Page 89 of Play Maker

“Jace, please. Please kiss me.”

I didn’t recognize the neediness in my voice, but I didn’t care how I sounded. I was that desperate for him. He leaned in and brushed his lips over mine, but it was just a tease, not nearly enough.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For tonight. For the gift.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you,” I admitted and reached for the jar. “Now let me do just that.”

CHAPTER 27

AXEL

THREE WEEKS LATER

The bus ride from Sutton to Albany took three and a half hours and I slept through all of it.

Which wasn’t my norm, but then again, nothing about my life lately was the usual.

The past several weeks were frenetic and I’m not talking about classes and hockey practice. Jace and I stole away together every spare moment we could. Frotting was my new favorite activity. His room, my room, it didn’t matter. Our coming together was always heady and desperate, like if we didn’t get our hands on each other, we’d both spontaneously combust. And we did. Every. Fucking. Time.

And when we weren’t together, I was thinking about him.

Replaying every kiss, and every conversation.

Except for yesterday and today. We needed to rest up for the game and that meant no sex. Not even jerking off. To avoid temptation, we agreed that there would be no texting, no talking, no seeing each other, period.

But, by the time Friday rolled around, I was out of my mind, so excited to see Jace that I was like an eager kid meeting his hockey idol for the first time.

Okay, I caved and texted him.

Axel: Can’t wait until after our game tonight. Your cock is mine.

Then I realized I’d sent the text, by accident, to my brother Jonas. So much for being careful. I quickly changed Jace’s contact name to Honey so I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Jonas: Didn’t know you were into fucking guys. Send me two grand or I talk.

Axel: You’ll talk? What is this, a bad movie? Fuck off.

Even if Jonas told my parents, I wasn’t worried. They lived in denial about everything. And what could they do? Threaten me? With what? I guess I’d find out tonight since they were supposed to be attending this game. I still wasn’t convinced they’d show up.

I pushed thoughts of my family out of my mind, where they belonged.

And I also ignored my urge to text Jace, shoving my phone back into my pocket.

Jace and I didn’t put a formal name to what we were doing, but we weren’t doing it with anyone else. I hadn’t just spoken in the heat of the moment; I wasn’t sharing him. And he felt the same. But we were keeping our boyfriend status quiet for now.Boyfriend.The word made me shiver, in the very best way.Lovermade me roll my eyes, andhookuporfuck buddywasn’t enough. When the urge for endearments struck—and when theydid, hell, I didn’t even recognize myself—I settled forHoney. It suited him, and the guys on the team wouldn’t question me if I blurted it out. The bigger part of me worried that if I told Jace that I wanted to be boyfriend official in front of the rest of the team, I’d scare him off. And probably myself as well. Both of us were tentative in this, uncertain like we never were on the ice.

And thinking about coming out to our teammates had me sweating up a storm. When it was just the two of us, it was easy to envision, it was all good. But when I stepped out of his room, the ‘what- if’s bombarded me. I didn’t like the feeling. Then I reminded myself that there was time for me to figure stuff out. And, until we both felt secure in where this relationship was headed, it was better to let things go unsaid. There was a lot of pressure on both of us, in hockey and in school, and distractions had consequences. Secrets had a way of rising to the surface too, if we weren’t careful.

With that in mind, I boarded the bus, determined to be cool and not let my emotions get the better of me.

Head in the game.

Jace was already on board, sitting at the back of the bus, next to Dane. He was wearing his baseball cap, backwards of course, his dark curls peeking out from under the band, and I noticed that his beard was growing in thick. I loved the way that scruff felt as he rubbed it over my skin. Fuck, he was gorgeous, and I let myself steal a glance. My feet wanted to carry me straight to him, but I resisted. It felt like months, never mind days, had separated us. I gripped my bag so tight I was in danger of hurting my hand. Not smart.

Instead of doing something stupid, like reaching for him, I headed down the aisle until I spotted an empty seat in the middle. It was the one beside Ethan, the one no one wanted. Ethan had his headphones on and was singing out loud. Badly.I hoped hockey worked out for him, because he sure as fuck couldn’t make a career out of singing.

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