Benoit (Owatonna Book 3)

by RJ Scott

  “Ben, babe, you sure?” He sounded winded, but it was passion pulling the air from his lungs as I eased myself down on him, even the condom stretched tightly over his dick had green icing fingerprints all over it. The stretch was intense, painful yes, but only for a moment until my body relaxed around him. “Christ…”

  “Sure, yeah, so sure,” I whispered, settling downward inch by inch until he was buried in my ass. My fingers, coated with indigo frosting and sugary sprinkles, dug into his pectorals, my hips rolling. “God, so good. Sweet.”

  “Mm, so sweet.” He peeled my hand from his chest and led my fingers to his mouth. His pupils were fat and black, his whiskery cheeks and eyebrows layered with white cake crumbs and orange icing. As I rocked back and forth, he sucked my fingers clean, one by one, both hands, and then pulled me down, hand to my nape, and began lapping at the powdered sugar and raspberry jam crusted on my throat and shoulder. “When you’re close, come on my chest. I want to taste it all. The cake, the jelly, the frosting, you. I want to take all of you into me.”

  “Shit yes, yes, I will,” I gasped, kissing his mouth wildly, moving faster and harder, his cock pegging my prostate with each thrust. “I want you to come on yourself too. I want to taste us both, all of it… damn, I’m really close.”

  He grabbed my ass, lifting me, trying to slow things, but I was too far gone for that. I wiggled free, dropping onto his cock with force. He groaned, I yelped, and I shot hard, ribboning his chest.

  “Up, fuck, get up,” he snarled, bucking until his dick popped free. I was humped over him, jerking my dick when he came, the condom tossed to the floor. His fingers fumbled with mine, lining up our pricks and we worked ourselves off together. When the first pulses subsided, I stretched out over him, smearing the icing and jimmies, cake and jam, semen and sweat, between our chests. He wanted that first taste, so I shimmied upward, trembling still as he lapped at my chest and belly, his moans of pleasure pulling another spurt of cum from me.

  “My turn,” I huffed, out of breath but still insanely turned on. I buried my face in his belly, rubbing on him like a cat. Then I licked his navel, tonguing the divot clean of pure white icing. Down to his cock I went, working the spunk into the jam, then taking his cock down my throat. His ass left the bed. I choked and purred, reveling in the mixture of sweet and salty as it coated my tongue.

  “Come here… up here,” he said, using his fingers in my sticky hair to lead my lips back to his. “I love you, every single inch of you. Every part of you, every damn thing about you.” The kiss was long, sweet, sinful, tender, magnificent. Everything we were, Ethan and Benoit, was in that kiss. I never wanted it to stop. Ever. There was no older man and younger man, no black or white, no American and Canadian. There was just us, and we were so crazy mad in love it made me feel that anything and everything was possible.

  Ten

  Ethan

  I’d lost my dining room completely.

  Not that I actually used the huge oak table or the twelve chairs that surrounded it. I’d never lit the candles that stood in the center of it, and the paintings on the wall were generic and left over from the house being dressed for rental. In fact, before Benoit had visited the house, I hadn’t stepped inside the room since I’d looked around that first day. But this was Benoit’s spot now on the odd nights he stayed over. The table was spread with textbooks, hockey notes, large sheets of paper with complicated plans, and piles of note books, along with scattered pens and at least four rulers. What he needed four rulers for I didn’t know, but it was something I teased him about, and it never failed to make him smile.

  I loved it when Benoit smiled.

  He’d stayed over last night, and we’d woken up this lazy Sunday morning, made long slow love, and then after a breakfast of pancakes and eggs, he’d dressed in sweats and an Eagles T-shirt, then taken up his usual position at the table. He was muttering to himself as he furiously scribbled on paper, and I placed the coffee next to him and then pressed a kiss to his neck. He at least stopped muttering, but not before he’d jumped in surprise.

  “Sorry,” I immediately apologized, understanding he’d been deep in thought. I’d never attended college and had left school as soon as I could. After being drafted, that had been me and professional hockey in an intimate fulfilling relationship for fourteen years. I had no concept of the kind of pressure Benoit and his friends must’ve been under trying to balance hockey and studying. Ben sighed heavily and turned in his chair, glancing up at me.

  “No, I’m sorry, I’m just tense,” he explained and then pursed his lips for a kiss, which I was more than happy to give him.

  “What is it that has you so tense?” I looked over his shoulder at the scribbles in a notebook he had open next to an iPad. “The development of critical thinking as the primary goal of educational process,” I read the title and scanned the headings under it. “You have to do that?”

  “Two thousand words, by Thursday,” he said with another full-body sigh.

  “How many words do you have so far?” Maybe that wasn’t a good question to ask, because he frowned and then buried his head on his crossed arms.

  “Twelve. I have twelve words.”

  Okay, that didn’t sound good, but I could be the supportive partner. “Twelve. “Twelve is better than nothing.”

  “Count the words in the title.”

  “Huh?”

  “Count them.”

  I dutifully counted each word. “Twelve.”

  “Yeah, see?”

  “The title is your twelve words?”

  “Only one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight to go,” he said.

  I bit back the snort of laughter because this shit was serious and meant something to Benoit, but the hangdog expression on his face made me smirk just a little. “I’ll leave you to it,” I said and began to back out of the room.

  “You have to help me. Tell me what your opinion is of critical thinking and whether it’s the primary goal of education.”

  I slowed my roll, but only enough to fake staying, and then I darted out of the room. “Sorry, I need to make calls,” I said over my shoulder, and he snorted a laugh at me. At least my presence in the room had meant something to him. Anyway, I wasn’t lying. I had a call to return from Brady Rowe, who’d left a garbled message about retirement and players and something else I couldn’t make out. Settled with my coffee, I returned his call and put him on speaker phone so I could sit on the heated patio and stare out over the extensive yard and lawn beyond.

  “Seriously? You’re not coming back to the team, and I have to hear it from Ten?” Brady snapped as soon as he answered.

  “Hello to you too,” I deadpanned.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Ethan. Jared’s kid, Ryker told Ten that you’re really retiring. I thought you were in negotiations with Boston after you came back on IR. Shit, did they not offer you anything?”

  “No, and that’s okay. You know I’m thirty-two, Brady. I’m tired.” I’d never have admitted that to any other player, but Brady was my closest friend, someone I’d taken under my wing when he’d come to the team, even knowing one day he’d be captain and wouldn’t need me. I liked to think he relied on my common sense. I relied on his skill as captain, and he was one of the guys I’d miss most.

  He was still huffing. “Look, I’ll talk to management, force them to offer you another year. You know they’ll listen to me.”

  I laughed because this was the perfect moment for me to ride his ass about his gifted little brother. “Brady, you always were too fond of your imagined power. Now, if your name was Tennant Rowe, then maybe management would give in to blackmail.”

  “Fuck you,” Brady said, but it wasn’t said with any heat, and he laughed as he spoke. The entire Boston team rode him for being the older brother to the newest, brightest hockey phenom, and he’d gotten used to it. But he soon grew serious as he circled back to me retiring. “Seriously, Ethan, this is shit. Why won’t Boston give you another year? I don’t ge
t it. You’re the best D-man on the team.”

  “I used to be, but I’m slower now, and you need new blood.”

  Brady was silent for a while, and I could imagine his thoughts: he was twenty-eight, right at the peak of his skills, the captain of an original six team, but even his days were numbered. I thought maybe losing me, the first of his closest friends, would be a stark wakeup call about the longevity of a playing career. There were only a few players who carried on into their thirties, a couple in their forties, goalies, only one or two players, but the average age of forwards and defensemen retiring from hockey was thirty or thereabouts. At thirty-two, I was bucking the trend. “You’re really doing this? You’re not even trying for another team? You’re done?”

  “I wasn’t. I mean, my agent had feelers out, even got me a possible on the West Coast, but then I came home, and then my leg, and now…”

  “What?”

  I glanced at the shut door to the dining room and couldn’t find the words at first. My chest was tight with emotion, and the weight of the decisions I needed to make was a heavy one. I didn’t need the money, and I could to buy a house in whatever city I ended up in. But hockey had defined me for so long, and when my leg was healed, then there was no reason not to play.

  “I’ve got time,” I began. I knew that this meant nothing to Brady right now, although it would when he faced his own retirement. Brady was a bossy, unrelenting team player, and I knew damn well he’d make an excellent coach, with the famous Rowe hockey-vision. His path was clearer than mine. Or at least it had been clearer until I’d met Benoit and abruptly knew exactly what I wanted, which was to be wherever he was. “I want a place or person to call home and the chance to think about what to do next, and in a month I might decide to go to Europe and play there or coach or set up a hockey school or become an astronaut. I never gave a second thought to anything besides hockey, and it feels… right, to be doing this now. You get that?”

  Brady sighed, just as noisily as Benoit had done over his studies. “I always imagined you’d leave when I did. Hell, we have this kid, Austin. He moved up from the Bears, and he’s working your D-pair.”

  “I know. I’ve seen him. He’s good.”

  “He’s nineteen, for fuck’s sake.”

  It sounded to me like Brady was feeling his age the same as I was. “You’ll show him what you need from him. He’s an asset that you can polish.”

  “Fuck,” Brady snapped with feeling, “this feels like I’m a teenager who’s just lost his first love.”

  “I knew you wanted my ass, really.”

  “Fuck you, Ethan, for making me feel so shit. I miss your ugly face.”

  “I love you too.” I smirked. Then it hit me this was my best friend talking, and I had something I really wanted to share with him. I toed the door of the sunroom shut. “So I met someone,” I began. Brady and I didn’t do this personal stuff normally, or at least not to this depth, but I wanted to run down the street shouting about Benoit, and I couldn’t, so Brady was the next best thing. “He’s a senior at college, a goalie. His name’s Benoit.”

  Silence. So much silence that I leaned over to check we were still connected.

  Finally Brady spoke. “A senior, so that makes him what, twenty-two?”

  I bristled a little at the tone of Brady’s voice. “Yeah.” Here comes the criticism or the what-ifs.

  “Well, it works for Mads and Ten.” I could hear the shrug from here. “He make you happy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look, don’t disconnect me, but I owe you my honesty here. Is he the reason you’re giving it all up?”

  The implication I was giving something up was misplaced. I wasn’t giving anything up at all. I was just looking to move forward with a man I loved. How did I explain that, though? I couldn’t expect Brady to understand.

  “Not directly, no,” I gave the simple answer, “but he is part of the reason I can look to the future with so much expectation and positivity. You get that, right?”

  More silence. Then Brady snorted a laugh. “Bring him to a game. I want to meet this guy. Give me a heads-up, and we’ll arrange something.”

  With that call done, I had one more to make. My agent had texted me twice this morning, and a hundred times over the past few weeks with various possible lucrative roles for an aging player. Eli wasn’t taking no for an answer, and I owed him the honesty of my decision. He answered on the first ring.

  “Ethan, I was just about to call you. Vancouver came through with a one-year offer, depending on physical assessment, two way to—”

  “Eli, stop. I want you to stop. I’m making my retirement official.” I waited for the explosion, but instead, Eli was very calm when he answered.

  “Is that your final answer?”

  I thought about making a joke about phoning a friend but wondered if that cultural reference would open him to thinking I wasn’t serious.

  “Absolutely. Check your inbox. I made it official this morning.” He didn’t have to know that pressing send had been the easiest thing I’d ever done and also one of the hardest. Everything was so utterly final but was filled with possibilities.

  “What will you do?” Eli asked, and I didn’t have an answer.

  “Volunteer some more, and take a really long holiday.”

  “I can’t say I’m shocked. I’ve been expecting this, and you’ll be missed. It’s been a good run, hasn’t it?”

  Fourteen years, two teams, cups, awards, and no long-lasting injuries. Yeah, things had been very good.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay then.” He was suddenly less emotional and more efficient. “I’ll tie up the loose ends, get a press release issued,” he said, and then with the formalities done, I only had one more thing to say.

  “Thank you, Eli, again, for everything.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s been a ride.”

  When all that was done, I called Mom and Dad, but they’d already known most of it. I was looking forward to them meeting Benoit, and they promised they’d visit when they could. I fired emails to extended family, friends, explained what was happening and to expect a press release, and then I headed straight back to the dining room because right now, I needed to see Benoit. Just be near him while not interrupting him studying. I picked up more coffee and a supply of his favorite cookies and headed in, standing in the doorway for the longest time and staring at the man who’d stolen my heart. He was so focused I didn’t think he even knew I was there, but he did glance up and smile at me when I sat on the corner next to him.

  “Give me five,” he said abstractedly, and worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, he typed furiously on the small battered keyboard. I could get him a new one and a better iPad. I could give him anything he wanted, and the thought made me smile. I sipped coffee and nibbled at triple chocolate goodness, idly scanning the books in front of me, opening one and closing it when I read a few paragraphs of notes on dynamism, which was apparently a thing in the classroom. I moved the pile away from my mug, just in case of spills, and pieces of paper came loose, some pink envelopes with black hearts inked on them among the usual junk. I quickly pushed them back where they’d come from, and then a word in a huge font jumped out at me. I eased the paper loose and read the message on it.

  I saw U kissing him, and I don’t like it. How can U be the best if U waste time with him? U mine, baby. I’ll destroy him before I let him ruin what we want. Love U. ALWAYS.

  I read it again, turned the page over, checking for more, like a name or some idea of who might have sent it, but it was generic paper with no signature.

  “What is this? Some kind of joke from one of the team?” I thought maybe it was a joke, and I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got from Benoit, who snatched it off of me with a curse and thrust it into his laptop bag.

  “It’s nothing,” he snapped and zipped the bag as if a zipper would stop me from getting that piece of paper back out if I wanted. I was an NHL defenseman, and I knew how to get th
e puck off of the most tenacious of players; a bag would be nothing.

  “Benoit?”

  He dipped his head and began to collect up his things. “That’s my private shit.”

  I attempted to defuse the situation with humor. “You shouldn’t have left it on the table.”

  He looked up at me. “I didn’t. I hid it in the—”

  I wasn’t calm about this at all. “What? You hid it? From me?”

  “I have my own life, and it’s nothing. I’m ignoring them.”

  I pushed my half-full mug aside carefully and laid my hands on the table. “‘Them’? You’re ignoring them. You’ve received other notes like this? Start talking, Benoit.”

  He stood, giving up on being organized and unzipped his bag, pushing things inside.

  “Don’t talk to me as if I was a kid!” he shouted.

  I sat back in my seat in shock. I could play this two ways. I could pin him down and make him tell me, or I could try and stay reasonable. For some reason, Benoit was hiding notes that were possibly as creepy as that one, and his defensiveness had me on edge.

  “I’m not,” I said calmly. “I’m talking to you as your lover.” I didn’t move an inch as he scooped the last notebook up, then corralled the rulers and shoved them in with so much force that one of them snapped. He was angry, seemed as though he wanted to lash out, and then as suddenly as his temper had flared, it subsided, and he slumped back in his chair as if his strings had been cut. He seemed defeated, unsure, devastated.

  “I don’t know where to start.” His tone was so soft I had to strain to hear.

  “Start from the beginning,” I said and reached out to take a hand. “What is this all about?”

  “Ethan, please…”

  I laced our fingers and squeezed. “I love you, Benoit. I’m not going anywhere. Now, talk to me.”

  Eleven

  Benoit

  I stared at our intertwined fingers, lying over my essay and the other scattered bits of paper, among the notes and scribbles, that latest note.