God, what was I thinking kissing him like that?
I know better. For myself and for him. I’ve spent half my life in the shadow of a star that burned too bright for even my own parents to notice me behind it. Half my life finding out that too many friends weren’t really my friends at all, just fans looking for an all-access pass to my brother. Half my life being forced to give up the things that mattered most to me for the sake of Greg’s skyrocketing hockey career.
When it comes to the rest of my life, I’m going to be more than a supporting character. That’s why I’ve never been interested in an NHL player… well, except for Vaughn. But even with him, it wasn’t like I wanted to date him. I never wanted to score a permanent position on the sidelines of his life. I just wanted—I wanted to know what it was like to talk to the guy who’d caught my interest back when he was still a boy, and then I wanted to know what it felt like to give in to the only attraction that has ever completely overwhelmed me.
But just once.
After that I was supposed to want to walk away. But walking away that night in Vancouver was brutal. And the only way I managed it at all was counting the ways I was never going to let anyone’s hockey career make me take a backseat in my life again. I’ve been doing it since the trade at the start of the season. And today I’ve been grasping to hold on to the most brutal sacrifices made on the altar of Greg’s career because the second I stop, I’m thinking about Vaughn.
About the way he plays with little kids and how his own generosity embarrasses him. I’m thinking about the rare smile I’m fairly certain I’ve seen more than everyone else in this city combined, and how it makes me melt every time I get a peek at it. I’m thinking about the way he looked at me before he kissed me today and even more… the way he looked at me after. I’m thinking about the feel of those powerful arms closing around me and how I can’t remember anything in my life feeling as right as being within them.
Enough. I’m smarter than this.
Eyes on the game.
Greg takes a hit the refs miss, and the crowd erupts around me, screaming at the officials as he skates toward the bench. But what I’m focused on is Vaughn blasting onto the ice like a force of nature, cutting around one player and then, lightning fast, changing direction to intercept a pass. The puck is his, and with three Bruins players right on him, he moves it between his skates and then theirs, passes to O’Brian who gets it to Diesel. Back to Vaughn. My heart stops and I’m out of my seat as Chicago’s least popular player charges into an opening a sliver wide and, with fifteen seconds left on the clock, turns an impossible play into a Slayers win.
The fans go wild, pounding the glass to cheer as Vaughn’s met with a clobbering hug from O’Brian and Diesel as they pass the bench in a growing cluster of celebration.
And all the while, he’s watching me.
See you after the game…
It’s in his eyes. It’s in that cocky half smile he so seldom lets off the leash. It’s burning low in my belly, making me ache. Tingling over my still-sensitive lips.
Everyone is talking about Vaughn as the stadium clears out. There’s something different in the way they say his name tonight. Same is true when we get to the Five Hole.
Vaughn’s not standing at the far end of the bar, warding off bunnies while he talks to one of the few guys on the team he manages to get along with. No, he’s surrounded by seven teammates, all laughing and clapping his shoulders and treating him like—heck, like he’s part of the team and not just the jerk who took a swing at their captain a week into the season.
It looks like he’s doing exactly what his agent told him he needed to. He’s getting his team behind him and reminding Oregon why they want him.
Vaughn’s eyes come up, unerringly finding mine with that shiver-and-burn intensity. My mouth goes dry and, for a beat, I can’t move. I can’t do anything but wish things were different.
I take a steadying breath and give him an apologetic smile I know he understands from the way his brows dig together, and then I leave before either of us does something stupid.
When I get home, I kick my Chucks into the corner by the closet and look around my empty apartment feeling at loose ends. I don’t trust myself with the replay of the game I just watched. I can’t handle seeing Vaughn Vassar looking at me like that again tonight. Not without risking things neither of us ought to risk.
Closing my eyes, I slowly lower myself to sit at the stepdown to the living area and try to focus on all the reasons leaving the bar was the right thing to do. Telling myself that kiss from this afternoon was a mistake, no matter how good it felt.
So good.
I could be back at the bar in—
Knock, knock, knock.
Sucking in a startled breath, I push to my feet. My heart speeds as that restless feeling in my belly turns into a kind of instinctual pull that draws me to the door.
I don’t have to check to know this isn’t my brother.
It’s not George looking to chat, or Helene showing up with snacks and office gossip.
Not tonight.
My fingers tingle as I reach for the knob, my heart races, and my mind empties of all the reasons this is a mistake. Of everything except the relief surging through my veins as I swing the door open. Vaughn is braced against the frame again. He’s lost the suit jacket, and his big arms are flexed and straining as he barely holds himself back.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he says, the words gravel rough and rubbing against me in ways that only make me want to hear more. “I don’t even have a fucking excuse to check on you.”
“But you came anyway,” I whisper, drinking him in.
“I came anyway.”
The muscle in his jaw jumps as his silver eyes swirl with an intensity that matches the energy coming off him in waves. I shouldn’t be reaching for him, but I don’t think I could stop if I tried. I want this. I want him. My fingers curl into the gap between the buttons of his dress shirt and I tug.
There’s a beat of resistance when he pulls back and our eyes connect—and then he’s launching forward on a growl so savagely possessive, I feel it through the deepest part of me. That big arm I couldn’t stop staring at sweeps around me as his mouth crashes against mine in a feral kiss. This isn’t tender or tentative. It’s desperate and hungry and has me half climbing his body before my shoulders hit the door he just swung shut with his foot.
Hands roaming over my thighs and ass, he alternates between gentle and desperate, stroking one second and gripping the next. Making me groan around the thrust of his tongue. Making me rock into that thick, steely ridge lodged between us.
“Allie, tell me this isn’t a mistake.”
I need more of his mouth, more of his kiss. More of his huge chest pressing hot and hard against my own so I can’t feel anything but him. “It’s not a mistake.”
It’s critical. Necessary.
It’s my first full breath in weeks, months. “We just—we just need to get it out of our system. That’s all.”
His nostrils flare, and his eyes burn over me as his hand tightens in my hair. “I don’t think—” But instead of finishing whatever he was going to say, he blows out a harsh breath and gives me a single nod.
And then I have it, the crush of his kiss. So potent, I feel it hot and pulsing, straight through my center. Opening further, I moan around the taste of him filling my mouth and stroking firm against my tongue.
One hand slides up my waist, my ribs, and then to the underside of my breast. He kneads it with a rough touch that sends spasms between my legs.
“More,” I gasp, trembling as I squirm, trying to get to the buttons of his shirt, then trying to pull it free of his suit pants as we rock together, frantic for more of the sweet friction that’s making me insane.
Oh God, the contact.
His huge hands grip my thighs and ass. The room spins around me and suddenly he’s walking us back through my too-small apartment to my bedroom, kissing me all the while, driving me
crazy.
“Christ, baby, if we only get one night, I want to spend it inside of you.”
“Yes.” I need him. Now. “Clothes.”
I’ve been working on his shirt since he crossed the threshold to my place and I’ve barely gotten three buttons undone. But in less than a breath, Vaughn takes a handful of my shirt and, pulling it overhead, tosses it aside. He looks down at my sparse chest and the plain gray cotton bra even more bland than the one I was wearing in Vancouver and groans like it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever seen in his life.
And then he’s got it unclasped and following the way of my shirt. The cool air kisses my straining nipples before Vaughn covers one and then the other with the wet heat of his mouth. He could tease me like this forever, but we’ve reached my bed.
I bounce back on the mattress, and a second later, he’s whipping my jeans and panties off my legs. He jerks his shirt off in one pull and loses the belt, pants, and boxer briefs just as fast.
My belly does one of those needy little flips, and my mouth goes dry.
Because, just wow. His body. It’s a masterpiece.
Broad and powerful. More beautiful than I’d allowed myself to remember.
Packed with heavily layered muscles that flex and shift, ball and stretch as he follows me onto the bed. His skin is a shade warmer than mine and inked up one arm and across his chest. A dusting of dark hair swirls around his nipples, bisecting the hard slabs of his abdominal muscles and trailing lower to where his cock juts thick and long.
I’ve dreamed about this body.
Moving between my legs, he pulls my knee up his side.
It’s been almost a year since we did this last. Since he spent hours teasing me, making me come before finally, finally sinking inside me in one deep, smooth thrust. I can’t wait that long again. I can’t wait another second.
Cupping his rugged jaw, I tip my hips in invitation. “Inside me.”
Staring into my eyes, he nods. Frowns and mutters a curse with a shake of his head as he rocks back on his knees. “Condom, baby.”
Right. Condom. I’m on the pill, but that’s not the sort of thing I should forget. Ever. But cripes, protection hadn’t even crossed my mind. It ought to be enough to snap me out of this haze, to catapult me back to reality, but I’m too far gone. “Hurry.”
Producing a square foil package I didn’t notice before, he rolls it down his thick cock and then leans back over me. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I whimper in protest. He can hurt me. He can do anything, so long as it eases this emptiness.
But then he’s reaching between us to run his fingers through me. One slick stroke and his eyes close in what looks like something between pleasure and pain.
“Your pussy’s so wet for me.”
He works a blunt finger inside me, pumping slowly in and out as I gasp and writhe. I’m dying for him.
“So tight.” Adding another finger to the first, he stretches and twists. “I’m about to lose it just from touching you.”
I’m panting, clenching around him, halfway there already. My hands are on his chest, my thumbs playing with his nipples and the deep grooves between his muscles. Lower. I graze his shaft.
The noise he makes is guttural, unintelligible, and emanates from somewhere deep in his chest. Our fingers brush as he takes his cock in hand and guides the thick head through my folds until he’s notched at my opening.
Our eyes lock.
This is it.
What I’ve been telling myself I didn’t need, shouldn’t miss, and can somehow live without.
What I’ve been lying about for months. “Vaughn, please.”
His hips rock forward, and he’s pushing inside me, stretching me wide, wider. Sinking deeper. My breath is lost, my fingers gripping the unyielding slope of his shoulders.
“Allie,” he rumbles through gritted teeth. “I’ve thought about this. So many times. About the feel of you around me.” There’s so much of him, I feel full already, but he keeps pushing, retreating and then giving me more. “The taste of you coming on my tongue.”
“Vaughn!”
“Fuck… you saying my name just like that. I’ve dreamed about it.”
And then he’s as deep as he can go, holding against that straining boundary as my body grips and clings, grasping at him with needy clutches.
Stormy eyes search mine and he runs a gentle touch across my jaw. “You okay?”
“Yes.” So much more than that.
He starts to move, dragging his heavy shaft out in a slow stroke before sliding back in to nudge that spot so deep inside me, it steals my breath, and then retreating to do it again and again and again.
I’m chanting his name, rushing toward the place only he’s taken me before. My knees hitch higher and his hand slides over my leg in a caress as he holds himself above me with one arm.
“Fuck, Allie, you feel so good. Too good.” He rocks into me again, hitting that spot a little harder, making me spasm around him. “I want to make it last.” Harder still. “But I can’t wait.” Oh God, that spot! “I’ve got to make you come.”
“Yes… close… please,” I gasp, hands everywhere, tumbling toward release.
“Come for me, baby,” he growls, gripping my ass in one huge hand and tipping my hips into his.
And I’m there.
Falling over the edge.
Coming around Vaughn’s hard thrusts.
Crying out his name as pleasure and relief fist within me, gripping and releasing in wave after wave, until I fall limp and Vaughn goes tense above me. Another thrust and he holds himself deep inside, pulsing hot as he follows me over.
Sliding my knees up his sides, I lock my ankles around his hips and hold him to me, just for a minute. I’m not ready for this to end and I don’t want to have to face what’s coming next. But all too soon I am.
“Give me a second to take care of this.” He’s halfway to the bathroom when he stops and looks back at me with a hitch at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“My place.” I laugh. “Where am I going to go?”
“Don’t make me find out.”
A minute passes and he’s back. Wearing only the marks of my hands on his skin, he sits beside me on the edge of the bed and traces his thumb along the line of my ribs, down and around my navel.
“Regrets?”
It’s easier to follow the light touch coasting across my skin than meet his eyes. “No,” I answer quietly. Honestly.
What just happened wasn’t a mistake. It was perfect. All the things I wish I could find with someone who wouldn’t make me break every promise I’ve ever made to myself. “But…”
He nods. “But you still don’t date hockey players and I’ve still got a career on the line. I get it. I do.” He stands, and my heart starts to ache. But instead of reaching for his clothes and leaving, he reaches for the edge of the sheets and gestures for me to get in.
And then he climbs in behind me. “But I’m going to hold you tonight.”
And that’s what he does.
Chapter 11
Vaughn
It’s barely after four. I ought to be dead to this world, but I’m wide awake, lying in Allie’s too-small bed, breathing in the scent of her hair as it spills across my chest. Just one more minute and I’ll untangle our legs and slip out from beneath her. Drop a kiss on her cheek and get out of her place before anyone catches me doing it.
One more minute. Because this—Allie tucked into my side, her soft breath washing over my skin, her arm draped across my stomach—this is what I thought I’d be waking up to after that night in Vancouver. This is the glimpse of the future I thought I might actually be able to keep. But now, it’s just the final moment of a night that was supposed to be about getting the wrong girl out of my system.
Natalie, not Allie.
Natalie Baxter.
Shit, even reminding myself who she is isn’t enough to make this suck any less. She might be the absolute worst wo
man I could pick, but it physically hurts to let her go. So yeah, her plan to work this thing between us out of our system? Total fail.
Not that I really expected anything else. But damn, this sucks.
She murmurs my name, reaching across the sheets for me.
Leaning over, I kiss her, soft and slow. Watch as she blinks up at me with sleepy eyes and sifts her fingers into my hair.
“Time to go?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, baby. Don’t want anyone to see me leaving.”
She nods but doesn’t let me go. I turn my face into her touch, pressing one last, lingering kiss along the smooth skin of her wrist.
And then I back off the bed and force my legs to move until I’m out of her room, out of her place. Gone.
It’s for the best.
She might not be out of my system, but we had our night and now I’m going to let her go.
I have to.
Morning skate comes and goes. I give it my all, pay attention when we watch tape, and eat lunch with the team. I work out. But something’s off. Hell, when Baxter bumps into me outside the locker room I don’t even think before mumbling a “my bad” and heading out to my car.
He. Bumped. Into. Me.
Baxter.
I’m not saying I should have thrown down, or that any other day I’d even want to. But I’d at least get good and pissed about it. Today, I can’t muster the fucks to give.
I can’t stop thinking about the look in Allie’s big blue eyes before I left this morning, or how she melted into me when she fell asleep the night before. How instead of wanting to chew my arm off to get away, all I wanted was to figure out how I could stay.
Christ, she could absolutely derail my plans without ever meaning to. All it would take is word getting out that I’ve set my sights on Baxter’s little sister and I’d be fucked. The team wouldn’t stand for that shit, the fans would villainize me even more than they already have, and Coach would be done. I’d be out.
I’d be throwing away my career, and nothing is worth that. Especially not a girl who doesn’t date hockey players. No matter how much I like her.
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