The Final Move

by Victoria Denault

  He lets out the most fucking delicious little grunt, so deep and needy that I feel it between my legs. His head falls forward now, eyes still closed, and his neat blond hair becomes a tousled mess covering his forehead. Holy hell, he’s still just naturally the hottest boy I’ve ever met. I keep massaging his shoulders for several minutes in silence, and as his shoulders finally begin to sag, I ask, “How do you feel?”

  He pulls his head up and opens his eyes. They’re a light hazel color tonight and the flecks of amber seem more noticeable than normal. He reaches up and cups my face for a brief second, leaving a trace of heat behind on my cheek.

  “I’m done feeling,” he tells me and starts out of the room. “’Night, Callie.”

  Chapter 9

  Devin

  As we start filing off the plane, I turn to Loops.

  “Want to grab a beer?” I ask hopefully. “I need to unwind.”

  He looks hesitant but he nods. “Sure. Let me just call Tara and let her know.”

  I nod. The mention of his wife makes my heart ache. That used to be me—with a wife and a son waiting for me at home. I walk through the airport with him as he calls his wife. They talk for a few seconds about what’s been going on while he’s been away and then he asks if he can head out for beers.

  I wait for the inevitable fallout I always got from Ashleigh if I didn’t rush right home to be with her after a road trip. But Loops just laughs into the phone. “Okay, if you want me to, I’ll do it. Give Henry a kiss for me and tell him I’ll see him soon.”

  “All good?” I ask, trying not to look surprised or envious.

  “Yeah. But she says I better come home tipsy so she can take advantage of me,” he says with a chuckle.

  Wow, I think. Tara is amazing.

  We decide to head to a pub called McSorley’s. Alex Larue and Tommy Donahue join us and as soon as we sit down, they all order beers. I order a Crown and Coke, finish it, and order another before they can finish their first pints.

  My phone rings three times during the hour and a half we sit around chatting and drinking. One of the times is Callie. The other two are Ashleigh. I send all of them to voicemail.

  “Anyone up for heading to the club down the street?” Tommy asks hopefully. “I’m supposed to meet some guys there. It’s got talent on a Friday night!”

  “Talent?” Loops asks, raising a bushy brown eyebrow in confusion.

  “Yeah. Hot women,” Tommy clarifies. “Talent means hot chicks.”

  “Ahh. Talent.” Loops laughs, standing up and dropping some cash on the table. “I’m out. My wife wants to take advantage of me.”

  Alex whistles at that and Tommy chuckles. I give my best friend on the team a tight smile and swallow down the jealousy. It’s not his fault I picked a cheater and he didn’t. As we say good-bye to Loops outside the bar, he grabs my shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asks finally. I know he’s wanted to ask that since the start of the road trip. We haven’t talked at all about Luc showing up at his house in the middle of the night or why I looked like, and played like, death warmed over the entire trip. Instead of telling him anything, I just shrug and walk away.

  Tommy wasn’t kidding. The club—a fair-sized dance club with a huge dance floor and a mechanical bull in the corner—is hopping with gorgeous women who are just as hot as the wannabe puck bunnies from the last time I was out with Tommy, only they’re way classier looking.

  My eyes fall on a dirty blonde by the edge of the dance floor. She’s wearing a short silver-gray dress. Her legs are long, toned and tanned. Her hair is natural blond, not bottled. She’s talking with a shorter brunette that Tommy pointed out earlier.

  I order another Crown and Coke and wonder, if I were single, would I have the balls to take her home tonight?

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. I grab it and see HOME on the call display. I sigh, leave my drink on the bar next to Alex and head into the hallway that leads to the bathroom.

  “What?” I snap into the phone.

  “Devin? Where are you?” she asks and I know she had to raise her voice so she could be heard over the background noise she can hear through the phone.

  “Out. Is Conner okay?”

  “He’s asleep. We need to talk.”

  I hang up and turn off my phone. I still have nothing to say to this woman and there’s nothing she can say that will make me want to go back to the hell that was me trying to save our marriage. I head back toward the bar to pay my tab and say good-bye to Alex and Tommy. When I find them, they’re talking with the girl I was admiring before and her friends.

  I walk over and touch Tommy’s shoulder. “I think I’m going to go.”

  “Really? Are you okay?”

  “You should stay for a drink,” the dirty blonde says out of nowhere and I look over at her. “You look like you might need one.”

  I hesitate. She smiles and gets even prettier. “My treat,” she adds.

  “My treat,” I insist and head to the bar. She follows me. Tommy and Alex stay with her friends.

  “A Crown and Coke and a…” I turn to her so she can tell me the poison of her choice.

  She’s standing behind me, and when she leans in toward the bartender, her body presses up against mine.

  “A gin and tonic, please—and two broken-down golf carts.” She smiles and winks at me. “We’ll call them broken-down Zambonis for you.”

  I laugh at that. She knows who I am. “Guess the guys told you what we do for a living.”

  She shakes her head. Her hair tumbles over her shoulders. “Your face is on billboards and I’ve gone to a game or two. My dad is a big sports nut. So why did you become a hockey player instead of a male model?”

  Oh, this one’s brought her A game. Before I can figure out how to respond, the bartender has put our drinks, and the shots she ordered, in front of us. She reaches in and takes the shot glasses and hands me one. We clink glasses and down them together. As we reach for our drinks, her big gray eyes that almost match her dress fall to my hand. My left hand.

  “You’re wearing a wedding ring?” she questions.

  “I’m wearing a ring,” I correct her and sip my drink. She sips her own drink wordlessly, her eyes sweeping over my body without even trying to hide it. “Does it matter?”

  “Not to me,” she responds easily and leans toward me. She smells of cinnamon and something musky. “But maybe to the person that gave it to you.”

  “She doesn’t give a fuck,” I tell her.

  Her lips are precariously close to my ear. My dick starts to get hard. It’s been that fucking long. Her lips brush my ear and the side of my cheek as she pulls back a little bit. “Then I only have one more question. Your place or mine?”

  Chapter 10

  Callie

  The noise pulls me from my much-needed sleep. If there is anything that makes me a bear—a vicious, seething bitch of a bear—it’s having my sleep disturbed. When we were teenagers and Grandma Lily first started leaving us all alone in Silver Bay over the winters, Rose and Jessie were terrified at night. The old farmhouse creaked and groaned and the land outside was so dark and eerie because we were so far out of town, but I was never scared. God help any burglar, rapist or serial killer that broke in and woke me up. On more than one occasion I had thrown things—pillows, alarm clocks, water glasses—at my sisters for waking me up.

  So when the sound—it’s like a dog stuck in a fox trap—becomes relentless and makes it impossible to fall back asleep, I start to get irate. What the hell is it? I throw the covers off and walk over to the window and glance outside. I don’t see an animal out there. I cock my head and listen more closely, trying to determine not just what the sound is but where it’s coming from.

  It still doesn’t sound human, but I’ve at least figured out it’s coming from inside this house. My brain is still groggy from sleep and I have a panicked moment where I worry it’s Conner. As I run down the hall and into his empty room, I remember he’s at Ashleigh’s t
onight. As I step back into the hall, I realize the sound is coming from Devin’s room.

  I freeze. What the fuck do I do? It doesn’t sound like a noise he would make. I still can’t even tell if it’s human. There’s a slight bit of light spilling out from the door, which is cracked open maybe half an inch. I pad quietly toward it. I pause outside it and raise my hand to knock, but hesitate as the noise stops and I hear a voice.

  “Harder. Yeah. Like that. Fuck, you’re so big!”

  My blood runs cold from shock and at the exact same time my face flushes from embarrassment. Then the noise starts again. I shuffle back to my room noiselessly, making sure to shut my bedroom door tightly. I lean against it and my nose crinkles up as I think about this discovery.

  Devin is fucking someone. Someone who is not his wife. I think maybe on some level I should feel horror or disappointment toward him because he’s violating his marriage vows, but at the same time—is there anything left to violate? Ashleigh pretty much destroyed everything already, didn’t she? I can’t begrudge him a revenge fuck because I would do it too—if I were stupid enough to get myself in a situation where someone could rip my heart out.

  I go over to one of my suitcases and dig around in the dark until I can find my iPod and earbuds. I crawl back under the covers, shove the buds in my ears and hit play.

  As I close my eyes and try to fall back to sleep, my thoughts roam.

  I haven’t been laid in a while. Almost four full weeks, which isn’t actually that long. I’ve gone longer before. Hell, I was celibate for almost eleven months once, so why am I suddenly so sexually frustrated?

  Maybe it’s from being around so many guys. The TV show crew is ninety percent male and the people I work with directly are all male. And there is this total babe named Matthew who is the assistant to one of the actors and he and I flirted a lot. And then living with Devin…well, Devin is a stunning male specimen.

  My mind drifts sleepily back to the evening I walked in on him sleeping naked. I had been joking about taking cell phone pictures but even if I’d taken them, I wouldn’t have to look at them. I had his naked image burned into my brain. He was gorgeous—all of him. His flaccid dick was bigger than most men’s hard ones.

  Now my brain floats back to that little adventure in the barn when I was eighteen. I was so young and way more innocent than I liked to let on. I had only had sex once and it was fast and clumsy. The guy had rolled on top of me and given me a few awkward thrusts and rolled off. It was literally over in two minutes. That’s why I hadn’t been in any rush to try it again. But when the teasing and flirting with Devin in the barn somehow turned serious…I suddenly needed to try it again.

  I’d always had a crush on Devin—ever since Jessie had dragged us to the Garrison house one winter afternoon to “skate with my friend Jordy and his brothers.” I had just turned ten. Devin was thirteen. I’d heard of him—everyone had heard of him. He was this hockey star who was going to be drafted to the NHL. People were actually saying that about him even then. That was a big deal in Silver Bay. I didn’t care about the hockey skills. I had liked his boyish yet cocky smile, his pretty caramel eyes and those unbelievable lips. Devin’s lips were wide and plump and I have been obsessed with them since that day.

  But because of how close we became with his family, I never ever gave any serious consideration to fooling around with him, or any of the Garrison brothers. Once, at a birthday party at Billy’s house, we’d played Truth or Dare and I dared Cole to kiss me. He’d done it without even blinking. Cole had been a good kisser but I had pretended it was Devin the entire time. Still, I knew that silly dare of a kiss was as close as I could ever come to crossing lines with those brothers. Because if I did anything else, it could cause a rift that took Wyatt and Donna out of our lives, and I loved them and needed them more than anything. They were the parents I never had.

  My lovesick sisters hadn’t realized what would happen—or hadn’t cared as much about the risks. Jessie let Jordan take her virginity and everything had blown right up. Since everything was already obliterated when Devin had that party for his new contract, I wasn’t taking any risks when I gave in to my fantasy. Still, I was a little bit stunned he played along. I’d never gotten any indication at all that Devin thought I was remotely attractive.

  The words moaned by the random chick down the hall run through my head again. Fuck, you’re so big! She wasn’t just being polite. When I first felt Devin’s dick through his shorts in that barn, it had actually caused a ripple of fear. I almost didn’t go through with it because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it fit. But it had fit—and it had felt incredible. And the friction when he started to move…that was what a sexual experience was supposed to feel like.

  Damn Jordan—or as I like to call him, Big Bird—for interrupting us. I think I hated Jordan almost as much for that as for breaking Jessie’s heart. Almost-sex with Devin had spurred me on to try it again with someone else—a guy from my community college named Mike who had adorable freckles on his nose and a great body. Mike had definitely been better than the first guy, but not quite as exciting as Devin. In the years and years since, I’d had some really fantastic sex and mind-blowing orgasms, but I always wondered if an orgasm with Devin might be better. It didn’t bother me, though, that I would never know. You can’t miss what you never had, right?

  Curiosity gets the better of me and I pull my earbuds out of my ears. I hear nothing at first but as I strain I can faintly hear some grunting. It’s a male grunt. Devin’s grunt, but not the sound he had made with me. And then I hear her again—the moaning has changed to high-pitched squeaking. The rhythm of the noise indicates it’s probably in time with some very hard thrusts.

  I shove my earbuds back in my ears. A yawn overtakes me. I’m tired.

  I picture Devin behind her pumping in and out of her…rubbing her clit with one of his long, strong fingers. I try to conjure up an image of her as I yawn again and curl onto my side. Is she blond? Brunette? Redhead? Is her hair long? Is she short or tall? Pale or tanned? As I start to slip back into sleep, my brain starts playing tricks on me. The redhead I’m picturing morphs into a blonde and then a brunette, and then as I slip into the dream world, it morphs into me.

  Chapter 11

  Devin

  It’s pain in my head that feels like a mallet slamming a snare drum that tears me from sleep. I roll from my stomach onto my back and my shoulder bumps something warm and soft. Memories of last night explode behind my eyes. The bar. The phone call with Ashleigh. The heartache. The booze. The dirty blonde. The dirty blonde, naked. My eyes fly open and the pounding intensifies.

  I turn to the left and see her, tangled up in my sheets, curled on her side, her hair fanned out on my pillow, her bare back exposed. She’s probably a very lovely sight, but bile rises in my throat anyway.

  I turn away and catch the time on the alarm clock sitting on the night table: 5:24 a.m. I quietly get out of bed. Luckily, I hadn’t put away a basket of fresh laundry from before the road trip. I pull out a pair of workout shorts and a Barons T-shirt and I walk back over to the bed. Leaning over, I give her a light shake.

  She stirs, turning onto her back and stretching under the sheet. When her eyes flutter open, she seems a little stunned to find me hovering above her and not in bed beside her.

  “I’m sorry but you have to leave,” I whisper loudly.

  “What?” She sits up, thankfully pulling the sheet with her so she’s not exposed. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five thirty.”

  “In the morning?!”

  I nod. “Sorry, but I have a guest staying with me and it’s not a good idea if she meets you.”

  “Is it your wife?” she asks stupidly.

  I try not to frown. “No. My brother’s fiancée’s sister. I’m sorry about this but you really have to go.”

  She sighs and her brow furrows, but she doesn’t argue. I bend down and grab her bra and dress from the heap at the end of the bed and han
d them to her. Without another word I head into the master bath to give her some privacy.

  I lean over the sink, look in the mirror and fight a sudden wave of nausea. What the fuck—I didn’t think I drank that much last night. I splash cold water on my face and try to take deep, cleansing breaths. A second later she’s standing in the bathroom doorway. She looks calm and unbothered. I guess that’s a good thing.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I offer and she nods.

  She’s carrying her heels in her hand and when we reach the front hall, I open the door as she slips them on. She smiles and I try to smile back. I must look as incredibly awkward as I feel, but she leans in and hugs me anyway. I wrap an arm around her waist; my other hand stays on the door handle, gripping it so tightly that my knuckles are white.

  “Last night was fun,” I offer lamely.

  She nods, her hair brushing my cheek, and then she pulls back and presses a piece of paper into my free hand. “Let me know if you want to do it again sometime.”

  “Will do,” I reply.

  Thankfully, she leaves. I lock the door behind her and slowly head back up the stairs. When I get back to my room, I close the door, drop the piece of paper on the dresser and strip off my clothes as I walk to the bathroom. I turn on all the jets in the shower—the ones in the wall and the rain head above—and make it as hot as possible without scalding myself before stepping inside.

  What the fuck did I just do?

  I wasn’t into one-night stands even before I got married. That incredible but crazy moment in the barn with Callie was the closest I’d ever come to random, no-strings-attached sex. I know Jordan had done it—a lot. And Luc even made a relationship out of “just sex” with that model ex of his, but it just wasn’t something I ever wanted. It still isn’t, so why the fuck did I do it?