Page 66 of Bar Down

“Morning,” he mumbles, one of his hands cupping the back of my head and pulling me in for another kiss.

“Think you can be quiet this morning? We don’t want the others to hear.”

He nods eagerly and I trail kisses from his mouth to his chest, and all the way down to his prominent V. I pull down his boxers just enough for him to spring free and lick him up, missing the feel of this—of him.

“I won’t last long,” Eli says, looking down at me, one hand fisting the sheet. “It’s been a while.” I hum and take him in my mouth, swirling my tongue and hollowing out my cheeks. My hands cup his balls and lightly massage them and Eli all but springs up from the bed. I let him go with a pop and see his chest heaving, hands fisting the sheets so hard he might rip them off the bed.

I smirk at him and it doesn’t take long before he does exactly what I expected—Eli takes control and guides my head exactly where he wants me, thrusting up as he starts to get closer and closer. I swallow him down as he comes and, true to his word, he doesn’t make a sound, except for his heavy breathing and panting. There’s a light sheen of sweat on his chest between his pecs and I lick it off as I make my way back up to him.

I kiss his jaw, his cheek and say, “Good job, pretty boy.” I’m rewarded with a bear hug and a squeeze on my ass. When he tries to push me down to reciprocate, I stop him with a hand on his cheek. “Not today. Unlike you, I won’t be able to keep quiet.”

He groans and burrows his face in my neck. “You’re killing me,kultsi.”

“What does that one mean?”

“Hm, you’ll need to work harder for it.”

“Harder than a mind-altering blowjob?”

“Yes, much harder,” he laughs and I smile as I wrap my hands around his strong back and revel in this moment a little longer.

Eli

We lie in bed,holding each other. It’s on the tip of my tongue again, to say those three little words. After everything, they would hold so much more meaning. Because this time, I don’t want to let him go.

Before I can gather the courage to say anything to Ash, we hear commotion in the kitchen and decide it’s time to get up. Robbie cooks us all some kind of breakfast pizza with eggs, sausage and cheese. The thing is freaking delicious and we all pull up whatever chairs are available to eat and enjoy our coffee outside.

The air is crisper here in the morning before the humidity takes over, so I take a few deep inhales and close my eyes, listening to the birds and the sounds of my friends’ quiet conversations. Ash is asking Alice about her writing, which she’s not being very open about, and Robbie excuses himself to take a phone call from Alex.

“Olivia, how do you like Traverse City?” I ask her.

“It’s amazing, I wish we’d come here sooner and spent more time exploring, but I’m sure we’ll be back at some point.”

“You have to come here in the winter, it’s gorgeous. Maybe all our schedules will align this year for all-star break and we can finally take you snowboarding,” Ash says and Olivia agrees.

I look over at Alice and notice she’s unusually quiet. Is she thinking about the last time she was here, just her and Jordan? She never told us what went down that week, only that when theblizzard hit they made it here just in time, only to be stuck inside for a couple days.

“Everything okay?” Olivia asks Robbie when he comes back outside and sits beside her.

“Yeah, Alex was just looking for some feedback on the fundraising gala.”

“Gala, you say? That sounds fancy,” Alice perks up, popping a raspberry into her mouth.

Robbie rolls his eyes but nods. “It’s going to be a pain to organize, but yeah we thought a holiday gala might be a good way to get some people to donate to the non-profit. It’s in the early stages, but we’re talking about it.”

“Count me in, I look dashing in a suit,” Ash says and winks at me. I smile. What a shameless flirt.

The small arenais full to the brim with people. Those that couldn’t grab a spot on the metal benches are standing in the back along the wall. Everyone is excited for the red and white game. This isn’t a usual game, it’s more of a combination of plays that we’ve practiced over the last week that we now get to show off in a game.

There are two 25-minute periods where players from the NHL and AHL level are split into the two teams—red and white. Instead of having backup goalies, four of us are geared up to play, two per each period. Juuse and I are on the red team, while Nadison and Karlsen are on the white team. Juuse and Nadison are in the starting line and they take up their positions.

Ash is on the white team and I look over to his bench and give him a wave. He replies with a grin and a motion that shows I’m going down. I laugh and focus back on the ice. There are referees for this game, but they notoriously take things easy since we’re not supposed to get too physical with each other. Whilechecking’s allowed, we’ve never had players fight and drop their gloves during these games.

Most of the first period goes well, with the first twenty minutes alternating between team red and team white being on a power play, essentially making it a 4v5 game the whole time. In the last five minutes of the period, we switch to 3v3 play.

Juuse lets three goals in, which surprises me, and Nadison currently has a shutout. This changes when one of the guys on my team snatches the puck on a breakaway and takes a shot on him. Nadison is caught off guard and goes into a sudden split that looks bad even from my point of view, all the way across the ice.

The puck goes in but Nadison stays down. He tries to stand up but collapses back on the ice, dropping his stick and shoving it aside in anger. The ref blows the whistle and the team medics go down to check him out. The whole arena is quiet and when I look over at where Robbie is sitting, I see a grimace on his face. I didn’t see exactly what Nadison hurt, but from his split, it could be a groin injury. I swallow hard and lift my gaze to the VIP box where our GM, Bonavich is seated. He stands up slowly, gripping the railing, before snapping something at the person behind him.

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