by Stacey Lynn
“Hey!” I shout. “Dumbass!” Dubiak turns to the familiar nickname and scowls at me.
“What?”
“My house. My remote. You know the rules.”
He tosses it toward me easily and I grab it out of the air. Without the remote to fight for, he loosens his extended arm on Lizzie’s head and she collapses forward, slamming into his chest.
“You’re a dick, Garrett.”
“And you’ve always been a pain in my ass,” he growls back. He gives her a quick, playful shove to the side and claims the only chair in the place, leaving Lizzie spinning for balance, frustrated and flushed. She brushes her hair off her face and flounces to the couch where she collapses next to Katie.
“Thanks for inviting us,” she grumbles, but she’s smiling and out of breath. “This is fun.”
I choke on my own laugh and turn up the volume.
Because Dubiak is right: If hockey isn’t on, there’s no point in having the TV on. And besides, I don’t even have Netflix.
“Shit. Get your hand off me and come here.” My body is covered in a sheen of sweat where I’m currently lying on my back in my bed. We hung out with Garrett and Lizzie for hours before they finally ate all the pizza, drank all the beer, and watched one game between Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. Then Katie not so politely kicked them out of my apartment and shortly after, she dragged me to my bedroom.
Where she proceeded to totally and completely take charge.
I’m a guy who likes control, but Katie bossing me around, stripping off my clothes and shoving me to my bed while she performs a striptease with no music is definitely one of the top five hottest experiences of my life.
We’re now both naked, her body’s been splayed out on top of mine. Her wet pussy is grinding against my thigh while she’s slid her hand down between us and jacked my dick so much if she doesn’t let go, this night is going to be over.
The beauty of everything she’s giving me dulls the shooting pain in my knee in a way I think she’s becoming the best pain reliever ever invented.
“Did you have fun tonight?” she asks, sliding her leg over my waist and running her hands up my chest. She stops to play with my hair, run one hand down the center of my stomach, up to my shoulders. Spikes of pleasure and need follow in her wake.
My hands go to her hips and I press her down so she’s sitting on my cock. I might not have the strength of my legs, but I can hold her against me, rub her sex over my dick and get it all slick with her. “I’m not talking about Dubiak right now,” I groan. She’s so damn hot. “I don’t even want to think about that ogre right now.”
She laughs and falls down, her mouth so close to mine. “No? What do you want to do?”
I bought condoms on my way home today. No point in having Gina get them for me. I’m also pretty certain the kid who was only a few years younger than me recognized me as I hobbled in to get them. His face turned bright red and he stammered through the purchase.
If I hadn’t been buying Magnums, I might have shaken his hand or spent more time talking to him. But I don’t really need a social media post hitting the internet with the checkout guy announcing what I bought when we met.
“Stopped at the store today. Bought condoms.” I kiss her and take her mouth which opens instantly for me. Her hips grind against me and hot damn shit I want inside of her.
We’ve had sex once but I still remember the night like it was yesterday and I’m eager to create a new memory.
With how brave and bold she’s been tonight, I’m certain it will be off the damn charts good.
My hand at her hip squeezes, stilling her as she grinds down on my dick. “Katie.”
She opens her eyes enough to peer back at me. Her brown eyes are so beautiful when glazed over with lust. I press against her. “What?”
“Condom. Nightstand.” Hell if I can speak in full sentences now, or shift to get them myself.
She grins and presses her hand to my cheek, down my neck. Her soft touch is as irritating as it is sexy as hell. I want her hands on me. HARD. I want her soft touches that make my skin prickle.
“I’m on the pill.”
Fucking beautiful. I fucked around a lot my first couple years in the league. The ego of a twenty-two-year-old hotshot, I took whatever was offered. But in the back of my mind, it was always Katie I remembered, that feeling I had when we connected in bed. So I threw away the meaningless, frequent shit and became more particular. But I have never considered taking a woman up on the offer to go bare.
Ever.
“Fuck.” My eyes close and my head presses into the pillow. “You trust me for that?”
“You trust me?”
She’s teasing, but there’s a worry in her eyes as she pushes her weight off my chest. I don’t let her go far. My arm snakes around her back and I pull her back to me.
“Katie Carter, I trust you with my whole damn life. Everything. Always.”
A shiver rolls through her and she presses her lips together. I haul her mouth against mine before she can respond and then she’s lifting her hips, her hand wrapping around me.
She finds the target she’s seeking and then she presses her body against me, sliding down my dick and holy hot shit damn if I thought tonight was going to be good before, this is….
Otherworldly.
“Hold the fuck on,” I grunt as she settles all of me inside of her. It seems to take a year and her hips circle, stretching around me. “This is… shit.”
I can hardly breathe, much less speak.
“So much better… wow.” She’s as breathless as me, eyes widened in surprise as much as me, which means I take it this is new for both of us.
No way in hell am I asking. Another man being inside of Katie makes me want to slam fists through a wall.
She’s mine, damn it.
16
Katie
I am in bed with Jude Taylor and for the first time in five years, I feel like I’m exactly where I belong. Where I’ve always belonged. And that’s insane, right? Because you shouldn’t feel at home riding a man’s monstrous and beautiful dick that makes me ache and stretch. I don’t care if I’m crazy right now.
I’ve never had a man inside me without a condom, and now I know Jude’s never shared that level of closeness with another woman.
And wowzers it feels so much better.
It feels like so much of everything I can hardly contain the sensations currently coursing through my core, my body… my heart.
It hits me. I will do anything not to lose this man and it’s not just his dick I’m worried about.
“Jude,” I call his name on a breath and his icy blue eyes lock on mine.
His jaw is jutted out as he holds me tight against him. But I can feel myself pulsing around him. The need I have for him is frantic. Wild. Yet serene. So reckless and yet safe, it makes my head spin because I’ve never felt either of those things.
“I know.” His reply comes out on a pant and then he lifts my hips, pulling me on and off of him and oh that ridge presses against that sweet spot inside and my body shudders.
“Shit,” I gasp at the sensation that rolls through me, making me hypersensitive. “Go slow,” I say and my hands move to his shoulders.
“Jesus Christ, I want to flip and fuck you right now. It’s killing me not to be able to.”
He continues moving me, sliding me up and down on his length and my body clings to him every time, refusing to let him go.
And it’s not just my body doing the clinging. My fingers are doing the same at his shoulders as we find our rhythm, that perfect rhythm that lights me up from the deepest parts of me inside and shoves outward until I’m nothing but sensations and sparks of pleasure shooting outward, making my body feel like I’ve been thrown into a fire.
“Jude.” I press my hand to his chest, to his heart where it roars and races beneath my palm.
I need more.
“Yeah.” We’ve dissolved to grunts and groans and gasps while sounds es
cape my throat unbidden and unknown to me before this. Soon, I’m rocking against him, my clit finding the pressure it needs, the depth of him doing everything else and my body loses control.
His hands hold on to my hips while I shake and fall apart and I’m pieced back together simultaneously. My head flies back, my fingers dig into his muscled chest and I come apart gloriously, powerfully, much more intensely than I thought humanly possible.
He follows me, arching his hips, slamming into me while pain and pleasure laces his face. For a second I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself, his knee, and then he slams me down onto him, causing another beautiful shock to radiate outward from our connection. He brings me down to him and he presses my mouth to his. He kisses me through his orgasm, through mine…
And I feel like I am home.
My home will never be a place. A location or a job.
It will be him and I know it to the depths of my soul.
For the first time in my life, I feel absolutely no shred of fear or worry… only peace as my heart races and soars, settles and matches the beat of his.
“We are never wearing a condom again,” he finally says, pulling away from my mouth and holding my face into his neck. His arms wrap around me tightly and I shift my weight, careful of his leg but feeling the need to burrow as close as possible against him.
“Never,” I agree. I hope to never have to use one again. Ever. His arms tighten around me and I hope he gets what I’m saying without words. Slowly, one of his hands drifts up and down my back. He brushes hair off my shoulder and languidly runs his hand down my spine, to my hips, the curve of my ass and backs of my thighs before retreating back up again.
“You’ll put me to sleep if you keep doing that,” I murmur against his throat.
“Worse things in life than having you sleep on me with my dick inside of you.”
I laugh and he groans as I tighten around him. “I should go clean up.”
“In a minute,” he mutters. “Stay with me. Like this, another minute.”
“Whatever you want, Jude.”
His hold on me flinches again and then releases. We stay connected for several more minutes until my hips tremble from the stretch and I slowly ease off him.
His smile is sleepy and his eyes are only half-open when I kiss his cheek, his lips. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry.”
I scamper off to the bathroom, leaving clothes and underwear on the floor and I do my business, warming a washcloth for him as well. When I return, I hand it to him so he can take care of himself, but he’s already shoving off the bed, groaning.
“You hurt?”
The look he flashes me heats me down to my toes. “It was worth it.”
It definitely was, still, I worry about his knee and his pain.
He limps toward me and presses a fingertip to the worry line between my brows, smiling so sweetly. “I’ll be fine. And I swear, with as relaxed as I feel, we’ll be doing that a lot more, so you better get used to it.”
“I never want to get used to the way that felt,” I tell him honestly. I’m rewarded with a look of surprise, followed immediately by arrogance that makes me roll my eyes.
“I am pretty good, aren’t I?”
I’d normally find a smart ass response, put him back in his place with a joke, but I’m too rocked from the entire experience. “I think you’re one of the best men I’ve ever met.”
Another flash of surprise in his eyes follows the dip of his head and then his lips are against mine, brushing back and forth. His hand falls gingerly to my hip and he holds me still, savoring me. “I’ve never met a finer, sexier woman, Katie. I hope you trust that down to your soul.”
He leaves me speechless, my legs feeling like jelly, and he moves toward the bathroom. I slide back into bed and moments later he follows, pulling me close to his good side with my leg over his thigh, his hand settled perfectly on my backside.
He turns on the television and I settle against him. We fall asleep eventually without words, but I’m not sure what else needs to be said.
We’ve said it all already with our bodies.
Meghan looks at me from above the rims of her black-framed glasses. Her lips are pursed together, a deep painted on shade of red and her hair is pulled back into a severe bun that seems to give her a facelift. She does not like me and while I know my request has come out of left field, I’m still entitled to the time.
“This is short notice.”
“I’ve talked with Logan and Avery about taking over most of my patients. They have lighter loads and it’s a slower time. Plus, I’ve already checked the calendars and it doesn’t appear we’ll be short in the office at any time I plan to be gone.”
With the holidays fast approaching, most patients fall off their scheduled visits anyway. They blame holiday plans and family coming and vacations and who can blame them. For the first time since I’ve been employed here full-time, I’m sitting across from the manager’s desk requesting longer than my standard few days at a time with months in advance vacation notice.
One I sent in writing per procedure and then was immediately called into her office to discuss.
It’s a few days until Christmas Eve and I’ve already planned my present to Jude. I’m hoping it’ll blow him away in the best way rather than scare him to pieces.
I woke up yesterday morning to overhearing him talking on the phone. I think it was his brother in Charlotte, mostly because I heard Jude mention seeing him soon and his mom excited to have everyone home. But then he mentioned Coach wanting him back. I skedaddled back to his room before he knew I was listening, my crazy plan taking shape.
It’s not the first time he’s had a call with someone about that topic, but it is the first time he hasn’t mentioned it to me, which tells me he’s considering it. And I’ve already told Jude he can’t stay in Chicago for me. That’s ridiculous and career suicide if his team wants him back down there.
I can support him, though. It’s just that my plan to do just that has the potential to fall apart in the clenched and irritated hands of the woman across from me.
“Three weeks vacation is highly unusual. Care to tell me why the sudden need for such a long leave?”
No way in hell. And I don’t understand why she’s fishing for such information. I release a shaky breath, hiding my nerves. This woman does, after all, also hold my career in her hands. “It’s personal time, Meghan. We’re not required to give reasons. Unless I’ve missed that in the employee handbook?”
“When it’s an extended leave like this, I believe you understand why I’d be curious.”
“Then consider that every year I’ve been here, I’ve lost vacation time because I haven’t ever come close to using all my time off and that includes the hours I can carry over to the next year. I’m an employee with an excellent track record, well above average performance reviews annually, and I have the highest reviews from the patients of anyone else in this office and our two other locations on the North Side.”
“Are you saying I owe you this time off?”
God, she’s such a witch. “No. I’m saying it’s my personal time and I’m allowed to use it for whatever means I choose, and I’m simply reminding you that I rarely take all my time, so I don’t understand why this request is being questioned.”
“I’m the office manager, Miss Carter. I can question anything I choose.”
She’s trying to put me in whatever place she’s conjured by using my formal name and unease settles in my gut. She’s never really liked me as well as other therapists, but she’s never been this outright rude before either. I chalk it up to holiday stress and possible PMS and relax my posture. “I understand. Please let me know whether you decide to approve my request. Is there anything else?”
“Very well.”
She dismisses me by turning to her computer and typing furiously. I’m imagining it’s a note in my employee file for inappropriate behavior of some sort and when I return to the m
ain room, the clang of weight benches and the rustle of voices in the background sounds like gongs to my eardrums. What is going on that Meghan would be so difficult about this? It makes no sense, but the unease that settled in her office is hard to shake off, so I’m shorter with my patients than I intend and less friendly than usual.
Even Eloise notices and after she makes a few comments about her beautiful granddaughters and tucks away her phone after a request to see them sing goes ignored by yours truly, she grows quiet.
I’m struggling with whatever happened when I arrived and was called into my boss’s office.
If she doesn’t approve my request, it’s not the end of the world, but I can’t believe it’s a good thing for me if I’m put on my boss’s shit list either.
I’m lost in my work and in my head that I don’t even notice Avery’s now milder squeal she usually does when Jude enters the office. It’s his presence, that sensation I get whenever he’s near, like being wrapped in an electric blanket and being handed a mug of hot cocoa rolled into one that I notice first.
I turn from Eloise and find Jude immediately. It’s been almost another week of therapy and he barely uses either of his crutches unless he’s walking outside. His limp is lessening and when he comes in for therapy, I notice his weights and flexibility all improving. All good things for him.
Great things, actually.
His smile grows when he sees me and before I can hide it and remind myself I’m at work and we need to keep us secret while he’s here, it’s nearly impossible to shutter my reaction to him quickly enough.
“Oh,” Eloise snickers and pauses her hip abductor stretch I’m having her focus on. “Well, if I was forty years younger, that man would be the bee’s knees.”
My cheeks must be on fire. They feel aflame and bright red and I chuckle at Eloise. “If you were forty years younger, you’d still be twenty years older than him.”
“Pish posh. I could have been young enough to teach him a thing or two.”
