by Luis, Maria
I don’t know which part to reply to first, the fact that he’s worried about memory loss or that he mentioned kids with me. A single glance at Dr. Mebowitz reveals that he’s left the office, probably to give us some privacy.
Ex-husband.
Ex-wife.
And yet I’ve never loved him more.
I sink my hand into the soft, thick strands of his hair. Dig the pads of my fingers into his skull, gently massaging his head. “When we have kids,” I tell him, my voice wavering with emotion, “they’re going to know that their father was the biggest badass the NHL has ever seen. They’ll know about the time your best friend busted your face so bad that he broke your cheekbone and that oh-so-pretty one you have now is straight metal.” Pushing my chair back, I lower to my knees on the thin area rug and force Jackson to look at me. Tears cling to his dark lashes, and I lean up and kiss his closed lids. “They’ll boast to all their friends about the time their dad won the Stanley Cup, broken paella—”
“Patella,” he says on a choked laugh, “not paella.”
“Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.” I give him the smallest smile. “And when we tell them that Daddy finished his last season playing for the Blades, he did it with the Cup coming home one last time.”
“Holly—”
“Not all superheroes wear capes, Jackson.” I squeeze his hands and bring them to my chest. “Dig deep and find another way to make your dream a reality. Now let’s wrap this up with Dr. Mebowitz so we can go home, and I can take care of you.”
35
Holly
“Home” turns out to be Jackson’s condo.
I’d like to pretend that we sit down and immediately dive into a conversation about everything we discussed with Dr. Mebowitz. Instead, the only conversation that’s happening is the one between our bodies.
The door closes behind Jackson, and then I’m being yanked into his embrace. I go willingly, rising onto my toes to shorten the distance from my mouth to his. Our lips collide in a kiss that’s raw and desperate.
It’s exactly how I feel: desperate.
For him.
For us.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps between kisses, his hands clutching my hips and keeping me close. “I’m so sorry for letting us fall apart. This year . . . these last three years.” His kiss turns aggressive, nipping at my lips before sweeping his tongue into my mouth.
He kisses me like he plays hockey: with every last corner of his soul.
And I kiss him with every inch of my heart.
I hook an arm around the nape of his neck, tugging his big frame down until we’re as close to eye level as we’ll ever be. Dark eyes stare into mine, the hue already so close to black that I can’t even tell if his pupils have dilated with lust. “What we have . . . what we have doesn’t stay between the lines. It’s messy and beautiful and one-of-a-kind. It’s us.”
Jackson groans into my mouth, like the words are everything he needed to hear, and the sound is so guttural that it goes straight to my core and burns me up with lust. Wanting him naked, I flatten my hand and move it from his neck to his traps. I claw the cotton T-shirt into a fist, then drag the material over his head.
He releases me long enough for me to strip him half-naked.
“Turn around.”
Biting down on my lip, I do as he says and present him with my back. My head drops as I wait for him to make his move.
He does, slowly.
My shirt, like his, is pulled up until I blink, and I see fabric, and then blink again and Jackson’s living room comes back into place. Calloused fingers stroke down the pearls of my spine in light, feathery touches. The band of my bra tightens, making it momentarily hard to breathe—and then loosens when the cups fall from my breasts. I let the undergarment fall to the floor.
Masculine lips collide with my shoulder blades. The space behind my ear that never fails to make me quiver. Down they travel, covering the expanse of my back until Jackson pauses and I hear him lower to his knees.
“Grip the table, sweetheart.”
My tongue feels swollen as I move into place, fingers finding the lip of the entryway table that’s waist-high. When I feel Jackson at my back, kissing the base of my spine, there’s no more hope of ever catching my breath. Particularly not when my skirt is inched down my legs, my boy shorts right along with it.
Jackson’s palms cradle my butt, his thumbs pressing inward in small circles. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you—other than being caught with the same truck as Cornell’s goalie, that is.”
It’s not what I expected him to say, and laugher spills from my lips. Twisting at my waist, I peer down at him behind me. Reach forward and cup his face, and murmur, “Don’t worry, yours is the only car I’ve ever vandalized.”
“Better be,” he grunts with male satisfaction. His hands graze my skin as he hooks them around my outer thighs. “I knew right then that no one would ever make me feel the way you do.”
Breath catching when he inches my legs apart, I manage an uneven, “And how is that?”
“Like I’m home.” His brown eyes zero in on my face, rooting me in place with the intensity that I see in them. “You walked into my life fourteen years ago, Holls, and you turned the whole damn thing upside down. And when things came tumbling, I had no idea how to stop it from shattering altogether. I let you down, sweetheart, and for that, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Jackson, you can’t—”
He kisses the back of one thigh, shutting me up. “Let me get this out.”
My core clenches at the command in his voice. I can’t force myself to look away, not yet. It hasn’t escaped my notice that I’m naked—so very, very naked—while he’s mostly clothed. “Go on, then.”
His smile is fleeting but grateful. “I fucked up in letting you walk out of my life, but I think—in some weird, screwed-up way—I knew that signing on for Getting Pucked would mean having you back in my life . . . if I could only convince you to take on the job.”
Just like that, realization hits me square in the face. “The interference,” I whisper, “this is what you meant, isn’t it, when you said that you were being selfish in asking me to take on the job with the show? You wanted to ensure that nothing about your headaches or visits with Dr. Mebowitz would make it on TV.”
Dark lashes fall closed as he drops his gaze to the floor. His shoulders rise and fall with a deep-seated sigh, and this time I turn around completely, unable to keep my back to him when we have this conversation.
Voice ragged, he manages, “Everything I’ve been feeling . . . I’ve been feelin’ it for a while. Enough that, after we divorced, I finally worked up the nerve to go to a doctor about all the migraines.”
I furrow my brows, confusion slicking through me. “But Dr. Mebowitz, he said that you never showed up? Right?”
Jackson lifts his head, his expression revealing all of the pain he’s kept locked down for so very long. “I showed up. Once.” He laughs bitterly. “Everything he told me, though, had me running and never looking back. I’d lost you, Holly, and the idea of losing hockey, too . . . God, it felt like I’d stepped into my own version of hell.” Shaking his head, he continues, “I’m stubborn, as we know, but I’m not stupid. Everything felt worse this year . . . more acute, more . . . debilitating, I guess you could say. I knew I’d have to go back at some point, and I knew that there was only one person I could ever trust to keep my secret.”
“Me.”
“You.” Holding my gaze, he says, “You, the girl I knew I’d marry within weeks of meeting her.” He gently spins me back around, one big palm landing on my lower back to apply pressure and tip my butt up into the air. My chest grazes the cool marble table. “You, the girl who gave me everything she was and loved me just right.” The heat of his arm circles my leg, and I don’t even have the chance to think about what’s happening until his middle finger is already pressing down on my clit. A moan tears from my throat.
&nbs
p; “You,” Jackson goes on, as though he’s not driving me mad, “the girl who I lost, the girl I love. I should have told you about Dr. Mebowitz earlier than now but admitting the pain to you would make it real. Permanent in a way I desperately wish it wasn’t. And I didn’t want to change the way you look at me. I didn’t want you to see me as anyone but the man who loves you beyond reason. But I realized today . . . I can’t do this without you by my side. I need your strength when I’ve got none left. I need your love when everything feels like it’s going to hell. No one compares to you, Holly. Not for me. For me, it’s always been you.”
A cry bursts from my lungs when I feel his tongue dive between my legs, stroking along my seam. My hands turn to fists on the edge of the table as pleasure sinks into my limbs.
I arch my back and catch my gaze reflected back at me from the mirror above the table. I see nothing of Jackson from my vantage point, just the crown of his head, but I see all of me. My hard nipples and my tight stomach. My half-closed eyes and my open mouth. When Jackson sucks on my clit, I mewl like a satisfied kitten—and my shoulders roll with me as I stretch to give Jackson better reach.
It’s erotic, watching myself as Jackson works me to abandon.
Two fingers sink into my heat, and colors blooms in my cheeks. I catch myself driving back against those fingers, against his circling tongue on my clit, and, for the first time, I see the woman Jackson must see.
A woman who loves just right; a woman who’s fiercely loyal and will always, always, give every last bit of her soul; a woman who isn’t afraid to get dirty if she believes in the cause.
Jackson may be the one on his knees, but I’m the one feeling as though I’ve been knocked on my butt and forced to wake up and see the world for what it is, disallowing my grandmother’s revelations to dictate how I live.
“Another,” I beg Jackson shamelessly.
He must know exactly what I mean because a third finger joins the first two. It only takes two more pumps of his fingers to send me teetering over into an orgasm. I come, not looking at myself in the mirror but twisted at the waist so I can stare down at the man between my legs. His dark eyes snap up to mine, and maybe it’s that instant connection that does it, but the subsiding orgasm rocks into another one. My legs tremble under my weight, my inner walls locking tight on his fingers.
“Hell,” he grunts, his breath hot on my swollen clit, “you’re so damn gorgeous.”
Jackson picks me up and carries my limp body to the bed. He lays me down with care, crawls over me, and brushes his lips with mine. “You up for the main course?”
“Since it’s your body and not your cooking?” I slide my hands down his muscular spine. “Get naked, Mr. Carter.”
I help him out of his jeans, unbuckling his belt and tugging down the zipper. He stands on the floor and I kneel on all fours on the bed. When I tug down his jeans and briefs, I take his hard-on in hand and give it a firm stroke. “One more appetizer,” I mutter when he begins to pull away, “it’s my favorite one.”
Kissing the crown of his cock, I slide my tongue down the length of him.
“Oh, shit.”
I reward his responsiveness with sucking him into my mouth. On each upward glide, I hollow my cheeks and apply the pressure at the root with my tight fist. I keep my eyes open, unwilling to miss anything, and there’s no mistaking the way the veins in his thighs leap each time I squeeze him a little tighter. One glance up at his chest and it’s so very clear that he’s having a hard time regulating his breath.
“Holly.” He spits out my name on a ragged breath, his hands coming to the back of my head to control my pace.
Not happening.
I promptly swallow as much of his length as I can handle, and his knees give out.
Just when I think he’s about to go down for good, he swoops forward and throws me back on the bed. In jerky motions, he yanks open the dresser drawer and pulls out one of the condoms that we bought upon our return from Newport.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to go without but I’m not on birth control and we have enough on our plates with the grand unknown in front of us. As he rips the foil and rolls the condom on, I cradle his face and kiss him hard.
“You’re my high, Jackson Carter,” I say against his mouth, my legs already spreading so he can fit between them. “You’re my family. You called me today and I’ve never”—I swallow past the lump in my throat—“I’ve never been so scared in my life. You asked me once if I feel fulfilled from photography. I do, but I . . .” I kiss his cheek, his chin. “There’s nothing in this world that makes me feel happier than you. And I know how ridiculous that sounds—how I’ve always wanted to build something of my own and be successful.”
The head of his cock lines up with my entrance and in a single push, he thrusts home. We hiss simultaneously, his hands on either side of my head and mine clinging to his shoulders. “You can have both, sweetheart,” he growls as he pulls out, then drives forward, filling me up to completion. “You’re a superhero with a camera.” Another slow glide out and inward push that curls my toes in the sheets. “You’re a woman who’s loved more than she’ll ever know.”
I gasp when he flicks his finger over my clit. “And you?” I ask on a throaty moan. “What are you?”
“I’m yours, however you’ll have me. Now. Forever.”
His thrusts pick up speed and I bow my back when he hits the most delicious spot. He does it again, and again, and yet again. I crane my neck against the mattress, relishing the way his always-so-carefully-constructed control splinters. Gripping my hips, he pushes my legs wide and powers into me.
My hands fist the bedsheets.
My gaze never leaves from his.
He changes his angle, leaning forward so that each thrust glides along my clit, the pressure there so acute that I come apart.
“Oh, God, Jackson!”
“I love you,” he growls, “and I’m never letting you go again.”
Dropping his hands to the flat of my belly, he drives into me, and this time, he follows me into oblivion with my name on his lips.
I welcome his bulky weight in my arms, and as he comes off the high of his own orgasm, he kisses the top of my breast. “You have something to tell me, Holls.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you again.”
He props his chin on my chest. “That wasn’t even a question. Now tell me that other thing.”
“We’re about to have company?”
Jackson stills in my arms. “We’re what?”
“Company.” I lift my hips and wriggle them side to side, just to mess with his head. “You might want to get up. I don’t know what time it is, but I told them we’d need an hour.”
“An hour?” Leaping from the bed, Jackson stares down at my naked body and then at his dick, which is still mostly hard. “Please tell me you didn’t invite my mother.”
I roll over on my side, bending one elbow so I can lay the side of my face on it. Not going to lie, there’s something rather amazing about watching stoic, formidable Jackson Carter lose a little of that reserved edge of his. Just to see him flush, I singsong, “You might want to put on some clothes. Momma Martha doesn’t need to see any of that.” I wave at his nakedness.
Jackson looks like there’s nothing he’d love more than to jump out of the closest window.
“Any minute now.” I roll over onto my back and do my best to kick the smile off my face. “I’ll just stay here, if you don’t mind.”
“Hell no. Are you kidding?” He trips over a stray pair of shoes in his haste to pull on a pair of briefs, then half hobbles to the dresser. “You, ma’am, better get your pretty ass dressed. I’m not facing my mom alone after all of—”
Raising up onto my elbows, I stare him down. “All of what? Sex?” You’d think that after all these years of being married, the Beast of the Northeast, the Badass of Hockey, wouldn’t be terrified to talk to his momma about the birds and the bees.
Luckily for him, Momma Mart
ha isn’t our visitor for today.
“Caaarterrrrr!” Ensue banging on the front door.
Right on time.
Jackson’s handsome face turns toward the front of the condo. “Who was that?”
I roll my eyes. God, men. Sometimes you really do have to spell it all out for them. “It was the Ghost of Christmas Past.” I pause, letting him soak up all of that brilliant sarcasm, and then add, “I called in the reinforcements.”
“Carter! We’re coming in and you better be dressed!”
“No naked dicks, either! Unless you really did get that penis reconstructive surgery—then I’m intrigued!”
Jackson pauses halfway in pulling up his jeans, understanding dawning in his expression. “You invited the guys.”
I crawl to the edge of the mattress, then swing my feet to the floor. Naked as the day I was born, I amble over to Jackson and hop up on my tiptoes to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Family doesn’t come down to a piece of paper,” I say, brushing my hand over his bare chest. “It doesn’t matter if you have a hockey contract or a marriage license marking it as true and legal.” Palm flat on his heart, I risk a glance up his face. “You need them just as you need me. Now go let them in before they break the door down.”
“Christ, Holls.” He wraps his arms around me, lifting me off the floor in one of his tight, familiar hugs. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Jackson.” Pausing, I tap his chest with a finger. Once. Twice. Then, “Even if you did opt for penis reconstructive surgery.”
I’m over his shoulder in the very next breath, my butt to the ceiling and his palm clamped down on it. “You’re going to pay for that one, sweetheart.”
“Yeah?” I stare at the tight globes of his ass. Honestly, this isn’t a bad view. I could get used to it, gladly. “You’re hereafter banned from the kitchen.”
