He whispered those same words to me at the hotel. I tighten my hold on him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper. “You’re in my bed tonight.”
He chuckles against my hair.
Chapter 41
Stanley
I wake up in Aspen Linwood’s bed with a practice to get to and absolutely no will to leave.
She’s tucked with her back against me, all warm and soft and breathing slow, her spine along my chest. And I am a man who woke up with the girl he’s been gone over for weeks pressed flush against him, so the situation has resolved itself downstairs without consulting me about it. I should get up. I have skate. I kiss the side of her face instead, just because I’m allowed to now, just to feel like the luckiest idiot alive for one more second.
She turns into it without a flick of hesitation. I didn’t even know she was awake. Her lips find my mouth, and she kisses me like she was waiting, and that’s the end of my good intentions.
We’re kissing slow, and then not slow, and I’m grinding against her because she’s just so fucking perfect. She pushes back with a roll of her hips that nearly takes the top of my head off. Her hand slips into the waistband of my pants, and I groan into her neck. As quickly as humanly possible, I get my own hand into her pajama shorts, and she hums against me, low andpleased, and I could die happy right here, this exact morning, no NHL, no hockey bros, just this.
She pulls my dick free and tugs her shorts to the side, and reality taps me on the shoulder before I can do anything stupid.
“Hang on –– I don’t have a condom on me, Linwood.” I press my forehead to the back of her neck.
She goes still, and then she groans — pure frustration, the sound of a woman who was very much enjoying her morning. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly. Believe me, I am very upset about this too.”
“This is a tragedy.” She pushes back against me anyway, just to be a menace about it, and it nearly takes the top of my head clean off. “An actual tragedy.”
“It really is.” I catch her hip and hold her still before she undoes me entirely, because I am not going to be careless with this girl — not her, not after everything, not ever, and especially not over a thing she’d have every right to be scared of. One good morning isn’t worth putting a single ounce of that old fear back into her. “Stop wiggling. You’re going to give me a stroke.”
“Then do something about it,” she says, and arches into me, shameless.
I laugh into her hair, breathing her in. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal.”
“Mm-hm.” I’m already moving, already sliding my hand down to where she wants it. “I take care of you right now—” she gasps when I find what I’m after “—and tonight I come back over with a box, and we make up for lost time. As many times as you’ve got in you. I make you come till you lose count.” I press a kiss to her shoulder. “How’s that sound?”
She doesn’t answer in words. She doesn’t have to. My fingers find her ready as can be.
“Shit,” I breathe against her shoulder. “You’re so wet, baby.”
“I want you,” she says, and I have never in my life been so happy to hear those words.
I press not one but two fingers inside of her and work her slow and then not slow, kissing every sound right out of her mouth. Then I lose the last of my patience and disappear under the blanket, because I want my mouth all over her, and biting her shoulder is no longer enough. I look down at what’s mine and only mine, and I grin like a fucking idiot. Then I lean in and press my lips against her and kiss her with everything I’ve got. The moan that leaves her chest is so sweet that I do it again. I press my dick against the edge of the mattress and find that it works. I’m dry humping her bed and licking her so good that she has a fist full of my hair in her hands.
There’s a thing I do with my tongue that pulls a sound out of her I would commit felonies to hear again, so I do that, and I keep going, and she’s gasping so fucking loud that I know she’s close. She’s there. Her spine bowing off the bed, and that’s it for me too. I finish right there, against my own shorts, like a teenager, and I don’t even have the dignity to be embarrassed about it.
I let her ride it out, and then I surface, wrecked, and make the mistake of checking the time.
“Shit. Baby, I have to get to the rink.”
“Mm.” She’s boneless, smiling, eyes half shut. “I’ve got a work thing this morning anyway. Didn’t prep half of it.”
I kiss her goodbye. She grabs onto me and kisses me right back. My dick springs again. I leave her melted into her sheets, and then I run home in dripping shorts, grinning like a lunatic.
I make it about four steps into my own house when I hear the first comment. Percy and Rowan are at the kitchen table. Benson’s coming down the stairs.
“Look at who it is,” he drawls, taking the steps one at a time.
