My mind goes blank. My hands wrap around her long, wet hair and my head falls back against the marble wall. This is fucking heaven.
“Callie…I’m close,” I warn and try to pull her off. She lets go of my balls and slaps at my hand that’s pulling on her hair, trying to stop her, and continues to lick and suck on me.
Her hand at the base of my cock starts to move with her lips, trailing behind them and creating a perfect blend of friction and pressure. She is literally milking my orgasm to the surface. A moan escapes at the same time I lose the ability to breathe as my balls tighten and I let go right into her perfect mouth.
I say her name over and over in jagged breaths and she pumps me dry, swallowing everything. My knees start to give out and I slide to the floor in front of her. My eyes flutter open and the water splashes off my chest and her shoulders, sprinkling both our faces.
She leans in and cups the sides of my face and kisses me hard and firm on the lips. I grab the wet material of her tank top with my hands and start to lift it, but she pulls away and stands up.
“Callie…” I croak out her name and reach for her, but she steps out of the shower, dripping a giant puddle onto my bathroom floor.
“That’s all you get from me,” she says firmly.
“You’ve given me more before,” my drunken, orgasm-rocked brain argues aloud.
“I didn’t give it to this Devin,” she retorts. “This Devin doesn’t deserve me. Not all of me. Now get your shit together.”
She shuts the glass door of the shower and disappears from sight.
Chapter 22
Devin
I’m sitting in the lobby with two Starbucks in my hand when they start filing off the elevators. A few of them notice me and obviously recognize me. They nod or wave. It would be weird to have a member of another NHL team sitting in the lobby of your team’s hotel except when it’s me and the team is Jordan’s or Luc’s. Seb Deveau, his Winterhawks hat low on his head, makes eye contact as he saunters off the elevator. His gaze is wary but unwavering. I fight down the anger that starts to bubble at the sight of him. My mind drifts to Callie on her knees, water pouring down on her as her lips slide over my cock. Seb didn’t have her last night, so I shouldn’t be upset with him.
Finally I see Jordan lumber into view. He’s talking with their captain, Avery Westwood. Jordan’s head is turned away from me. As I leave the chair I’m sitting in and start toward them, Avery catches my eye and says something to my brother. Jordan’s head turns and he stops walking. Avery takes Jordan’s bag and nods at me with a small smile as he walks by and continues out of the hotel to the team bus.
I nod at Avery as he goes and I try to forget that he slept with Callie last summer at Cole and Leah’s joint bachelor-bachelorette party. I walk over to my brother and hand him the tall americano I bought for him. He takes it from me wordlessly. I sip my own latte. We walk toward the restaurant, away from the constant stream of players heading out the front doors.
“I shouldn’t have attacked you last night,” I finally say. “Verbally or physically.”
He looks truly shocked that I would apologize, but he recovers quickly and nods. “Don’t worry about it.”
We both sip our drinks. “Tell Jessie I apologize.”
He nods again. “Are you divorcing Ashleigh?”
“I think I have to, even though I think it will hurt Conner.”
“Do you still love her?”
“No.”
He nods. “Whatever you decide, I’ve got your back.”
I catch his eye. “What would you do?”
He sips his coffee and swallows, his big blue eyes catching mine. “What would I do if it was Jessie?”
I nod and we stare at each other. I can see the turmoil in his face. He opens his mouth but then closes it swiftly and bites his bottom lip. My shoulders sag.
“Jessie would never do that to you.” I say the words he’s scared to for fear his faith in his fiancée and their relationship would anger me again like it did last night.
“She never would,” he whispers almost guiltily. “But that doesn’t mean we’re perfect. You know we’re not, Devin.”
“Yeah. I know.” I nod slowly. “You found a girl that gets you and loves you no matter what. I shouldn’t begrudge you that. It’s good that you’ve got Jessie. I know she’s not like Ashleigh. It’s fine.”
One of their trainers walks into the lobby, makes eye contact with Jordan and waves him over. “We’re heading out, Garrison!”
We walk out the lobby doors into the cool morning air. The bus is waiting at the curb.
“It’s not fine,” Jordan argues delicately and stops to face me under the awning of the entrance to the hotel. “You deserve someone like Jessie, someone trustworthy and unconditionally in love with you.”
I say nothing. He hugs me quickly. “Love you, bro.”
“You too, Jordy.” He’s about to get on the bus when I call out his name again. “Hey!” He turns and looks at me. “My face-off percentage this season is seventy-two percent. Beat that, Mr. Perfect.”
Jordan laughs and flips me the bird before disappearing onto the bus. It feels good that things with him are back to normal, but now I have to make things okay with Callie. That seems like a much harder thing to do.
What happened in the middle of our argument was completely unexpected. When she threw me in that shower, I wanted to rip her head off. I grabbed her and pulled her into the water to punish her—make her as wet and furious as I was. But my anger evaporated when I saw her body through her wet clothes. And when I felt her wet skin against mine. My need to lose myself in those random girls from the bars was nothing compared to the crushing need I suddenly had last night to lose myself in Callie. And she felt so much better—made me feel so much better—than the other girl had.
As I drive to practice, I try to think what caused that. Was it because she was familiar? I’d been with her before—sort of. She is a friend. Touching her and being with her offered just the slightest bit of emotional grounding, which I clearly had been lacking since Ashleigh left. Was it because I have always wanted to finish what we had started in that barn? Because I always have. There is no denying it. That almost-sex with Callie had been a total fantasy and Jordan walking in on us was like being abruptly woken up from a glorious dream. You always want to slip back into sleep and try to catch it again.
What was even more confusing than the feelings and the need that bubbled up so intensely from me last night was the matching response from her. When I kissed her, she didn’t put up one ounce of a fight. In fact, she matched my lust move for move and kiss for kiss.
Where the hell was that coming from?! Was she just so full of sexual frustration over not being able to screw Seb that she was taking it out on the only available male body? Or was it that I was just such a raging, seething mess that she wanted to do whatever it took to calm me?
Callie had once said she made sure she didn’t hook up with boys she could really like. I guess I was officially a boy she could never like. Not only had she clearly decided last night that she didn’t like me and therefore could give me a blow job (a mind-blowing, perfect blow job) but she’d also made it clear that she thought too little of me to give me the rest of her body. That had been one hell of a reality check. I had sat there on the shower floor until my skin pruned reeling with the shame, embarrassment and shock of that realization.
As I pull into the parking lot of the arena, I come to one steadfast conclusion. Whatever the reason either of us did it, it doesn’t matter. What matters is figuring out how to deal with what we did. And in the end, I am thankful it had happened—I somehow feel more like myself than I have in weeks.
Chapter 23
Callie
The next morning I hear him leave really early. I don’t know where he could possibly be going because it’s too early for a hockey practice but I’m incredibly grateful I don’t have to face him just yet. He’s leaving on a road trip to play Canadian
teams late this afternoon. With any luck I can avoid him completely and not have to deal with this until he gets back six days from now.
I lie in bed and feel a blush creep over my face. I still can’t believe what happened last night. Holy fuck. What the hell was I thinking? What the hell was he thinking?
I know the answer to that: he wasn’t thinking. He hasn’t been thinking for weeks. That means last night was my fault. I should have pulled away. I should have stopped. I should not have given him a goddamned blow job in the shower.
I was just so…frustrated. I was frustrated with the way he was acting and stressed from that fight he’d had with Jordan and having to lie to my sister for as long as I did, and I was sexually frustrated. He had banged a chick before and it hadn’t helped his situation. And of course I was upset that the first chance I got to stop thinking about Devin fucking and start fucking myself, Devin screwed it up. Still, that didn’t give me the right to kick the one-night stand out and become one myself.
Fuck.
The worst part is I know, without the slightest doubt, that if he had followed me out of the shower and into my room, I would have screwed his brains out. That speech I gave—I meant it more than anything, but whether Devin deserved to screw me or not, I wanted him to do it more than I had ever wanted anyone in my life. And when he didn’t follow me, I imagined him there in my bed with me anyway and touched myself until I came.
I groan, pull myself from my bed, traipse to the shower and concentrate on getting ready to meet Jessie for brunch. Every time an image of last night flashes into my brain I struggle to catch my breath and I blush. I decide to walk to Jessie’s hotel. It’s forty-five minutes at a brisk pace, and the fall air is crisp and heavy, like it may rain or even snow, but I need the time to get my head straight. When I get to the Sheraton, where the team had been staying, we grab a cab and I take her to Jimmy’s Café because Devin mentioned it had an amazing all-day breakfast menu. Even on a Thursday, in the middle of the day, it’s pretty packed but we manage to grab a small table toward the back.
“How was he when you got home?” Jessie asks, skipping small talk completely.
“He wasn’t there,” I explain honestly and scan the menu in front of me.
“Where did he go? Is he okay? Did he come home at all?” Jessie goes from concern to panic in a millisecond.
“Don’t you think I would have called you and Jordan if he just completely disappeared?” I ask as the waitress brings us two lattes, a vanilla for Jessie and a caramel for me. “He came home.”
We order with the waitress. I get steak and eggs with a side of grits and an extra side of corn bread. Getting a guy off always leaves me with a big appetite. Jessie orders chicken and waffles with extra gravy. I smirk. Guess she worked up an appetite last night too.
“So did you talk about it?” Jessie asks and I move my gaze to stare at my latte.
“Not really,” I murmur. “It was late. He was drunk.”
“Drunk?” Jessie repeats, horrified. “So he went out and got hammered? Jesus, Callie, he’s off the deep end.”
“Yeah, he was.” I nod and sigh, finally moving my gaze up to meet hers.
Her green eyes bore into me and I know she knows instantly that something is up. Jessie is psychic when it comes to my feelings. It’s scary, annoying and comforting all at the same time. “Something happened. What happened?”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. I sigh again and feel a blush creep up my face. Damn. “He came home with another random girl he wanted to hook up with.”
“Another?” Jessie almost gasps. “What do you mean another?”
I nod. “Yeah, it’s happened once before. Only since he found out about Ashleigh and this Andrew dude. Not before. He didn’t cheat on her; she cheated on him.”
“They’re technically still married,” Jessie argues.
“And Jordan was technically dating Hannah when he took your virginity,” I remind her and her lips press together in a thin, discontented line.
“Not exactly the same thing,” Jessie argues softly. “We were kids and not legally attached.”
“It’s a piece of paper,” I remind her. She knows I have never put much value in marriage. After all, our parents were married and it didn’t stop our father from disappearing.
“So you don’t think the random women are a big deal?” she counters.
I shake my head, take a deep breath and try to figure out how to express my thoughts. “They’re not a big deal because he’s still legally married. They’re a big deal because they’re out of character.”
She nods. Her eyes squint slightly for a second like she’s focusing on something but I assume she’s just thinking really hard. I sip my latte and pause the conversation as the waitress brings our meals over.
“I didn’t think anything of the first one,” I tell my sister as I reach for the pepper. “I would do it too, you know? And besides, you should have seen him, Jessie. He looked sick about it afterward.”
I pause to take a bite of my eggs. I’m famished. I take another big bite, chew and continue. Absentmindedly, I push my hair over my shoulder. “But when he kept doing it I realized it was becoming a problem. Like he was forcing himself to be this unemotional fuck machine.”
Jessie wrinkles her nose at that and sighs. “You’re right. That’s not like him.”
I take a bite of my steak. “So last night when he brought home this one instead of dealing with his feelings and what had happened with Jordy, I kicked her out.”
“You did what?” Jessie almost drops her forkful of waffle.
“I walked into his room and pretended I was his wife and kicked her out,” I explain and swallow some grits. “He was furious.”
She’s smiling at me, but then her eyes narrow again. She cocks her pretty head to the left and her auburn ponytail swings out, grazing her shoulder. “So if you went home last night and kicked out Devin’s skank, does that mean you didn’t hook up with Seb?”
I shake my head and sip my latte again. “No. Everything was too dramatic. And even though I only talked to him a little bit, he was way too deep and insightful and charming…I could have liked him. You know I don’t do like.”
She smiles at that but it goes from a humored grin to a knowing smirk. “So then if it wasn’t Sebastian, who left the bite mark on your shoulder?”
“What?” I drop my fork with a loud clang.
She laughs and reaches out, her fingers grazing the top of my shoulder, which is sticking out of the oversize neck of my powder-pink sweatshirt. As soon as she touches it, a flash of Devin’s lips on my skin, sucking it between his teeth, clouds my brain and makes me dizzy. I blush. I hate my traitorous face right now. Her green eyes grow to twice their size.
“Callie. Who…?” Then she blinks and I can almost see the lightbulb turn on. “Oh, Callie.”
“I didn’t sleep with him!” I blurt out much too loudly. A couple at the table next to us turns and stares for a second.
Jessie waits until they go back to their own brunch and continues in a whisper. “Callie, you and Devin? Again? Now?”
“I didn’t plan it or anything,” I explain quickly. “I was so pissed at him and he was yelling at me and I told him next time he wants to do something stupid like fuck a stranger he should take a cold shower. Then I shoved him in the shower and he grabbed me and pulled me in with him, and the next thing I know we were kissing.”
She absorbs this information silently, her eyes glued to her coffee cup for a long minute. When she looks up at me, she looks concerned, but not disappointed.
“You didn’t sleep with him?” She wants to make sure and I can, without guilt, respond with a firm no. She sighs. “It was still a stupid mistake.”
“I know. I know.” I groan a little. “I have to talk to him about it.”
“You do,” she agrees and takes another bite of waffles. She wants to say more. She really does, I can tell. I know her better than she knows herself. But she�
�s clearly just as confused as I am. Sure, Devin and I had that moment way back when, but neither of us even talked about it with anyone because it wasn’t a big deal. There were no unrequited feelings. I mean, I still thought he was attractive and everything, but I didn’t spend a second pining away for him after the barn. So this little make-out session was shocking. She would probably pass right out if I told her about the blow job—not to mention how much I loved it.
So I keep that part to myself and change the subject to her wedding—which she is supposed to be planning for next summer—and try to ignore the panic I feel about having to face Devin.
Chapter 24
Devin
I’m carrying my suitcase down the steps when I look up and see her walking slowly down the street toward the house. She slows almost to a halt as she sees me on the sidewalk and I wonder for a brief second if she might turn and walk the other way. With Callie, it’s a distinct possibility.
Luckily, she decides to just keep walking toward our home. I lean against the concrete pillar at the end of our stairs and watch her as she slows to a stop in front of me. She has a tote bag full of groceries over her shoulder.
“Hi,” she says and then smiles sheepishly. It makes me grin like a goof. “Off on the road trip?”
“Yeah…” I say and jiggle my house keys in my hand. “So, I went to see Jordan before he left today.”
“Oh?” She looks surprised, but happy.
“Yeah. We’re good,” I tell her and she nods. We stare at each other for a long minute. I push off the pillar and glance into the grocery bag she’s holding up against her chest. “Dinner?”
“Yeah.”
There’s another slightly awkward pause and we just stare at each other again. Finally, she smirks her typical sexy little Callie smirk.
The Final Move Page 10
