Title: Two for Roughing
Series: Minor Penalties #4
Author: S.B. Barnes
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 09/15/2026
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 297
Genre: Contemporary, sports/ice hockey, athletes, coming-of-age, in the closet, coming out, inferiority complex, intercultural, religious bigotry/intolerance, D/s feminization kink, impact play/spanking (during sex only)
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Description
If there’s one thing missing in Kilian Howard’s life, it’s dignity. Talent, good looks, and social skills wouldn’t go amiss either, but more than anything, he longs to be taken seriously. With everyone on his team treating him like a child, including the second hockey coach in two years threatening to bench him for not being good enough, is it any wonder Kilian turns to a virtual stranger in the form of Damir Denisov to explore some very adult needs?
Damir is more than willing to engage with Kilian’s clumsy attempts at seduction. Kilian might be a menace on the ice, but he’s sweet in bed. As a gay, Muslim Russian, Damir’s life has been a long sequence of rejection for one or the other part of his identity, and the pressure is getting to him. Kilian is at first a welcome distraction and then one of the only people to understand Damir’s situation.
When Kilian is traded to Damir’s team, what worked as a long-distance situationship becomes much more complicated than either of them anticipated. With Damir’s support, can Kilian overcome his self-doubt and find a place in the world of hockey? Or will Kilian’s desire to become the queer role model he never had force Damir to abandon their budding relationship to protect himself?
Excerpt
Two for Roughing
S.B. Barnes © 2026
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Travis Collins: “…and here we can see it in the replays. Howard leans in to say something before the faceoff, and Denisov absolutely whiffs it. What are we thinking, Bill?”
Bill Zito: “Well, Travis, I think we just witnessed a classic Howard. Get in close, get under the other guy’s skin, steal the puck.”
Travis Collins: “Classic Howard—what are you talking about? It’s the kid’s first season.”
Bill Zito: “Yeah, but if you’ve seen his game tape from the WHL, he’s a textbook pest. Denisov’s got the advantage on size and, let’s be real, skating skills. But Howard’s one of those guys who gets to you like sand in your shoes. Can’t shake him.”
(From “Live commentary, San Francisco Sea Lions v. Chicago Firecrackers @ San Francisco,” by Bill Zito and Travis Collins, 12/03/2024)
“Ohmygod please please please, fuck, please!”
“Hmm…I’ll think about it.” Damir pulled back incrementally and remained still long enough for the man under him to start begging again. Then he slammed in hard and listened to Howard wail.
It was incredibly satisfying.
Not just because everything about Howard screamed “pushy brat who wants to be put in his place”—although giving him what he so obviously wanted was a nice bonus—but because he had stopped talking. All Howard did was talk, talk, talk, running his mouth at the faceoff circle with his mouthguard dangling out of the corner of his lips, emphasizing how red and puffy they were.
With his cock deep inside Howard, Damir paused again. “Are you sorry now?”
Howard took great heaving breaths as though the mere presence of Damir’s cock in his hole was enough to render him unable to pull enough air into his lungs.
Damir was a big man with a proportional dick, but not so much that he’d call it medically unusual. Howard’s carrying on gratified him. Not as much as a proper apology would have, which Damir had expected when Howard turned up outside of his hotel room, but close enough.
He circled his hips, grinding in deep. “Well, are you?”
Howard drew in a breath and said, “Nuh-uh. ’S true, isn’t it?”
He was ridiculous. He was pathetic, whimpering on Damir’s cock like an animal in heat. A far cry from the overconfident asshole who’d skated up to the faceoff circle and told Damir he was sure the women of Chicago were thankful Damir kept his mouth off them.
Howard had been making a reference to a very stupid online interaction Damir’d had with a teammate last week. Ketchup had posted a drunk selfie on Instagram and captioned it with something about looking for girls who wanted their “marpet cunched.” He’d shown it to Damir, sniggering. Damir had responded with “what is ‘marpet cunched?’ u are so drunk bro.” Since then, he’d learned Ketchup had chosen a childish slang term for oral sex. In Damir’s estimation, the linguistic choice made begging women for sex on the internet that much more embarrassing, but sadly, the internet disagreed.
Damir had also learned to stop posting things on the internet.
It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t a native English speaker, nor was it his fault Ketchup had used the most juvenile term for cunnilingus he could. Damir spoke English fairly fluently—especially in comparison to other Russian players who stayed in Russia until they became eligible for the NHL draft—since he’d done Major Juniors in the States. But even years of experience could not prepare him for “marpet cunched.”
Of course, every idiot hockey fan on the internet took this as evidence that Damir was a selfish lover. He deleted the comment the next morning, and Ketchup deleted the post inciting it when he emerged from his hangover stupor six hours later, but the damage had been done.
Looking at Kilian Howard—rookie third-line center and unstoppable pest for the San Francisco Sea Lions—spread out underneath him and begging for his cock, Damir was pleased to prove the allegations wrong. He thrust in at full force a few times, reveling in the tight heat surrounding him. Howard moaned like it was the best thing he’d ever felt and bucked back into Damir.
Damir clenched his hands tight around Howard’s hips to keep him still. Fuck, it might be the best thing he’d ever felt.
“Oh!” Howard called out. Did he know he was doing it? Or worse, did he want Damir’s entire team to hear him? “Oh, fuck, Denisov—”
Damir stopped again.
A long, high whine left Howard’s throat.
“Were you close?” Damir teased. “Did you want to come? Too bad. You only get to come if you don’t tell lies.”
“’S not a lie,” Howard said mulishly. “You’re not putting your mouth on any girls, are you?”
Damir bit into the back of his neck, hard.
Howard whimpered.
“I think I just put my mouth on a pretty”—he punctuated the word with a single hard thrust—“little girl, didn’t I?”
He expected it to piss Howard off even more, get his whole body to flush as dark red as his hair.
He didn’t expect Howard to go vise-tight, shooting off all over the bedspread without a hand on his cock.
Damir swore.
Howard’s whole body pulsed rhythmically around him.
Damir let himself take what he’d been wanting since he’d first sunk inside of Howard’s incredible body, pushing into the clenching heat harder and faster until he notched in as deep as he could go. When he came, his hips kept rolling. Howard whimpered under him, each new movement making him cringe, but he could take it. Damir was too wrapped up in the pleasure to stop. Every thrust sent sparks down his spine and through his balls, and he shot so hard he was afraid the condom might burst with it.
When he pulled out afterward, Howard collapsed in a heap on the bed.
Rude.
“So,” Damir said, striving for a pleasant tone. He winced as he got off his knees and to his feet. A long fuck after a full game of hockey was a lot for the joints, even at the ripe old age of twenty-five. “Are you going to apologize?”
The lump on top of the bed groaned.
Damir went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. He used one of the hotel hand towels to wash the sweat from under his arms and his groin. After some consideration, he dipped the other towel under water as well and took it out with him.
Howard remained exactly where Damir had left him, face down on the good side of the bed. Had he passed out?
Damir poked him in the side.
Howard rolled over with a groan.
When he saw the wet towel, he grabbed for it, then wiped at the sticky, already-drying trails of come covering his belly.
There went Damir’s plan to dab the worst of the mess off the sheets. He added a zero to the tip he’d planned on leaving for housekeeping.
“Thanks,” Howard muttered, dropping the towel by the side of the bed.
“So you do have manners.” Damir picked the towel up pointedly and tossed it in the direction of the bathroom.
“Whatever,” Howard said. “You enjoyed that.”
Damir would have to be blind, deaf, and also dead not to enjoy fucking someone as responsive and (apparently) kinky as Howard. “Nonetheless, you owe me an apology.”
Howard rolled his eyes like the teenager he was, which made Damir feel less good about the sex they’d just had. He might be of legal age, but nineteen was quite young.
“Sorry I called you out on a stupid Insta post, man,” Howard said, finally, “but you’re the one who punched me.”
A bruise had formed right over one of Howard’s high, delicate cheekbones, still red but likely to turn dark and ugly soon. It matched the fingerprint-shaped smudges at his hips. A part of Damir he wasn’t proud of salivated at the sight of his marks on Howard’s skin.
He took a breath to steady himself. “I apologize. The way you said it was…worrying.”
Howard’s exact words on the ice, right before Damir lost the faceoff and punched him, were, “The women of Chicago can count themselves lucky you’re not into their pussies.” Vulgar enough for standard hockey chirping, but it also sounded as if Howard knew something.
Howard snorted. “Yeah, I didn’t realize how you would take it until I had your fist in my face. Maybe play it cooler next time.”
“I sincerely hope,” Damir said through gritted teeth, “there will not be a next time.” A moment later, the full impact of Howard’s words caught up with him. “Wait, you mean you turned up here because my reaction to your terrible chirp made you think I might be open to—”
“Fucking me blind? Yeah, pretty much.”
“That was incredibly risky.” Damir could have been like most other hockey players, in which case he would have probably punched Howard in a few other unsavory places.
“Paid off, didn’t it?” Howard made for the edge of the bed, wincing a little.
A tiny part of Damir felt bad for going so hard on him. A much larger part purred with pride.
“I could use a drink,” Howard said. He blinked up at Damir with big, blue eyes, clearly ready to move past the unbelievable hubris of chirping a man about a dumb cunnilingus-related Instagram comment, getting punched in response, and then turning up at the same man’s hotel room begging to get fucked on the off-chance he was interested in other men. How had he gotten Damir’s room number in the first place?
He crossed his arms. “I don’t drink.”
Howard rolled his eyes and began pulling on his clothes. “One of those guys, huh? Bet you eat nothing but boiled chicken and steamed broccoli during the season too?”
Damir’s nose wrinkled involuntarily. He’d tried one of the meal plan services his rookie year, thinking it would save him some time and effort cooking, only to learn that Americans thought “healthy” meant “overcooked and devoid of spices.”
“I’m Muslim,” he said. It wasn’t the primary reason he didn’t drink, but it was the easiest to explain.
Howard examined him blankly. “I thought you were Russian.”
“You are Canadian and annoying. People can be two things.”
Howard’s face fell. “Okay, jeez, I get it.” He headed toward the door. “I had fun. See you around?”
He slipped out, closing the door behind him with a decisive click, and Damir didn’t feel guilty for being so harsh.
He didn’t.
Howard would be fine.
Damir sat on the bed, shuddering at the state of the sheets. He lifted them gingerly and slipped in on the clean side. Then he lay on his side and turned off the bedside lamp.
His water bottle was still on the table.
He got to his feet again and walked across the dark room to drink a few sips, and since he’d already gotten up, he might as well check.
The well-lit corridor blinded him momentarily as he stepped from the darkness of his room. Once he’d gotten his bearings, Damir found the hallway empty.
Of course it was.
Howard would be fine.
Damir turned on his heel, went back to bed, and banished all thoughts of the Sea Lions’ rookie from his mind.
He rolled over, reached for his phone, and input Howard’s name into the search bar before he had even made the decision to look him up. Damir flicked past article after article about his stats and his on-ice presence, not finding what he was looking for until he followed the link to Howard’s Instagram profile.
The first picture showed him slouched on a couch beside the Sea Lions’ massive defenseman Chris Calabrese, grinning with a video game controller in hand.
He would be fine. He didn’t need Damir to take care of him.
Not that Damir could if he wanted to.
Which he didn’t.
Howard would be fine.
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NineStar Press | Books2Read
Meet the Author
S. B. Barnes attended college in the Hudson Valley, studying English Language and Literature and Anthropology (although unlike her characters, her time there was not interrupted by crime-solving). She grew up split between the USA and Germany, attending university in both countries before eventually settling in Germany. Today, she works as a teacher and lives with her husband and two cats in an apartment with too little shelf space. Fiction has always been one of her greatest loves, as a reader, as a teacher, and as a writer. While S.B. has been writing for most of her life, this is her first foray into publishing her work.
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