June
We lost the game against the Vancouver Canucks the next day, then boarded the plane to go home. The mood was somber on the flight.
Eventually, Cole stood up and raised his voice to address the entire team. “Listen up! Everyone needs to relax. I ate a peanut butter cookie and had an allergic reaction. That’s all. Nobody else needs to freak out. None of us are in any danger. So let’s get home, rest up, and then regroup for the next game. Because we’re still leading our division, and we should fucking act like it, eh?”
There were a few shouts of agreement, but not enough to raise any spirits.
Cole and Rhett came home with me that night, and I lost myself in the mindless drive of their bodies. The release was exactly what I needed—and what they needed, too.
But as the three of us fell asleep together in my bed, I stared at the back of Cole’s neck and wondered if he was hiding something from me.
Coach gave everyone the next day off from practice, but I still went to the arena after lunch to meet Elias for our secret workouts. He was already there when I arrived, lightly spinning on one of the exercise bikes.
“June,” he said in a deep rumble, immediately leaving the bike when he saw me. “The road trip. When I was… uh…”
“It’s fine,” I replied with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. Finish up your warm-up on the bike and then meet me in the squat rack.”
There was a strange tension between us now, and it bothered me. I had finally gotten through to Elias, had made him comfortable around me. Now it felt like we were back to square one. And if we were back where we started, it would make it difficult for me to do my job.
Elias was adding plates to the barbell in the squat rack when I joined him. He glanced over at me, then stared at the ground.
For a little while, we went through the exercises on my rehab sheet. Elias was quiet for most of it, and I didn’t feel like breaking the silence. I watched his form to ensure he was doing everything properly, and that was it.
But when we switched from squats to bench press, he turned to face me again with determination on his face. “June. I must explain what happened in Ottawa.”
“There’s nothing to explain. You snuck out, got drunk, and then Coach Jay benched you during the next game because you were hungover. Let’s focus on bench press. Three sets of eight.”
I tried turning away, but he grabbed my arm to stop me.
“No,” he insisted. “Please, listen.”
I stared at his fingers on my arm, strong and gentle at the same time. Finally, I nodded.
“I am from Örebro. A town in the middle of Sweden,” he said, his accent adding an exotic flair to every word. “My family was close. My parents, and my sister. I went to university in Stockholm, a long drive from Örebro. But my family came to watch me play in every game. One night, my father drank too much during the game. I told him he should not drive, that he should allow my mother to do so, but he did not listen. He was a large man, and I was afraid of standing up to him, so I said nothing more.”
I felt myself tensing. I knew what was coming, the only direction a story like this could go.
“They crashed a kilometer from home.” Elias’s face became blank. “They almost made it, but the roads are sharp, and slick. All three perished.”
“Elias…”
He held out a palm to stop me. I could tell he wanted to get through this, that it was already a massive vulnerability to reveal this to me.
“I hide my feelings all year. I bottle them away. I am told it is called compartmentalizing.” He sounded out the English word slowly. “And one time per year, on the anniversary of their death, I allow myself to get drunk and confront my feelings. I get it all out in one night. Coach Jay and I have an… understanding. Usually, the anniversary is while we are at home. But this time… a road trip.”
He shrugged.
“I’m so sorry,” I said when he was done. “I had no idea.”
“I do not tell anyone,” he said. “Only Coach.”
“But…” I cleared my throat. I didn’t know how much I could ask him about the whole thing. “When I saw you in the stairwell, you weren’t grieving. You seemed happy.”
“I was happy,” he agreed. “Sometimes I am overwhelmed with grief. Other times I am happy because I know they would be proud of me. Of what I have built. This time was a happy time. And I was happy to see you. You are… a nice woman.”
I couldn’t stand there any longer without giving him a hug, so I threw my arms around him. He held me close, my face pressed against the thin fabric of his tank top. I didn’t care that he was a little sweaty, and he wasn’t self-conscious.
The hug went on a long time. And when he pulled away, there was that same glimmer in his eyes…
I don’t know what came over me, but I leaned up to kiss him. At the last minute, I realized what I was doing and moved my head to the side, kissing him on the cheek through his beard instead. He blinked in surprise, then let go of me.
“We should return to the exercises,” I said, feeling my cheeks redden. “Bench press. Three sets of eight.”
His eyes searched mine for a moment longer, then he laid flat on the bench and unracked the weight. I let out a long sigh as he did the exercises.
What had gotten into me? Almost kissing Elias, another member of the team? But I couldn’t deny that there was something between us, a spark that still made my skin tingle as I stood over his massive body, benching the weight with ease. I felt drawn to him, even right now. And I was pretty sure he felt the same way.
He caught me admiring his body, and I quickly looked away.
“Don’t forget to keep your core engaged.”
“Core?” he asked with a puzzled expression.
“Core. These muscles.” My hand skimmed over his rippling abs to indicate what I meant, but it was that moment when my gaze snagged on his obliques peeking out from under his shirt. I ghosted a finger along the pronounced line, and my eyes dipped lower without thinking. Or maybe I was thinking. Just not with my brain.
His black shorts pulled tight over the straining bulge of his cock. A shock of heat rushed through me and settled between my legs. Because the discovery of his burgeoning hard-on confirmed that all parts of his beautifully large and muscular body was… perfectly in proportion.
A clang snapped through the quiet as the bar hit the rack, metal rattling against metal. I flinched as Elias sat up in one clean, powerful motion.
“Oh, sorry,” I blurted, already scrambling backward. The heat pulsing low in my stomach threatened to betray me. “That’s enough for tonight, I think. Let’s just—”
His strong hand grabbed me by the wrist, and my breath stalled.
“Elias—” Before I could say more, he yanked me back toward him.
I tipped forward, catching myself on instinct, and then his other hand found my waist. The size of it, God. His fingers wrapped all the way around my hip as if I were nothing more than a plaything. Which, all things considered, I wouldn’t have minded. He used that same grip to pull me straight into his lap.
“Elias?” I gasped. It came out higher, breathier, nothing like the annoyed trainer voice I’d been using all evening.
He didn’t answer, but the intensity in his eyes stole the air from my lungs. The thrill of it had me in a choke hold. Right here in the middle of the gym. What the hell was I thinking? Heat unfurled low and fast, pooling between my legs, and for a second all I could hear was my own pulse drumming in my ears.
The gym held its breath around us, that eerie stillness that only happened long after the last player had showered and left. The fluorescents hummed overhead, and the parking lot beyond the window was a scatter of lonely streetlights and empty spaces. More suggestion than destination.
The arena was quiet. The kind that made any sound carry. The kind where a single pair of footsteps walking through the wrong door was all that stood between us and career suicide.
A shiver chased down my spine.
This was stupid. God, so stupid. I should’ve pushed off his lap immediately, should’ve told him to get a grip, should’ve—
His hands slid to my hips and he stared deep into my eyes, asking an unspoken question. The intensity there sent the last of my coherent thoughts into hibernation.
Elias must have gotten the unspoken answer he wanted, because he pressed me down against him.
The contact ripped a gasp from me, his thick bulge twitching under me. My thighs strained against the stretch of my tights as he guided my body over the hard length beneath his shorts. I could feel everything—heat, thickness, intent—and the pressure lit something bright and reckless in me.
“Wait.” There was no conviction in my voice.
He exhaled sharply, nostrils flaring, and shifted his grip. One hand braced at the top of my hip, the other at the curve of my ass, and he used both to rock me. Not gently. Not slow. He dragged me forward over him and then pulled me back, grinding me exactly where we both needed it.
The friction was electric.
I want this so badly.
I felt myself get wetter. Felt it soak right through the thin stretch of my tights, the slick heat spreading onto his shorts as he rocked me again. His breath hitched, chest heaving hard against mine. It was a small thing, but that tiny reaction made my whole body tighten.
This was insane on so many levels.
Anyone could walk in. Anyone could see us tangled like this, my legs straddling him, my hips being worked against his in slow, obscene strokes. The idea should’ve terrified me.
Instead, a desperate pulse of arousal throbbed through me, and I pushed down harder.
His grip tightened, lids heavy as he groaned out loud. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the trainer version of me was screaming.
But the woman in his lap didn’t care.
Not when he held me like this. Not when he was grinding me closer and closer to a place I had no business going with a man this big, this quiet, this dangerous in the ways that mattered.
And definitely not when the thrill of getting caught made my hips move in small, needy little circles I couldn’t pretend weren’t all my doing.
“Elias…”
“The cameras,” he said, pointing to the wall. “They don’t see here. Blind spot.”
I saw that he was right: the security cameras in the corners were aimed in such a way that this section of weights wasn’t in view. Nobody would see us.
Unless they walked in…
His fingers slid into my hair to settle at the base of my skull with a full, possessive grip that shoved our mouths together in the most unapologetically crude way. Heat tore through me as his tongue forced my lips apart, and he plunged into me with an animalistic grunt.
I pushed harder against him, an eager pulse starting up in my clit. Without underwear, I felt every ridge and contour rubbing through the thin fabric of my tights. The preview made me instantly wet.
His lips crushed mine, swallowing the gasp that punched free of my throat. There was nothing tentative about the way he kissed; it was all demand, rough edges and raw hunger. He devoured me, and I had no defense against it.
Not that I wanted one.
He angled my head exactly where he wanted it, his fingers tightening in my hair as he groaned again, sucking my tongue into his mouth.
God.
The wet, provocative pull of it nearly broke me. My hips jerked forward on instinct, chasing the friction of his cock straining beneath me, and he answered with a bruising bite to my lower lip. Sharp enough to sting. Hard enough to light a fuse in every inch of my body.
The sound it drew out of me was embarrassing, and he swallowed that too, dragging me closer. His other hand locked around my waist, anchoring me to him while his mouth ravaged mine in punishing strokes. Tongues fighting for dominance. Teeth clashing. Lips crushed to the point where I knew I’d feel the pain of it later.
But what the fuck were consequences at a time like this?
When every roll of his tongue was a silent, forceful claim. Mine, it said, without him having to breathe a word. He kissed me like he wanted to ruin my life, and I was only too happy to let him do it. My body burned with a wanton need for him to break me. And judging by the size of the bulge jutting through his shorts, there was no reason to believe he couldn’t.
The last bit of resistance in me cracked clean down the middle.
As if sensing it, Elias shoved his face into my neck, kissing and sucking until my skin bloomed under his greedy lips. The air around us grew hot and sticky, the quiet of the gym thrumming with heavy breath and primal moans.
He tore my shirt off with a frustrated growl, deft fingers working the clasp of my sports bra with ease. He flung it, jerked his hips, and when I took my next breath, he was straddling the bench behind me. I had no idea how it happened, but I was bent over, hands gripping the bar he’d just been using. My knees shook dangerously, fighting to hold my weight under the full force of his feverish attention.
A distinct rip vibrated through the air, and only once his fingers made contact with my pussy—skin to skin—did I realize what he’d done.
He tore my leggings off. Literally.
I bit down on my lip, whining with how fucking good it felt to have him there, two fingers going to town on my aching clit. Fuck the tights. I had ten pairs. But there was only one of Elias.
He slid his crown between my lower lips and began to push into me.
“Aaaghhh!” I clamped a hand over my mouth. For a second, I thought of someone hearing me and coming to investigate. But it was only a second. I was mostly stunned I was even capable of making a sound like that.
And then I forgot myself completely. Because fuck me.
I’d been right before. He was fucking huge. And now, that gigantic cock stretched me wide as Elias forced my pussy to submit to his savage thrusting from behind. His large hands covered most of my waist as he held me still, nailing me until, with a strangled groan, he was all the way in. Every thick inch of him.
He paused, his cock throbbing inside me, and fisted his fingers in my hair, snapping my head back sharply. His breath came hot and ragged in my ear as he said, with that delicious accent, “I knew you could take it.”
I felt so filled up with him that my throat closed, and all I could do in response was give a hoarse, wispy, moan.
He got back into it. Still gripping my hair so my back arched, sending my hips into just the right angle for his dick to slide along the inside wall of my pussy. Not that he needed much help with getting there. The sheer size of him meant he reached everywhere, all of the time.
Every thrust sent the bench scraping along the floor, rocking me until my breasts bounced with the force of it. I’d never been fucked this deep before. The searing stretch in my pussy, his desperate breath on my back, strong hands holding me in place while he pounded me… it wiped my mind of every rational thought. There was only Elias, and how badly I wanted him.
His sneakers squeaked on the cheap floor as he edged closer to me. The hand in my hair finally let go, but only to snake around my neck, fingers closing just under my jaw. For all his rough, uncontrolled movements, I noticed the careful restraint in this one. The exact positioning, with just the right amount of pressure. He bent low as he lifted my head, and our bodies met somewhere in the middle, the chiseled plane of his chest against the extended arch of my back.
I gasped for air, already feeling the dizzying effects of his chokehold. The way it heightened every sensation, from the drag of his cock against my pussy walls to the broken rush of warm breath at my ear. I let it consume me, white hot stars popping behind my eyelids.
“You’re so tight,” he rasped, and the smug fucking tone of his voice made my body seize.
He felt it, my looming demise, and his thrusts became more desperate as he fucked me harder. Faster. I rode the wave, having no choice but to get swept up in him. He drove into me again, pulling the tension in my body to its final breaking point. And again, pushing me over the edge entirely.
I broke apart in his arms, suspended by only the hand on my throat and the one on my waist. I suspected he’d tear me in two, and fuck me, I was right. My climax raked through me, all that built-up tension leaving my body in millions of tiny explosions. He staggered once, the rhythm of his thrusts becoming more and more erratic as the clenching in my pussy forced a groan from his throat.
The pressure from his hand on my neck vanished as his hand reached down to work my clit. I was still coming, but his agonizing touch got me going all over again. My legs were jelly. I could barely see straight. I had nothing left but somehow, his attentive fingers found enough to make the tension crest and pull tight. Fighting it was useless. I came again, my body wracked with tremors at the same time his strangled growl echoed through the gym.
His come pumped into me in bursts and twitches, carried along by my pussy’s fluttering walls. On and on. There was no end to it. I felt it trickle down my thigh, his dick still mostly hard inside of me. He rocked his hips, a little gentler now, easing through the last of his tremors until, finally, he’d spent every last drop.
“June,” he breathed into my ear.
“Elias,” I whispered back at him, grinning as he twisted my face around to kiss him.
