by Vivian Lux
Listening was...not my strong suit to say the least. In one ear and out the other my exasperated mother would sigh when another truancy report came home from school.
And of course I'd blow her off and go back to doing whatever the hell I wanted. Whether it was smoking, drinking or going over to the warehouse district with Brad to break windows and bust streetlights, I did whatever the fuck I felt like, because who was going to stop me? My father had bailed when I was five and my mother was caught in a single-mother guilt-spiral; too exhausted by her job and the crappy grind of our existence to have the energy to discipline her son.
I was on the fast train to juvie when Coach Randall came into my life.
I had been playing at the local rink, a real shithole that could only afford to run the Zamboni twice a month. It was on this pitted, scarred patch of ice that I learned how to skate faster than my demons. And when Coach Randall came to give a talk as part of the outreach program, my mother showed up in her scrubs to make sure I was there.
That's when he changed both of our lives in one fell swoop.
To me, he gave the training guidance I needed to channel my inner talent into real discipline.
To my mother, he gave love...then a ring...then a nice house in the suburbs where she no longer had to duck drug dealers and catcallers to get home to her son. We moved in with him when I was fifteen, and when I was eighteen he gave me the chance to try out for the Blackhawks. For the first time in my life, I had a man worth listening to...but by then I was too far gone. Stubborn and scarred from my days as a teenaged delinquent, I still struggled daily with listening to his advice. He was the angel on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, while on the other shoulder, a devil in the shape of my own ego shouted over him.
I always struggled to be able to listen to the angels.
But I had listened to Candace.
And that fucking surprised the hell out of me.
Zipping myself back up again, I threw my Escalade into drive, allowing myself one more glance in my rearview. There was a light still streaming from Candace's building.
I wondered if it was from her apartment. I wondered if she was still up and thinking about me.
I would be thinking about her - my angel - all night long.
Chapter Seven
Candace
When my alarm went off at 4:15 AM, I threw it across the room, convinced that it was malfunctioning.
Then I remembered last night, and sat up in the dark, wide awake, fingers brushing the place on my lips where Ian’s had met mine.
“Holy shit,” I murmured in my darkened bedroom. “Holy fucking shit.”
There was really no other way to express the magic of last night. Everything I thought I knew, everything I had been taught at my job, had been turned on its ear. We had nothing in common, no shared interests, no mutual hobbies. But the chemistry…the chemistry…
It was undeniable.
I'm not that kind of girl.
Except...what if I am?
“Holy shit,” I repeated, my whole body shuddering as I remembered the feel of his hands on my skin, rough and calloused, brushing down my arms to twine his fingers in mine as he lifted my hands over my head to pin me back against the wall.
I had almost invited him in. I’d only known him for forty-eight hours, but I very nearly slept with him last night.
And as I lay awake afterward, I knew I couldn’t go very long without seeing him again.
I actually might be that kind of girl.
I needed to see him again.
As soon as possible.
Like...right now. At five in the morning.
As I got dressed in my tiny studio apartment, I looked out of my single window and wondered how there was traffic, even at this early hour. I hurried to the door so I could be on the road with time to spare, and only once did I wonder if he would be freaked out by me showing up at his practice this morning before work.
“I just want to see him skate,” I told the air. “I’m not stalking him.”
Any doubt I had in my head about whether this was a good idea was banished when I remembered the feel of him, hard and unyielding, sliding against my thigh to press into my belly.
At first I was surprised to see that the door to the Icehouse was unlocked. But there in the bleachers were a few bleary-eyed guys, clearly stopping in to watch practice before work. Their suits were rumpled, but their eyes were keen as they watched the action down on the rink.
Sports fans. I was completely out of my element. I sat down nervously, looking everywhere at once.
Then I looked down at the rink.
At first there was no sound, except for the shush-shushing of skates cutting across the ice. Big, bearded men, padded out to nearly twice their size, moved with the grace and precision of ballerinas. They twisted and turned on the ice in an intricate, winding dance that held me mesmerized in my seat.
Then a whistle blew, and precision gave way to savagery. Suddenly, it was mayhem—bodies slamming into one another, coarse voices crying out harsh commands. I sat on the edge of my seat, watching raptly, trying to find Ian, and then…over there, I saw him hurtle into the fray, seemingly everywhere at once, moving so fast that he streaked past the glass like a lightning bolt.
I felt a twinge of pain and looked down to see that my fingernails were digging into my thighs. I unclenched them, and then just as quickly grabbed a hold to the underside of my seat, gripping tightly as I swiveled my head this way and that, my blood pounding in my ears, my heart racing with the action.
Until the whistle blew, and it was all over, and I slid back in my seat with a sigh, feeling something very close to release coursing through my bloodstream.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered to myself. “I think I like hockey.”
The whistle blew, and mayhem ensued two more times, before the whole crush of them moved as one towards the locker rooms. I stood up and moved to the front, pressed against the glass, watching Ian head into the locker room with the rest of them. He hadn’t seen me.
I sat back with a smile on my face and waited for him to reemerge.
The suited fans got up, hushed with reverence like pilgrims leaving their shrine. I watched them go, and then turned to see the players emerge, freshly showered. They straggled out of the exit in bunches of twos and threes, but Ian was not among them. I strained my neck, watching for his dark form.
“Hey, Blue? Is that you?”
I turned to see Ian’s blond friend from the bar the other night. And I knew he recognized me, too, because he winced.
“Hey listen, I had already had a few. Shouldn’t have said those things to you. Sorry about that. I’m Brad.”
“Candace. Thanks,” I said shortly.
He licked his lips nervously. “Hey, Candace. Uh, are you here for Ian?”
I hesitated, then decided who, was I kidding? “Yes. I wanted to say hi.”
Brad chuckled. “The guy always makes it his mission to use up all of the hot water in the building. If you want to, you can go in and wait. There’s no one in there but him.”
He said it very innocently, but there was a definite suggestive waggle to his eyebrows.
I shot him a look. “That’s okay, I’ll just wait here.” I said testily.
He chuckled as he moved past me. “No you won’t,” he said under his breath.
Five more minutes went by without Ian emerging, and I knew Brad was right.
I got up, and made my way into the locker room.
Brad wasn’t kidding when he said Ian liked to use up the hot water. The air was so dense with steam, I felt like I had wandered into a tropical rainforest. I was blinded, but I could hear the sound of water hitting tile, then the squeak of pipes, and a sudden silence.
Then a pause. “Hello?” Ian’s rich baritone rang out against the tile.
I swallowed. How did this look? When I stepped back for a moment and actually thought about how crazy this was, I almost turned and fled. I tried to think like Olivi
a. What would my horn-dog best friend do right now? What would she say?
You look cold, would you like someplace warm to put your cock?
Your face would look better if I sat on it.
Hey baby, you look like a cake to me. Ready to go straight to my thighs?
I shook my head. I was losing it. This was insane. I was frozen with indecision…
And that’s when Ian emerged from the showers.
Completely and utterly naked.
I gasped. I couldn’t help it. A fine sheen of droplets highlighted every ripple, every corded muscle, sending his body into high relief like a kind of sculpture. I felt my hands move of their own accord, wanting to touch him. Needing to feel the warmth of his skin, his heartbeat under my hand, swipe my tongue along the hollow where his shoulder met his wide neck and taste his skin.
And his cock. I wasn’t looking at his cock.
I was totally looking at his cock.
“Candace,” he said, stopping short. His hand went unconsciously to his groin, covering himself.
I wanted to bat it away.
“I came,” I told him...
That word hanging in the air, thick with innuendo. He raised his eyebrows. I blushed and cleared my throat, “I came to see you play,” I clarified.
Some of the—was it bloodlust? Hunger? That I had seen out on the rink still glimmered in his eyes. “So,” he said, casually wrapping the towel around his waist. “Did you like it?”
I tried to tear my gaze away from his cock, now hidden behind a tiny white towel. “Like it?” I asked, dumbly.
He chuckled softly. “Seeing me play, Candace. I was asking if you liked seeing me play.”
“Oh!” I said, heat crawling across my cheeks. “Yes, I did!” I said, way too enthusiastically. “It’s—uh, you are really good.”
Those three words seem to hang in the air, like smoke from a fire that has just been kindled. You’re really good.
The Olivia in me insisted on wondering, how good are you?
“I’m glad you liked seeing me play, Candace,” he said, moving a little closer. Heat from the shower was rising off of his skin in waves, and my lungs were filled with the clean scent of his soap and something...something else.
“What else do you like?” he practically growled.
Unwittingly, my gaze dropped back down to his groin. “Um,” I stammered.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said, reaching out with his hands. When his fingers brushed my cheek, I turned my chin up willingly, my lips feeling over-plump and ready. “I can already tell,” he went on. “You liked seeing my cock, too, didn’t you Candace?”
Olivia was right. Ian Carter was not a nice guy. A nice guy would never be saying these things to me. A nice guy would never be snaking his hand around my neck, behind my head, pulling me closer to him when there was only a tiny scrap of fabric separating me from his cock. A nice guy would excuse himself, dress, maybe even go and buy me flowers or something.
I was finding I didn’t care about nice guys anymore.
“I did,” I said boldly.
I wasn't such a nice girl, after all.
“How much did you like seeing my cock?” he asked. His mouth was only a few centimeters away from mine.
I licked my lips, wetting them, and from the way his cock twitched under the towel, I knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
He was thinking about sliding his cock between my lips.
I was thinking about letting him.
A low growl, deep in his belly, rose up into a sharp intake breath.
And he kissed me.
There was no weakness to this kiss. I met his mouth with the same fervor that he met mine. I was ready, aching for him. Our lips were rough, hard, and urgent, slamming into each other with a force that nearly knocked me off my feet.
Then seconds later I was off my feet, pinned against a row of lockers as he desperately devoured my mouth. His tongue was sly and skillful, sweeping away any last defense or hesitation I had left.
The towel fell away. I wanted to look down, get another glimpse, take his cock into my hands, but Ian held me pressed against the lockers. “Candace,” he panted, his lips trailing down my neck. “Get this shirt off, now.”
He didn’t even wait for me to scramble, fumbling with the buttons. The sharp noise of fabric ripping in two filled my ears, and I spared no more thoughts about the loss of my favorite shirt. There was no more room for thought, not when his hands were delving higher and higher, across my breasts, his thick fingers tweaking my nipples to make me gasp, before he moved his lips slower to catch one of them in his mouth. I drew in a sharp breath as his tongue curled around the tip of the peak.
“I want…” I moaned, rising in frustration as I reached downward.
He caught my hand, his grip around my wrists like iron. “You want what I want, don’t you, Candace?”
His eyes were so dark, they were almost black.
I looked up at him, taken aback. There was a dark promise in his gaze, and I found myself nodding.
A wicked smile curves his lips. “Should I tell you what I want? What you want?”
“Yes,” I gasped.
“I want to kneel down and kiss that sweet pussy of yours.”
I let out a muffled gasp.
“That’s what I’ve wanted from the moment I saw you in that blue dress. I wanted to run my hands up your thighs and feel how soft you were there. How wet you are now. Are you wet for me, Candace?”
My body responded unbidden with a downward surge. “Yes,” I moaned.
“Yes, what?” he prompted.
“Yes!” I cried. “I’m wet for you, I’m wet for you, Ian.” I was almost whining.
His fingers were at the button of my jeans. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he growled. His fingers slid down, under my panties, and he and I both inhaled sharply as he delved even lower.
“Oh shit,” he growled, bending his head and dragging his lips down my neck. “Oh shit, you’re even better than I imagined.” He slid his finger up, catching the very center of my need before sliding inside of me.
I wiggled and writhed as he held me pinned, moving his finger lazily, but all the while growling filthy curses against my neck. I undulated my body against his. How was it that I was the one clothed here, and yet I felt so naked?
“Ian!” I gasped.
Chapter Eight
Ian
When I’m on the rink, all distractions fall away, and this Zen-like focus takes over. It’s a kind of tunnel-vision, where the goal is the only thing I can see. The goal is scoring points, and nothing else matters.
The guys tease the fuck out of me for my long-ass showers, but that’s the only thing that helps me come down from the high of playing. If I left as quickly as they did, I’d be too detached from everything, and end up getting run over by a CTA bus.
I was still there, still in that zone, still solely focused on the goal, when I saw Candace.
Last night she had left things unfinished between us. Now it was clear she wanted the same thing I did.
To finish what we had started.
I knew I hadn't misread her.
She appeared, out of the fog, but once I saw her, everything fell away and I only had one goal.
I was going to take her. I was going to have her. There was no other option.
And from the way she was looking at me, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, her pink tongue pressed tightly against her top teeth, she was going to let me.
The nicest girl I had ever met - the angel of my better nature - was ready to get nasty.
Fuck.
I kissed her with all of the pent-up desire I’d been holding back. Trying to be a nice guy, trying to be good; fuck, it was burning a hole right through the center of me, leaving nothing left but need.
Her lips were as sweet as she was, but I had to know if she tasted as sweet down there.
“I’m going to kiss that sweet pussy now,” I told her, locking h
er wrists tightly together and pressing her back against the lockers. She arched her back to me, undulating her hips, her body responding even before her words could. Then I told her. I told her, in no uncertain terms, all of the filthy things I had been thinking of doing to her since the moment I saw her in that blue dress.
“Are you wet, Candace? Are you wet for me?”
“Yes, I’m wet for you. I’m wet for you, Ian.”
I was fairly certain she was telling me the truth, but there was only one way to be sure.
Sliding my fingers down past the waist of her jeans, I found it.
“Oh shit, you’re even better than I imagined.” She was soft as silk, and slippery already. My cock, already rock hard, became a diamond.
I held her, impaled upon my fingers, enjoying the way she clenched around me, just long enough to make her pant in wide-eyed frustration. Then I knelt down, and gave her what she needed, what I needed.
She was as sweet as honey, and soft as a peach. I couldn’t get enough. I devoured her, ripe and ready and willing. She wriggled, arching away when it got too intense. “No,” I told her, sinking my fingers into the soft skin of her thighs and pulling her closer.
“Oh, God,” she half-gasped, half-growled, and her fingers went to my hair, clutching so tightly that it should have hurt, but it only felt so good, so good because of why she was doing it.
She clenched me tight, arching upward, and I felt her come, hard and fast, her screams echoing off the tile. The Blackhawks Training Center locker room had never sounded so goddamn sexy. I knew I’d be hearing her cries in my head every time I walked in here from now on.
When she had shuddered, and drawn in one last, shaking breath, she reached down to me. And that’s when I saw it. The fear, the hesitation. She knew what I wanted, could clearly see it there, standing as erect as a flagpole between us.
“Um,” she said, biting her lip.
Fuck me. No, seriously, fuck me, I wanted to scream.
I wanted to twirl her around, bend her over, and take her, take her for everything she had. She must have seen that. She could see that hunger in my eyes.
And it frightened her.
