by Stacy Lane
My lips part on bated breath. Fingers curl around my panties, and then he pulls them down. The flimsy white scrap of fabric brushes along my legs. Alex wraps strong, rough hands around the backs of my knees, pulling me forward.
He sends one last slow blink upward. Then he buries his face between my legs.
Alex’s tongue swirls around the tight ball of nerves, flicking and sucking. Nails dig into my legs, mixing pain with the pleasure that has me mewling like a woman with five lovers.
Five lovers were the only explanation to this because I’ve had just one before and his tongue never stroked me like this.
But Alex is one man. A very talented man.
I start to lose strength in my legs. Stretching my arms, I rest my hands on his broad shoulders to keep me steady. I moan his name, close to the edge of a climax.
Then Alex is picking me up.
His arms circle my legs, his face remaining at the apex of my thighs. He lifts me off the ground and walks toward the bed.
He reaches the mattress, and them I’m falling onto the soft cream duvet.
“You taste so fucking good,” he growls above me, thrusting a finger into my wet folds.
“Alex. More.”
He grins. A second finger is added with the first. He fills me with his touch, then covers me with his tongue.
Knees bent, the skinny heels of my shoes stab into the bedding, likely poking holes straight through the cotton comforter. Alex reaches for my right leg, sending it over his shoulder. The sparkly silver pump flashes across my vision before I’m squeezing my eyes shut with a pleasure so intense I think I might burst wide open.
Before I hit that climax, Alex sits up. My leg falls limply to the bed. His lips glistened with my juices.
“Turn over.”
“You’re not done.”
“Nowhere close, sunshine. Now. Flip. Over.”
His demand causes the sensitive spot he sufficiently explored to clench with excitement.
I do as he asks, rolling onto my stomach.
Despite his rough handling with my hair, all the pins have kept the wild mane intact. Alex leans over me, the coarse threads of his tux sweeping along my naked backside.
His caress moves from my ass, into the dip of my back, and up to the buttons of the bustier running along my spine. Lips suck at my neck as he unsnaps the top notch.
I feel the instant he reaches the last hook. The snugness that was holding my breasts up loosens.
Alex’s mouth trails over the skin that’s been pressed into the tight mesh and wire all night with soft kisses. I hold my breath for fear if I disturb this moment in the tiniest way the magic will end.
He lifts my hips. His fingers slip between my thighs as he finds my center again, fingering me until I’m at that familiar peak once more.
I moan, mixed with an aggravated growl when he removes his wicked touch.
His chuckle both pisses me off and fans the flame lit within.
He pulls the bustier away and turns me over. Loving the way his eyes roam down my chest has me arching toward him with a dare.
But Alex steps off the bed.
Because apparently, he has the patience of a saint.
“Damn,” he groans. “I’ve thought about those since the night I got here.”
I lay in the middle of the bed, naked with only the sparkly silver heels on my feet.
He never takes his eyes off me as he strips out of the black and white tux.
I enjoy the way his hungry gaze devours me. It’s lascivious and exciting as he drops his coat. But I’m holding my breath, waiting. Without his constant distraction, nerves rack my system. He’s the first guy I’m hooking up with after being with the same one for ten years. What I’m waiting for is that connection. But this is not love. It’s lust.
His shirt sits open, teasing at a spectacular chest I’ve seen once before.
“Chels, you still want this?” He must have seen my flash of uncertainty.
I’m scared as hell. For reasons he won’t understand. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint him. I’m worried I should be doing more than just laying here and waiting. Maybe Alex likes a take-charge woman in his bed.
Second guessing and doubt creep in at the worst times.
But I know I want this.
I know a part of getting over the fears of my past is freeing myself from the role I used to be in. If I weren’t good enough for Alex, he wouldn’t be here with me right now. And if I’m not good enough for him afterward, that will be okay too. I’m more than good for myself.
Sex shouldn’t be about one pleasing the other more. And Alex doesn’t look like he needs any extra attention to pleasure. The tent in his pants proves he’s quite satisfied.
I nod to his question. I sit up, reach for the band around his waist and pull him closer to me. My small hands barely cover the vast expanse of skin beneath his open shirt. I rise to my knees as they glide up his smooth, warm surface.
My palms move over the ripples of muscle in his stomach and chest, up and around his broad shoulders. I push back the white dress shirt. It slips from his arms.
Alex drops his pants. I can’t remove my eyes from following his hands as they pull down his boxers.
He tips my chin up with two fingers, his mouth lowering onto mine. I crawl backward, and he prowls after me. The moment I meet the mattress he sits up. Reaching for the square wrapper I never saw him toss onto the bed. Alex strokes himself a couple times before tearing the condom open.
I lick my lips, watching his big hand wrapped around himself.
“We’re leaving the shoes on,” he rumbles with a husky purr.
Alex lifts my legs above me, placing them against his chest.
I shoot him a wicked smile when he growls at my open and spread thighs so close to his cock.
Then he’s pushing inside me. Slipping between my folds and stretching me so wonderfully wide I cry out when he slams to the hilt the rest of the way through.
He pulls out, slides back in. Alex starts slowly with languid thrusts. My body was brought to the brink of a climax two times already, and the gentle movements build another all the same. His girth fills me, pounding and hitting that spot that will send me over the edge.
Alex grips my hips, angling them in a way that grants him more access.
A move that sends my eyes wide open with his next thrust.
“Oh,” I moan, nerves bundling and expanding.
He pounds into me over and over, watching my breasts bounce with the force of his thrusts.
The bite of his fingers on my hips, the dark and seductive way he stares at my body, the hard and feral strokes he barrels into me with, and the way he worked me up and would take it away, sends me right over the peak.
“Alex. Alex. Oh my God.” I cry out his name over and over as wave after wave blows through me. I arch my back as every amazing spark fires off in the middle of my body.
“Holy.” Alex doesn’t finish his words, cut off by the pleasure of me clenching around him. I feel it too as I descend my climax. My greedy little body milks him until he finishes with a long exhale of groans.
Alex pushes out heavy pants of air, eyes closed tightly shut with his head tilted back.
I move to drop my legs, and he hisses in pain. When I came, my right leg bent at the knee, placing the skinny, pointy heel on the front of his shoulder. A bright red circle singes his tanned skin.
I open my mouth, but Alex cuts me short.
“Don’t apologize. I think it’s extremely hot.”
“It looks like it hurts.”
“Mm. It does.” Alex grins, pushing back and pulling out.
He disappears down the hall. I sit up, still on top of my duvet. The covers rumpled but made.
I rest back on my palms with a secretive and satisfied smile. It widens, threatening to Joker levels, so I bite my bottom lip to keep it from spreading any further.
Alex reappears in the doorway. I squeeze my legs together, but not bothering to hide my
modesty in any other way.
Naked and glorious, he swaggers up to me.
“If you need it.” Alex hands me a washcloth.
I do, but I’m not about to open wide and clean myself in front of him.
“Thanks.”
I picked a hell of a way to start up again with another man. To go from young love who married too soon and became domesticated by twenty-one, to hooking up with a roommate who was moving out in less than a week.
Do I invite him to stay in my room? Do I play it cool and kindly kick him out?
I think I should kick him out.
“Scoot.” Alex walks around the edge of the bed. On the side I typically sleep on, near the nightstand, he pulls back the covers.
“You’re sleeping in here?” I ask, too frozen to “scoot.”
“Yes.”
What’s the definition of a fling again?
I didn’t mind Alex sleeping in my bed. I cared that I liked the idea of it a little too much.
My feet swing off the side of the bed facing away from him. I kick off my shoes, fold down my blanket, and do a quick swipe between my legs to clean myself as covertly as possible.
Sitting up, my back to him, I remove all the little pins from my hair. The crazy thick mass tumbles down.
I start to turn. A lavender nightie draped over the chair next to the mirror catches my eye.
I’ve slept in silk garments for as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, Addy was in her mid-twenties, and she owned a wardrobe full of pajamas alone. Some skimpy, some modest. She told me that even in her sleep she wanted to feel bold and brazen and all woman. It didn’t matter what she wore, because her simple ones were cute cotton shorts with a tight tank top, but what mattered was that she felt sexy in them.
My sisters would sometimes laugh as they looked back on the things they taught me. We had a wide age gap, and they definitely showed me ways of womanhood that I bet a mother would have done differently.
I start to grab the slip.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Alex says. “We’ll be going at it again by morning.”
He turns out the light, and I roll backward to crawl beneath the covers.
In the safety of the dark, I smile. My sisters left out the part about sleeping naked feeling just as sexy.
CHAPTER 13
ALEX
“I’M HAPPY TO be here in Tampa with the Fury organization, and I’m looking forward to beginning work this off-season.”
“Alex!”
“Alex!”
“Mr. Labelle!”
I scan the crowd, setting my sights on one of the many reporters shouting my name and their hungry questions. Lifting my chin, I single out the next scavenger.
“Peters traded your first round draft pick last year. What are you going to do without the chance of getting those top prospects?”
“Find other prospects. I think this team has enough newbies. We need veterans for them to learn from.”
Hands raise. Voices shout.
I choose another.
“What are your plans for the off-season? Do you have the money to extend contracts for key players like Marc Laurent when Peters spent so much money on Victor Matthias last year?”
“There’s a definite problem with our cap-space, I’ll be honest. Of course, I want to keep players like Laurent, he’s a powerful winger. My main focus is our defensive zone. We need guys who can play positionally but also get in those shooting lanes to block shots. We have goal scorers. I need men who can do more than stand there and wait for the puck to come to them.”
Mr. Kendricks and Coach Monty grinned from their positions against the wall. This was about the third time my blunt statements sent the press going insane with more.
I answered a few more before closing any further questions.
I stepped off the platform and followed the other gentlemen through a doorway leading to the locker rooms. The team was waiting, cleaning out their belongings for the end of the season. The coaching staff was having one final team meeting with the players before the off-season officially began for them.
I knew some of the guys personally, from years spent playing against them and from their close friendships with Brooks. I met a couple guys in the hall on the way in this morning. Many of them were young and eager. A lot of them made me feel old with their comments like, “I used to watch you when I was a kid.”
The three of us entered the noisy locker room. Laughter, jokes, and stories were being exchanged amongst the players and trainers. The speakers blasted with some god-awful rap song that really did make me feel old.
Voices quieted, and the music was cut off.
Brooks grinned at me from across the room. Folding his arms across his chest, he hollers out, “Damn. Now I have to do what you tell me.”
“You have to do what I tell you also, but that doesn’t seem to happen.” Coach matches Brooks’s stance.
“I won’t keep you all long.” I dust over all the faces scattered around the room. Before walking in here, I had to compartmentalize my unprofessional opinions of one particular player. There was a reason I didn’t want the details to Chelsea and Vic’s troubles. I think she barely skimmed the surface on his controlling ways. I was able to set aside what I learned because I’ve been all she has thought about in the last forty-eight hours. “I’ve met some of you already, but I wanted to introduce myself formally to those I haven’t. This is my first time in a management position with hockey, and that concerns some. My door is always open if you need to get something off your chest. Or Coach Monty. He and I are on the same page, and that’s what I want for all of us. To be a team out there, we need to be one off the ice as well.”
“I think I might cry. He’s really nailing his first team speech.” Brooks held a fist to his mouth, biting on his knuckles. The whole scene was overly done, but I expected nothing less from his dramatic ass.
“And if push comes to shove, I understand if Brooks needs to be traded. I can’t have the favorites card being thrown in my face.”
Almost everyone laughed. I smiled at my brother when he sobered up real quick.
Everyone dispersed. I spoke with a couple players before Brooks made his way over, duffle bag in hand.
“We need to celebrate.” He wraps me in a hug, slapping my back. “Cam’s been saving a special bottle of Macallan just for this day.”
“The bar or his place?”
“Neither. I have a surprise for you.” Brooks swings his arm over my shoulders as he steers us out of the locker room.
“Does Jo know you’re planning on taking me to a strip club?”
“C’mon. I’m classier than that.”
• • •
I’M NOT A talker as much as my brothers are, but still, I’m speechless.
Brooks’s surprise sat at a marina. When we drove up, Cam met us at the front of the docks holding a full bottle of Macallan. In a full suit before noon, I walked along a long, narrow dock lined with speedboats, sailboats, and fishing boats.
“Are we going fishing?” It’s something I’ve wanted to do since moving to Florida. We’ve passed plenty of boats for that purpose—Sea Hunt, Yellowfin, Sportsman.
“No, but you can fish off this boat if you’d like.” Brooks skips ahead with a shit-eating grin.
The sun blasts down from straight above. Scattered white clouds give no coverage at all. The water is calm, blue, and shining like a sheath of glass.
Near the end of the dock, a tall, lean man in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts folds his hands behind his back and greets us with a smile. “Welcome aboard, gentlemen.”
I gaze up at the boat he guards. My eyes continue going up.
That is not a boat. This one eats boats for breakfast.
“Have any others arrived yet?” Brooks asks the steward.
“No, sir.”
“Alright. Let’s hop aboard and have a look.” Cam’s excitement takes him onto the stern of the beast.
“A yacht.”
My feet hit the aft deck behind Cam.
“All ours till tomorrow. I rented it for a day. At first, I scheduled it until this evening, but then thought it’d be a good experience for Jo. She’s never been on a boat, and we’re going to the Bahamas next month.”
“This isn’t a boat,” I repeat the words aloud this time.
“Couldn’t be more of a perfect day to go out.” Brooks spins around at the three-sixty view, taking in all that is the bottom deck and the open waters of the bay.
Sweat beads along the skin of my back. To get out of the sun, I step under the awning that is the upper deck. I remove my suit jacket, laying it over the back of the sectional. Behind the couch are sun pads that face a jacuzzi and the rear of the yacht.
The boat’s crew appears as I’m rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt. They discuss the food to be served over the next couple of hours before a late lunch.
Brooks gives them a head count of the other guests that will be joining us.
“Who all have you invited?” I loosen my tie, pulling it from around my neck.
“A couple of the guys. I didn’t tell the whole team. You may not play favorites, but I do. And then Jo and her friends should be here pretty soon.” He pulls out his phone to check.
Cam walks over from the galley with three glasses of scotch on the rocks.
“Which friends?” I ask, taking one of the tumblers.
“Taytum and Nick. Chelsea, of course. There’s a limit on these charters. Did you know that? Twelve people no matter how big the yacht is or how much you are willing to pay. Jo’s douchebag brother whined like a pansy when she told him we were leaving for a day. He popped in for an unplanned visit and then thought I would just invite him and his girlfriend to come along. I’m trying to be nice, but I don’t like the guy.”
It’s a good thing the capacity of this vessel is so low. Brooks would invite a few, but it’s those few that would attract more and more.
I do another sweep of the layout. I’m admiring the view, but I’m also trying to memorize all the little alcoves and halls before I check out the upper deck.
Having a tryst with Chelsea on this yacht has my dick twitching with excitement.