“You’re going to pay for this,” Cin threatened, and she wasn’t referring to the meal.
“I hope that’s a promise.”
“Oh, it is. You won’t forget tonight.”
“I know.” I reached under the table and rubbed her knee. She wore a mid-thigh-length dress, and she wore it well. It was one of those clingy things that most guys drooled over. I wasn’t an exception. In fact, I’d been the envy of every man in the place when we’d walked across the restaurant to our waterfront table. I smiled smugly at a few of the more obvious lookers. She was mine. Dream all you want to, assholes.
“I talked to my mom earlier. She asked about you.” I made conversation as we waited for the bill.
Surprise flickered in her gaze. “She did?”
“Of course. She likes you.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
“My mom is tough to crack, but you’ll get there. She just wants me to be happy.”
“I know. She lectured me on that subject at the game.”
“Sorry. She’s a mom, and I’m still her little boy.”
“I’d probably be the same way in her shoes.”
I threw back my head and laughed as an image came to mind of Cin protecting her little boy from all the evil women out there. “You’d be worse.”
“Maybe. I haven’t given it much thought. I’ve never been one of those women who daydreamed about the whole picket fence and family thing. I’m more pragmatic. If it happens, it happens. If not, my life will be full enough without a husband and children.”
“I expect nothing less of you.” I had to smile. Cin had never struck me as the type who’d be interested in Cinderella or any other fairy tales.
The waiter placed the tab in front of me. I barely looked at it and gave him my credit card. A few minutes later, we were in the elevator. As the doors swooshed open, I picked up Cin and carried her down the hall. She laughed, and the joyous sound rang up and down the empty hallway. I didn’t drop her as I fumbled to hold the key up to the reader. I heard the click, and a second later, we were inside.
The door shut behind us, and I deposited Cin gently on the bed.
She smiled up at me, her eyes sparkling with happiness and desire. I grinned back. This would be a fucking good night. Oh, yeah.
She held her arms out to me, and I gladly lay down beside her and pulled her across my chest. Our kisses started soft and gentle, but after a month of holding out, they built to hot and hungry as fast as a race car built speed.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered. My dick was already rock hard and needing satisfaction, but I was determined to take this slow rather than a quickie. I was the master of control, and it’d take all my mastery to do this right tonight. The times we’d slept together before had been hot and heavy, bordering on rough. I wanted something different tonight. We’d gotten to know each other over this past month. We’d learned we got along just fine and actually liked each other’s company. We were more comfortable with each other.
All those things pointed to a possible long-term future with this woman. I wanted to show her tonight how much she meant to me, and this first time in a month had to be sweet and gentle. Later we’d step it up a notch. We had all night, after all.
I moved her off me and took her hands, pulling her to her feet. “I want to see you naked,” I said huskily. Her lips parted in a sexy smile, and she moved to unzip her dress. I shook my head. “Let me do it.”
She swallowed but nodded.
I walked behind her, grasped the zipper, and pulled it downward, revealing inch by inch of her naked back. In the glow of the nightstand lamp, I watched her inked skin reveal itself. I’d never taken the time before to explore those tats and do them justice. Tonight, I would.
Through the jungle of leaves, branches, and tree trunks on her back, I saw animals and birds emerge. A colorful parrot was perched on one branch. A leopard peeked at me from around her rib cage. A lion stood proudly in the small of her back.
I tugged the dress past her hips, and it slid to her feet on its own and pooled on the floor. Her rounded ass begged to be squeezed. I took two handfuls and kneaded them with my long fingers. Cin sighed with pleasure. I pulled her miniscule panties down to her calves and she kicked them off. Now for the lacy bra. It was gone in a flash.
She was beautiful. Instead of taking away from her naked beauty, the tattoos accentuated her body.
“Turn around,” I ordered in a voice ragged with need.
Cin turned on her heel and gazed up at me. I leisurely ran my gaze down her naked body. Piercing those fucking incredible nipples tonight was a bar with a short chain attached to each side and rhinestones threaded into the chain. They were sexy as hell. I made a mental note to buy her more nipple jewelry.
With one hand wrapped around her hip and grasping her ass to hold her steady, I bent my head. I toyed with the fake jewels with my tongue, then sucked the jewels and chain between my teeth until I was sucking on her nipple. I tweaked and squeezed the other nipple with my fingers while working to sensitize this one with my mouth. Cin groaned and arched her back, pressing her chest against mine.
“Fuck, that feels fucking good.” She clutched at my waistband and ground against me. I switched my attention to the other nipple. This time my hand slid downward, across her flat belly, to her pleasure center—and mine, to be honest. I slid my index finger into her moist heat, gently pushing as deeply as I could. Cin whimpered, a noise that drove me further. Adding two more fingers, I fucked her slowly, rubbing her clit with my thumb. She came quickly, her body already primed by our emotional foreplay during dinner. I held her until the sensations subsided then backed her up until she was against the bed. She lay down on her own, legs splayed and gaze not quite focused yet.
She was a sight for sore eyes, and mine were damn sore for her.
“Take off your clothes,” she ordered in a demanding tone, which oddly turned me on—a lot, but I couldn’t just give in to her. That’d be too easy.
“Please,” I ordered back.
“Please. Get naked and fuck me—now.”
I laughed in spite of the moment.
“I’ll make it worth your while.” She crooked her finger and licked those gorgeous lips.
“I bet you will.” My hands went to my belt, and I whipped it off, followed by the rest of my clothes. I fished out a condom from the box I’d purchased and placed in my duffle. With her watching, I rolled the rubber down over my dick, taking my time, even though it was killing me.
I lowered myself onto the bed and positioned my cock at her wet entrance. With excruciating slowness, I penetrated her silky depths. Cin dug her fingernails into my ass in an attempt to speed me up, but I was determined to take this slow, and I would if it killed me.
When she bit my shoulder and pinched my nipple, I almost came unglued. Only years of training as a hockey player allowed me the self-control to hang on and execute my plan.
I wasn’t good with words, so I’d show her how much she meant to me.
I began to move inside her. My strokes were agonizingly slow and torturously deep. I resisted Cin’s urging to up the intensity and my cock’s demand for instant gratification.
Cin felt so fucking good, so alive, so much a part of me. I kissed her gently, and she matched my pace with her kisses. I was losing the ability to determine where I ended and she began. We were one. We were together. We were in perfect sync. With each determined stroke, our desire notched upward until we were on the edge. One more stroke, and I pushed us over. Emotions more intense than any I’d ever experienced rushed over me, drowning me in ecstasy so extreme it was scary as shit and wonderous as hell.
Cin branded her name on every part of my body and engraved it on my heart.
I would never be the same man again and would never want to be.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Tree
~~Hyacinth~~
Steele and I bundled up and moved outside to the deck over the waters of E
lliot Bay. I was feeling mellow after a great marathon sex session. Steele was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. The sun was peeking over the horizon, and we’d hardly gotten any sleep. The Sockeyes didn’t have a game tonight, so Steele would have a day to recover, possibly. Now that the moratorium on sex was over, I didn’t plan on sleeping in my own bed. The sex with this man was too fucking amazing not to take advantage of his close proximity every single night.
We’d crossed one of those thresholds last night that I’d never crossed before with another man. I wasn’t able to put my feelings into words, but we’d meshed, fused, bonded in such a profound manner, I was in awe of the power of what had happened. We were a couple, and we had something special. I knew that much with certainty.
The rest I’d be able to explain in time. For now, I’d enjoy the reminder of our night, now morning, together.
We pushed our chairs close on the deck, and Steele threw a blanket over both of us. We cuddled, my head on his shoulder and his arm across the back of my chair. With him, I was able to just be. I no longer felt the driving need to fill the silence with chatter. The silence in itself was beautiful and precious, communicating as much as our words did.
We watched as the water lapped against the pilings holding up this portion of the hotel. I was content and at home. No worries, no doubts, just Steele and me. We were lost in our own thoughts yet still connected. I don’t know how long we sat like that before Steele rose and went inside to brew a pot of coffee. He returned with two steaming mugs and sat down next to me.
I had to tell him. I couldn’t have my secret hanging over me any longer. He had a right to hear it from me before someone else told him. This seemed like the moment. Steele was in the right frame of mind, loose and mellow.
“I have a confession.” I sipped my coffee and waited for his response.
He turned his head to view my expression in the rising dawn light. “You’re crazy about me and can’t get enough of my body?”
I wish it were that easy. “That’s hardly a confession. More like a fact.”
“Of course it is.” His cocky grin spread across his face, and I playfully slapped his shoulder. “What is it then?”
“You probably aren’t going to like this.”
“Why would you say that?” He sobered immediately and wariness replaced the teasing light in his eyes.
“Because it has to do with one of my causes, and one you aren’t going to appreciate.”
He sat up straighter but kept his arm around me. That was something, I guess. He studied me in that way of his that made me squirm. He saw right through me, and I was never altogether comfortable with someone who read me as well as he did.
I cleared my throat, swallowed, and cleared it again. Steele watched me and said nothing. I drew in a breath and let it out. Okay, here goes.
“I’m part of the group opposing the building next to the SHAC.”
He frowned and angled his body toward mine. “The center for athletes transitioning out of sports?”
“Yeah, that one. I don’t oppose the concept, as some in my group do, but I do oppose the destruction of the park and the taking down of the ancient cedar tree.”
He removed his arm from around my back, leaned forward, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Finally, he sat up and leveled me with one of those indecipherable gazes. “Is Delaney part of this, too?”
I wasn’t about to throw Delaney under the bus to make myself look less complicit, but I told the truth. “Yes, but she’s not comfortable with the radical turn the group has taken. She may bail out and work the political route.”
“And you? Are you comfortable with it?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes you have to go to extremes to be heard.”
“Mr. Parker is a fair, reasonable man. Has anyone discussed their concerns with him? I would think he’d be willing to work out an agreement both groups could live with.”
He didn’t know this group, especially with my mother and Sasha involved. They didn’t work out compromises. They wanted it all their way or no way, and they weren’t beyond resorting to violence to get what they wanted.
“I don’t know. I’m not involved in the leadership aspect of this particular cause.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Is there any chance you might consider putting your energy elsewhere? This might get dicey with me being on the team.” I was impressed by how reasonable he was considering he didn’t approve of the protest in the first place.
“A person doesn’t abandon their convictions because they’ve become inconvenient or uncomfortable.” I bristled slightly, falling into defensive mode and trying to rein myself in. I was behaving like my mother, and that wasn’t who I wanted to be.
“So you’re sticking with it?”
“Yes, I am.”
And this appeared to be where his reasonableness ended. “It’s just a fucking tree.” For the first time in a month, I was hit by how different we were when it came to our basic principles regarding our lives and what was important to us.
“Steele…it’s not just a fucking tree. Have you taken the time to really look at that tree? To sit underneath it? To consider how much of Seattle history has been witnessed by that tree?”
“Trees don’t witness anything,” he scoffed.
“They’re alive. They’re a product of their environment. There are rings inside that tree that show what kind of life that tree had that year, whether it had enough rain to thrive, or whether it had to conserve and not grow as much, or whether there were other stresses affecting its health.”
He stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “There are thousands, maybe millions of trees in the Seattle area. Why this one?”
“There aren’t any more trees like this. Not around Seattle. This area was once dominated by these large cedars. Now they’re all gone, except for a few. This tree is special and irreplaceable.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s a tree. Mr. Parker’s program will keep hundreds, if not thousands out of poverty and help them become responsible members of society. Isn’t that more important?”
“It’s important, yes, but so is this tree because of what it represents.”
I expected him to mount a counterattack; instead he broke into a grin. “Let’s agree to disagree for now. Checkout is at eleven. We don’t want to waste one minute.” He pulled me to my feet and in the door of the hotel room. “I think we have better things to do than discuss the fate of a tree.”
When he put it like that, who was I to resist?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Generals
~~Hyacinth~~
I’d neglected my causes for Steele, not that he wasn’t worth it, because he definitely was. Almost two weeks had passed since we’d stayed at the hotel. Two days ago had been Thanksgiving. We’d gone to Delaney and Kaden’s house, along with other teammates. I’d made my signature pumpkin pie, which everyone raved about.
Things were going great on a personal level. Steele and I were tighter than ever with one exception, our proverbial elephant in the room, the future of Beecher Park, a subject we both avoided.
I was falling for Steele, and I suspected he felt the same way. I don’t know if the love word was appropriate yet, but we were getting close. We’d made plans to do some backpacking and camping this summer in Olympic National Park. Steele had mentioned getting a new car and giving his Toyota to me. We were doing all the things a long-term couple did, which was exhilarating and scary at the same time.
The guys had left the day after Thanksgiving for a two-game road trip. They’d be back Sunday, which was tomorrow, and leave again on Tuesday for another six nights. The hockey schedule was grueling, and I missed Steele so much when he was gone. On the upside, I picked up extra shifts at the bar, allowing me to save my tips for Christmas presents.
Tonight, I attended my Green meeting with Delaney. The group had called a few meetings we’d missed because of hockey games. A girl had to have her priorities,
but I was feeling a bit guilty about what priorities I’d chosen lately.
Steele hadn’t brought up my involvement in this group since our night at the Edgewater. His avoidance or denial wasn’t a good long-term plan. When I started showing up at the protests and was visible, he’d see me, as would his teammates and the Sockeye staff. My part in all this would be difficult to ignore at that point. Until then, I lived in limbo and feared rocking the boat.
Delaney and I arrived before the meeting started and took seats in the back of the small room. I’d estimated about thirty people in attendance. Most of them were known to me as friends of my mother’s, which wasn’t a good sign. Many of our more measured members weren’t present.
“Where is everyone?” Delaney asked, glancing around the room.
“I don’t know, but it concerns me. The people who’re here are part of the more radical element of the group. We must have missed something by not attending previous meetings.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this.” Delaney hadn’t had a good feeling about this group for a while, and I had to agree with her. They were growing increasingly extremist.
“I told Steele about my involvement in this group,” I admitted to Delaney.
“How’d he take it?”
“As well as expected.”
“In other words, not well?”
“Let’s just say he asked me to find another tree to protect.”
“Oh.” Delaney patted me comfortingly on the shoulder. “Kaden knows too. He didn’t say much, but I doubt he approves.”
“But he’s more open to things than Steele. He won’t ask you to stop.”
“No, he trusts my judgment.” When my face fell, Delaney rushed to add, “Not that Steele doesn’t trust yours, but your relationship is so new still.”
“It’s okay. I know what you meant.” I tried not to let her words depress me, but given Steele’s rigid adherence to his beliefs, I wasn’t sure how this would end.
Icing: A Seattle Sockeyes Puck Brothers Novel (The Scoring Series Book 4) Page 20
