Page 21 of Pitch Prince

“You being gay doesn’t make me uncomfortable in the slightest,” I reassured him. It was a lie, but not for the reasons he might think. I took a sip of my tea as I looked at him. All of him. He was so, so beautiful. But it wasn’t my place to ask anything of him.

“Also…if you ever do need to, um, take care of that…let me know and I can make myself scarce,” Rhys said. “I’ve shared a room with Finn and walked in on way too many situations that I’d rather not have seen.”

I laughed. “I can imagine. He seems to really love the nickname ‘The Horse’, doesn’t he? Likes to wave it about a lot.”

“Just count yourself lucky you’ve never woken up with it on your shoulder,” Rhys replied. I shuddered. I had a type, and Finn was not it.

My second alarm went off. “Shit, we’re going to be late.”

I jumped up to get changed, pulling off the boxers I’d spent a day and a night in as Rhys did the same. I couldn’t help but glance over at him but we made eye contact and I looked away immediately. So we had both been trying to sneak in a glance. I didn’t blame him. We all had at some point. Human nature. Or so I’d always told myself when I was in denial of my sexuality. We both pulled on our tracksuit training kits in silence.

“Wake the fuck up, gay-boy!” came a shout from the corridor followed by a barrage of knocks.

I bristled immediately. “Who the fuck is saying that about you?” I said to Rhys before heading toward the door.

“Leave it!” shouted Rhys just before I could open it. “It was Finn being a knob, no need to go beat anyone up, captain.”

“You let him speak to you like that?” I asked.

“Yup,” Rhys didn’t seem embarrassed at all as he passed me to get to the door. “In rugby, all is fair game when you’re on the same team. A little bit of insincere homophobia never hurt me.”

As if to prove his point, he opened the door himself to Finn and punched him hard in the arm.

“Ow, what was that for?” asked Finn.

“Ask him,” said Rhys, pointing back at me. I gave a tight smile.

***

The week was fuckinggruelling. If I’d thought that previous Lions training camps were hard, they were nothing compared to the tight ship that Wesley Peterson ran. His idea of a team was more like a machine, where we all would run as cogs within it. All playing and breathing in-sync.

And there were no players as in-sync as Rhys and I, and by some extension, Finn. Finn had reputation for being an amazing player and so did I, but we had never quite clicked in terms of play-style or off field on previous British Lions tours. But with Rhys, we had become a bit of a Golden Trio within the squad. New players weren’t often selected to play actual matches against the New Zealand national team, but I thought Wesley would be a fool not to pick Rhys. He brought the whole team together with his charm and playing ability.

I woke one morning towards the end of the first week to Rhys leaving the room in his training gear. I lay back and relaxed. Wesley hadfinallygiven me a morning off training, so that the rest of the team could train in the case that I, as captain, was injured. The whole team would practice through the morning and I would have that whole time in bed.Bliss.

There was one problem that had been niggling at me since day one. A long hard problem that Rhys had seen pretty clearly but that I hadn’t been able to revisit since. And now I was guaranteed some time to myself, I thought it might be worth exploring that.

I tossed the sheets off myself and shimmied my boxers down just a little. Rhys had become the worst guilty pleasure of my life in the last week, and every morning I watched him make us our cups of tea in whatever too-tight boxers he’d picked out the night before and did my best not to fuckingdroolover him.

So I let my mind drift to Rhys as I stroked myself slowly and leisurely. I may not have been Finn ‘The Horse’ Roberts but I knew that I had a thick cock, and the thought of Rhys’ lips stretched around it made me want to cum instantly. I gripped the base of my cock to stop it from happening. I had all the time in the world to bring myself to climax. I was leaking pre-cum so I used slid one finger over the tip of my cock and brought it to my mouth. I’d never tasted anyone else’s cum, and I knew it was something I wanted to explore as soon as I was done with rugby for good.

I stroked myself slowly, letting my eyes close as I imagined Rhys, stretched across the bottom half of the bed with my hand playing through his hair. Would he want me to be gentle with him? Or would he want me to be rough, pushing his head down onto my cock and making him choke? I was new to all this, he could guide me and show me all the things that feel good before I tried them out with him…

And then the door opened. “Sorry, just forgot my…” Rhys looked right at me, between my face and the cock in my hand. He closed the door behind him and we were both frozen in place for a second. I didn’t know why I wasn’t making a move to cover myself up. I sawwantin his eyes and for a second, I wanted to invite him over and fulfil my fantasies. And then I realised how much of a fucking stupid idea that was.

I moved my hand slowly from my throbbing cock, so hard it almost hurt, and pulled the covers up around me. Finally, Rhys seemed to unfreeze.

“Gum shield,” he said finally. “I forgot my gum shield. Needed it.”

And he walked past my bed to his own, grabbed his gum shield from the bedside table and was gone from the room without another look back. I groaned out loud as soon as he was gone. I had royally fucked things up. And yet the thought of his eyes on me was enough to keep me hard. It was time for a cold shower.

11

Chapter Eleven - Callum

We finished training when it was dark and though I’d trained for only half the time the other lads had I was knackered. The next day was Saturday, one week out from a friendly game against Japan, and we were all looking forward to doing sweet fuck all.

“Right boys, to commemorate how well you’ve all come together…I’ve put a few grand behind the hotel bar,” he said to cheers from the waiting changing room. We were all muddy and freezing but the thought of a few pints was enough to keep us going. We scrambled for the showers as one group, everyone jostling at one another and stripping off at the same time. Despite the secret I was hiding, I’d never found anything erotic or sexy about being around so many naked men. Most of them weren’t my type and the shrinkage after a cold day of rugby was enough to make the mightiest of men look tiny under the showers so there was very little to look at there either.

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