Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

  She flops off me and onto one of my crutches, and then she starts to laugh too. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

  I shake my head. “Human.”

  “You’re my human.”

  She crawls off the crutch, shoves it under the table. And then she’s cradling my head. Bending down. Kissing me.

  Long.

  Slow.

  Soft, full lips taking their time. Sure strokes of her tongue. Her hands keeping me right where she wants me.

  Kissing me.

  Loving me.

  Right here, on the floor of a conference room, while my legs are cocked funny over a tipped chair.

  I need her.

  I need her more than I need hockey, more than I need my twin, more than I need air.

  I need her.

  I kiss her back until I’m aching so hard in the nuts that I’m getting dizzy.

  Drunk on Felicity kisses.

  So hard and desperate for her.

  Missed her yesterday. Last night. Need her.

  She makes me okay.

  That missing puzzle piece in the question of why I exist.

  I tighten my abs, lift my ass, and shove the chair out from under me.

  “Okay, that was hot,” she whispers. She’s heavy-lidded. Breathing quick. Eyeing my lips, my chest, my straining cock.

  “Come,” I tell her.

  Her breath quickens even more. “That almost works. Say it again.”

  “Come.” I pull her to me, line our bodies up, and lean into kissing her again.

  I want her.

  I need her.

  Here.

  Close.

  Now.

  She yanks my shirt from my waistband, her hands skimming up under it and over my abs and chest. A low groan slips out her mouth. “I love how you feel,” she says against my lips. “Touch me.”

  I can’t stop at touching her. I unbutton her jeans. Push them down her hips, stroke my fingers under her panties.

  “Ares,” she gasps.

  She’s wet. Ready. Tight. She arches into my touch, offering me more. My fingers slip into her channel, her hips jerk, and I slide deeper, thrusting my fingers in and out while I devour her mouth and she scrapes her nails over my chest and she bucks her hips into my hand.

  I want her.

  I touch her clit with my thumb, and she shatters, her walls squeezing, closing in on my fingers, everything hotter, faster, harder.

  “I love you,” she gasps. “Ares. I love you.”

  I need inside her.

  She’s already reaching for my jeans. Unbuttoning. Her hand inside, stroking my cock.

  A muffled laugh sounds next door.

  Thin walls separate us from my coach, my team, half the press in Copper Valley.

  And I don’t care.

  I don’t fucking care if I lose my spot on my team.

  I just care that I’m hers.

  All hers.

  Only hers.

  I tear her jeans the rest of the way off. She pushes mine down off my hips, squeezes my dick, cradles my balls.

  I kiss her, stroking my tongue deep into her mouth.

  She squeezes me tighter.

  My ankle’s throbbing. We’re under a table.

  Could get caught any minute.

  And I don’t care.

  I pull out of the kiss. “I’m yours,” I tell her. “Felicity. I’m yours.”

  She rubs my balls, lifts her head, peppers kisses over my jaw. “Ares. My sweet Ares. I’m all yours too.”

  She guides me to her entrance, that slick, hot, wet, perfect channel, and pumps her hips against my bare cock.

  “I want you.” She squeezes my aching cock again. “I want you like this.”

  “Fuck,” I rasp out.

  Now my eyes are getting wet. I squeeze them shut.

  She stills. “Is that okay?” she whispers.

  Fuck, yes.

  I nod. My chest is heavy. My heart’s so full.

  But I can’t open my eyes.

  She’s on birth control. We talked.

  She talked.

  I listened. Said as little as I needed to say.

  She wants this for me. For her.

  For us.

  No barriers.

  “Ares?” she whispers.

  I blink my eyes open.

  Her brows are knotted together. Worry dancing in her pretty green eyes. I press at her entrance with my cock.

  “Love you,” I tell her. “So fucking much.”

  The worry smoothes away before I’m done talking.

  Because she can see me.

  She sees me.

  She knows.

  “Take me,” she tells me.

  I thrust into her, skin on skin, her hot heat incredible and real and so fucking perfect around my cock. I pump into her, not smooth, not in control.

  I need her.

  She’s everything.

  Everything.

  Her body.

  Her mind.

  Her heart.

  Her soul.

  She’s my match.

  Too soon, she’s tilting her head back, but she doesn’t close her eyes. She lets me see.

  Lets me in.

  Lets me feel her climax from her core, to her hot pussy squeezing and clamping hard and fast around me, to the drum of her heart, to the release in her soul.

  “I love you,” she’s chanting. “Ares, I love you.”

  I follow her over the cliff, my own release exploding out of me, all my nerve endings lit up like fireworks after a summer baseball game. Can’t hold back.

  Not when it’s her skin.

  When we’re this close.

  When everything is so right.

  So fucking perfect.

  I come hard and deep, my cock straining, reaching higher even as the last of the spasms still.

  “Forever,” I tell her.

  I’m breathing hard. Want to take her again. Love her again. Stay.

  Here.

  Together.

  Forever.

  “Forever,” she agrees.

  No hesitation.

  No question.

  No fear.

  She cradles my face. “I will love you forever, Ares. Even if you get tired of me and my voices and—”

  I cut her off with a kiss.

  And when I’m convinced she’s too breathless to talk, I come up for air. “You’re my missing piece,” I tell her. “Never thought—”

  My throat clogs, and I can’t go on.

  But I don’t have to.

  Felicity always knows.

  She always knows me.

  49

  Felicity

  I wake up Sunday morning in an unfamiliar bedroom with a familiar bulge pressing into my butt cheek and an even more familiar monkey staring into my face.

  “Go find some mango,” I tell Loki.

  Ares stirs behind me.

  After we got caught in the conference room—almost dressed, but obviously behaving in a manner in which hockey players and their teammates’ sisters shouldn’t behave while anywhere inside the arena—Ares got the rest of the day off.

  You could say I talked our way out of trouble.

  Loki helped.

  Sort of.

  I still don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job as a physical therapy assistant, but for the first time since I went back to school for the third time, I’m not terrified that I’ll never figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life.

  I make people laugh once a week or so at The Laugh Track.

  And I make Ares happy.

  Amazing how something so simple can make everything okay.

  A hand cups my bare breast, and a rough thumb flicks over my nipple. Lips press into that sweet spot where my neck and shoulder meet.

  “Morning,” I murmur.

  “Mmm,” he answers.

  For once, we’re in a king-size bed.

  Ares’s bed, to be specific.

  In his apartment.

  The
one he rented just before Nick asked him to keep an eye on me, because he could see where Manning and Gracie’s relationship was going, and he didn’t want to be a third wheel.

  Again.

  Like he was when his best friend started dating his sister, and then when his twin fell in love a few months later.

  Nick didn’t ask if Ares had somewhere else to live.

  He just assumed he didn’t.

  Everyone underestimates Ares.

  We’re six floors beneath Gracie and Manning, in the same building, because even if he didn’t want to be a third wheel, he likes being close to his friends.

  He brought me back here yesterday afternoon, and we’ve officially christened every single room.

  I roll over in his arms to face him, and kiss along the ridge of his collarbone, because my morning breath is terrible, but I still need to kiss him. “I love you.”

  Both our phones are vibrating on the nightstand. Probably half of Ares’s team sending him gifs—that what they do—and probably my friends and my brother and Gammy’s ghost wanting to know why I didn’t stay at the house last night.

  He reaches past me—an easy feat with his long arms—and pulls out a drawer in the simple nightstand instead of silencing either of our phones.

  He shifts again, this time pressing something into my hand.

  Something metal.

  Small.

  Rigid.

  A key.

  I pull back so I can see his face, and get a lopsided grin. “Don’t want to forget,” he says.

  He’s adorable when he says more than three words at a time. Slow, but sure with each word distinct.

  Not that he needs to use lots of words.

  He communicates plenty with his actions.

  “You want me to move in?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head and brushes his thumb over my knuckles. “Use it however you want.”

  Every other guy I’ve dated has issued orders.

  Move in with me.

  Kiss me.

  You’re mine.

  But Ares?

  Ares offers himself first.

  I’m yours.

  You come first.

  You’re welcome in my home anytime you want to be here, for as long or as short as you want to stay.

  And he doesn’t make me feel any less wanted.

  If anything, he makes me feel treasured and valued.

  I’m tearing up again. “Remind me to thank my brother for being an asshole who underestimated your charms.”

  He quirks a grin, and a sudden smell hits my nose.

  You know the smell.

  That smell.

  I do my best not to react—god knows Nick singed my nose hairs enough growing up, and I realize this comes with living with a man—but when Ares’s nose twitches and his grin fades, I frown.

  He peers at me.

  Concerned.

  Like maybe I need to reconsider my diet.

  “That…wasn’t you?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  Loki shrieks happily out in the living room.

  And sheer dread slithers into my belly.

  I shoot out of the bed, grab Ares’s T-shirt from last night, and yank it over my head as I’m stalking to the door. I point at him without looking. “Stay off your ankle.”

  I stride through the bedroom door, down the short hallway, turn into the light, airy living room, and groan.

  Loudly.

  Loki chirps again. He claps.

  From his perch atop a donkey.

  A real, live donkey.

  Wearing a unicorn horn.

  Standing on the simple brown rug between the sturdy leather couches, which are both angled so everyone can have a great view of the widescreen TV on the exposed brick wall.

  The uni-donkey swishes its tail and plods toward me, giving a clear view of the present it left on Ares’s rug.

  I groan again.

  Louder.

  More frustrated.

  Ares stops behind me. I feel him there, and a quick glance assures me he’s on his crutches.

  “I’m going to kill him,” I declare. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “I’m going to help,” Lucy adds.

  “Buying the cyanide right now,” Tim agrees.

  “Can’t wait to watch,” Harold says.

  Ares snickers.

  The donkey nudges my hand, and I realize it has something around its neck.

  A ribbon.

  With a tag.

  Like you’d put on a dog.

  I pat the donkey’s soft snout and reach for the tag. It’s small. Shaped like a heart.

  And it’s inscribed.

  To Loki. Love, Uncle Nick.

  Ares snickers again.

  I look up at him.

  He can’t stop grinning.

  “This is funny?” I ask.

  He nods. “Bergers don’t get mad. We get even.”

  I watch him another beat.

  His grin’s growing. The wheels are turning.

  “Have I mentioned I love you?” I say.

  And there goes that smile even wider. “Just wait,” he says.

  Like I could love him more.

  He eyes my shirt.

  The donkey nuzzles my butt.

  The monkey tosses donkey poop.

  And this is just the start of our happily ever after.

  Epilogue

  Ares

  I like poetry.

  Always trash talk in haikus.

  Miss playing hockey.

  But if I can’t be on the ice, I’m happy to be with Felicity. Included with the team. Doing my part.

  Like today.

  Today’s her first day as the team’s jack of all trades.

  They’re calling her an intern, but we know where it’s going. She knows too much about everything for the team to not want her.

  Not saying I had anything to do with it, but I might’ve made sure everyone saw her resume after she passed her certification exam.

  Followed certain staff people with puppy dog eyes for a few days.

  Okay, hours.

  Fine.

  Only took ten minutes.

  And an agreement to try harder in front of the camera.

  Which is why Felicity’s first assignment is to work on promo videos for the Thrusters.

  With her puppets.

  And my teammates.

  Jenna’s not happy though.

  I share a look with Felicity.

  Don’t have a clue what crawled up her butt, I telegraph.

  I brought a talking BRATWURST in a THRUSTERS uniform, Felicity telegraphs back. She’s mad because it’s too much innuendo.

  Only if you have a dirty mind, I reply.

  She snorts.

  Yeah, fine.

  Everyone in this room has a dirty mind.

  But if anyone can make a Thruster bratwurst innocent, Felicity can.

  Jenna claps her hands. “Ready, Felicity?”

  “She’s been ready for twenty-something years,” the bratwurst answers for her.

  Jenna directs her to the middle seat—a folded cloth number, like a director’s chair with the Thrusters logo on the back—and puts Murphy and Lavoie on either side of her. There’s a green screen behind them.

  “Sure you don’t want in?” Jenna asks me.

  “Have no fear, lady,” Thrusty the Bratwurst says. “He’ll get his moment of glory.”

  Murphy eyes me.

  Since the donkey, and a little haiku I planted in his ear, he’s been giving me space.

  Lots and lots of space.

  Vengeance best served cold.

  Watch your stick and your berries.

  Who knows when I’ll come.

  Let him think I was talking about sleeping with his sister with that last line.

  Most fun I’ve had outside Felicity since spending the summer with Z.

  Between me and our charm school teacher, Murphy’s having a hell of a time.


  “Ignore the cameras,” Jenna tells the three of them. “Just get comfortable and chat.”

  “Don’t think that’ll be a problem for some of us,” Murphy says with an eyeball at his sister.

  Thrusty turns and gapes at Murphy.

  Murphy eyeballs the puppet.

  “Oh my…oh my mustard,” Thrusty says. “You’re…you’re Nick Murphy.”

  Murphy scratches his cheek. Eyes his sister. “That’s right. And you’re…?”

  “I’m Thrusty. Like Trusty, but with a Thruh. And I’m a huuuuuuuuge Thrusters fan,” Thrusty says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. All my life. Like, alllllll my life. Ever since I was born last week. I love hockey. I auditioned to be a hockey stick once.”

  Murphy coughs, a grin forming. “How’d that go for you?”

  “It. Was. Amazing.” Thrusty has this voice like a twelve-year-old boy. A little rough, not high, not low. “Manning Frey touched me. You know? The prince? Is he here? I need to apologize for getting my mustard all over him.”

  Lavoie snickers.

  It’s an off day at home. Watched practice earlier. Had a hard session with PT. Getting stronger. Might make it back on the ice in late February or early March.

  Before the playoffs.

  We’re all in track pants and Thrusters sweatshirts with our numbers on them. Lavoie’s lounging in front of the camera with an ankle hooked over his knee.

  While Felicity prompts her brother, asking if anyone’s seen Prince Manning, Thrusty peers around her to look at Lavoie.

  And promptly covers his face with his skinny little hand. “Felicity! Felicity!”

  “What, Thrusty?” she asks.

  “Is that Duncan Lavoie?” the bratwurst whispers behind its hand.

  “Yeah, Thrusty. Have you met Duncan?”

  “Oh my bun, he is my favorite player ever.”

  Felicity looks doubtfully at Lavoie. “Duncan is?”

  Thrusty nods.

  Which isn’t easy for a bratwurst.

  Also, his eyes twist funny.

  Don’t know what I’m going to do for a present for Felicity for our three-month anniversary.

  Hard to top Thrusty.

  There’s always ketchup or mustard or relish for a real bratwurst. But, I mean, it’s hard to find her a better gift.

  “Did you want to ask him for his signature?” Felicity asks Thrusty.

  He shakes his head.

  Also hard for a bratwurst.

  That’s a fucking cool puppet. And Felicity handles him like a pro.

  “Duncan doesn’t bite, Thrusty,” Felicity says. “Your head’s safe.”