by Casey Hagen
We stared at each other for a beat before bursting out in laughter.
“Ouch,” Tilly said with a wince. “Laughing hurts. Damn,” she hissed. “So what about you?”
“Dumb bitch tried to pass off skunk piss as quality beer. Had to whoop her ass. She won’t do that again.”
“You gonna get that sex hair checked out while you’re here? Looks like a medical condition.”
“I’ll have them check that first, because the hand? Pshawww. Totally doesn’t hurt.”
A piece I didn’t know I’d been missing slid into place. I dropped my head on Tilly’s shoulder to have her tilt hers against mine just seconds later. The physical injuries of our internal wounds on the surface now.
Where they could finally heal once and for all.
24
“We didn’t need one more thing stacked against us,” I said as we finally walked into my apartment four hours later, Priest right behind me carrying bags of food from Banked Track.
I didn’t go in. My hand had finally quieted to the dull ache, tingling instead of the heartbeat dancing under the skin there just a couple hours earlier, and I just wanted to sneak away to somewhere warm, quiet, and question free.
Word would get around soon enough that one of those girls from the derby team finally snapped. By the time the story made the rounds, they’d no doubt have Tilly in the ICU on life support, or at the very least permanently disfigured with stories of a gruesome eye popping out of the socket injury.
Total fiction, but hey, this town had a knack for fiction. It’d be nice if they’d start using that particular talent for good instead of evil.
Question was, how the hell did I think I was going to fare when I was a transplant here at best and Priest still had to face backlash for a situation no one actually knew the real details of and he was one of their own?
“At least it’s only a sprain,” he said with no indication in his voice as to whether I had totally fucked our shot out there.
We played with injuries all the time. It came with the territory. Going hard had consequences. We all accepted them.
But this was a new level for me, for all of us really. I’d never intentionally hurt another player.
And because of my outburst, I had a sprained hand and Tilly had six stitches. We got an unceremonious send off with a smart-ass warning about looking into anger management from Sheriff Chase who was lovely enough to stop in when the hospital reported a possible assault to make sure neither of us wanted to press charges.
Totally unnecessary.
Okay, Priest said it was necessary, but still, I couldn’t trust that guy’s opinion, being so by the book and hell-bent on self-punishment and all.
I’d always been the person who cooled off tempers—I mean, look at Milton and Gerald—but then I came all strutting in, full of unresolved feelings with a taste for whoop ass and flirted with the letter of the law.
A few letters of them.
I couldn’t remember which ones specifically…not really my area of expertise.
I sent a message to my teammates to let them know we were okay and called a truce. They invited us out for dinner, but between the practice, the sex—can he get a hallelujah, please—and four hours in the ER, all I wanted was food and a shower.
Actually, I’d love the shower first, but the scent of those steak tips whispered pretty nothings in my ear and sighed my name.
And Priest was here.
Since I didn’t know where we were in that department, I really wasn’t sure what to do next. I mean, most guys, you know, right? Hot stranger and someone you barely knew—hey, no judgment—hot, drive-by quickie sex in public, that didn’t even equate to a dinner commitment or a ride home necessarily. A movie and laid-back bite to eat, that could go either way. A fancy date that you made a waxing appointment for, yeah, probably a good roll after that once everyone had their fill of drinks. Maybe they’d stay over, maybe not. But no one would be offended in the end either way.
Hard, angry fuck, following two bursts of violence punishable by law against a barn wall almost fully clothed, both in skates?
I’m not even sure subreddits had the answers for that one.
So, shower after food it was. I figured by the time I struggled through peeling off my clothes one-handed and rinsed a full bottle of shampoo through my hair on account of my one bum hand and no other way to get the job done, I’d be ready for ibuprofen and falling into bed for sweet oblivion.
Had to fill up my reserves for the ass I needed to kick tomorrow.
The Shipwreck was going to suck balls in the morning. Hairy ones. Sweaty, hairy balls. With ball cheese.
“Level with me, how bad is this going to hurt when we go to the exhibition?”
He made himself at home and headed right for my kitchen where he started sliding takeout boxes out of the bags. “Pretty bad by the end. Jackson will keep it wrapped for you though, and he’ll make sure you have everything you need to take care of it throughout.”
“Jackson?”
He flattened his palms on the table but didn’t look at me. “He’s going with you guys…as your coach.”
“Oh.”
His eyes flashed to mine then. “I have to stay with Lilith until Jordan makes it back. I can’t leave town, even for a couple nights.”
Well, fuck him… When the hell did I ask him anyway?
New at wielding this temper, I took a breath and bit back the words. Adrenaline was a tricky fucker. Once activated, it hid behind corners just waiting to pop up and see if you needed backup. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know, but—”
“It’s fine, Priest. Really. I get it. Now give me food, dammit, before I gnaw off an arm or something.”
He handed me a box, found the exact right drawer, and handed me a fork. “I’d rather you gnaw the leg.”
“I’m sure you would.” I rolled my eyes but laughed at his rather predictable attempt at dude humor. I mean, he wasn’t at his best right now either so who was I to judge.
And he wasn’t exactly wrong; that leg sounded a hell of a lot better than any arm.
Serious bout temper averted, I stabbed a hunk of medium rare beef and popped the entire thing in my mouth.
We settled in on the floor, our backs against the couch, our legs stretched out over the carpet.
I leaned over and peeked in his container. “What’d you get?”
“Brussels sprout panini,” he said as he eyed it like it might just take a bite out of him instead of the other way around.
“Why are you glaring at it?”
He held the first half in his hand and eyed the innards. “I don’t like Brussels sprouts.”
“Then why did you order it?”
“Because the stealth little bastards are addictive with prosciutto and melted cheese. It’s witchcraft.”
“It’s Patti’s invention.”
“Like I said, witchcraft. I should have known what she was capable of after she won this place in a card game,” he said, taking a healthy bite.
I turned, propped my shoulders against the couch, and offered him a chunk of steak. “What?”
“She never told you?” he asked, taking my hand to guide the bite to his mouth.
“Hell no, she never told me.” He was totally not doing it to be sexy, but my nipples perked up anyway.
Food made me horny. What can I say?
“She won it playing strip poker.”
He offered me a bite of his sandwich; his hot, dark eyes locked on me as a piece of the prosciutto brushed against my chin before I captured it with my upper lip.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, his thumb brushing over the spot, and I forgot to breathe. I gulped the bite down as my eyes slid shut and I swayed toward him.
“This mouth,” he murmured, his lips brushing over mine. “So sweet sometimes, but others… I never know what’s coming next.”
Me. I was coming next. Again.
Whatever.
I so wanted to
go where he was going, but something kept poking at me. Not him. Unfortunately, but about Patti. “But I thought the ultimate prize in strip poker is the getting to the naked part?”
“It is,” he said before sinking his teeth into my bottom lip. “Mmmm, so much better than food.”
I laughed against his mouth. “Says the guy feeling all sorts of lukewarm about the Brussels sprouts.”
His hot eyes met mine for a brief second before a sexy grin tipped the corners of his mouth and in one smooth, slow move, he found my neck, his thumb nudging my jaw up higher, giving him better access as he licked and sucked the skin there.
“So, uh—” Damn what he did with his mouth. I squeezed my thighs together and cleared my throat. “How, umm—” I blew out a breath as tingling heat shot up my spine. “How did she end up with this if naked is the end game?”
“I didn’t ask,” he mumbled against my skin, nipping his way to my ear. “And don’t plan to. If I ever want to have wood again, I need to keep all thoughts of Patti and naked or anything beyond way the hell out of my head.”
I laid my palm against his cheek, the one I slapped, and he stilled. “I don’t think wood is a problem of yours.”
“Doesn’t seem so, no,” he said, facing me now, his hooded gaze dark and unreadable.
My heart squeezed, humiliation bubbling inside me, remembering the look of sheer disappointment on his face after what I did to Tilly only to be replaced by the absolute shock after I smacked him.
“I’m sorry I hit you. I—I’ve never done that before.”
“It’s forgotten.”
“Forgiven, not forgotten. Please,” I said, brushing my lips softly over his skin there. “Because I never want to do it again.”
We stared at one another for several beats, my fingers tracing over his cheekbone, neither one of us saying what we both knew—he wouldn’t stick around long enough for that to be a problem.
He took my hand and pressed his lips to the center of my palm—a kiss that went straight to all my vulnerable places.
“I hurt you. It was such an easy miscalculation on my part and it changed you.”
His choice of words…a clue to what he was thinking, feeling—to the future and what he’d do. Why he always chose to go. “You did, but that’s no excuse for what I did. You’re human. You fucked up. I’ve now fucked up. I will again in a different way. It’s what we do. And it’s why we don’t forget.”
“Forgiven then,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You look tired. Why don’t we get you cleaned up?” He moved our boxes and stood, reached out a hand to pull me to my feet, and started nudging me down the hall in front of him.
“Well, it’s the least you can do since you might have knocked me up.”
He skidded to a stop and froze behind me for a beat—or ten. His hands tightened on my biceps, his forehead bumping against the back of my head.
“Fuck,” he bit out, his hot breath landing on my neck, flirting with the wisps of hair there. Because of course I’d be getting aroused while he was in the middle of a heart attack.
“Yes, we did,” I hummed the words, a smile twitching at the corners of my mouth, but not quite ready to stop fucking with him.
“Condoms.”
“Those are important.”
“I’m sorry, I—how many cows over the years were impregnated in that barn and now—”
I spun on him then because my newfound control was not going to hold up this curve in the road. “Okay, I’m going to need you to stop right there. Relax, big boy. I never met my father. I don’t even know his name. Do you really think I don’t handle my business where unwanted pregnancy is concerned?”
“No. But you were with Eve before this so I—”
“I have an IUD. You’re good. Now, do I have anything to worry about? Been dickie dunking in polluted holes?”
“No, there hasn’t been anyone, in—quite a while actually.”
“Let’s leave it at that then, because the thought of anyone else touching you gives me feelings. I don’t like it.”
He stood there grinning like an idiot.
“And stop smiling like that. Now, about this getting me cleaned up thing… Do you have a list of the services you provide in that regard?”
“For you, anything,” he said, walking me backwards into my room.
“My hair. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to wash my hair.”
“You aren’t. I am.”
I freed my ponytail as he got the shower going. He waited for the water to steam and added cold, having me check to make sure it wasn’t too hot.
Surprisingly, I slid my tank over my busted stump and worked it over my head, all on my own. But there was no way I’d be able to get the sports bra off. Not for lack of trying. Because I was totally bringing sexy back with the yank and tug until I had one boob out and the band twisted up my back like some backwoods, homemade bondage nightmare.
Kneeling down on one knee, he slid my shorts and underwear off in one swift glide, waiting for me to step out of them before tossing them in the hamper.
Did I mention I was still one tit out here?
Not that he noticed, because he’d taken keen interest in my hip all of a sudden, the look on his face making my mouth go dry.
He ran his fingers over the yellowing bruise from the last bout of the season.
The first time we saw one another.
“It never bothered me before,” he said quietly.
“What?” I asked, sliding my fingers into his thick, dark hair.
Maybe this was why we waited for so long to get to this point. Why we skirted the attraction. Once we got here, it all came so naturally to us. The closeness and intimacy.
Two broken halves of an imperfect whole.
“The bruises. I know you’ve got to be covered with them. It’s never bothered me before. My own players, I didn’t want to hear about it. Didn’t care. But seeing them on you…it’s different.”
He said so little yet revealed everything with his admission and I wondered if maybe, just maybe he’d come around to the idea that he could stay.
He could have his family.
He could have me.
Pressing a firm kiss against my skin, he pushed onto his feet, hooked his fingertips under my bra and took it with him, careful of my hand along the way.
Heart racing, the ground turned to quicksand underneath me and I reached for something, anything to get me on solid footing again.
Because I’d completely fallen for him. Not a single piece left of me to lose, I was silently giving him everything I had, even knowing the odds were stacked against us.
I needed funny.
Or I’d cry.
Shit.
“The first time you’re seeing me naked is to groom me. I don’t know how to feel about that.” Oooh, yes. That was good. Totally believable that I hadn’t just realized how utterly fucked I was—or would be when he left.
He didn’t look down. He could have. Most guys would, but he kept his eyes on mine before dropping a kiss on my lips. Curling both hands around the hem of his shirt, he tugged it over his head. “I have a solution for that.”
Him naked. Another nail in my coffin.
One brief moment became my undoing—the one where e still held his arms over his head, the black cotton having yet to drag over his face—where his muscles flexed, his abs stretching and contracting with his movements. The skin over his ribs shifting. Hard ridges and lickable valleys with a dusting of hair spread across his chest to funnel down his sternum, stomach, before finally disappearing behind the waistband of his shorts.
No ink.
Just pure, healthy, athletic man.
Watching him undress should come with a surgeon general warning.
The shorts dropped next and I’m pretty sure I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him, heavy and hard.
I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.
He was in me.
That was in
me.
On roller skates.
I kind of felt bad for my teammates to be honest…they were totally missing out.
“You get a good look?”
“Yes, and how uncool of you to mention it. Thank you.”
He laughed, took my hand, and helped me balance as I climbed under the hot spray. I tipped my head back, let the water soak into my hair before leaning back farther to let it wash over my face.
When I swayed, disoriented between holding my hand up over my head to keep it out of the spray, tilting my head back, and just plain being wiped out, he was there. His large hands sliding over the wet skin at the curve of my waist, long fingers flexing and curling against me, holding me steady.
I opened my eyes, water dripping from my lashes and running down my cheeks to find him studying me, his expression unreadable, yet unwavering.
Haunted.
Outrunning his past.
Standing right before me, but like he could vanish at any minute.
Spinning me away from him, he smoothed his hand up my one arm while resting my forearm of my injured hand against the wall, keeping it elevated, but giving me support at the same time.
His hands worked through my hair first, the scent of cocoa butter filling the steamy air. The pads of his fingers digging into my scalp sent shivers of pure bliss down my spine.
My senses reeled, everything heightened. The brush of his thighs against mine, his forearms sweeping over my shoulders as he reached for the shelf, his sudsy fingertips grazing over my collarbone…something that already stood out as one of his favorite ways to touch me.
And quickly becoming my favorite way to be touched.
He didn’t grab a washcloth; he completely ignored the loofa hanging from the hook, and instead ran the soap over me, skimming the slippery bar over curves and dipping and swirling it in the valleys.
My head fell back against his shoulder the minute his lips made contact with the back of my neck. His ragged breath filled my ear as his mouth opened and closed over my skin following along the ridge of my shoulder.
Large hands wrapped around me, grazed over my breasts, circled my nipples, his fingertips making impressions in my fevered skin along the way.
