The person on the other side of the line, who sounds like Eloise, is repeating Victoria’s name over and over. “Answer your friend, Victoria. You thought you could take a phone call, so take the call.”
CHAPTER 20
Victoria
Kissing Raffi in the parking lot after the game sounded like such a good idea at the time. Putting his hand in my pants and riding his very talented fingers—because I wanted to know if my memory had played tricks on me after all this time—felt like an even better idea.
At least until I started melting against him, trying to one-hand brace myself against his chest so I didn’t collapse on the ground while trying not to drop my phone. I was so cocky thinking that I could talk to Eloise and let him get me off at the same time.
Fuck.
I was very, very wrong.
“Eloise, I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. Where are you? I’ll come and take you home, we can pick up your car tomorrow.”
Raffi’s teeth scrape down my clavicle, taking all the strength I have not to let out a feral moan. This man. One hand’s in my pants, fingers circling my clit like he’s right at home. The other’s up my shirt, thumb flicking over my nipplethrough my bra, driving me more and more furiously frustrated with need.
My legs tremble, threatening to buckle. Sweat prickles across my forehead as he looks up at me with nothing but smugness in his beautiful eyes.
The chemistry’s still here. And he’s every bit as skilled with his digits as I recall him being from our one night stand.
A low rattle bubbles in my throat.
“Tori?” Eloise’s concern would be touching, if I wasn’t seconds from bursting apart on Raffi’s fingers. Fuck.
“Eloise, I swear I’m okay. I’ll call you later.” I’m not proud of the fact I hang up on my friend, but if I didn’t, she’d hear me come, and we aren’t those kinds of friends.
“Much better,” Raffi announces with another pinch of my clit. “Do I have your full attention now?”
I want to claw his eyes out, but I’m too busy gripping his biceps so I don’t crumple onto the ground at his feet. People are leaving the rink, and I don’t want to call attention to the fact I’m getting fingered in a public space.
Is it possible he’s gotten better over the past three years? That’s not a thought I want to dwell on. The idea that he’s been with other women, improving his fingering game would make me white-hot with jealousy if I wasn’t hanging over the edge of an orgasm cliff. He’s controlling damn near every breath I take with just the movement in his fingers.
“Stop fighting me, Firecracker. Just come for me.” His words tickle the skin of my throat as he kisses his way up to my earlobe and bites down. The nip of pain pushes me over.
My forehead drops onto his shoulder, mouth open in a silent scream in the dim light. My teeth clamp onto the sliver of bare skin peeking out from his shirt, biting through the undulating pleasure charging through every cell in my body.
I’m leaving a mark, but neither of us seem overlyconcerned about it. In fact, from the way Raffi rolls his fingers around my clit faster, harder, I’d say he’s hot for being bitten.
He’s holding me up, taking all my weight as I’m just too fucking jelly-legged to stand up by myself right now. If the car wasn’t behind me, I’d be in a puddle on the asphalt.
“I want to see where this goes, Victoria. You, me, our son. I want us to be a family. Together.” He’s saying the words I’ve been dreaming of hearing him say for three years. But I need to be clearheaded when I make a decision about what to do with the father of my child.
I can’t make orgasm-haze decisions that will impact my kid’s life too.
It’s a bullshit line I’m feeding myself—my heart’s already decided to give Raffi a shot, despite the fact he’s a hockey player. But I need to stay grounded. Last time I let him under my skin, I was crushed and spent weeks staring at my phone for him to reach out.
This time we’re taking it slowly.
No, really, we are.
If only someone could communicate that to the racing heart skipping along in my chest, that’d be peachy. The way he’s looking at me, hope in his pretty eyes, that slanted goofy smile, it’s too much. He has a bruise blooming on his cheekbone from what I can only imagine was a stick, or an elbow on the ice. All I want to do is get naked with this man and make another adorable baby for us to raise together.
It’s ridiculous. This man strips me of every ounce of common sense.
I’m a smart woman, an independent woman, but when Raffi Shaw comes near me and my eager beaver, all I want is to abandon all logic and launch myself at him. Consequences be damned.
