Pucking Strong: An MM Workplace Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 4)

Teddy sits naked in my lap, straddling my legs. His hands are braced on my shoulders while mine frame his narrow waist. This bathtub is meant for total immersion, so there’s a seat inside, wide enough for us to fit comfortably. Hot water covers us to mid-chest, steam misting our cheeks. His locs are tied up on the crown of his head. A spray of thin end pieces stick out on the sides. I wish I had a camera now. I would capture him just like this—naked, and glistening, and perfect.

This feels like a timeless moment. You get so few of them in life. Moments when every part of you is set to record. It’s not just something you see with your eyes or feel with your hands. Your soul takes a picture too.

And human memory is such a fickle thing. Mom taught me that. You can’t rely on just your eyes and ears to record the passing of time. That’s all we get in this life: memories that fade over time. Like photographs, the edges become warped and discolored, sometimes damaged beyond all repair.

But a truly timeless moment? Moments even your soul sits up and takes notice of? Those make an imprint deeper than a photograph. Those last forever.

Reaching my hand out of the bath, I touch Teddy’s face. Water slips down my arm, dripping back into the tub. All the while, he looks at me, breathing with me, being with me. This beautiful man, made of sharp angles. His hard cock waits in the water. I haven’t touched it yet, but I’m going to. Tonight. And soon.

For now, it’s enough just to look at him.

This man came crashing into my life with all the subtly of an earthquake. He shook me to my very foundation. In the span of weeks, I’ve been remade. There was the Henrik Karlsson before Teddy. And there will be the Henrik Karlsson after.

“What are you thinking?” he whispers, breaking our silence. He lifts a hand too, his wet fingertips brushing over my brow.

I lean back against the wall of the tub, smiling up at him. “I’m thinking I want to photograph you, sitting here just like this, looking down at me with that look in your eyes.”

He shifts on my lap, water sloshing. “Do you do that a lot?”

“What? Take pictures of beautiful naked men on my lap? No. Never.”

He grins. “I just meant take pictures in general. I saw all the camera stuff back in Stockholm.”

I let my eyes feast on him, dropping my gaze to his shoulder as I trail my fingers slowly down his arm. “Sometimes.”

“What do you like to photograph?”

He’s nervous talking, trying to distract himself from the feel of my hands on him, trying to keep this moving slow. I allow it. “I like macro photography. Not that I’m any good at it. I don’t have the time to do it properly.”

“Macro photography is fitting for you, the man who pays attention to every detail.”

“Life is in the details,” I murmur, slipping my hand under his arm to brush my thumb over his dark nipple.

He shivers, leaning closer rather than away. Bracing himself with one hand on the tub, he runs the other through my hair, giving the roots a tug until my head tips back. “Do you ever photograph people?”

I like the feel of his hands on me, the tension on my hair as he tugs at my roots. “Only at family functions. Petra would shove a camera at me and demand pictures on holidays. I like portraiture too. I’ve just never experimented with it much.”

Smiling, he reaches over the side of the tub and plucks his phone off the stool. Norah Jones pauses as he turns on his camera app and hands me the phone. “Take my picture.”

“Teddy …”

“Hey, it’s a good camera. With the sexy lighting in here, I’m gonna look hot,” he adds, nodding around at the electric candles. He strategically placed them around the room while the tub was filling with water.

I take the phone, and he stays leaning over me, shifting his hips until our cocks touch. I stifle my groan as he grins. “You did that on purpose.”

He laughs, sobering as he focuses on the camera. “Tell me what you want. If you don’t like this angle or—”

“It’s perfect. Hold still.” I place the phone low, near my chin, angling it up at him. I want to capture the feeling of him floating over me, the light around him golden. I take the shot and check it. The candles cast shadows over the sharp angles of his shoulders, his muscled chest, his jawline. Golden light warms the fair brown hue of his skin.

He sits up. “Well?”

Turning the phone, I show him the picture.

He actually blushes. He’s naked in my lap, eager for more intimacy, and a photo makes him blush. He glances down at me. “Do you like it?”

Taking the phone from him, I set it aside, never breaking our eye contact. With my free hand, I cup the back of his neck and pull him down to me. Our lips lock in a kiss, and then he’s melting into me. I’ve never felt this with another person. This level of trust, this feeling of intimacy. Teddy was right—this is chemistry. There’s something about our chemical makeups that just works.

Strange, because on paper we make no sense. He’s loud and chaotic, always changing his food order. One day he wants banana pancakes stacked with syrup. The next it’s breakfast tacos. And he likes movies that make him cry. He’ll watch them so he can cry. He feels everything at once, all the time, with no filter and no pause button. He ought to drive me crazy. He does drive me crazy.

And yet, I can’t seem to get enough.

With Teddy, I fear there is no enough.

All the while, here I am, quiet and contained. I could eat the same thing for breakfast every day for the rest of my life without complaint. I overanalyze everything. All things ordered, everything in its place. Teddy once accused me of being so good at compartmentalizing that I put living in a box.

He was right. Before he and Karro came into my life, I wasn’t living. I was merely existing. I was biding time on this earth.

No, I was wasting time.

Well, I don’t want to waste another minute. This beautiful man is in my arms, and he loves me. With all my faults, all my fears and over-rationalizations. He’s been biding his time for years, just waiting for me to notice him.

I see him now. I can’t look away. And at the end of my life, I don’t want a handful of moments to look back on and treasure. I want a library of cataloged prints. I want messy stacks of memories, too many to fit on the shelves—with Karro, with Teddy, with the people who make our lives full. I’m starting now. Teddy is in my arms, and I’m not letting go.

“Mitt hjärta,” I whisper against his lips. My strong heart. My Teddy. Breaking our kiss, I frame his face with both hands. He smiles down at me, drunk on my affection. My fear of intimacy means nothing with him in my arms. With him, I am safe. With him, there will be only pleasure. Only love.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers.

“Du är min nu,” I say with a smile. “Du betyder allt för mig.”

He runs both hands through my hair, returning my smile. “I’m gonna assume you just said that I’m a really good kisser and that you’d like me to keep going.”

I pull him back to me. “Never stop.”

He’s so eager, wrapping himself around me, pressing in with his hips until my hard cock is pinned against my stomach. We kiss some more, hands seeking. But the warm water is affecting my senses. It’s a distraction I don’t need. I want to feel just Teddy—his skin against mine, his warmth, his pulse.

“Up.” I pull on his arms, and he leans away, distracted.noveldrama

“What?”

“Stand up.”

“Hen—”

“Trust me.”

Scooting back off my lap, he rises out of the water until he’s standing. The water sluices down his abdomen, dripping from his fingertips. His hard cock waits right before my face, nestled in a thatch of soft black hair. Engorged as it is, it’s a shade or two darker than his fair brown skin.

He must know I’m looking because he wraps his hand around it, giving it a slow stroke. “Keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna have an eyegasm.”

“A what?”

“You know, it’s like an orgasm, but I’m getting off because your eyes are on me.” His smile falls. “It was a joke, but it sucked. Are we getting out or—” He gasps as I reach out and wrap my hand around his on his cock. “Henrik—”

“Let go.”

His hand drops to his side, and then it’s only me stroking him. He tips his head back, eyes closed.

“Look at me.”

He curses, his head rolling on his neck to look down at me. He blinks his eyes open. They’re glassy with desire as I stroke him. Slow. Measured. Deliberate. Those are all the things he loves about me, right?

“I’m gonna come,” he whispers, biting his bottom lip.

I stop moving my hand. “Wait.”

He groans. “Fuck. Seriously? You’re finally fucking touching me, and now you’re gonna edge me?”

“What’s edge?” I give his cock another caress.

“Seriously? You don’t know?”

“Not in this context.”

“Well, I’m not telling you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to fucking do it to me,” he says on a breath.

I smile. This feels good. I feel in control. I reach out with my other hand and reel him in by the hip.

“Oh, fuck,” he whines. “Fuck, fuck—ah—”

I wrap my mouth around him, sucking on the tip of his cock. I’ve never done this before, but he seems to like it. He certainly seems to enjoy doing it to me. Thanks to him, I know how good it feels to receive this kind of pleasure. I try to replicate the motions he’s made on me, luxuriating in the feel of his soft skin, the glide of my lips along his hardness.

“Slower.” He fists a hand in my wet hair, moving me how he wants. “Slow, baby—fuck—”

I slow down, opening my mouth to lick the side of his shaft.

“Henrik, I’m gonna—”

“No,” I growl, moving my mouth away from him.

“Oh, fuck you. Don’t tease me.”

“I want us to come together.”

He blinks down at me, fingers still twisted in my hair. “What?”

I stand, sloshing the water.

His eyes go wide. “What are you doing?”

“Get out.”

“Like, of the tub … or your life?”

Using the seat as a step, I climb out of the tub, not caring if I get water on the floor. I grab a towel, making quick work of drying off. Teddy follows me out and I hand him my towel, watching as he dries himself off. His cock bobs as he rubs the towel down his legs.

I can’t keep waiting. I want this too much. I want him. I pull him to me, my mouth seeking his as we kiss again. He sighs, dropping the towel at our feet. His hands are gentle but strong as they wrap around my back. I step into him as he smoothes his hands down, down, until they’re gripping my butt. I groan, biting his lip as I do the same to him, hands flexing over the tight globes of his ass.

“Fuck,” he pants against my mouth. “How am I supposed to stop touching you, huh? You’re so beautiful, Hen. Feel so good.”

I kiss down his neck and across his collarbone. Dropping a hand between us, I take his cock, aligning it with mine, and stroke us together. His forehead drops to my shoulder. Then he rocks against me with his hips, sliding his cock in and out of my fist. There’s a riot of sensations—the friction of my calloused hand, the warmth, the glide of our sensitive skin.

Teddy wraps his hand around mine, fucking harder into our fists. “I’m gonna come.” He lifts his head off my shoulder, chasing a kiss.

“No.”

“Don’t say no,” he cries.

“I want mouths,” I say against his lips.

“What?”

“I want to taste you. I want to come into you as you come into me. Du är min, Teddy. Jag behöver det här … behöver dig.”

He huffs. “Your translator—”

“It’s not broken,” I say over him. Leaning away, I hold his gaze. “My emotions come from the deepest part of me, and the deepest part of me is Swedish. Accept my words as they are.”

Slowly, he nods.

“Jag är kär i dig.”

He groans. “Fuck, I’ve gotta learn fucking Swedish.”

“Later. I’ll teach you everything, mitt hjärta. For now, get on your knees.”

He drops to his knees so willingly. He always goes so willingly for me. I surprise him when I drop to my knees too. “What are you doing?”

I smile. “I’m going to suck your cock as you suck mine. We come together, or not at all.”