Spite Crush (Rock Hard #2)

Chapter Fourteen

~Zak~

“I shouldn’t have even come to the game,” Kellen said as he opened the door for me. “You only scored one goal and you left me on read all night.”

“Nice to see you, too,” I said as I grabbed him around the waist. “Yes, I did play very well tonight, thank you. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Maybe I would have if you’d texted me back,” he snapped, but he didn’t try to pull away, so I figured he couldn’t have been too mad at me.

Which was good. Because I was way more excited to see him than I would have liked to admit and I wanted to celebrate our win and not fight with him. That shit was only fun in public anyway.

“How drunk are you right now?” he asked, his tone thick with humor. “You smell like a distillery.”

“I think I’m wearing more than I drank,” I assured him.

When I’d gotten his text, I’d wanted to rush straight back to the resort, but I knew it would be suspicious if I didn’t spend at least a couple hours celebrating with the rest of the team.

So I’d put in my appearance at the afterparty on the Strip, then ducked out as quickly as possible.

“When did you get here?” I asked him, grabbing his hand and urging him to sit next to me on the edge of the bed.

“I chartered a flight this morning,” he admitted, threading his fingers through mine and resting our hands on his thigh. “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get away, so I didn’t want to tell you until it was confirmed. And then…you know…you stopped texting me. But fortunately our new BFF didn’t have that problem and she helped me sneak into the arena so I could watch you win your playoff spot.”

“I can’t believe you flew all the way out here,” I said. And I meant it. We hadn’t had a chance to have a conversation about what might be happening between us. But I chose to take his coming out to watch my game as a very good sign that he wanted something more than a friends-with-benefits kind of arrangement.

“I can’t believe this is your team’s first playoff run in thirty years,” he teased. “Or that you got in by the skin of your teeth.”

That was true. It had taken a combination of other teams losses paired with strategic wins by us to make it this far. The Inferno had always been the joke of the league, the underdog story that maintained a fan base and coverage based almost solely on our inability to win. But we’d spent a hard few years improving, and now we were showing the world what we could do.

“But made it we did,” I reminded him. “Now we get a week off and we get to host the first game of the playoffs at home.”

“Are you going to win it all?” he asked.

“I have no fucking clue,” I admitted with a chuckle. “But we’re sure as hell going to try.”

“What possessed you to tell Naomi Rose of all people the truth? ”

His abrupt change of subject didn’t actually surprise me. In fact, I was more surprised he let me talk about hockey for as long as he had. I knew he was still frustrated, and I didn’t know what she had shared with him, so it was really only fair that I tell him about the conversation that had taken place earlier.

“I didn’t mean to,” I assured him. “She made some comment about you being prettier than her or something and then I was just admitting stuff to her. I mean, not everything, by the way, but enough. ”

“It must have been a relief to be able to talk to someone about it,” he said softly. “I mean, most people in my life know I’m gay, but I still can’t just talk about who I’m dating because they don’t want to hear it. And apparently those guys aren’t allowed to talk about it either.”

“What a pair of sad, sad men we are,” I teased. “Thank God we’re hot and rich and famous, huh?”

“No doubt.” He shifted to climb onto my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck and resting his forehead against mine. “I have to fly out again in a couple of hours.”

“I fucking love how you change the subject,” I told him before capturing his lips in a kiss.

Our mouths opened, tongues slowly sliding against one another as Kellen rolled his hips over my growing erection.

I pulled away from the kiss to trail my lips and tongue down his throat, his fingers threading into my hair to hold me firmly against his collarbone. I nipped and sucked and licked over the spot, leaving a dark welt against his skin.

Could you become addicted to the taste of someone’s skin? To the smell of them? The feel of their body? The small sounds they make when their breath hitches or they simply exhale?

I slid my hands up Kellen’s ribs, taking his t-shirt with me until I urged it up his body, over his head and discarded it to the floor.

“You’re so fucking hot I can’t stand it,” I whispered, raising my gaze to meet his. “Seriously. Kellen. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Welcome to the club,” he said. He moved his hand to cup my jaw and tilted my face to kiss me again. “Please tell me that you switch.”

It took a second for me to register what he was asking.

“I do,” I assured him. “You want me?”

“You have no idea how badly.” He kissed me again. “I don’t mind topping, honestly. But I just prefer… ”

“You prefer a cock in your ass?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Say it.”

“Why?”

“I want to hear you say it,” I admitted. “I want to hear the words come out of your pretty little mouth.”

“Too bad.” He kissed me again, his fingers digging into my hair and tugging firmly as his tongue forced my lips apart. When he broke the kiss again he smiled at me. “Zak Dempsey can’t always have what he wants.”

“That hasn’t been my experience,” I argued. I stood up, lifting him with me and setting him back on his feet. “Take off your fucking clothes.”

We both stripped quickly, jeans and shoes and boxers dropping to the floor around us until we were both naked.

I shoved him backward onto the bed, climbing up over his body and claiming his lips once more in a kiss. He felt so incredible under me. It was hard to believe I ever thought he was scrawny. Every time he moved against me, I could feel the firm planes of muscle moving beneath his skin. His calloused fingers, probably from years of playing guitar, dug into my shoulders, strong and urging, clinging to me as our tongues slid against one another, desperately tasting and teasing.

“Zak,” he whispered, my name like a prayer escaping his lips. “I need you. ”

“I need you, too,” I admitted, staring down into his dark blue eyes. “Tell me you brought lube.”

“You’re woefully unprepared, every time I see you,” he teased as he shoved me off of him.

“Well I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I reminded him as he walked across the room to dig through his bag.

“Excuses, excuses,” he shot back. He came back to bed, handing me the lube as he lay down once more, one arm resting behind his head as he watched me open the tube and pour the slick liquid over my fingers. “You are so incredibly sexy.”

I raked my gaze over him, really taking in the detail on his tattoos for the first time. He was inked from neck to waist, but I’d never taken time to really study the designs littering his skin. Even when I was coming all over them, I hadn’t truly distinguished between them. They’d been sort of an amorphous collection to my eyes.

He had the unsurprising skulls and guitars and things that seemed like they would be typical of a rock star. But there were also the weirdest collection of cartoonish animals mixed in. A frog riding an umbrella ran across one side of his ribcage. A racoon in a top hat. An otter in a spacesuit. A fox wearing roller skates. All of that interspersed with stars and musical notes. It was the oddest tapestry of ink, that somehow worked and was just…very Kellen Fox.

“You’ll just get any weird tattoo, huh?” I asked, unable to hold back the question, even as I was rubbing my hand up and down my shaft.

“Pretty much,” he agreed. “Life’s too short to take it too seriously. ”

“I kind of love that,” I admitted.

“I’m glad you approve.” He gave me a small smile. “They’re permanent.”

I poured more lube over my fingers, tossing the bottle aside as I used my knees to spread his thighs apart. My gaze shifted lower as I slowly slid one slick finger inside of him, watching as he opened for me, the heat of his body enveloping my digit as a soft sigh escaped his lips.

When I added a second finger to the first, spreading him wider, Kellen’s hands flew to my arms, his nails digging into my skin as his hips rolled, forcing me deeper inside.

“You want more?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“I want everything.”

I leaned over him, holding his gaze as I stilled my fingers inside his body, keeping him open for me.

“I want to give you everything,” I promised him.

His eyes widened slightly and I let him believe my words meant whatever he wanted them to mean. Because I did want to give him everything. Not just in that moment. But maybe forever.

This was so much deeper than fooling around. And it had been since the first time we’d met in his hotel room. Maybe even since that first moment in the locker room when I’d found him in the middle of an attack. When I realized that he wasn’t at all what I’d thought he was. And allowed him to see that I wasn’t what I’d made the public believe I was either.

There was a lot of broken between us. But when I was with him, I didn’t feel anything but complete. And while we weren’t going to figure it all out tonight, I wasn’t going to let an opportunity for real honesty pass when it presented itself the way it was in that moment.

“Do you still want me?” I asked him softly.

“I think I’ll always want you,” he whispered.

I leaned forward and kissed him as I pulled my fingers free, shifting my hips to press my cock against his readied entrance as he clung to me, raising his hips to meet me as I slid slowly inside his tight heat .

He tried to roll his hips again but my hand shot out to hold him down, not wanting him to try to take me too deep too quickly.

“Relax,” I hiss against his lips. “Let me.”

Inch by inch I eased into him, fighting my own urge to move faster because he felt so fucking good gripped around my shaft I thought I might lose my mind. But I focused on the taste of his lips, the small sounds of impatience and pleasure that escaped from him, the rough feel of his fingers over my biceps, the intoxicating scent of him that was overwhelming and delicious.

Finally, my body connected with his and I froze, staring down into his deep blue eyes, allowing myself to just appreciate the moment.

“Good boy,” I murmured as his hole spasmed around me, adjusting to my girth.

He let out a low moan at my praise and the sound made my balls cramp with need for release. Made me want to hear it again.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” I told him, easing my hips back before thrusting forward into him again. “So hot.” Again I slid back, then forward, achingly slow when I wanted to slam myself inside of him. But I also wanted this to last. Wanted to carry this memory of him with me forever. “So perfect.”

I moved my hand to reach up and trace a finger along his jaw, and Kellen took that opportunity to shift his hips, forcing me deeper inside of him as that sound escaped his throat again .

“You want more, baby?” I asked, thrusting forward a little harder this time. “Can you take it?”

“Please,” he whimpered.

“Well then…” I eased back once more then finally allowed myself to slam into him, hard and rough and fast. “Take it.”

Over and over and over again I crashed into him, his beautiful mewling cries almost buried beneath the sound of our bodies connecting, the snap of my hips into his ass, the hoarse breath tearing from my throat .

“So fucking perfect, Kel,” I said, the words choked as I fought to hold back my release. Never wanting this moment to end.

But I knew that I couldn’t hold back much longer. So I reached between our bodies and gripped his cock in my fist, pumping him hard and fast in time with my thrusts and soon we were both screaming our releases, his arcing up his stomach and chest and mine filling his ass.

I rolled off of him, collapsing to the mattress as I fought to catch my breath .

“Did you mean what you said?” he whispered.

I turned to find him leaning on his side, staring at me. I couldn’t read his expression, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to lie to him.

“I did,” I said. “I do.”

“Okay.” He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom and a moment later I heard the shower start.

Okay.

It was entirely possible that I was never going to understand how that man’s mind worked. And honestly…I kind of liked that.

Everything in my life had been planned out. High school, college, hockey pro. I knew from the first moment I put on skates what my future held. Live in the closet, confirmed bachelor, maybe eventually find a compassionate woman to attach myself to if rumors started, but I knew I’d always be alone beyond secret, hurried affairs in locker rooms until I was too old and forced to retire from the game .

I thought I knew it all. Until Kellen had come along and I realized that I didn’t know anything.

When he came back to bed a little while later, I was almost asleep, the excitement of the day and the exertion from the game having caught up to me. I felt him move in behind me, his fingers gently stroking my shoulder, then tapping softly in a strange but soothing, one-two-three rhythm over and over.

“Good night, Sally,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to my skin where his fingers had just been .

“Sally?” I murmured, barely awake but conscious enough to be thoroughly confused.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, chuckling softly before kissing my shoulder one more time and settling in against me. “I’ll tell you later.”

But when I woke up the next morning, he was already gone. That was okay, though. We’d said everything we needed to say to each other and I had a feeling I’d be seeing him soon.

At least…I really hoped I would.