Mr. Hat Trick

by Ainsley Booth

  Or maybe she just likes to hurt him, and he likes it, too.

  People are complicated.

  Fucking, though, is damn simple. And the volunteers who have signed up are down for that—simple, straightforward, vigorous sex. It starts simply enough, with Henry introducing his wife to the other men. He encourages them to compliment her, and talks about what she likes—her nipples sucked, her clit teased, a feathery touch.

  She wants to be worshipped, and that’s what they give her. Beside me, Sasha fidgets and squirms, especially when one of the men gets between Madeline’s legs.

  I couldn’t share Sasha like that. The bolt of possession hits me in a most unexpected place—my heart. Right in the middle of chest, the knowledge that I want her all to myself grows and throbs.

  My fingers rub up and down her arm, and I squeeze her shoulder.

  She licks her lips. Crosses her legs.

  I think about her cunt, wet and swollen for me. Just for me. Mine.

  My cock strains at my fitted suit pants. If anyone were to look over at me, with my legs spread and my slouched position on the couch, they’d see a clearly turned-on man.

  They might think it’s about the tableau in front of us. They’d be so fucking wrong.

  As soon as the scene ends, I’m pulling Sasha through the house.

  “So we’re not going to say goodbye?” she teases me as I shove her wrap at her in the cloakroom that once had been a front sitting room.

  I don’t answer her. Instead I send a text to the driver to meet us out front, then I press her against the wall and kiss her as I work my hands up her skirt and rip off her panties.

  “Okay, no goodbyes,” she whispers, her chest heaving.

  I don’t fuck her in the limo. I want to, but I want other things, too.

  I want her stretched out in front of the fireplace in my bedroom. I want her cries for my ears only, and I don’t trust that privacy screen.

  So I ply her with Prosecco instead, drinking it from her mouth until she laughs. Then I lick it off her breasts, making her sigh, and when those sounds threaten to break the erotic silence in the back of the limo, I take her mouth and I kiss her the rest of the way.

  When we arrive at my house, we’re both lust-drunk and wine-tipsy. I take the bottle and give the driver a five-hundred-dollar tip.

  Inside, we kiss again at the door. Sloppy and happy. We make out on the stairs, shedding our clothes as we slowly climb.

  And when I stretch her out in front of the fireplace, it’s just as perfect as I imagined.

  I get inside her and I stretch her out, my cock big and unyielding as it takes up space in her body. Claims her from the inside out.

  In the back of my mind, there’s a little thought that it might be time to talk about ditching condoms. I want to feel her pussy squeeze me, hot and bare and perfect.

  I want to spill my seed inside her, and that drives me crazy. I deepen my strokes, my hips and thighs tightening up with need as she digs her heels into my ass. Fuck, she makes me frantic.

  We roll, and I jackknife up, holding her on my lap as she rides me through the last, bucking thrusts. When she comes, I follow in a blinding, fireworks kind of orgasm that makes me say silent prayers to the sex gods.

  After I deal with the condom, I grab the blanket off the bed, and we stretch out in front of the soft glow of the fireplace.

  Sasha’s the first to speak. She gives me a sated smile. “That was worth it, eh?”

  I laugh. “Oh yeah.”

  She looks at me with the same curiosity I saw earlier, and I nod lazily. “You want to know more about all those people?”

  “I want to know more about you.” Her voice is soft and sweet, and she could ask me anything right now. I’m hers in every way, and she has no idea. “When was the first time you went to a club?”

  I think back. I know this isn’t exactly the story she’s looking for, but this is the one that’s most honest. “Early in my rookie year. One of the guys suggested we go look for some action at a club he knew in Las Vegas. I was expecting a regular kind of nightclub. Not even close. It wasn’t really a kink club. Not in a Miscreant or Rapscallion sense. I’d say more…kink-adjacent. The only scenes, for want of a better description, were simulated on a stage while club goers danced, drank, and watched. So, maybe a cross between a strip club and a BDSM club? Somewhere for people to take a walk on the wild-ish side.”

  “There’s a few places like that in Toronto, too. But they’ve got a weird reputation.”

  “Right. Yeah, this place probably had a bad rep, too. And it was only an okay night out. But what I saw spoke to me. I mean, I understood that what I was seeing wasn’t real-world BDSM, though. So I started looking into it and was fascinated.”

  “How long did it take to find the real kink community?”

  “Another year. I can’t just go to any local munch, and I didn’t know anyone who could get me into the private circles. I had to wait for another opportunity like that, and it came during a road trip out west. Alberta has a vibrant kink community, and there are some high-rollers in Calgary who are the real deal. I haven’t looked back. It was like something clicked. I discovered a part of myself, you know?”

  “Yeah, actually, I do,” Sasha says, and her gaze shifts, going unfocused as she drifts into a memory.

  “Max’s party?”

  She nods. “I mostly went as an excuse to get Beth there. And then…well, you know how that’s unfolded for me.”

  I do, and what a fucking gift it’s been to show her my favourite secret world. “There’s something really special about early exploration. After my first real kink event, I needed to know everything. Experience everything. I became a total kink-geek.”

  Sasha reaches out and strokes my face. “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. You’re such a perfectionist.” She’s not wrong. “Did you do like Doms I’ve read about—experience the receiving end of things as part of your training?”

  God, that’s digging deep. I nod. “That year, I realized I had a teammate who was deeply involved in the local kink community. He worked with me at first, then later, I was introduced to the woman who became my mentor. She encouraged me to experiment with every aspect of kink. I settled into hedonism as my main label, but I’ve got some brat in me, and a pretty good pain tolerance. I like to top in my personal relationships, but I can switch for a scene. So, even after I finished my training at the club, I volunteered to bottom for the occasional sadist who was looking to dish out more pain than his sub could handle.”

  “So, you have masochistic tendencies?” She pushes up, her eyes bright with mischief. Maybe she liked that flogger more than she let on.

  “I think every athlete is a masochist to some degree. No pain, no gain has been the mantra for decades now. Even you have a masochistic streak when it comes to exercise.”

  She skips right past that to the juicy detail. “Never mind that. You bottomed? Tell me that bedtime story, Tate.”

  “Is your voyeurism fetish maybe not just confined to watching?”

  She grins. “Maybe not.”

  Well, okay then. “Let’s be clear, it was more of a service role.”

  “Crystal clear. Gimme the goods.”

  “Are you looking for a story that must have me as the whipping-boy?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Here we go then. Once upon a time, in a city very far away from here, there was a Domly professional football player—let’s call him Bull—who agreed to play with a sadist, Bob, and his sub, Jill. Bob was always careful never to dole out more than Jill could handle, but every once in a while, he needed to let off some steam. That’s where Bull came in.”

  Sasha squirms a little, and that makes me grin.

  “He took everything Bob threw at him—literally, with whips and floggers and everything in between. And he took it all for Jill. And a little bit for himself. Because not only did Bob take him right to the edge of his pain-threshold, whenever Bob gave Bull a repr
ieve, he ordered Jill to blow Bull, but not let him come. By the time Bob finished torturing Bull, he was dripping with pre-come—”

  Sasha’s hips rock against my thigh.

  “Are you okay there?”

  “Perfectly. Go on. Dripping with pre-come…”

  I like the idea of her coming against my leg while I tell her a dirty story, but I don’t want to tell her about fucking another woman. So I kiss her instead, until she comes apart in my arms.

  “…And they fucked their way to very happy endings,” I whisper before I pick her up and carry her to my bed, where I love her up one more time before I fall asleep with her snuggled into my side, her head on my chest.

  31

  Sasha

  The day after the Rapscallion holiday party we fly to Vancouver. Before we leave, he closes up his Ottawa house. All the food in the fridge gets put in the freezer, except for the holiday cookies, which I rescue and take to my apartment. I’ll be back in five days and ready to eat my feelings, I have no doubt.

  Once I’m packed up, I head back to his place to pick him up, because I’ll need my car at the airport when I return. It’s a blustery day, but the plows have been out, and traffic is strangely cooperative.

  “Shouldn’t be any snow on the west coast,” Tate says after we race from the parking garage to the departures terminal.

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  He just grins.

  We’ve already checked in, so we make our way through security, then head for the first-class lounge. On the way, we pass the departure gate. It’s not busy yet, because there’s still an hour before boarding, but there’s a loud discussion happening at the counter. Tate slows his steps long enough to take in the scene—an irate passenger could delay the flight departure, and he has a game tomorrow.

  He stops, and I follow his gaze. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure.” He frowns.

  But the passenger isn’t irate at all. If anything, they seem to be going out of their way to be patient, and it’s the gate staff whose voice is raised.

  Tate changes direction, and I follow.

  Screw the first-class lounge. We can wait at the gate, and keep an eye on this conversation. It’s two days after Christmas. Nobody needs to have their afternoon ruined.

  I set my carry-on bag on a seat close enough for us to overhear their conversation.

  “We don’t make exceptions for carry-on sizes. You shouldn’t have made it through security,” the staff person says. He’s dropped his attention to the computer now, no longer looking at the passenger. “If you’d like to check the bigger bag, we can do that. There’s a charge, of course.”

  The passenger takes a deep breath. “How much?”

  A loaded, painful question. Like there’s a chance she may not be able to afford the hundred dollars, or whatever it is.

  She doesn’t get an answer. Instead, she gets a lot of clicking and sighing, and instead of sitting next to me, Tate prowls towards the counter.

  I watch carefully, because he’s probably best to handle this, but he doesn’t need any drama, either.

  The passenger gives him an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

  “Are you on the flight to Vancouver?” He asks her. “We’ve got lots of time before boarding, don’t worry.”

  The staff person snaps his hand out. “Boarding pass.”

  “Me?” Tate shakes his head. “I’m not looking to—”

  “Boarding. Pass.”

  Whoa.

  Tate visibly takes a deep breath and hands over his boarding pass. I get it—he doesn’t want to get kicked off our flight by someone on a power trip. The staff person takes one look at the paper and rolls his eyes. “First-class lounge is down the hall.”

  “I’m aware. I only came over here to offer to pay for this woman’s extra bags.” Tate slides her an easy, don’t-worry smile. “It’s Christmas, after all.”

  That gets another sigh, and I can tell Tate is getting frustrated. He looks around, and his attention catches on someone else sitting on the other side of the desk. Someone with matching bags to the woman next to him; someone with big, worried eyes, and a too-frail body.

  A young girl with a bald head.

  “Is that your daughter?” he asks the woman.

  She nods. “Her name is Amy. We’re from Langley. We came out here for the holidays.”

  “Yeah, me too. I’m heading back to work, though.” He glances around to me, a question in his eyes.

  I nod. Fine by me.

  “You know what, man?” Tate leans on the counter and clicks his fingers to get the gate guy’s attention. “I’d like to switch seats with this woman and her daughter.”

  Damn straight. He’s so getting laid when we get to his place in Vancouver.

  I get up, my boarding pass ready to be traded in. “Hi,” I say to the woman. “I’m Sasha.”

  “Bree.”

  “Did you have a nice Christmas?”

  Bree nods, a stunned expression on her face.

  “Me, too. And I get a few more days with my friend here, away from the snow, so I’m feeling pretty lucky. We’d be honoured if you’d take our seats, and I’m sure they can find room for your bags.”

  “My daughter needs more changes of clothes…just in case… And we have medicine, and special food, too.”

  Tate’s face tightens up, and I can see him tearing the airline staff a new asshole if this doesn’t get fixed now. But he’s not going to throw his name around—which is sweet, for him to make this not about himself.

  So maybe I can help.

  I gently touch Bree’s forearm. “Of course.” I turn to the guy at the counter. “Is there an ombudsperson or passenger advocate we could get on the phone, maybe? Or can you pull up the compassionate guidelines for medical travel? I’d love to take a look at that, figure out what kind of exception could be made given the circumstances.”

  He blinks at me.

  I smile blandly. “Now, would be great.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “That’s clear. But I am sure, so either get someone on the phone, or switch our boarding passes. Understand?”

  A vein pops to life in his forehead, and he clenches his jaw, but he nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tense seconds tick by as he clicks on the keyboard, then the printer whirs to life. He silently hands Tate a new boarding pass, then me.

  Finally, he hands Bree two boarding passes without looking at her.

  Tate clears his throat.

  “Ah, the first-class lounge is that way,” the guy says faintly.

  Bree shakes her head. “We’re fine here.”

  Tate gestures toward Amy. “Could we sit with you until boarding time?”

  The gate guy gave Tate a middle seat, but I have an aisle seat, so we switch once we’re on the plane.

  His right leg spills into the tiny aisle, and his left knee is jammed into the seat in front of him. Economy seats can’t be comfortable for oversized NHL players.

  But he’s grinning at me. “That was fun.”

  “You’re a Christmas elf,” I murmur as I cuddle against him.

  “You carried the big stick there at the end.”

  “I have some experience navigating bureaucracies.”

  “It’s hot.” He snags my hand and tugs my fingers up so he can kiss my knuckles. “If I can move at the end of this flight, I’m totally giving you a reward fuck.”

  “Dare I ask what that might be?”

  He grins wickedly. “Nope.”

  Another passenger takes the seat on the other side of me, but he breaks out headphones and falls asleep soon after take-off.

  We both hop on Wi-Fi and check email. The university is closed this week, so I only have personal stuff to respond to, but I owe Mabel a marketing thought dump.

  Tate offers a quiet running narrative as he checks in with his various teammates, and his friends who work for him on the back end in O
ttawa.

  “Two days after Christmas, and Rob is already sending me charity stuff to consider for next summer,” he says with a fond smile.

  “It’ll be good to have you back in Ottawa for a while.”

  He slides a sideways glance at me. “Yeah.”

  My chest squeezes. Feelings. Bah. “Tell me about some of these charity ideas.”

  He lists a few of them. Pro-am golf tournaments, rent-an-arena free skate for the food bank, that kind of thing.

  Good ideas, but they’re all local.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t done something scaleable, like a calendar.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  I shrug. “It wasn’t a suggestion, really. Just an observation.”

  That doesn’t deter him. He leans in, lowering his voice. “But I think I’ll do it naked.”

  He didn’t just say naked on a crowded airplane. Yes, of course he did. I give him a shushing look that he ignores.

  “Think it will sell? Maybe I can get some of my teammates to pose with me.”

  I swallow my tongue and try to think of a snappy response. For once, I’m stumped. All I can see is Andrushko tapping Tate on the ass with his hockey stick—and neither of them wearing so much as a jersey.

  “Maybe you can all wear skate socks,” I say after a painful few seconds of silence. I close my eyes and silently groan. Super weak come back, Sasha.

  He chuckles in my ear. “Or just the pads.” He drops his voice, practically purring now. He’s really far too good at that distract-me-with-sex voice. It’s unacceptable. “Strategically placed…pucks.”

  “Shhhh.” Except… “Are you sure there are pucks big enough to cover up Andrushko?”

  He laughs. “I’m jealous that you’ve give his junk that kind of thought.” He’s lying. He doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body. The more complicated the orgy, the happier I’m sure he is.

  I push the tease further. “He’s a big guy.”

  “Not that big.”

  “Noted.” I wink. “You and your dirty bestie will definitely sell a lot of calendars.”