Page 38 of Puck Tease
Rule Number One:You belong to the team schedule now. When I’m home, you’re on the clock.
And tonight, the bus was home.
A shadow, deeper than the ambient gloom, fell over me.
I didn’t lift my head. My gaze remained fixed on the window, watching the reflection. Jax. His silhouette, impossibly broad, materialized in the glass.
He moved with a quiet, lethal finesse down the narrow aisle, a predator navigating the sleeping forms. Not a single sound of fabric rustle or boot scuff marked his passage. He stopped at row 12. With one hand, he lifted his gear bag – fifty pounds of steel and padded leather – swinging it with the effortless ease of a child’s toy, and shoved it into the overhead bin above us.
Then he slid into the seat beside me.
The space instantly contracted. His shoulders, thick and wide, seemed to spill over the armrests, consuming every available inch. His arm brushed mine, the head radiating off him like an open furnace. His thigh pressed against my leg, a solid, unyielding weight. A wave of heat radiated off him, immediate and potent, a furnace blasting through the refrigerated air of the bus, chasing away the chill that had settled in my bones.
He smelled of generic hotel soap, the lingering scent of a post-game shower, but beneath it, the deeper, permanent scent of him: cedar and iron, a primal, masculine aroma that always made my stomach clench.
"You awake?" he whispered, his voice a low rumble, barely a tremor over the engine’s drone.
I pulled one earcup back, the plastic cold against my ear. "Yeah." My voice felt rough, unused.
"Good."
He adjusted his seat, the hydraulics sighing faintly as he reclined it a fraction. His legs stretched out, long and powerful, his boots bumping the seat in front of us. The bus was cramped for me; for him, it must have felt like a cage.
He reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a soft bundle. A blanket. The team-issued fleece throw, emblazoned with the Spartan logo.
He shook it out, the fabric whispering in the quiet. He draped it over himself.
Then, with a considerate motion, he draped it over me too.
It fell like a curtain, creating an instant tent, a dark, private cavern that enveloped us from the chest down. Under the fleece, the muffled world of the bus disappeared. There was only the sudden, heavy presence of our legs, our hips, and the suffocating intimacy of shared, radiating heat.
"Tired?" he asked, his voice softer now.
"Exhausted," I admitted, the word a ragged sigh. "My back is killing me." A dull, persistent ache throbbed between my shoulder blades.
"Stress," he diagnosed, his voice low. "You carry it in your spine."
Under the heavy fleece, his hand moved.
He placed his palm on my thigh, just above the knee. His hand was heavy, calloused, and instantly warm. He squeezed, his thumb digging into the muscle, pressing against the bone beneath.
"Relax," he murmured. "Go to sleep."
"I can't sleep on buses." The words were a habit, a reflex.
"Try."
His hand slid higher.
His hand crept higher up my thigh, fingers splaying wide, pressing into the muscle with enough force to make my cock throb hard against the zipper. He dragged his thumb along the rough seam of my jeans, slowly, inch by inch, the friction building heat that spread straight to my balls, leaving me panting, hips twitching for more. He took his time, no hurry—the steady rumble of tires on asphalt said we had hours ahead, three hundred miles of empty highway where he'd tease me until I was leaking and begging.
My breath hitched, a tiny, involuntary sound. My head snapped up, eyes darting around the bus, straining to pierce the gloom.
Across the aisle, Miller lay sprawled, mouth agape, head lolling against the window, deep in the oblivion of sleep. Two rows up, the coaches were indistinguishable lumps, their breathing even and soft. Behind us, Tyler’s headphones glowed faintly, his eyes closed, lost in a podcast.
Everyone was out. Everyone was silent.
But what if someone stirred? What if someone woke with a full bladder and shuffled to the bathroom at the back?
