Page 139 of Slew Foot
“Sure,” Rafe said, relieved. “As long as we’re in this together.”
Mickey stepped back, but he slid his palm down Rafe’s arm and clasped his hand. “Lead the way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As the Harriers reached the end of March, they were still teetering on the edge of elimination and Mickey was still feeling like shit.
He felt weird talking to the team psychologist about his sex life, so he’d reached out to The Blueliner Initiative that Felix Hale had started. Louie, the middle-aged guy he’d been matched with was a former AHL player and had been easy to talk to.
Knowing what Rafe was going through was normal and happened to a lot of guys, made it easier.
Louie had also encouraged him to volunteer at a local shelter.
Mickey found one the team had worked with before and they got him in and trained pretty quickly. He suspected he’d been allowed to have amuchcushier volunteer position than most people where he got to play with the animals in exchange for doing some social media posting to promote the adoptable animals, but he wasn’t complaining.
It seemed like a pretty sweet deal to Mickey.
And Tom had been right. Ithelped.
It was harder for Mickey to feel sorry for himself when he had a lapful of squirmy, wriggling puppies all trying to lick him. Or a kitten climbing up the back of his shirt to purr in his ear. The barking and mewing didn’t always help the ringing, but the animals didn’t care when he couldn’t hear anything but the ring-woosh in his ear.
They were happy to see him. And he was happy to see them.
The positive mood carried over to the careful yoga he did and the time he spent with Rafe. His head wasn’t anybetterbut he and Rafe were solid now.
They’d also gone online and found some good ideas for ways Mickey could be in charge without having to put forth a lot of effort. Mickey wasn’t sure he’d ever call himself a dominant, Rafe was meh on being called a submissive, and neither of them had any desire to join the BDSM community in an official way, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t use their online resources.
There were forums with people discussing options for dominants with chronic illnesses or disabilities who needed lower energy ideas for how to be what their submissive needed.
In the end, they both realized Rafe liked to feel useful and have the structure and stability Mickey provided. And Mickey liked providing it.
So they found other ways to work it into their lives.
As much as Mickey preferred to take care of Rafe by making him coffee or driving him to the rink, they flipped that so Mickey wasallowingRafe to do those things forhim.
Mickey gave him some morning tasks like making the bed and throwing the laundry in, which he took to eagerly.
But he also washed Mickey in the shower on days he was too dizzy to stand on his own and well, best of all, they’d discoveredcockwarming.
When they’d read about it, Mickey had gotten so hard he’d been dizzy for a reason that had nothing to do with concussions, and Rafe seemed equally into the idea.
Sometimes, when they were winding down for the night in their bedroom, Rafe lay down with his head in Mickey’s lap. Mickey would take his cock out, offering it to Rafe, and he’d shift closer, closing his mouth around the head.
Even when he was soft, it felt sogoodto have Rafe’s warm mouth sink over him and hold him there. Rafe didn’t do anything but lightly suck, his eyes closed as Mickey gently ran his fingers through Rafe’s hair.
He got hard sometimes but usually softened after a while.
It wasn’t even really about sex, Mickey realized after they’d done it a couple of times. It wascomfort.
It was the way it made Rafe feel useful and connected to Mickey and it gave Mickey that heady feeling of being in control, without having to push himself too hard.
In short, it was everything they needed right now.
It made it a little easier for Mickey to tell Rafe how he was feeling with the soft warmth of Rafe’s mouth surrounding him and the heavy weight of his head against his thigh.
Tonight, Tanner was out with a couple of guys from the team and Mickey and Rafe had been watching a TV show together. Mickey wasn’t surprised when Rafe stretched out on the couch with his head in his lap.
Or, when halfway into the show, Rafe flipped over, ignoring the TV and tugging at Mickey’s waistband. Mickey obligingly lifted his hips and let Rafe pull his sweatpants and his underwear down around his knees.
