Breaking The Ice [bxb]

Chapter Seventeen (pt. 1) [Liam]

November brought in the beginning of hockey season and, with that, Eli's time really thinned.

Between longer practices, games, work and school, I barely got to see him. That is, I saw plenty of him at school and at The Lodge — we do live in two very small towns, after all — but we didn't really see each other.

The loss of that new source of excitement in my life for two months had me going back, over and over, to the last night we shared at The Lodge after the party. Eli was very firm on his stance regarding the hot tub that night, but surprisingly pliable on everything else.

I remember pushing him against the wall, trapping him there with the weight of my own body. When the two of us are together, I am usually the one being shoved and thrown. I can tell Eli likes the control. I imagine getting some sort of sense of charge over the moment gives him a specific type of comfort or reassurance over the situation as a whole.

However, that night at The Lodge, when it was just us in a completely private place, I wanted a little taste of control myself, and I hoped he would let me take it. I still remember the thrilling trail of tingling excitement coiling around my stomach as he gave in, almost too easily. His skin was on fire from jaw to collarbone, where he let me kiss him with lips and teeth and way too much eagerness. The heat from his stomach burned the tip of my ice-cold fingers as I slipped my hand beneath his t-shirt.

"What's it gonna take for me to get you to that bed over there?" I remember whispering in his ear.

He replied by way of the most delightful of looks. That of someone who was more than willing to be coaxed to go anywhere, if only stirred in the right direction. Even today, just thinking back to it, I can feel my stomach twist hotly at the unspoken invitation in his eyes.

That is the trickiest part with Eli. When we are alone, he doesn't really talk. He is a man of action. I have to try to suggest my intentions in some tacit way, test the waters and go from there. Watch out for his meticulously guarded reactions. Catch the things he wants me to catch. 

But it's never completely obvious. 

Eli rolls on subtle hints and barely-there signs. If I miss them, they're gone. It's exasperating and nerve-wrecking and thoroughly electrifying. It's more than just the pleasure of the moment with him. It's a whole game. There are layers to our interaction.

I guided him to the bed gently and he pushed me down onto the mattress a little more harshly. He pulled his sweatshirt off over his head before crawling over me on the bed. Except I wasn't ready to give up that delicious control quite yet, so I rolled us over. He didn't protest.

Somehow we ended up horizontal, more easily than I might have ever expected, me on top of him. His lips tasted like heat — tequila and spice and the sweet taste of want. It was intoxicating.

He was the first to reach for my belt. I helped him take it off, before moving on to his jeans. After undoing his zipper, I tried pulling the denim down his hips — a less than subtle suggestion of my intentions — and he resisted me.

So we weren't doing that. Message received.

It's fine. Slow and steady wins the race. Obviously, this is not a race at all. But if, for the sake of sheer shameless indulgence, we consider it is, I can't imagine anything sweeter than the prize.

However, for that moment, on that night, I settled for the half marathon. Which is still more than what I had been getting until that day.

Eli might be intense and waft off a definite air of despair in the privacy of our secret encounters, but he is also frustratingly disciplined. Until the night of the party, all we had done was tumble around in the Ice Arena's locker rooms or The Lodge's empty kitchen. Some frenzied kissing and heated groping, but nothing beneath the security of our clothes.