Page 66 of Goaltender Interference

Aiden stood, as gracefully as he ever did, and it was only the way his mouth twitched that really betrayed how nervous and upset he was. “Look, Matt, I’m—”

“No. Don’t say anything.”

Aiden stared at him, wordlessly. He looked ridiculous, his face stricken and his cheeks red, still in his bare feet and boxers, muscles tense like he was trying to decide whether he wantedto fight or flee. He looked down at Matt, still on the couch, and swallowed hard. He crossed his arms over his chest like he was trying to cover his nipples, and Matt thought about sayingno, move them, but this stuff was always a delicate balance, not doing too much too soon.

“Kneel on the floor.”

Aiden blanched, head whipping back like Matt had slapped him. “What?”

“I told you not to say anything, Aiden.”

Aiden’s face flushed darker, and he hesitated for a second before his body did what Matt had told him to do. He moved so gracefully, even now, years of goalie training and acrobatics on the ice in every easy line of his body. Aiden knelt on the floor, next to the coffee table, awkward and embarrassed. His eyes flickered from Matt’s face and back down: if he was a prey animal you would’ve been able to see the whites. But Matt could see the line of his dick, slowly getting hard under his boxers.

“Spread your legs a little wider. And sit up with your back straight. Balls of your feet on the ground. Don’t let your weight rest on your heels.” He felt like his voice was admirably steady, considering the way his hands were clenched in fists, the way he was so fucking nervous about doing the wrong thing and making something worse. The way he was always so undone by Aiden’s easiness, his malleability, that his skin felt like it was already prickling with goose bumps.

Aiden shifted. He did what he was told, eyes turned demurely down to the floor. In that position, he couldn’t just rest his weight on the ground, but had to actively brace himself up. If Matt made him stay there for a long time, it would probably get a little painful. He licked his lips, a bit nervously, and said, “How long...?”

“Until I tell you to get up.”

“Or you’ll what?” Aiden asked. He looked up suddenly, unable to look away from Matt’s face. His eyes were very wide and darker than usual. Fishing, now, trying to rile Matt up.

“Stop asking questions, Aiden.”

Something about the way that Matt had said it sank in, because Aiden didn’t ask or say anything else, just knelt on the floor where Matt had left him and watched. Matt turned the TV on and sat back against the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table, very carefully not looking at Aiden even though he was so aware of him that he felt like an electric current ran between them. He couldn’t keep from looking sometimes, checking from the corner of his eye every now and then to see how he was doing.

Aiden was admirably still, like this was just another hockey exercise. The position had to have been awkward, knees bruising against the cold hardwood floor. Matt admired the visible strain in his thigh muscles. He had muscular legs, not as thick as a skater’s, but defined in a way that Matt could see every line of them. Aiden might have been in fantastic shape, but human beings weren’t made for this kind of sitting. Not without cushioning. Not for this long.

But he kept at it, his posture ramrod-straight, and Matt could hear the way his breathing slowly calmed, got deeper and slower even while his face flushed red. Knowing how Aiden must have felt all twisted up inside, the pain of the position and the humiliation of it, of the desire to please—it was fucking heady, almost a little like being drunk. It took almost everything he had in him not to look, not to stare like a beggar at a feast, to keep focused on the TV.

Aiden wasn’t any better. Matt could see him, every little movement of his hands, every sideways flick of his eyes. Waiting. Watching.

Matt realized he hadn’t even been paying attention to what had been on the TV, but the episode was over. He turned it off and went back into the kitchen to wash the dishes Aiden had accumulated across the course of the day and didn’t look back. Didn’t tell Aiden he could get up; didn’t tell him it was over. He chanced a look over his shoulder and Aiden still knelt there, head bowed, just breathing.

He poured himself a drink of water. He considered dumping it over his head. He settled for splashing it into his face, blinking. It didn’t do much to get his head together.

By the time Matt went back into the living room and sat down on the couch, Aiden was shivering a little. Matt said, “Come here,” and then when Aiden started to stand, “I didn’t say you could walk.”

“Matty—”

“I didn’t say you could talk.”

The way Aiden looked at him, anguished and full of desire, eyes huge and dark, almost undid him right then and there. Aiden wasn’t thinking about whatever had been bothering him anymore. All he was thinking about was Matt, all he was thinking about was what they were doing together. On his hands and knees, he crawled across the floor. It wasn’t far, but he did it slowly, like every movement was at once a humiliation and an excitement, head bowed. The tension in his shoulders was fucking amazing, and when he was finally sitting at Matt’s feet, Matt couldn’t help himself.

“Aiden...” He reached out to touch Aiden’s face, hand gentle on his cheek, fingers dragging over his lips, and Aiden made a little whine, unembarrassed, shaking with the force of trying to hold himself back until he was given permission.

“You’re so good,” he said, before he could stop himself. He sounded like he’d been bag-skated, breathless and clipped. “Notat the beginning, you never are, but you’re...god, you’re so—what do you want, Aidy?”

There was the unspoken question in the words:Is this okay? Areyouokay?

Aiden licked his lips again. He was still almost naked, cock straining against his boxers, a little damp patch visible where it rubbed against the fabric. He looked tortured, like it pained him to say it. It was always this moment that Matt had fucking lived for, both figuring out what Aiden had wanted when he was too worried to say it or too fucked up to untangle it, and making him admit it.

“Can I take off your belt?” Aiden said, after a long quiet, and Matt could feel the breath between them, ragged but somehow at the same speed, like he was breathing in the air Aiden exhaled.

“My belt?”

“Please?”

“Yes.”

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