I said nothing. It was true. I did want to be happy. But I didn’t know if I ever could be. “Well, Hunter knew about my reputation when we met. I just didn’t realize that. After everything that happened and I told him I never wanted to see him again, he left me alone. But itdidn’t last.”
“How long?”
I groaned at the memory. “About three or four months. Just enough time for me to get comfortable thinking I’d never see him again. Then he started texting. He said he had videos of me. Said that if I didn’t go out with him, he was going to release them. I threatened to have him arrested for revenge porn and stalking, but he told me he didn’t care.”
“Okay. I kill him. Is fine. We just drafted new goalie from Boston University. He can take my place.”
I laughed and found Vanya’s chest, pressing my hands against it. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. He stalk you? Take video? Threaten you? Why you don’t want me to take care of it?”
“I don’t know if he actually has a video. He’s been holding it over my head for a while.”
Vanya’s fingers began to card through my hair, the motion both soothing and also making me warm in the center of my chest. “Maybe…call bluff? Is right saying?”
“Yeah. But I…I can’t. I can’t handle that. I can barely handle the fact that everyone thinks I’m like the league whore who fucks anything that moves.”
“Would not be anyone’s business if you were,” Vanya said. His blunt nails scratched along my temple, and if I were a cat, I would have started purring. I moved against him, into his arms, without realizing it. “You can be whatever you want, pretty goalie. Sleep with one hundred men. Sleep with zero men.”
“Or one,” I murmured. “What if I…what if I just want one?”
I was losing my grip on control, against the fight to keep from sleeping with him again. He did things to me. He made me want things from him that would have terrified me if it were anyone else.
“Micah,” Vanya said softly. “You have to tell me what you mean. You say before never again?—”
“I know.”
“And I want you. Want to give you whatever you ask for. But you have to ask.”
My pride was choking me, but dear god, would it really be such a bad thing here in this bed with him? If I had one more taste? One more night?
To be able to feel safe and not think about Hunter and the mess I’d made of things?
“I want you to kiss me,” I blurted.
His hand immediately moved from my hair to my jaw, cradling it softly, thumb running over my lips.
I loved the feeling of his hockey-rough skin against mine.
I loved that he wasn’t careful with me.
He gripped me by the face hard, and then his mouth landed on mine in a punishing kiss. His teeth dug into my lower lip, tongue pushing its way past my teeth, tangling with my own. He swallowed down my first loud moan as he rolled his body on top of mine and knocked my legs apart with one knee.
“Fuck,” I gasped when he gave me room tobreathe. “Fuck. This is so much better than being in the car.”
He laughed, his breath falling over my face—spiced from the food, and warm with his desire. “Yes. Much better. Now I can toucheverything.”
Dipping low, he bit along the side of my neck, and the sensation made my back arch up into him. He took the opportunity to shove his arm behind me, lifting me against him, kissing me harder again, then again, and again.
“What you want me to do?” he asked against my mouth, biting me as he spoke. “Eat your ass? Suck your cock? Fuck you?”
“Yes, shit.” My brain was overloaded with sensations.
It was everything I’d ever fantasized about and nothing I’d ever had with a partner. My list of men who’d been able to get me off was so small it usually made me want to cry. And the thought of trying always led to frustration and anger.
Journey had been the only other man I trusted with my body, but he’d been too careful. I felt like some kind of freak under his overly tender affections.
Vanya was not like that at all.
