he got just from Matt touching him, how easy he was for every single touch.

Not easy.Greedy.

Matt listened to the water running behind the closed door and thought about how intense it had been to be inside Aiden again, how hot and tight and eager he was. To hold his wrists down and feel Aiden’s pulse thudding against his fingers. To look down and see Aiden’s wide light brown eyes, dreamy and unfocused, his mouth hanging open, unselfconscious in a way he only ever was around Matt.

Ten fucking years. Ten fuckingyears.

Ten fucking years they’d been apart.

In that instant he knew that as much progress as he thought he’d made, as much as he’d assumed that he had moved on with his life and gotten it together—being with Aiden like that made it clear that he had never really moved from the starting line. He was right back there again, like a time loop, the wound as fresh and painful as it had been when he fell in love the first time.

But was it really such a bad thing, if he was?

Aiden was here now.

Aiden slept in his bed.

Aiden had fucked him again.

Aiden had moved all of his shit into Matt’s closet; he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Matt was a responsible guy. He put the team before himself. He put his duty before himself. When Emily left him, he’d still been the first one at the practice facility and the last one to leave, the one everyone had come to for advice and for anything they’d needed. The one playing twenty-five minutes a night without a complaint.

Did he have to be the responsible one forever? Couldn’t he make a stupid, impulsive decision again, even knowing how disastrously his last one had ended? If it was ten years or ten months or ten weeks or ten minutes they’d been apart. What did it matter? Why couldn’t he just let himself have this? Hockey and being the captain and Aiden, who for whatever weird twist of fate, happened to be herenow?

He was so tired, so fucked up, that he didn’t even realize when his eyes started drooping.

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