by Addison Fox
But here? In Indigo? He couldn’t understand why it took his comments to rally people to do something.
“You in, buddy?” Mick’s voice penetrated his thoughts and Roman looked up from his cards and threw a few chips into the pot. He didn’t miss the glint in Mick’s eyes—the one that suggested he knew exactly what was going through Roman’s head—but he simply nodded once the bet was made.
Roman played his cards and tried to force the negative thoughts from his mind. But it didn’t escape his notice that the poker night he needed so badly wasn’t nearly as much fun as he thought it would be.
• • •
Declan’s words still rang in her ears a few hours later as Avery moved from one room of her apartment to the next. The bold colors she’d decorated with—a bright palette that usually comforted her and had her feeling at home—instead had her feeling closed in and restless.
Why couldn’t he have been the one?
He was interested and attentive and he’d embraced her ideas for his bed-and-breakfast in the few months she was there.
She’d also gained a friend, she knew. A good friend who wanted the best for her.
A friend who had a point, even as she wanted to bash his gorgeous face in for how damned reasonable he was being.
She and Roman did have a history. And she was attracted to him. It didn’t mean either should be acted on.
So get over it, Marks, and get on with your life.
On a soft sigh, she resumed her pacing. A glance out her window indicated just how late it was. She could still see light, but she knew without looking at the clock it was after midnight.
Although sick of her own company, she didn’t want to call Grier and disturb her. And they’d closed the bar so there wasn’t even any company to be found there.
She briefly flirted with the idea of going down to use the gym, but she had no motivation to get in a run at this time of night. The thought of exercise did give her an idea as her thoughts drifted to the hotel’s workout facility and she knew what might help.
Snagging her keys and a bottle of water from her fridge, she headed for the sauna.
A short while later, she had a towel wrapped tightly around her, the heat flowing over her in lovely, languid bursts. She allowed her thoughts to drift with the heat, landing wherever they chose.
Which was why, when a memory of her and Roman the summer before he left filled her mind’s eye, she allowed it to take root and flourish.
“You were quiet at dinner.”
“Not much to say,” she said, shrugging. There was never much to say when her mother was on a bender.
“You don’t have to bear this alone, Avery.”
“No one else can do it for me, Roman.” She ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, enjoying the simple feel of the strands and the heavy weight of his head in her lap. A light breeze ruffled the grass around them and she looked up, grateful no one else in town had any sense how wonderfully private the ground behind the bleachers was at the town rink.
“That can’t be true. My grandmother would help if you asked.”
“No.” She shook her head and fought the panic that rose up in her at the idea of telling Julia Forsyth about her mother. “Just no.”
It had taken her a long time to talk to him about her mother and the increasing concerns she had that Alicia had gone from being someone who drank too much to someone who was a drunk. The pitying looks she got in town had increased over the past few months as well, and she’d had to call their neighbor, Jonas, more than a few times for his help in getting her mom home.
“There has to be a place you can get her into for help. For treatment. There are facilities for these things.”
“Facilities that require large payments to make you well. We’re lucky we have insurance.”
“There has to be a way.”
She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to tell him there wasn’t a way—or at least not one she’d been able to find.
And she didn’t want to waste one more precious moment with him talking about a problem that she couldn’t fix or wish away or make better.
Just like his leaving.
He downplayed it, but she knew it was coming. Knew the number of scouts who’d been up to visit their small town had increased.
Aside from the town gossip whenever an unfamiliar face presented itself in Indigo, she saw them when she worked shifts at the hotel. Saw their credit cards and the names of their employers emblazoned on those cards. Red Wings and Islanders, Rangers, Oilers and Metros.
The NHL wanted him and it was only a matter of time before he left.
With a sudden desperation she fought daily to hide, she bent down and pressed her lips to his. This crazy need she had for him wouldn’t be sated no matter how much time they spent together.
Yet the more time they spent together, the more powerful it grew.
He responded immediately, his tongue slipping between her lips in a languid slide that never failed to turn her insides over on top of themselves.
When had he become so necessary to her?
Maybe he always had been.
He lifted his head from her lap and rolled next to her. Lying on his back, he settled her above him, one large hand at her hip while with the other he teased the sensitive skin of her stomach with his index finger.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You sweet talker.”
His compliments always caught her by surprise—the honest look in his eye when he spoke them even more. She was embarrassed by the attention. By the raw emotion she saw in his dark green gaze.
“It’s the truth.” His hand snaked up and wrapped around her neck, and with gentle pressure he pulled her down until their lips met. “To me you are perfect.”
Love burst in her chest, so hard—so fierce—she lost her breath as their lips met once more.
A hot tear hit her chest and Avery looked down, watching that lone drop slide toward the white cotton of her towel. With a quick brush of her finger, she dashed the other tears on her cheeks away.
She had so many memories of Roman, but that day had always stood out in her mind as the day things were different. Up until then, they’d spent their time in the carefree abandon of new love and youth. But that day, something had changed.
Maybe it was the realization that her mother wasn’t going to get any better. Or the even harsher realization that he’d be leaving sooner rather than later, but things had been different after that.
Quieter and more intense.
And the moments they’d spent together in the months before he left had been full of a strange awareness that had bonded them irrevocably together.
She could still smell the sweet scent of the grass that day behind the bleachers. Could still see the vivid green of Roman’s eyes as his fingers played over her body. Those long fingers, so strong and so clever, had educated her about herself.
About the sensual power that lived in her own skin.
For years, she’d fought using her memories of Roman as the fuel for her own pleasure. She was well able to take her release at her own hands, but she also knew the act would seem empty and hollow if accompanied by long-ago visions of him.
Maybe it was the tears or the heady frustration at having him back in Indigo, but for the first time in nearly fourteen years, she allowed him into her thoughts as her fingers navigated the flat length of her belly, lower into the soft folds at the apex of her thighs.
With no concern she’d be discovered—the relative emptiness of the hotel and the lock on the door left her mind at ease—she allowed her own fingers to explore as she lay back on the hard expanse of wooden bench underneath her.
Hot images flashed through her mind, her body responding with the exquisite memory of his large chest covering hers, the thick length of him as he filled and stretched her.
A low moan rose up in her throat as the slickness at her core heated even further, a telltale tightening beginning deep in her womb.
As the memories intertwined with the increasing demands of her body, she whispered his name as she fell.
“Roman.”
• • •
Roman passed through the quiet lobby of the Indigo, the muted light of the midnight sun still streaming through the front windows. With the sun’s position low in the sky, the lobby reflected a beautiful mix of golds and reds that usually brought him a quiet sense of calm.
Tonight, all he felt was irritated and alone.
He’d tried desperately to shake off his annoyance as the poker game wore on, but after losing three hands in a row, finally acknowledged his mind wasn’t on his cards and he was better off just throwing in his hand and turning in for the night.
He used the convenient excuse that a herd of teenage boys was waiting for him the following morning to run practice drills and no one paid him any mind.
Especially since he left his money behind.
He stalked down the hall toward the apartment he used in the back of the hotel and knew he wasn’t going to find any rest there, either. His eyes alighted on the hotel’s extensive spa area as he passed and a dim light reflecting from the end of the corridor in the spa wing caught his attention.
Someone had left the lights on in the sauna. With a resigned sigh, Roman headed down to turn everything off.
His mind still filled with the overwhelming dissatisfaction of the evening, he tumbled against the door and nearly smashed his bad eye against the doorframe, not expecting the resistance.
Who the hell locked the door with the lights still on?
With a curse, he fumbled for his keys and unlocked the door, a rush of heat hitting him in the face as he heard a sharp intake of breath and a soft, distinctive moan.
The hazy air coupled with the bright glint of a towel caught him up short, but it was the position in which he found Avery that had every ounce of blood draining from his body, rooting him to the spot.
She was a vision.
Her back arched on the wooden bench of the sauna as her hand worked the flesh between her thighs. A towel covered her fully but he didn’t need to see her naked body to know what beautiful secrets hid beneath her fingers.
And as she let out one final cry of pleasure, the heavy key ring in his hands fell to the floor with a hard, jingling thud.
Her eyes opened at the noise and she screamed, before scrambling up to a sitting position.
“What!”
She reached for the towel with one hand while another snaked out to the stack nearby and grabbed a second, folded one, which she slapped against her lap.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?”
He still didn’t say anything, the image of her in the throes of taking her pleasure forcing him mute.
“Roman?” She stood up and stalked toward him. “What the hell are you doing skulking around in here like some pervert?”
The word caught him up short and pulled him from the silence that gripped his throat. “I’m not a pervert. And what the hell are you doing in here? Doing . . . that.”
“I’m. I’m. Well, what are you doing in here? I asked you first.”
“The light was on and I came down to shut it off.”
“Oh.”
“And then you—” He broke off, the image of what he’d witnessed moments before hardening his body and removing any sense of decorum or control or thought from his mind.
The urge to take—to devour and plunder—was strong as they stared at each other across the heated room.
Before he could summon a thought, she moved, whip quick, and his arms filled with her.
Without giving her time to reconsider, he wrapped his arms around her, walking them backward toward the door. His tongue slipped through her lips and a growl of satisfaction filled his throat at her ready acquiescence. He hit the heavy wood of the door with his back and he paid it no attention as his mouth devoured hers.
“Roman,” she whispered against his lips, her hands against his chest, before she allowed her head to fall back.
“Roman.”
The whisper against his lips was all he needed.
With his hold on her still iron-tight, he turned so that her back was against the door and then he plundered.
Lifting one hand he flicked off the towel while the other moved on an unerring course toward the slick, hot skin she’d just pleasured. A hard moan met his ear and it only served to heighten his need as he drove one finger, then another, into the folds of her body.
Her arms tightened around him and her head rested against the door, turning back and forth as they both rode the madness. The tight channel around his fingers clenched as her breath hitched and he worked her flesh harder, satisfied when the telltale quivers began, timed with the hard moan that escaped her lips.
Manic with desire for her, he kept up the merciless assault with his fingers while he bent his head to take one hard nipple into his mouth. He used his tongue to draw her in with a ruthless, demanding suction, then shifted to provide the same attention to her other nipple.
The hard, sweet sound of her pleasure rose up in a heavy cry and Roman moved his mouth back to hers, taking it in as she screamed.
• • •
Avery felt the release through every single muscle she possessed, the rapid-fire exertion of two orgasms leaving her no strength to do anything but cling to Roman like a rag doll.
What the hell had just happened?
Even as she wondered at it—and the embarrassment at being discovered by him—she realized she didn’t want the pleasure all to herself. She also realized he’d not stopped kissing her. From her mouth to her neck, then following a path back up to her ear, he never moved away from her.
Never gave her the room to move away from him. And further, she realized that she didn’t want to move away.
With shaking hands, she drew on her reserves of strength and tested her ability to stand and hold her own weight. When her quivering thighs didn’t dissolve into a pool of oatmeal, she pressed her back against the wooden door of the sauna and turned the tables.
Her hand flashed to the button of his jeans and she had it undone and her hands inside his briefs before he could stop her. His hard cock filled her palm and she gloried in the sense memories that ran through her mind as she traced the remembered length of him.
His grip on her shoulders tightened as he dropped his forehead to hers.
“Ave.”
“So you can speak,” she whispered against his chin as she nipped his five o’clock shadow with her lips while increasing her speed and grip against his thick flesh.
“Not for long,” he whispered as his jaw hardened, his eyes half-closed at the exquisite pleasure her touch imparted.
“Come for me.”
He thrust his body into her hand, matching the rhythm she set with his hips. She drew him through his paces, stroke for stroke, determined to turn him as inside-out as her. On a heavy groan, she felt the jerk of his body as he took his release.
She kept up the pressure, the remembrance of how he’d taught her to pleasure him years ago as easy as breathing, and used her palm to ride him through his orgasm.
Only after he’d finished did she lift her lips to his, their breath mingling in the dry, heated air.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done that,” she whispered, a satisfied giggle rumbling in her chest.
His lips spread into a large grin as he pressed a quick kiss on her. “I think the last time I came on a hand job was when we were in the eleventh grade.”
“Sweet memories.”
They were, she realized. Incredibly sweet memories.
She thought back to the innocence they’d shared and the freedom they’d enjoyed learning about each other and about themselves. What felt good, what made the other feel good. All without the adult pressures that now came with sex.
It had been an unexpected joy and she knew she’d been gifted with an exceptional partner.
“Do you do that often?”
They still hadn’t moved. Her back was flush against the door and their bodies pressed against each other.
“Give hand jobs in the sauna?”
“Um, I meant, your own pleasure.”
While she suspected it was unintended, his question effectively ended the spell of intimacy between them and she shifted from his embrace, slipping away to put some distance between them. Avery bent to pick up her towel, wrapping it around her breasts and tucking the free end in once more. “A single gal’s gotta find a way.”
He fixed his jeans, rearranging himself and pulling up the zipper. He kept his eyes averted but she could have scripted his next words. “You ever find a way with someone else? I know you’ve dated.”
“Yeah.” She walked over and picked up the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn downstairs. “From time to time.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t sound so surprised, Roman. I’m sure as the hockey god of New York, you get your fair share of hand jobs, not to mention any other job you can think of.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You haven’t had sex since you left Indigo?”
“I didn’t say that.” She saw the mulish expression settle over his face. “I just don’t understand why everyone thinks professional athlete is synonymous with male whore.”
“Maybe because it usually is.”
“Well, then I’m not usual. I don’t sleep around indiscriminately.”
“That’s very refreshing.”
She dragged the T-shirt over her head and was reaching for the shorts when he stopped her, his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. I had no right.”
“Not by a long shot.”
Before he could respond, she was out the heavy wooden door that swung gently closed in her wake.
Chapter Ten
A wall of sound echoed off the back of Roman’s head as he drove Chooch’s Suburban the thirty-minute trek to Talkeetna. He had seven teenagers in his car, and Mick had volunteered to take the other seven in the large SUV they kept out at the airstrip.
