“Excellent.” Sliding my bra strap down, he leans down and kisses my shoulder. His nimble fingers pop the clasp on my bra and my breasts spring free.
He groans and cups my flesh, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Underneath it all, you’re soft as can be, aren’t you?”
I smile again. “Lies.”
He circles my nipple with his finger, his expression lust-drunk and careless as he flicks a glance up at my face. “Nah. You’re silk beneath steel. And if I’m the only one who can see that, then I’m fucking lucky.”
“Enough,” I whisper. Enough poetry, enough sweetness. I arch my back, desperate now for his mouth to replace his too-gentle touch. I need a hard suck, something—
He ducks his head and closes his teeth about my flesh.
“Ah!” I’m startled, that’s all. As I gasp, I realize it doesn’t hurt. But still... “You bit me. Hard.”
“You liked it.”
“We didn’t discuss biting.”
“Mmm. Right. We should. How do you feel about biting?”
“I like it.”
He laughs. “Okay. Now can we discuss a ball gag?” He swings his head away from my swatting hand, then catches my wrist and pulls my fingers to his mouth. He bites them, too. Just enough snap to send shivers down my spine, but nothing else.
“Is sexy biting your superpower?”
He grins. “One of them.”
“Show me the rest.”
Returning to my breasts, he sucks on my nipples until they’re swollen and hard, then he covers those peaks with his hands and rolls me over. Still squeezing them, he teases the nipples between his fingers as he bites and licks his way down my spine.
When he lets go of my breasts, it’s only so he can squeeze my ass instead. The hard press of his fingers sends a hot, skittering tremble under my skin.
That’s nothing compared to how I feel when he slides his tongue down the cleft between my cheeks. I groan and bury my face in the pillow as he eats me out. Definitely a superpower. His mouth is everywhere, his tongue firm and wide and hungry as he licks everywhere between my legs.
My thighs are shaking by the time he flips me over again, and I scramble back up the bed so I can have something to lean against as he dips his head between my legs again.
His thick, wavy brown hair glints with natural highlights in the afternoon sun streaming in my window. I reach for him, and he lifts his face just enough to give me a sloppy, happy smile.
“Ready to get fucked, Sasha?”
So ready. “Bring it on.”
He hauls me back down the bed, my legs splayed wide on either side of him. He stares my swollen, soaked pussy as he rolls on a condom, then he palms my hips and hitches my lower body up.
I secretly love how he can manhandle me with ease.
The head of his cock lands heavy against my clit, making me jerk because I’m sensitive now. Sensitive and ready and aching to be filled. “Now,” I plead.
He grins and notches us together.
Time seems to pause as I follow his gaze to where we’re connected now. The tip of his cock hidden inside my body, the thick, long stretch of his erection a promise of more to come. Athletic sex. Ha. I had no idea what I was asking for. Every muscle in his body is locked and flexed, ready to pump into me as soon as a starter’s pistol fires, or I say the magic word, whatever that might be.
He pushes in another half inch, and I groan.
“You want this?” he purrs the question, his gaze hooded behind heavy eyelids as he looks down at me.
“Yes.” I stretch my arms above my head. “I want you, Tate.”
Those are the magic words. He thrusts hard, filling me in a single pump of his hips. He falls forward, covering me with his body, too, and then it’s on. He’s fluid and intense, a rolling thunder of sex and sensation. My legs crawl up his body, my thighs gripping his waist as he moves above me. Thighs, pelvis—cock, hard and deep, nailing every single pleasure point inside my body—abs, chest, arms. Over and over again, he moves his body in a wave that drives his cock into me, then out again, and it’s all I can do to hold on.
I curve my hands over his shoulders, sinking my nails into his back. He grunts as I squeeze, and I make myself let go.
“Sorry,” I gasp, and he bites my ear.
“Never be sorry about leaving your mark on me,” he growls, his breath hot against my neck. “Claw me up all you want.”
That’s a hell of an offer. I clutch my arms around him again and do just that, and as he slams into me, I know he was right to grab a fistful of condoms.
I’m not going to be done with just one orgasm.
And since we can’t do this again—ever, no matter what—I’m going to have to make sure we go through the entire pack before I kick his tight, perfect ass out the door at the end of the night.
2
Tate
beginning of October, two months earlier
Vancouver
Tonight is the season opener, my tenth in the NHL.
Game Day.
For more than twenty years, the fall has meant the start of a new season of hockey. For the last decade, that’s been in the NHL, and for the last six years, I wore the C on my jersey as I skated onto the ice with the Ottawa Senators.
Not today, though.
My move out to the west coast has been quite the news story, despite my best efforts to be excited about it in public. Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words and I’m struggling on the ice. I’ve been here for eight weeks now, and the media is still all over the fact my adjustment has been rocky to say the least.
We’ve got an evening game against Calgary, so I sleep in a bit, then watch the news while I roll out my muscles and eat breakfast. I need to be at the Lumberjacks’ arena, affectionately called The Pulpmill, by nine-thirty for our morning skate.
Back in Ottawa, I’d already be there by now, shooting the shit with my guys and watching tape in the viewing room. But here in Vancouver, the locker room doesn’t have that same jovial vibe. Everyone is tense and I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s me, but it will be if I don’t get my game together soon.
I’m slowly packing up my bag to head to the rink when my phone lights up.
Sasha: Kick some ass tonight.
I stare at my phone. After eight weeks of silence, she’s the last person I expected to hear from today. I scroll back in the message history. Six texts from me to her without any response. The first two are kind of cringe-worthy in hindsight.
How was I supposed to know she’d go radio-silent after we slept together?
Because she has standards and you have, to put it mildly, a reputation she wants nothing to do with.
Yeah, I should have seen it coming a mile away that fucking Sasha would be a disaster. After the fact, of course—the actual fucking was spectacular.
Hence my reaching out to her for a repeat, which she’d ignored.
She’d also dodged my text to say goodbye before I left Ottawa, and four more messages I’d sent her since I’d arrived here in Vancouver. Funny shit I knew she’d secretly find funny.
And now, out of the blue, she’s sending me a good luck message?
Oh, it’s fucking on.
Tate: You want me to be thinking about you when I score my first goal?
Sasha: Your first goal? Of how many?
Tate: Two today. And I’ll take that as a yes, you want me to think about you.
Sasha: This was a mistake.
Tate: Miss you too, tiger.
She sends a picture of her middle finger. I want to lick it.
This is me in a nutshell—super serious about hockey, and a bit of a prick about everything else in my life. Especially Sasha Brewster.
I probably need to get laid. Two months is a long time in Tate Land to go without the sweet, tight welcome of a hot pussy.
But as long as I look at the texts to Sasha—and now the texts back from her—I won’t be picking up anyone else. That’s not how I roll.
&
nbsp; So instead of thinking ahead to celebrating my first game as a Lumberjack with a random hottie, I have a quick wank in the shower as I remember Sasha crawling down my body, the tip of her tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth as her lips part.
Her mouth on my cock.
The low, hungry moans she made as she swallowed around my heavy length.
No, nothing Sasha’s done with me has been a mistake. Not texting, and not our afternoon together in August.
I have to get to the rink. I can’t think about that finger, or the blurry smile I could just catch the edge of in the background of the picture.
I can’t think about Sasha right now.
But later?
I’ll do a hell of a lot of thinking later. I turn off my phone and tuck it away.
It’s a ten minute drive from my new condo to the Lumberjacks arena.
Fifteen if there’s traffic, which I don’t mind. An extra five minutes to get my head in the game has never hurt. I had a longer drive in Ottawa.
I’ll add that to the short list of things I like about having been traded to Vancouver.
Short commute.
Mountain views.
A young, hungry team eager to win the Cup.
That last point should be reason enough, but after being blindsided with this trade, from a team that went all the way to game seven of the division final last year…I feel the need to have some other advantages here, too.
Because if the Sens get there this year, and I’m left out in the cold, that’s going to be a punch in the gut all over again.
That kind of negative talk is completely unhelpful, of course. I know that. I crank up the raggaeton on the stereo in my still-got-that-new-car-smell SUV. I got a Land Rover for out here. Back home I’ve got a pick up, but I wanted something different. I had them install the same audio deck and speaker system, though.
I like my music. Gets me in the zone for a game.
Gets me in the zone for kink, too.
Stop thinking about Sasha.
We hadn’t even gone there, though. Our single afternoon had just been two people, two bodies, and a shit tonne of pleasure.
But we’ve got some shared experiences with kink, too. Last Christmas, she sat next to me on a couch at my friend Max’s place during his holiday play party, and as she watched my buddy Brandon flog someone on the St. Andrew’s Cross, I watched Sasha.
Wide eyes, swollen lips, chest rising and falling in shallow, horny breaths.
Stop thinking—
Thank Christ for short drives. I slide into the underground garage at the arena. As it is already, I’m going to need to compose myself so I don’t stroll into the Lumberjacks locker room with a semi.
The cold trickle of doubt that slides down my spine at the thought of dressing for this game does the trick. Arousal vanquished.
Despite my cocky promises to Sasha, I’m not as confident as I should be right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to admit that to myself.
A few other guys are arriving at the same time, and I give them silent nods as we head inside. Front office staff go out of their way to give us big smiles and high-fives—because for everyone else, today is like Christmas Eve. The start of something really special.
Out in the arena, every seat will be draped with a Lumberjacks t-shirt. Every fan arriving will get an axe-shaped noisemaker to chop in the air as they cheer us on.
And in our dressing room, I’ll find my uniform waiting for me, prepared with care by the equipment guys.
It’s game day, and I’m not sure where my head is at. Something needs to change.
3
Sasha
Ottawa
I watch the Lumberjacks season opener on my laptop, in bed. I cringe and wince and bite my fist, and when it ends, I pause the feed on a shot of Tate—head lowered, face twisted in anger.
I’m not sure if I want to yell at him or console him. Is it possible to do both at the same time? But I can’t do either, because even though I subscribed to NHL TV so I could watch Tate’s games from across the country, I’ll never tell him—or anyone else—just how closely I’m following the former Senators captain with his new team.
I’m trying to avoid the press coverage, and just watch him. But it’s hard to listen to the announcers talk about whether or not the critical reception he’s received in the Vancouver papers is justified, given his wobbly performance in both the pre-season and tonight’s game.
Maybe if people gave him some space, he’d adjust faster. But I know that’s not how it works at his level. He’s a pro. And not just a pro, but a top-earning star—so he’s expected to be a top-producer of goals and assists, no matter the conditions.
There’s no room for sentiment in the NHL. Loyalty is misplaced and when you least expect it, they’ll blindside you with a cross-country move because of the almighty dollar.
I know all about ruthless business decisions.
I was practically raised in a boardroom. My father took my grandfather’s tool-and-die operation and grew it into a multinational automotive parts manufacturing conglomerate. He owns a part of almost every pro sport team in Toronto, and he’s as cold-hearted as they come.
I’m cut from exactly the same cloth, and I hate it.
I hate that my father can see those similarities, too. That he’s picked me to be his successor, even though I want nothing to do with Brewster Industries.
Besides, I’ve found other outlets for my business instincts. I’m forging my own path, not that my father knows it. I’ve gone out of my way to make sure he doesn’t. Michael Brewster isn’t the only one in the family who knows how to play with numbered companies and shell corporations.
The last thing I do before bed is check my email. My meeting for the morning is still on. Then I click back to the screen shot of Tate’s pissed-off mug, and shake my head.
He needs to sort himself out, and he knows it.
A pang of some soft feeling I don’t like zips through me, and I squash it.
That’s what happens when you play with fire. If fire was six-foot-three and two hundred pounds of walking sex.
Tate doesn’t need my sympathy. He needs a kick in the ass, but he’s going to have to get it from someone who isn’t me. Other than the polite best wishes I sent him on opening day, I’m not speaking to the guy.
I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong impression about my feelings.
I take one last look at the laptop screen and snap the lid shut.
No. Feelings.
He’ll get the wrong impression that I have feelings. I’m a Brewster. We don’t do that.
The next morning, I go for an early run, then shower and blow out my hair. I put on just the right amount of make-up—which isn’t much, for this meeting—then slide my laptop and the contracts into my favourite Hermes bag.
I’m going for a drive in the country, but I still want to look every inch the part of a bad-ass silent investor.
The Ottawa Valley is full of small villages that are ripe for development, and I don’t mean the overwhelming, soul-destroying construction that my father would put his money into.
I’m all about making the most of what’s already there. Today I’m driving to the hamlet of Metcalfe. It’s quaint and quiet, and Mabel’s office won’t change that.
I don’t miss that the storefront beside it is empty, as well, and I make a mental note to see who holds that lease.
One of my other investments may need an out-of-town location, too, and it’s always good to control who your neighbours are.
Mabel arrives shortly after me. She parks her car behind mine, and the difference is striking. For a two-time Juno winner, she drives a shit car. I want to change that for her, and that’s what this meeting is all about.
Mabel Whitaker—Canadian singer and songwriter. It’s a sad statement on the music industry that such a talented performer has turned to gaming and app development. Radio’s loss is Metcalfe’s gain, though. If she likes this building, with
its turn-of-the-century charm and oodles of space at a bargain basement price, then she just might start Ottawa’s next big tech company in the middle of nowhere.
And I want to be her silent partner.
I wave and give her an enthusiastic smile as she spots me.
“This isn’t at all what I was expecting,” she says as she joins me on the wraparound verandah. We’re still waiting for the real estate agent, so I might as well start with my outside pitch.
I do a quick run down of the benefits, then I acknowledge the drawbacks—distance from the city being the main one—before finishing with the dealmaker fact. “The listed lease price is less than a quarter of any similar space in the city. And I bet we can negotiate that down even further.”
“No way,” she breathes.
“Yep.” I wink at her. “Finding a good real estate deal is kind of my thing.”
She laughs. “Isn’t your thing supposed to be finishing a PhD?”
I wave my hand. “I do that on Mondays and Tuesdays.”
I wouldn’t say that to most people. But to the handful of women I partner with in business, it’s a selling point. I’m juggling a lot of responsibility, and so can they.
“If you really want to look inside the city limits, I’m down for that, too. But I think you can do something special here. You won’t need to limit yourself to one showroom at first. There are four rooms on the second floor just dying to be turned into tricksy puzzles. I know your focus isn’t direct entertainment, but you could do something special for the locals and the media. And then it will be even more worth the drive out here for your corporate customers. Build it and they will come—and if you establish yourself as a reason worth looping through Metcalfe, the community will benefit, too, and then you’ll have loyal, local customers, too. Loyalty is hard to come by in the city.”
She nods. “Okay. I’m officially interested. But I don’t want me to be the reason why people come here, just to be clear.”
Mr. Hat Trick Page 2
