by Sarina Bowen
But oh, the view! I’ve seen Jason shirtless before. I’ve admired those strong pecs and those lickable abs. But the way he’s propped so casually against the pillows, buck naked, his penis hard and ready… Gulp.
Keep it together, Pepper.
“Come here.” He crooks a finger.
Feeling a little shy, I put one foot on the floor, so I can walk around the bed.
“No,” he says sharply. “Crawl to me.”
Oh my. In for a penny, though, in for a pound. I get onto my hands and knees. Goosebumps rise on my skin, because I can feel how closely he’s watching me. And—why not—I arch my back a little. “Like this?” I ask sweetly. Moving forward a little, my boobs jiggle. “Am I doing it right?” I exaggerate my Nashville accent a little, so that it’s more Scarlett O’Hara than Reese Witherspoon.
“Fuck,” Jason whispers as I approach. “I’d say you’re doing fine. Climb into my lap.”
My heart shimmies as I slide a leg over his thighs and climb on. I have to spread my knees, and that feels extra dirty, because his concentration is laser-focused. And even as I settle my bare pussy onto his lap, he doesn’t reach for me.
He just stares. His gaze burns me up as it makes a slow scan of my face, my tits, and then my lower extremities.
“What?” I whisper. “You’re going to give me a complex.”
He grins. “I’m just admiring the view.”
“But that’s—” I gasp as he lifts his knees suddenly, causing me to pitch forward. My hands land on his shoulders and I find myself mere inches from his face. We’re nose to nose. And the view into those big brown eyes has never been better.
“Impolite?” he guesses. “Hot Pepper, there is nothing polite about the way I feel right now.
“I was going to say unnerving,” I whisper.
“Don’t lose your nerve now,” he whispers back. “It’s just getting good.”
It is, indeed. And it gets even better as he removes one of my hands from his shoulder and curls it around his thick erection. He’s so heavy in my hand, and so hot. Like he’s burning up for me. I love it. I swipe my thumb across the rosy head of him.
He bites his lower lip and makes a grunt of approval. “Give me that mouth. Right now.”
It’s easy to obey a command like that. I lean forward and find his lips with my softer ones.
Jason kisses the way he plays hockey. The minute our mouths align, he’s all attack and control. It’s sublime. I feel breathless as he reaches behind my head and gathers my hair in his hand. He gives it a tug and breaks our kiss.
With a gasp, I tip my head back. And his mouth finds my nipple not a second later. Before I can get my bearings, he gives it a good, hard, suck.
If I only get one night with him, I’d like to remember every second. But my poor brain is swimming in sensation as his tongue finds new ways to light me up. First my breasts and then my neck. I wrap my arms around his head and sift my fingers through his hair. It’s silkier than I would have guessed.
Jason lifts his hips, lifting me, too. He lengthens his body on the bed, lying down flat and leaving me sitting on his hips, panting.
He reaches up and runs a hand down my body, his fingertips finishing their journey right on my mound. I hold my breath, and he holds them there, teasing me. I shiver, my nipples like little pebbles. “Come here, you hot thing.”
“W-where?” I lean forward a couple of degrees, feeling my body flood with desire.
“Scoot,” he says. “Here.” And then—impatient with me—he grasps me by the hips and drags me up his body.
I land on his ribcage, then quickly dig my knees into the bed and grab the headboard for support.
“Almost,” he says with a knowing smile. “A little further.” His fingers splay on my bare ass, and he gives me a slow, dirty squeeze. “Come on now. Let me taste you.”
I look down at him, stunned, but also very turned on. Still, I hesitate.
“While I’m young?” he prods. “Besides, who begged me for—” He actually makes air quotes on my bumcheeks. “—filthy, dirty sex?”
“You can’t use a drunk girl’s words against her!” I squeak. I will never touch tequila again as long as I live.
Jason lifts his head off the pillow, strains forward, then tugs me once again. His eager mouth lands on my lower belly, those hot lips searing my skin and his whiskers refusing to allow his kiss to be a gentle thing. “Give it to me,” he murmurs, his voice strained. “I want it so bad.”
The scrape of desperation in his voice is what finally breaks down my inhibitions. I inch forward on my knees until his hungry mouth finds my pussy. The sound I make when his lips first brush my clit is a high, keening thing.
His answering moan vibrates through my belly as he gentles his tongue against my body and tastes me in slow, reverent strokes.
Ten seconds in, I’m already a convert. I grip the headboard and hover above him with eager glee. He has a firm grip on my hips, tugging me closer whenever I retreat.
“So sweet,” he rasps against my skin between kisses. His naughty tongue is urging me towards climax. Every stroke is a revelation.
My eyes slam shut, and all my muscles lock up tight, preparing for a wave of glory. But it doesn’t come. Instead, I find that I’ve been lifted just out of reach.
“Not yet, baby,” he rasps.
“That’s just mean.” I open my eyes and look down at his heavy-lidded eyes and wild hair. I’ve made a mess of him. A wonderful mess.
He slaps me on the ass—an actual slap—and then grabs the strip of condoms. “Break one of these off.”
I take them with shaky fingers and tear the strip.
“Open it.”
I try, but he doesn’t like my progress because he drops me onto his body and opens it himself.
The next five seconds are very eventful. Without moving me out of the way, somehow Jason reaches down, rolls on that condom, and then lines me up just right. And I gasp as he jacks his hips up and fills me in one smooth stroke.
My mouth is open on a silent oh as I stretch to accommodate him. My head falls to his shoulder and I squeeze my eyes shut as my body hugs him everywhere.
Athletes. Wow.
“Jesus Christ,” he groans, his hands on my hips. He rolls us to the side, and everything stops for a second except for my pounding heart. His big brown eyes blink at me once. “You were right.”
“I was?” I can’t figure out what he means, because I’m too dazzled by this perfect moment. My skin sings everywhere we’re touching, which is lots of places.
“You said we’d be really good together.”
“Oh.” It’s true. His strong arm loops under my knee and lifts it high on his hip, spreading me wider. I shiver at the boldness of it. “Well, duh,” I say against his lips.
Then he thrusts his hips. Hard. And I don’t say anything intelligible for quite a while.
18
Jason
You don’t make it in professional sports without a lot of willpower. Every big-league player knows how to control his body and how to deny himself.
Every one of them but me, apparently.
Kiss after scorching kiss, thrust after crazy thrust, I’m driving us where we both need to go. I feel wild. And whatever willpower I used to possess floats away on Heidi’s desperate moans. I roll again, laying her flat on the bed, spreading her body beneath me.
Lord. I’m fucking an angel. It’s not just that she’s young and pretty and so tight I may lose my mind. It’s the way she watches me with those big, impressionable eyes—like she doesn’t want to miss a thing. Like I know all the secrets.
If only.
I’m breaking all my rules right now. Every one of them. But man does she make me feel worthy. Her fingers stroke my hair with reverence. Her mouth is sweet and welcoming. And I’m the brute who’s helping himself to all these riches.
It’s so good to be bad.
I bear down on her until Heidi’s kisses get sloppy and her breathing co
mes quicker. “You’re close,” I rasp in her ear.
“Yes,” she pants. “Yes. Harder.”
Jesus. “Not yet, you hot thing.” I force myself to slow down, torturing both of us.
She groans and grips my biceps in two hands, straining upward to get more from me. Her pink lips form a perfect “O” as she reaches for her climax. It’s so sexy that I might come just from the look on her face.
That’s when I pull out.
Heidi looks up at me with unhappy eyes. “Why?” she demands.
“Grab the headboard,” I order.
She rolls over slowly, like she’s forgotten how her limbs work. She kneels in front of the headboard and takes it in two hands.
“Good girl,” I whisper, coming up behind her. In the window’s reflection, I see her big eyes watching me. Her chest rises and falls with her rapid breathing. I take her hips in my hands and fill her again.
The tight clench of her body is everything, and I let out another groan. I thought maybe I could last longer if I couldn’t see her face. The problem is that I can. The lamp is on. If there’s anyone in the office building across the street—not likely on a Saturday night—he’s going to get an eyeful.
But I love watching that angelic face as she bites her lip and then tips her head back to rest it on my shoulder. I rock forward in slow, deep strokes. Her silky hair tickles my chest, and its clean scent wafts around me.
It’s too much of everything good. I’m yearning for release. I wrap my arms around her, cupping soft breasts in my hands. “Are you ready?” I whisper. “You’re going to get it so good.”
“Please,” she whimpers, and the sound makes my balls impossibly tight. I take one of her hands off the headboard, guide it down between her legs, and press it against the place of our joining.
Then, digging deep, I pick up the pace, pinning her body to mine, thrusting in measured strokes. I flatten her palm against her pussy and brace it there. “Take it,” I pant. “Let me feel you get there.”
Heidi makes a desperate noise. My whole body is tight and straining. I actually clench my jaw to hold myself back.
“Oh!” she sobs. And then everything gets impossibly wet and tight and perfect. She tenses around me, and I can’t wait any more. I relax onto my haunches, tugging her body onto mine, pinning her onto my cock as I shudder through my climax.
She turns her head to find my mouth with a deep, sloppy kiss. And I’m ready. I dive right in, but wrapping my arms around her destabilizes me, and we tip to the side. I tuck her face against mine as we go over, landing on the bed, luckily, and not rolling onto the floor.
“Oh my God,” she gasps, and then falls silent. My arm is still wrapped around her body, so I can feel her pounding heart. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” I say, all my eloquence burned away by the hottest, most desperate sexual experience I’ve had with anyone since… Yeah. I steer my brain away from that thought.
And it isn’t too difficult, because Heidi flops her exhausted body around and kisses me senseless.
Eventually we fall asleep, wrapped up around each other in the center of my bed. For a few hours my slumber is completely dreamless.
“Castro? Are you awake because…whoa.”
It takes a second for Silas’s voice to penetrate my consciousness. I pick up my head and say just one word. “Out.”
“Fine,” my roommate says. “But there are these things called doors…” He pulls mine shut behind himself.
“Uh-oh,” says Heidi from face-down in my pillow.
I glance at her, and while her bare back and my bare ass make it perfectly obvious that we’re both very naked, none of her important parts are exposed.
Too sleepy to care about Silas—or about my newly complicated friendship with Heidi—I fall back onto the pillow again. I have to get up and head for the airport, but the bed is warm and when I stroke my palm down Heidi’s bare bottom, I don’t want to go anywhere at all.
“Airport,” Heidi mumbles.
My hand suddenly stills as I try to take that in. “You’re traveling with the team this time?”
She lifts her pillow-creased face and blinks at me. “No. I’m not. I meant that you need to go to the airport. So get that look of panic off your face.”
Oh. I take a deep breath. She isn’t wrong. I did panic there for a second. I’m still a little stunned by what we did and how much we both needed it. I’m confused by how much I like her.
That’s new for me. My heart is made of stone. Or so I thought.
I’m not the only one who’s confused. Heidi sits up, clutching the sheet to her breasts, as if I haven’t already seen them or played with those nipples between my lips. “I get the first shower,” she demands.
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Heidi removes the sheet from the bed, leaving me naked, and wears it into my bathroom.
The door clicks shut, locking me out.
Well. This is already a little awkward. I guess I’ll go use Silas’s bathroom. He’s going to laugh his ass off, and I won’t even blame him.
A half hour later, my bag is packed. I stroll into the kitchen hoping for a cup of coffee. And I find Heidi and Silas eating breakfast together, pretending like nothing happened.
Okay. I guess that works for me. “Any coffee left?”
“I poured it into my mug,” Heidi says, spreading butter on a piece of toast. “Just snap your fingers on the team jet and they’ll bring you as much as you want.”
“But that’s airline coffee,” I complain.
Silas shrugs. “I’m guessing you need to catch up on your sleep, anyway.”
“I don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
Heidi bites her lip, and I don’t know if that was the right thing to say or the wrong one. It’s a shame that I am on my way out of town, because she and I probably need to talk. Just because I don’t do repeats, doesn’t mean I won’t look her in the eye like a grownup.
She’s ignoring me right now, though, handing a fresh piece of toast to Silas and offering to cut him a slice of melon.
“Can I have one?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says stiffly.
Silas looks at me over the rim of his coffee mug, and his expression says, What the hell did you do?
I shrug.
“Check your email, both of you,” Heidi says. “You’ll find a link to a form where you can submit your errands and groceries to my new automated database. The deadline is Wednesday at noon. Requests submitted after that will be subject to a rush fee.”
“Wow, fancy.”
“It’s going to help me with the volume.” She hands me a plate with a slice of melon on it. And yet she manages not to make eye contact.
“What’s your team job this week?” Silas asks.
“Ice crew at the practice facility. There’s a tournament for the Adaptive Hockey League.”
“Oh, cool,” I say, just to make conversation. The adaptive league is pretty neat, though. The Bruisers lend out our ice when we’re out of town so that disabled athletes can train.
“It’ll keep me off the streets,” Heidi says to the bottom of her coffee mug.
An awkward silence follows. I fill it with memories of last night. Heidi clutching me and kissing me like the world is ending. She’s standing at the counter with her back to me. But it’s like I’ve developed x-ray vision. I can picture her naked way too easily now.
Hopefully that will fade? I doubt it.
“I just have one thing to say, and then I’ll never mention this again,” Silas says.
Both Heidi and I turn to him with matching wary expressions.
“Castro, when it’s my birthday night next month, you really don’t have to go all out like that.”
Heidi groans, and I throw a balled-up napkin at him.
“No really.” He laughs. “Just get me a nice bottle of scotch.”
“I think I hear your jet leaving,” Heidi grumbles.
Still laughing, Silas
gets out of his chair. He puts his plate and mug into the dishwasher, then stops in front of Heidi. “Be well. And thank you in advance for the errands.”
“My pleasure.”
He leans forward and pulls her into a quick hug, which she returns.
I have a sudden and very unreasonable urge to yank him off her.
“Cheerio!” Silas says. “Coming, Castro? I’ll hold the elevator.”
“Yeah, totally.” I wait for him to leave the room, then I take a step closer to Heidi. “You good?”
“Absolutely,” she says, turning the faucet on.
I shut it off again.
“What did you do that for?” She turns her chin and gives me a grumpy look.
“Hey.” I catch her chin in my hand. “I just want to say—” What do I want to say? “—you’re amazing.”
Her blue eyes dip. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. Now go on. There might be traffic.”
“Right.” I lean forward and give her a peck on the lips. She tastes minty, and I’d rather have another kiss than walk away.
But her blue eyes bore into mine, and she’s wondering what the hell I’m doing.
That makes two of us. So I give her cheekbone a single stroke with my thumb, and then leave the kitchen. I grab my phone and my suitcase and head for the door.
“Wait!” Heidi comes trotting out of the kitchen with a little paper bag. “I almost forgot to give this to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Your sandwich. Now go! Beat Chicago.” She presses the bag into my hand and makes a shooing motion.
“Dude, you coming?” Silas calls from the elevator bank.
I’m not, because I’m staring at the bag in my hand. “Peanut butter and…”
“Strawberry jam,” she says. “I didn’t mess it up, jeez. Go on.”
“Thanks.” I snap out of it and head for the elevators.
19
Jason
Fourteen hours later I’m sitting on the visitors’ bench gulping water as the third period winds down. We’re up two to one. The Chicago crowd is starting to thin in the cheap seats.
