Page 31 of Two for Roughing

“You’re a great hockey player,” he said the second the call connected.

Howard snorted. The camera showed an odd angle, looking down at him and highlighting every wrinkle on the bridge of his nose. It took Damir a moment to figure out he must be lying on his back in a hotel bed, his curls haloed around him. “Come on.”

“You’re twenty years old,” Damir told him. “You have all the time in the world to work on your skating.”

Howard groaned. He’d never sounded younger or more petulant. “Everyone’s always telling me how young I am. I’m an adult.”

“I know you are. Do people stop being able to learn things when they become adults?”

Howard’s jaw jutted out as if he were clenching his teeth. “I guess not,” he muttered.

“You can work on your skating if it bothers you. You’re in a slump; everyone gets them now and again. It will pass.”

“My skating will never get better.”

Damir leaned his phone against the backsplash and got to work with the orange. “Not with that attitude.”

“I’ve tried!” Howard looked so outraged Damir probably shouldn’t be thinking about how cute he was all flushed and bright-eyed. “I tried for years. My dad did every training program he could find with me. It didn’t stick.”

“Howard…”

Howard wrinkled his nose. “That sounds weird. You’ve seen me naked.”

“I’ve seen my entire team naked, and I don’t call them by their first names.”

“Not making it less weird.”

“Fine. Kilian.” The name rolled off Damir’s tongue, and he found he loved the sound. “Did you ever try a training program with a skating coach who wasn’t your father?”

The silence on the other end stretched suspiciously long.

Damir began mincing garlic and a chili pepper to complement the orange juice.

“Your first name is Damir, right?”

“Yes. You’re avoiding the question.”

“Can I call you Damir?”

“Yes.”

“Or would you prefer ‘sir?’”

“Absolutely not.”

Kilian laughed. “Noted.” He paused, a sly look stealing across his face. “So if I called you ‘sir’ anyway, would you punish me?”

Damir’s mouth went dry. “Would you want me to?”

Kilian wriggled in the sheets and reemerged propped up on one elbow, looking into his phone camera with what he probably meant to be a sultry expression. It made him look like a boy attempting his first seduction, not a good look on a man who took cock as well as he did. “I think I’d like it.”

“You’d look good with your ass all red from my hand.” Damir allowed himself to enjoy the mental image: Kilian, spread out on crisp, clean sheets the same way he was now, totally bare, while Damir slapped his ass until he begged for something else. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?”

“A little.”

“I don’t want to talk about hockey or my team or how much I sucked today,” Kilian said baldly. “I want to get off thinking about your dick in my ass.”