Winterball

by Holley Trent

  He waited for to tell him not to—to drop him some hint that he’d suck Evan’s cock—but it didn’t happen.

  Come on. Give me something, Bart. I’m going to explode.

  Bart tossed his shirt to the chair beside the bed and undid his belt buckle. “Spin around and face the other way. View’s not so great.”

  “A view of my face isn’t great?”

  “It might be if that was what I intended to look at. Spin.”

  Evan huffed but did it, feeling a bit like some kid called to the front of the classroom to solve a math problem that he hadn’t learned the basics of. What did he expect? That Bart would turn off the light and they’d feel each other up under the covers? Hell, maybe it was Evan’s fault for starting this detached exploration. He had initiated a blowjob while the guy slept, after all.

  Bart’s pants hit the floor, and his underwear along with them. He patted the space on the bed beside him. “Scoot this way.”

  Evan moved left, not touching, but close enough that the hair on his leg stood on end from Bart’s proximity. He couldn’t see shit from this angle, except for Bart’s legs, crossed at the ankles.

  Evan turned his attention to the television. Now what? Are we just going to lay here naked and watch TV? He could be doing that at home. Alone. He didn’t dare move, though. Didn’t reach out to touch. He was afraid to.

  He’d grown hypnotized by the lights and sounds of the movie, watching but dozing just as much, and was understandably shocked when Bart finally touched him.

  Bart laid a hand on Evan’s calf and rubbed up to the back of his knee. It tickled there, but also seemed to have a hotline to his core that had him clenching his cheeks.

  Maybe that was what Bart wanted, because he repeated the same thing on the other leg.

  “Having fun?” Evan muttered.

  “Mm-hmm. You’ve got a damn admirable ass.”

  “And a pretty dick.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You plan on touching either?”

  “Just for asking, I should tell you no. I think you need to be told no.”

  Evan groaned and closed his eyes. Maybe he could just block him out.

  But then Bart pushed Evan’s legs apart.

  It was probably just his imagination, but Evan would swear he felt the heat of Bart’s gaze on his balls.

  They jumped for him.

  “I think you should be told no often, in fact,” Bart said. “You’d probably be less of a brat.”

  “I’m not a brat.”

  “You let me be the judge of that. I’ll tell you tomorrow if you’re a brat, or just incredibly vain.”

  “I’m not vain!” He started to push up onto his arms, but Bart’s foot planted in the middle of his back pressed him back down.

  “Sure, you’re not. It’s just hormonal, right? That’s why you feel the need to show everyone who’s interested what your dick can do, huh?”

  “That’s not fair. There’s nothing wrong with liking sex. You really gonna be the moral arbiter about how many people I sleep with? I think that’s out of line, given the circumstances.”

  “I couldn’t give a fuck about how many people you’ve slept with. I do give a fuck that you sleep around and never connect with anyone. To me, that’s a mark of a self-centered man.”

  “Sex and emotion don’t have to be delivered simultaneously.”

  “Why don’t you just get yourself a silicone cunt to jack off into, then? The result will be the same.”

  Evan opened his mouth to rebut, but changed his mind. Why bother arguing? Especially since Bart wasn’t exactly wrong. It was a sweeping overgeneralization, but it wasn’t totally off base. He didn’t want to connect with everyone he fucked. Maybe he was like Bart in that way—maybe he’d get too attached to someone who was just okay and not everything.

  “You gonna manhandle me, or are you going to get your foot off me?” he asked.

  “You gonna stay still?”

  “Everything but my mouth,” he muttered.

  Certainly Bart heard it, but he chose not to respond. He lifted his foot, and that incendiary sear returned to the area between Evan’s thighs.

  Evan closed his eyes and tried not to clench, not to shudder, as Bart’s hands moved farther up his legs.

  The bed sank behind him. Bart’s knees pressed at the outside of Evan’s, and pushed his legs back together.

  His large hands palmed Evan’s ass, and his thumbs parted his cheeks.

  Evan didn’t dare open his eyes to look back. He didn’t want to see Bart’s expression or guess what he was thinking as he gazed at Evan’s body.

  His traitorous body gave an anticipatory shudder that made Bart chuckle.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Evan whispered. If there were a god, Bart wouldn’t try to cram that monster of a dick into Evan’s Final Frontier.

  “You told me you’d do anything I wanted, remember?”

  “I—did.”

  “You changing your mind?”

  “No, I just—”

  Bart reached up and pressed a hand over Evan’s mouth. “You say no, I stop. Simple as that. But if you trust me, stay quiet. I’m not going to fuck you gently into the night, Evan, but I’m not going to give you more than you can take, either. Nod if you understand me.”

  Evan nodded, and before he could stop himself, parted his lips and flicked the back of Bart’s hand with his tongue.

  “I’ll let that slide.” Bart lifted his hand and a moment later it was on Evan’s ass again. This time when Bart parted his cheeks, he dipped his tongue into Evan’s crack.

  “Oh my fuck.” Evan arched upward, but Bart pressed him back down.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never had your ass licked.”

  “Fine, I won’t tell you.”

  “Really, Silvertongue? You never asked a girl to rim you? Maybe put a finger in there?” Bart demonstrated what he meant, and Evan’s resulting spasm pulled a kink back into shoulder blade. That motherfucker’s definitely going to rub it out again, too.

  “Most liked to stay north of my balls,” he said through clenched teeth as Bart dipped his tongue back in. He licked, probing at the hole, and pushed the tip of his tongue beyond the tight ring.

  “Oh God.”

  He slipped his hand beneath his belly and grabbed his cock. Its head was sticky and swollen in his hand, and he gave it a squeeze.

  “Put your hand back at your side, or I’ll tie your wrists with that scarf,” Bart said.

  Shit.

  “Bart, I’m so hard—”

  “I bet it hurts. Get your hand off your goddamned dick.”

  Evan moved it away, groaning. “Can’t take this.”

  “Barely started.” Bart continued to lick, forcing Evan’s cheeks farther apart to deepen his access.

  His hole clenched around nothing, and Evan very nearly begged for Bart to just go ahead and fill him. Yeah, it was going to hurt, but he’d never felt so desperate—never wanted anyone more.

  And then Bart stopped.

  Evan opened his eyes to see the other man shifting behind him. He stretched his legs out behind him and lay on Evan. He positioned Evan’s hands over his head, and slid his cock into Evan’s wet crack.

  His cock surfed it, gliding in and out of the tight space. Every time the head pressed past Evan’s anus, he gasped. It was an awful tease, and Bart seemed to enjoy it, judging by the rumbles of appreciation in his chest.

  Bart’s breath seared Evan’s ear. He whispered, “If I had known I’d be dealing with you, I would have brought a plug. I’d put it in you and you’d put your briefs and pants back on. I’d make you dress up again, and send you downstairs to the party. With every step, you’d remember who you belonged to and know what he was keeping from you.”

  Yes. Belonged to.

  “Bart—”

  He clasped his hand over Evan’s mouth again, and shushed him. He kept up that delirium-inducing fuck of Evan’s crack, not breaking rhythm for even a moment.
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  Bart dragged his tongue along the outer lobe of Evan’s ear.

  “You can’t keep giving your body up to anyone who wants it, Evan. Doesn’t matter how bad you want to get fucked.”

  Was Bart not going to fuck him?

  “Sex is a distraction,” Bart said. “You get addicted to it, and it becomes a vice. It gets in the way of life. Clouds your focus.”

  He kissed the side of Evan’s face—down his chin and jaw—and Evan turned his head to meet Bart’s lips, but he pulled them away.

  “You have to learn to sift out the unimportant things.”

  Bart’s cock head pressed tentatively against Evan’s hole. Evan bore down on him, but Bart slid it away.

  “You’ve got to learn to push the noise and the distractions to the back of your mind. Got to compartmentalize. That way it won’t matter if it’s me behind home plate, or some other asshole. When you go into the Majors, remember that. Remember that I could have seduced you any number of nights we shared a motel room, and I kept my hands to myself. Because you, Evan Boswell, are a distraction.”

  Bart unclasped his hand from Evan’s mouth and pulled back. He pulled at Evan’s hips to get him up on all fours and pushed Evan’s legs apart. He bent over him, their dicks bumping together beneath him and Bart’s balls tapping his ass.

  Bart grabbed both of their dicks in one hand and squeezed.

  Evan moaned. “Fuck, yes, touch me.”

  “You want me to make you come, Evan?”

  “I’ll die if you don’t.”

  “Might feel that way.” Bart pumped up and down along their lengths, pausing at the heads to collect some of the slick fluid from both of their heads.

  “You think you like men, Evan? That it wasn’t a fluke that night you got your dick sucked in a closet?”

  Bart was hard as steel, and the feel of him against Evan’s own member made Evan feel very much dominated. Being touched by this man he respected so much and whom thoughts of had been making him wake with wet spots in his briefs for weeks was making his head swim. He wanted to be fucking ravaged by him. Wanted him to take everything and only be given back what he deserved.

  “Answer me.” Bart held his hand in front of Evan’s face. “Spit first.”

  Evan spit.

  Bart returned his hand to their cocks and turned up the heat between them.

  “I don’t know—” Evan responded. He didn’t know about all men, but Bart was certainly pushing all the right buttons. What Bart had said about who Evan belonged to might have been said as a tease, but Evan wished it were true.

  He did want to belong to someone. Not just anyone, but his catcher.

  Bart would never drop the ball on him.

  Unfortunately, he doubted that Bart would want to keep him, on the field or off.

  Heat seared through Evan’s core, tightening his midsection as his body ignited its countdown. “Bart!” He fisted the sheets as the dam in his body broke and loosed his load, half in Bart’s hand and half on his own belly.

  Bart kept stroking, faster and harder now, using Evan’s ejaculate as personal lubricant. Evan was spent, and Bart’s continued ministrations were borderline painful, but he wouldn’t dare complain. He closed his eyes tight and said a prayer of thanks when Bart sank back onto his heels, pulling Evan onto his thighs, and sprayed his seed on Evan’s chest.

  Bart breathed heavily behind him and rested his forehead on Evan’s shoulder. “Might need a shower.”

  “You mean one with water?”

  “If you don’t like being painted on, then stop making yourself such a beautiful canvas.” He bit Evan’s shoulder, and Evan both tensed and moaned.

  “Oh God, paint on me all you’d like.”

  And…I said that out loud.

  Ashamed, he hoped Bart didn’t think his response was typical, because it certainly wasn’t. He was used to being the one calling the shots in the bedroom, but maybe he was already so used to Bart being the one to call them on the field, he was more willing to let him take command elsewhere.

  Bart gave his bottom a tap. “Ease off me. I’ll get you a towel and start the shower.”

  Evan moved carefully off of Bart’s lap without the use of his hands, as they were presently keeping the now-liquid product of their lovemaking from spilling onto the bed.

  Lovemaking. Is that what it was?

  He watched Bart pad to the bathroom. The light switch clicked on. Water drummed in the bottom of the sink.

  Evan stared at the dark red swirls of the bedspread’s pattern.

  Yeah. Lovemaking. He didn’t have much experience with that, but it felt that way to him. He couldn’t say if the same was true for Bart.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fuck.

  Bart had hoped to scare Evan a little—send him running back downstairs to find some woman to spend the night snuggled into the bosom of. He’d pulled no punches, and gave the man everything he would have given a potential long-term partner, minus the minor humiliation part. That was new. He was surprised Evan had done it. He’d laid there on the bed so nicely for him, and let Bart have his fill of looking at him.

  Evan seemed unusually compliant. Either he was pulling Bart’s chain, giving Bart what he thought he wanted in that same misguided effort to keep him on the baseball field, or Evan just didn’t want to be in control. He wouldn’t go as far as to call Evan submissive. He was too mouthy. Bart wasn’t even sure he’d try to correct that if Evan were his.

  If Evan were his.

  Bart groaned and reached into the antique tub for the hot water handle.

  Evan couldn’t be his. They were at a crossroads, and about to head out in two different directions. Bart had it on pretty good authority that Evan would be called up to the Majors soon, and Clint had agreed. There was interest from a few teams. The only reason Evan hadn’t been signed was because he didn’t handle substitutions well. He was stiff in front of other catchers, as if he feared they were watching him perform, judging him for it. It was all sports psychology. Fixable, but most team managers didn’t want to fix players. They wanted their products to come off of the assembly line functioning as intended.

  Even if it weren’t for Evan’s career ahead of him, and the fact that Bart’s was practically over, there was the long-distance thing. Evan was a sexual person, and Bart couldn’t imagine he’d be faithful during a long season away.

  He knew better than to get attached, so he’d do everything he could not to.

  Damn. Evan was making that so fucking hard, because Bart did want to keep him.

  Sighing, he turned on the showerhead and pulled the curtain closed. “Come on, Ev. Water’s hot.”

  Evan padded in, still holding the hand towel against his belly. He tossed it beneath the sink and ducked behind the curtain. “Fuck, it’s blistering, man!”

  Bart leaned back against the sink. “You know how to work the knobs, don’t you?”

  “Come on. I figured you’d adjusted it for me. Made it nice.”

  “You must have forgotten that I’m not nice.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you want me to think. I know better, though. I think you even let me borrow your toothpaste once—last year, when we were down in the Everglades.”

  “I’m certain that had far more to do with self-preservation than kindness. You’d eaten some crazy shit that night. God, what the fuck was it?” Bart closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Rooming with Evan, Bart had always felt half like a cranky old babysitter, and half like an ogling teenager. Evan was a special kind of train wreck.

  A train wreck he shouldn’t want to possess.

  “I think it was fried gator,” Evan said.

  “Ah.” Bart snapped his fingers. “But it wasn’t the gator, it was the chili sauce that went with it.”

  “Well, it didn’t go with it, remember? I keep a bottle of Sriracha in my duffel so I can douse all manner of unpalatable shit with spice.”

  “Why do you order unpalatable shit if you have to do that?�
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  “For the experience.”

  Bart sighed, and pushed away from the sink. “Just for the experience, huh? Are you—done with this particular experience?”

  Evan didn’t answer immediately. His feet squeaked against the tub bottom as he turned around, and he held a hand out of the curtain’s gap. “Hand me the soap, will ya?”

  Bart studied the labels on all of the frou-frou toiletries on the countertop before unwrapping a bar of body soap. Tiny-ass print, he could hardly see it. He should probably look into getting reading glasses. He held it inside the shower, and Evan took it.

  “No, I’m not done.”

  “You said you wanted to see if you liked men.”

  “And I like what we’ve done well enough, but, we haven’t done everything.”

  Is he seriously asking for that? It was one thing to jack a man off, or even suck his cock, but to let him inside? It was an intimate act that required a coordination of trust that Evan shouldn’t be so willing to commit to. It wasn’t just the pain—and there would certainly be some—but the sort of abasement. He didn’t know if he wanted to put Evan in that situation. There was no such thing as a casual ass-fuck between friends.

  “Listen, it’s late, but I’m going to order some dinner. You want something?”

  “Mmm. Cheeseburger?”

  “And maybe a few beers to help you forget the past day?”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Bart didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Evan had shared a lot of motel rooms with Bart in the past couple of years, but they’d only ever shared a bed twice. Before they’d nabbed richer sponsors, including the Hotel Beaudelaire, the team coffers were damn near empty. There were a few occasions when the team had to sleep four to a room. They always tried to draw straws to see who got the beds and who had to sleep on the floor, but after some particularly grueling games, Bart wasn’t having that shit.

  “I’m sleeping on that bed,” he’d said, “short straw or not. You can fight me for it, rookie, or you can double-up.”

  So, they’d doubled up, and somehow, they managed not to touch on those tiny, hard beds.

  This was the first time they were willingly sharing. Or at least, Evan thought Bart was willing. He’s so fucking hard to read.