Page 83 of Two for Roughing

“As long as I don’t get you in trouble.” He snuggled closer into Damir and threw his feet up on the coffee table, which was terrible manners and might scuff up the wood. Damir said nothing and let him. He wouldn’t mind a little of Kilian’s trouble, if only so he’d have less of it himself.

They lapsed into silence, tuning into some Christmas movie on the TV. The plot followed a woman who had returned to her small-town home for the holidays only to find her first love had opened a bookshop there and had never stopped loving her. All of this happened while the town’s businesses were under threat from the megacorporation her fiancé worked for.

“What is this shit?” Damir asked. “Do people actually enjoy this at Christmas?”

Kilian snorted. “Nah. My sisters hate this stuff; they never let me watch it. Breezy loves it, but not for Christmas. It’s more of a year-round thing for him.”

“Breezy? As in the Sea Lions’ defenseman?” Damir had never spoken to him off the ice. On the ice, he was about as gentle and romantic as a battering ram. He also had it out for Damir, most likely due to the time Damir punched Kilian.

“Yup. Huge softy.”

“Has he…” Damir licked his lips. “Has he been in touch? Since?”

Kilian heaved a sigh. “Yeah. He sent a message. I haven’t really been…on my phone.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“I should probably FaceTime him. I need to thank him for shipping all my shit out here.” Kilian grabbed for the phone still sitting on the coffee table.

“Wait!” Damir knocked it out of his hand. “Please wear pants before any video calls.”

Kilian looked down at himself, only in Damir’s shirt. “Oh, shit, you’re right.”

He took off toward his room, leaving his wildly buzzing phone in Damir’s care.

When he returned, he still wasn’t wearing pants. He held what looked like two pairs of sweats in one hand while the other fiddled with the waistband of his…

No. No, Damir could not look at the flimsy, lacy material covering the swell of Kilian’s soft cock. He refocused slightly to the right, leaving him eyeing the way the delicate dark blue fabric settled on Kilian’s hips, which was precisely zero percent better.

Damir’s mouth went dry.

Kilian smiled at him brightly. “What do you think? I was always too scared to wear them because, well, if I was gonna be a gay hockey player, I had to be super masc. I couldn’t be that kind of gay guy, right? But fuck it.”

As he spoke, Kilian held out the second pair of pants, pilfered from Damir’s dresser. Damir lifted his hand to accept them moments too late, fumbling the sweats and dropping them to the floor.

“Damir? What do you think?”

Damir bent down to pick up the pants, bringing him eye level with Kilian’s lace-clad crotch.

“Damir?”

“I can’t think right now. Ask me again when you’re not wearing those right in front of my face.” Damir’s cock was trying to get hard again, and Kilian could probably see every painful twitch.

“Can’t think in a good way?”

Damir got to his feet and pulled the pants on over the swell of his sensitive dick. It was too soon to be thinking about sex again.

“You need to call your friend,” he said. “And I need to go to the kitchen and make us dinner so I can be somewhere else while you wear those, or I’m going to tear them off you with my teeth.”

Kilian laughed, bright and joyous and confident, and Damir’s throat went dry looking at him. If Kilian wasn’t ready to trust whatever was building between them, Damir could wait. The longer he looked, the more sure he became that someday and someone were tomorrow and Kilian. He could afford to be patient for as long as Kilian needed.

Chapter Fifteen

Cole Williams [off-screen]: What can you tell us about how the Howard trade went down?

Phil Easton: Less than you’d think. It all happened very fast, and it was brokered by the team’s GMs. Susannah Lindholm, our head coach, only found out a few hours before we put Howie on a plane.

Cole Williams: Was the morality clause part of the reasoning for the trade?