HOT ICE: Complete Sporting Romance Series

by Lily Harlem

  “I’ll tell the driver to wait then,” Giselle said, dashing to the door. “The island cabs have a habit of just disappearing even when you’ve told them not to.”

  Alone now, I turned to Dad.

  He was studying me closely.

  “What?” I asked, feeling suddenly exposed in my bikini and with Dustin gone.

  He smiled. “Nothing, I’m just glad you worked it out with Speed, he’s a great player. The best.”

  “He is, but just damn expensive.”

  “It’s an expensive hobby, running a hockey team.”

  “Tell me about it, and…” I hesitated. “The money is running away like water down a mountainside, to be honest. I’ve been studying the books, it’s not good.”

  “Oh, it goes up and down.” He waved his hand in the air as if it were nothing, this few million deficit. “Two years ago we were making, now we’re losing. It’ll swing around again. Get inventive. See what you can do with it.”

  “But, Dad, we need the money…”

  “Need the money!” He scoffed. “Buttercup, we don’t need the money from the Vipers. Like I said, it’s a hobby. I’ve immersed myself in it, sure, but only because my other businesses run themselves. They don’t need me. I have the best people in place at the top so I get time for the fun stuff.”

  “So you’re not worried that the team is in the negative each month?” I was shocked by this revelation. I’d thought it was one of his sources of income yet he called it a hobby.

  “I can afford to bleed a little red, don’t sweat it.” He leaned forward. “But I would like to see you use that business head of yours. Turn it around, experiment. Not with the players of course, that’s not your expertise, but try new capital ventures, think out of the box, have fun with it. See what your modern brain can come up with.”

  “You want me to have fun with it?”

  “Sure, but don’t give yourself a damn heart attack over it, for God’s sake. Just go, see what you can do. There’s plenty of money in the pot, but it would be great to see your sharp business mind pull the team finances around. And I know you enjoy a challenge, always have.”

  I sat quietly. I’d been worrying myself silly about the state of the Vipers’ bank balance yet it seemed it had been given to me for fun. Dustin had said right at the beginning that the team was my new toy. I’d been mad at him for that, but now it seemed it was true.

  “But why?” I asked. “Why would you give it to me to play with?”

  “Call me selfish,” Dad said. “But I like having you in Orlando, with me, and not in France. France is too far away. I was worried sick you would fall in love with a soppy Frenchman and I’d barely see you, and if grandchildren came along, well, they wouldn’t know their grandpa, would they?”

  “Grandchildren are a long way off. I need a husband first,” I said with a laugh. “And I like being in Orlando, too. Being able to spend time with you is great.”

  “Good, that’s settled then. No more money worries. It will all add up in the end. And don’t stress the players out, they need to be made to feel valued, special, like they’re your most cherished possessions.”

  “Yes, I know, I get that.” One was more cherished by me than the others, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud, for that was a feeling that needed to be put in a hole six-feet deep and covered with earth.

  “Good.” He was quiet for a long moment. “So are you going back with him?”

  I glanced into the shadows of the villa. I knew the answer already despite the fact I was just torturing myself. Because where Dustin was, was where I wanted to be, even if I could only be with him for another few hours. “Yes, I think I will. There’s lots of work to get on with. New ideas to set in motion and all that.”

  Dad smiled. “He’s a good guy, Speed.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Got his heart in the right place. I’d been watching him for a while before I signed him. He does a lot of charity work.”

  I nodded. “Yes, he does.” My eyes were stinging. Dustin’s heart was in the right place, which was how he’d wheedled into mine.

  Quickly I stood.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  Dad scraped back his chair and walked over to me. “Sure?”

  “Yes, really. Just…. I’m just glad everything is okay, with you.” I batted him on the arm. “Stop scaring me, all these urgent trips to the doctor.”

  “I’m fit as a fiddle. A warning to slow down is what they keep saying and I have slowed down. I intend to continue at a much lower gear and enjoy whatever life blesses me with.”

  “Good plan.” I gave him a peck on the cheek. “I should go pack.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I put on my best smile. He hadn’t paid for all of those drama summer camps for nothing. “Absolutely, never better.”

  He nodded, apparently satisfied that I was indeed never better.

  How could I tell him that I felt as though I was on a runaway train, and while the journey was fun, crazy, exhilarating, soon I would reach the end of the line and hit the wall.

  Pain was guaranteed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You’re quiet,” Dustin said as the plane took to the air.

  “Just thinking.” For once I wasn’t thinking about the wings falling off or the wheels getting stuck in the undercarriage. I was thinking about Dustin, and how I would be able to face him every working day at the rink and not let one shred of my feelings for him show. I was supposed to be his boss, not one of his groupies.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Er…Dad.”

  “He looked well.”

  “I agree.” I turned to him. “Do you think they guessed what we’d been doing?”

  Dustin pulled his lips downward. “I hope not. I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of him, and I reckon sweet-talking his daughter naked and making love to her on his Bali bed would get me some kind of dressing down.” He reached for my hand and drew my knuckles to his lips. “Was good, though, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I looked into his dark eyes, held them for as long as I could and then glanced away.

  “When we get back,” he said, “that’s it.” He paused and when he spoke again his voice was a fraction higher, the last word inflected upward. “Isn’t it?”

  “That’s what we agreed?” I tried to make my answer sound like a question.

  He swallowed. We were silent for a moment, then, “Do they ever come out of there?” he asked, nodding at the cockpit door.

  “No, not when we’re in the air. They sometimes speak over the intercom but I’ve never known them to leave the controls.” I paused. “Why?”

  “Because I want to do this.” He reached for my safety belt, clicked it open and then tugged me onto his lap.

  “Dustin?” His arms wrapped around me and I landed on his knees.

  His thighs were hard, his chest too, and I pressed my hands onto his wide shoulders. “I shouldn’t have my belt off.”

  “I’ve told you before, rules are meant to be broken.” He slid his hand into my hair and pulled my face to his, grinned sinfully and then kissed me.

  “Mmm…” I murmured, holding him tight. I needed to memorize his flavor. Seal this snippet of time into my memory so that late at night I could bring it out and recall how his lips moved, how his body was so in synchrony with mine, how he tasted and smelled.

  He was a little breathless when I pulled back.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He shifted on the seat, tipping me slightly and then squeezing me closer.

  “Yeah, just…” He gave a lopsided grin. “I really shouldn’t have kissed you, I’m paying for it now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled a pained expression.

  “Oh…” I said. “I get you.”

  “All very well for girls,” he said, twirling a strand of my hair between his fingers. “Tight jeans don’t giv
e you a space issue.”

  “Would you like me to help you out with that particular…issue?” I asked, licking my lips.

  He glanced at the cockpit door again. “Fuck, really?”

  “Well, no, not that, but I can offer this.” I untangled myself from him and slid between his legs so I was kneeling on the hard floor. As I lowered, daringly folding my body before him in the small space, I felt all sense of perspective leaving me. There was only this, us.

  He swallowed and I watched his Adam’s apple bob beneath his darkly stubbled neck. “Sweet cheeks, I don’t know if…”

  I grinned. “Come on, don’t be a sissy.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Sissy? You really just called me a fucking sissy?”

  I reached for his fly, a sensation not unlike when I’d been bungee jumping coming over me. “Yeah, come on, show me what you’re made of.” I popped open the buttons and explored within the warmth of his soft cotton jersey underwear.

  His shocked expression dropped and instead he chuckled, lifted his butt and shoved at his jeans. “Okay, you asked for it.”

  The sight of his velvety erection had the last shreds of sense racing from me. All I could think of was becoming closer acquainted with it, with him. The sounds of the plane faded and thoughts of the pilots discovering us faded into the background of my lust-addled thoughts.

  What the hell, you only live once.

  Dustin slid his hands firmly into my hair and directed my face into his groin. The gesture was so confidently intimate yet also wildly dominant that a heat of desire rose within me. I opened up, took him in, felt him push my scalp, forcing me to take him deeper as my lips molded to the circlet of his shaft.

  “Ah fuck, that’s wickedly good,” he groaned, his heavily expired breath breezing over my head and neck. “Jesus, sweet cheeks, you really fucking know how to work your mouth on a guy.”

  Only on you, I thought, I’d never felt so enthusiastic or turned-on giving oral before, it wasn’t really my thing. But with Dustin it was different, every gasp, groan and whimper of pleasure he released went straight to my clit, satisfying a need in me too. I wanted, no needed, to hear him give it up to me, take what he wanted and satisfy that very base masculine need to release his seed. It was primitive, instinctual, I longed for more.

  “Ah, yeah, just like that, fuck…so good.”

  His words increased my enthusiasm and I picked up the pace, used my hands on him as well as my mouth. His thighs tightened around my shoulders, a tremor ripping through his body and vibrating into mine.

  Saliva dribbled from my mouth, smearing my chin. It was mixed with the hot taste of pre-cum now. Dustin was bone hard. Dipping the end of my tongue into his slit produced yet another moan from him, one that went right through me, settled in my chest and in my heart. I had to make this count, be an experience neither he nor I would ever forget.

  My pussy was swollen and hot, my clit bumping against the seam of my capris with each bobbing movement. I wasn’t sure but I wondered if I might come from that alone. Fabric on flesh. I was a little dizzy, slurping and breathless, getting wet, wet and wetter.

  Dustin increased the hold on my head, fucking my mouth as much as I was taking him in deep.

  “Ah, ah, yeah…” he groaned, “Get ready, sweet cheeks, I’m gonna fucking erupt in your mouth. So fucking deep in your mouth.”

  I increased the suction and pulled him deeper still, ignoring my need to breathe and the potential to gag. In the fog of my desire none of that mattered. It wasn’t appropriate, what we were doing, but I was past caring.

  A wash of salty fluid filled my throat. I impaled myself as far on to the root of him as I could possibly manage, swallowed and worked him frantically with my hand, knowing I was slurping, gasping, my noises worryingly loud.

  Who cared? This was our plane. Lust had dropped my standards of etiquette but I really didn’t give a shit.

  He tensed, flinched, shoved me onto him then almost off him. The taut drag of my lips on his shaft was clearly exhilarating in his moment of climax. I cupped his balls and pulled harder and faster with my mouth.

  He seemed completely lost in the moment, jerking his hips up, pressing them down, owning me. Any precariousness of our situation seemed to have taken flight in his mind, too.

  I sucked in oxygen, gulped again, enjoying the moment of drinking him into the very heart of my throat.

  The very heart of me.

  My potential orgasm receded as Dustin stilled and breathed through his release. I slowed right down and swirled my tongue around the ridges of his cock.

  “Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah…” he said, the words tripping over themselves, as though there was nothing else in his brain that he could think of to say.

  I shifted my head, fighting against his hold, and instantly he released me, allowing me to lift off his cock.

  Breathlessly, I looked up at him, swept my tongue around my lips and failed to suppress a grin as he watched me with blown pupils and a damp red face.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over…” He gasped.

  “What?” I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth and pulled myself up so my face was level with his. “Get over what?”

  “Getting blown by the boss,” he said, a cocky smirk winding its way over his face and balling his cheeks. “Top fantasy come true.”

  I could have been mad at the reminder of reality, could have scowled because of my sadness that we were nearly over, but I couldn’t. Sucking Dustin into my mouth, feeling his pleasure, knowing I was the catalyst of that pleasure, was too precious an experience to tarnish with negative emotions.

  No, I didn’t regret any of my sexy times with my hotshot goaltender. It had all been perfect.

  But like everything, all good things came to an end. And this was our ending.

  *****

  For once I didn’t panic when the plane’s wheels clunked from the fuselage. My stomach lurching on descent didn’t make nausea swell within me. I was too preoccupied with the swirl of emotions stealing my thoughts. The last few moments of sitting next to the man who’d stolen my heart in such a short space of time was not something I wanted to be distracted from.

  He was dozing in the seat next to me. After tucking himself away, he’d rested his head back, closed his eyes and within minutes the soft sound of his breaths told me he was sleeping. This was a habit of his immediately after sex, I’d noticed.

  But I wasn’t complaining. I stared at him, indulging in being able to do so for as long as I wanted without him knowing. He still hadn’t shaved and the bristles on his chin, jawline and coating his throat were thick. It gave him a wild caveman look and I remembered the time he’d thrown me over his shoulder and then ravished me on the outdoor bed.

  Crossing and uncrossing my legs, staving off a tug of longing in my belly, I studied his closed eyes. His long lashes were almost girly, though I would never dare tell him that. I reckoned I’d seriously pushed my luck calling him a sissy. His heavy eyebrows were far from feminine, though. They were thick and heavy and he had a slight crease between them, as though he might frown at any moment. I wondered what he was dreaming of to make him feel that way.

  The plane tipped to the right heading for the small private airport we used just outside Orlando. Dustin shifted slightly and I continued to drink him in with my gaze. His t-shirt was taut over his chest. I could make out the square shape of his pecs and the hard dots of his nipples. My mouth watered and I wished I could taste his skin one more time, have his smooth, hard flesh against my tongue for just another moment. Our stay at the villa had initially stretched in front of me like a torturous nightmare, but as it turned out, I’d have happily stayed many more nights if it meant I could still be with Dustin.

  Suddenly the plane touched down with a jolt. I gripped the armrest and gasped.

  “You okay?” Dustin asked, placing his hand over mine.

  “Yes, fine. I didn’t think we were so close to landing, that’s all.”

  He
yawned, lifting his hand off mine to cover his mouth. “Sorry, I must have dozed off.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  The plane thrust to a slower pace and then taxied to a halt. As the engines faded and stopped completely, silence enveloped us.

  “Home again,” Dustin said, unclipping his belt.

  “Yep, back to real life.”

  He looked at me, his gaze intense, the frown between his eyebrows no longer a suggestion but a deep groove. He opened his mouth and I held my breath, wondering what he might say. Did he want more? Was there any part of him that thought maybe we could continue whatever this was between us back in the real world?

  The cockpit door opened.

  “Welcome back to Orlando, Miss Gunner, Mr. Reed,” the copilot said, grinning and rubbing his hands together the way he always did after a flight. It was as though he was pleased with a job well done. He’d got us here in one piece. “I’ll get this door open and you can be on your way.”

  I tore my gaze from Dustin, unclipped and stood. I grabbed my bag and pressed my lips together. I wanted to tell Dustin that I was prepared to keep seeing him, that I wanted him in my life not just on my team. But the vibes he’d given me made me pretty sure it would have to be a secret relationship. Seeing the boss was clearly a problem for him and I didn’t want to be an affair. Clandestine meetings weren’t for me, and neither was being a woman a man wasn’t prepared to jump up and shout to the world that he was seeing.

  No. I wouldn’t be a dirty little secret. That wasn’t how I operated. I was Gina Gunner, daughter of Fergal Gunner. No one kept me hidden away, not even the great Dustin “Speed” Reed.

  I headed out into the sunshine and as always the humidity caught in my lungs after the beautiful sea breeze of the island. But I didn’t let that stop my race to the small terminal. I could see Clifford waiting for me, leaning against the sleek black car reading a newspaper, his peaked cap shading his face.

  Dustin’s big footsteps banged behind me.

  I sped up.

  “Sweet cheeks,” he called. “Hold on.” Suddenly at my side, he touched my shoulder.

  “You’ll really have to stop calling me that,” I said, not slowing down. I needed to get out of there before my willpower disintegrated and I offered myself to him on any terms.