Page 3 of The Puck Chase

“How many times do I have to tell you to not fucking touch me, Gray?” he grits out in that low, lethal tone of his, and likealways it sends a shudder down my spine. I fucking love getting under his skin, it gives me a thrill like no other.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love getting on my other teammates' nerves too, but annoying them doesn’t even come close to how it feels to make Daemon Forbes lose his mind.

“Damn, Forbes, didn’t you miss me even a little bit?” I ask, cocking my brow at him, making his stern face turn slightly confused as he takes me in, before his expression melts away back into its blank mask.

“No,” he states firmly, before focusing back on his locker and dismissing me completely.

Not that I let that deter me.

“Well, you look good, did the summer treat you well?” I ask, pulling my sweater over my head and tossing it onto the bench beside us, knowing that he won’t answer. “My summer was great, I hit up the Hamptons with my dad and stepmom, and then headed into the city to stay with my mom and stepdad. Hung out with my younger siblings, caught some rays, drank too much, you know how it is,” I muse, unbuckling my jeans, and noting he is now frozen beside me, his hand fisting his locker door and turning his knuckles completely white.

“No, I really don’t,” he snaps back, slipping out of his own shirt and instantly reaching for his long sleeved base layer.

As always, my eyes trail over the swirls of tattoos up his arms and down his chest, yet my focus is on the scars he is artfully trying to hide with the ink. I haven’t seen him freely without a shirt for more than a couple of seconds since the night he pretends to forget, and I’m well aware his body is not something he shows off freely. I didn’t think too much of it back then, too drunk on alcohol and sex to truly notice or care, but over the years it’s become more of a wonder. What happened to him? Was he in some kind of accident?

Now there are plenty of rumors of course, countless stories that may or may not be true, including tales of his father being in jail for murder, and I can’t help but wonder if he is the one who left his son’s torso littered in marks that will never fade. Which is crazy right? I mean, what kind of parent would do that to their child?

“Well anytime you want to hit up the Hamptons, let me know, I’ll be happy to show you around,” I tell him truthfully, snapping my gaze away, as a bitter taste coats the back of my tongue.

There is a long pause, so long that I almost think he isn’t going to respond, and when he does it’s with a resigned sigh. “Are we really doing this again?” he questions, and when I look back at him, he is staring at me intently.

“Doing what?” I ask innocently, and I swear he internally groans at my sunshine-filled personality.

“The thing where you act like we are friends, when we clearly aren’t?” he grunts, snatching his jersey from his bag and pulling it on over his base layer like some kind of safety net.

I abandon my own shirt and take a step towards him, leaning my bare shoulder on the edge of his locker and giving him my full focus. “So you’re saying we aren’t friends,” I confirm, and he nods slightly, completely exasperated by my existence. “So what do you call it when someone plays on the same hockey team as you, and also knows what your cum tastes like?” I wonder aloud. “I mean, you’re right, friends seems too casual a term for it, but I’m open to suggestions.”

There is anger in his eyes now, but just for a second they drop down my torso, and then there is something else, something more, a whisper of a memory. One that transports me back to that night in his room, one that has me needing to drag him into my chaos, but then just like always it disappears as quick as it came.

“Gray,” he curses, my name a one word warning and like an addict, I lean in even closer to him.

“Yes, friend?” I purr, breathing in his masculine scent, just as we hear the locker room door push open in the distance, breaking whatever spell he was under that made him say more than one sentence to me.

“Just stay the fuck away from me,” he snaps in a whisper, before turning on his heel and heading out the door towards the ice, just as our captain appears round the lockers.

“Arch, you’re here,” Nova states in surprise, dumping his bag on the bench between us, and I pull my eyes from the space Daemon just vacated to greet him.

“Of course I’m here, you yelled at me this morning and called me a fat lazy prick,” I remind him, and the bastard fucking smirks. “You know that shit hurts my feelings.”

“That’s because you think fucking counts as exercise,” he tells me, as he begins to strip, and I know he is going to have me on the ice in less than two minutes making me feel like I am dying, before Coach gets here and does the same.

“Listen, Darkmore, I don’t know what you’re doing with the ladies, but with the way I fuck, it is a damn workout, trust me.” The fucker rolls his eyes at me with a grin, slipping into his uniform, as I do the same.

“Making your groupies fake moan doesn’t count as an endurance activity, you know that right?” he asks, and I can’t help but bark a laugh at the mouthy prick.

“You go through just as many of them as I do,” I toss back, and he hums in agreement, his mind clearly going elsewhere.

“Yeah, well not this year, things need to change, this is our last shot, Arch, our focus needs to be on hockey and nothing else,” he tells me, pulling on his skates, and I nod mindlessly, as I take a seat beside him.

I know he has more to worry about than just this team, but he’s right, that’s how he was chosen to be Captain, he’s more focused than any of us. Yet as we make it out to the ice, I can’t help but notice that I’m not just focused on the ice, but also on the person who is already occupying it. So yeah, my captain is right, we do need less women, especially the ones who are only interested in us because our dicks are attached to fucking pucks, and I’ll happily cut back, but there is one thing I don’t think I’ll ever give up….

And that’s fucking with Daemon Forbes.

Ever since I was a kid being on the ice has been my only escape. It helped me escape my mother’s death, it helped me escape the cold and abusive environment my home became without her, and it helped me withstand my father’s wrath. There was no true escape from that unfortunately, I learned that the hard way, but the ice is calm and it brings me calm. Yet with calm comes chaos, and chaos has a name, ArcherfuckingGray.

Twenty years on this earth and I have survived things I never thought I would, and I’ve become pretty immune to feeling anything. Being raised in my home I didn’t really have a choice, it was necessary for survival. I mean, sure, there are still plenty of things that get to me, but I learned early on to ignore them. Yet trying to ignore Archer Gray is like trying to ignore a fuckingnuclear bomb. It’s literally impossible. The guy is a menace who is determined to piss me off at every turn, and honestly I don’t know how the rest of the team stands him.

I’m warming up alone, which is pretty common since I’m nearly always the first one here, and I enjoy the quiet cold before everyone else arrives. My teammates probably mistake my early presence for commitment to the game and the team, but I’m not like them. Most of my teammates’ goal has always been to go pro and be rich and successful, whereas my only goal in life, for as long as I can remember, is to stay alive.

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