He slid a finger inside her again, the sensation and angle different this time, and Olivia tilted her pelvis, raising her hips a little higher. She glanced back over her shoulder and could see Anders staring down at what he was doing, a look of total concentration on his face.
He pressed down on his dick, raising ever so slightly up on his knees, and carefully angled himself so he could slide inside her.
For a moment, she almost reminded him about lubricant, but as soon as he nudged his thick head into her, she knew they didn’t need it.
“Fuck, it feels so tight, Liv.” He inched out and slid back in a little further, her wetness easing his actions.
Olivia tried to move, tried to accommodate him. If she could just open her legs a little wider. She attempted to, but felt the immediate pressure of Anders’s thighs.
“Liv,” he warned, and Olivia placed her face down in the pillow and groaned as he pushed back into her.
His hands were on her ass, opening her to him like a book. She turned her head to the side. “Kiss me, Anders,” she murmured.
He leaned over her, his body dwarfing hers as he continued to forge into her. By the time their lips met, he was seated deep inside her. “Does this feel as good for you as it does for me?” he groaned against her lips.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Does it feel as though you’re about to shatter into a thousand fractals?”
His tongue met hers, teasing her, tasting her. When he stopped, he placed his forehead on the pillow next to her. “Yeah, älskling. It does.”
As he knelt back up, she noticed their reflection in the mirrored door of the closet. It was still too dark in the room to see details, but their outline was clearly visible. She lay pressed to the bed while Anders thrust into her. Watching the two of them together turned her on. Plus, she got to watch Anders’s ass clench and release as he thrust into her.
“Anders, look,” she groaned, tipping her head in the direction of the closet.
“I fucking love watching us in mirrors,” he muttered, and his thrusts increased. Faster and faster.
In contrast to her earlier actions, she actually squeezed her thighs together, holding him tightly. She slid her hand between her and the bed, easing her fingertips toward her clit. She needed pressure, something to help her over the edge.
“Yeah, Liv. Help me get you off again. I want to see you come again before I do.” Embracing her own agency in private had been one thing, but she felt safe and secure enough with Anders to feel like she could embrace it with him. He’d never ridicule her for it. And she knew he’d never feel less about himself when she helped herself to orgasm instead of leaving it up to him.
Anders slammed into her. A harder, deliberate, slower rhythm that had her on the edge. The change in pace heightened her awareness. “Please. Just like that, Anders.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “You like that? Show me, Liv. Show me how much you like it.”
She pressed more firmly on her drenched clit, sliding her fingertips over and back. Yes. That was it. The pressure she needed. “Anders, oh god. I’m going to come.”
Anders gasped as he sped back up. “Me too. Oh, yeah. Me too.”
Her whole body gave in to the sensations that crashed through her. She no longer had the wherewithal to move. It was as if every muscle in her body spasmed in the most wonderful agony.
Anders thrust into her twice more before holding himself deep inside her as she felt him pulse in release.
He fell down on her back, taking a little of his weight in his arms. “Liv,” he gasped, placing a breathless kiss on her shoulder. Somewhere between euphoric and exhausted, Olivia couldn’t decide if she needed a hike or a two-hour nap. But more than that, she was content. And it wasn’t just a sweaty bout of great sex that had made her feel that way. It was Anders’s presence.
The sound of their breathlessness filled the room. Eventually, Anders reached between them and slipped out of her, rolling onto his back before reaching for her. Wanting the warmth and comfort of his body, she pressed up against him.
“It should be illegal how good you feel around me, Liv,” he muttered.
Olivia pressed a chaste kiss to his chest. “I was just thinking the same thing. I feel more settled now you are here.”
Anders placed his hand in her hair, threading it through his fingers before letting it fall. Repeating the action over and over. “You know, it strikes me that when it’s just the two of us, the world seems simpler. When it’s just you and me, it’s amazing and everything seems feasible and easy. It’s only when the outside world creeps in that things get messy. What you’ve been going through, what I’m facing with the Rush. I don’t know how to keep it like this when we’re outside again.”
Olivia placed her hand on his heart, and he laid his palm over hers. “I think it’s this. It’s you and me. On our own. It’s resetting together. It’s talking to each other instead of running away from each other and this.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Anders sighed, but it was a relaxed one, not a stressful one. “And sex. Great fucking sex.”
Olivia laughed and Anders grinned.
And everything seemed possible.
“Should we grab an early dinner?” Anders asked as they strolled through Vail Village. They’d spent the afternoon meandering through the streets, popping into stores that appealed to them. Liv had spent an hour in a bookstore while he’d waited in the coffee shop and called his parents.
“Let’s just head back. There is so much food left in the fridge it would be a shame to waste it.”
When they returned to the comfort of the chalet, Anders placed their shopping bags on the stairs, noting that his bags were considerably fuller than hers. So many women wanted to hook up with a hockey player for the lifestyle. They wanted the luxury gifts, the large homes, and the pampered privilege of personal trainers and private jets. Sometimes it worked. There were hockey players who remained happily married to women who wanted that because it worked. The misnomer of the attractive and wealthy hockey player was offset with the number of guys who had missing teeth and were only home half the year.
Instead, it appeared he had a thing for older women who wouldn’t let him spend a damn cent on them. He’d seen the way Olivia had reverently touched the burgundy cashmere sweater with the low V-neckline, and the way she’d studied the deep purple dress, holding it up against her body in front of a mirror before returning it to the rack. But she’d brushed them aside and settled for a black turtleneck sweater that she’d insisted on paying for with her own money. In the time it had taken her to decide on the one item, he’d bought four sweaters and a new scarf.
He fished in the bag for his receipt and found what he was looking for. With a quick call, he arranged for the sweater, the dress, and a turtleneck in a rich tomato red to be delivered to the chalet. With his job done, he slipped out of his coat and walked to the kitchen.
Olivia was already pulling things out of the fridge. “I think I can make us some kind of chicken pesto pasta,” she said, digging in the back of the fridge. “I’ll see if I can find some veggies—”
“Why wouldn’t you let me buy sweaters for you?”
Olivia stood, clutching an unopened bag of spinach to her chest. Hair that had escaped her braid fluttered around the side of her face, and her cheeks were pink after leaving the cold and coming into the warm. She looked lovely. And he wanted to buy her the world. No. He wanted to love her. If she’d let him. And then give her everything she wanted.
And that would start with her accepting that he had enough money to buy her a damn cashmere sweater.
“I didn’t need you to, Anders. I earn my own money. And you already paid for so much of this weekend,” she said, gesturing around the chalet with her hand.
“You know I can afford it, right?”
Olivia placed the spinach on the counter and kicked the fridge door closed with her heel. “I know you can. Well, I mean, I assume you can. I know professional athletes
get paid well. But that’s not why I’m here with you. I don’t expect you to buy me things.”
Anders ran his hand over his stubble. He’d gone on first dates with women who had asked for more than Liv did. They’d hint at the most expensive restaurants and drink the most expensive cocktails. And in the rare event he’d dated them near their birthday, they’d drop hints for an expensive purse or leave magazines open on a Tiffany’s ad for him to see. But Olivia was busy opening a packet of chicken breasts instead of eating out in a Vail restaurant because she didn’t want to waste the food in the fridge.
“I wasn’t offering to buy them for you because you expected me to, älskling. I wanted to buy them for you because . . . I wanted to do something nice for you. I just wanted to spoil you.”
Olivia put the chicken down and looked at him. “That’s very sweet of you, Anders. And I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful. I’d never want to take advantage of you.”
“Come here.” Anders opened his arms as she walked into them. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to. It can make me unbearable to some, I know. You couldn’t take advantage of me. I wouldn’t let you if I didn’t want to. But I feel like something else is going on. What is it?”
He felt the way Olivia sighed and relaxed in his arms. “I’m scared, Anders.”
He kissed the top of her head and hugged her tightly. He’d noticed she seemed to relax more when he did that. “Of what?”
“I don’t want to rely on you when . . .”
He stepped back a little so he could see her face. “When?”
“You’re leaving, Anders. I’m not stupid. You’ve made it clear in every recent interview that you are shopping around your contract or free agency or whatever it’s called. You told me you didn’t expect to be here in Denver. So, I’m trying to just hold on to how special this all is for as long as you’re here, and—”
“Wait. You’ve been following what’s happening? You’re worried about you and me?”
Olivia looked at him, raising one eyebrow even as her eyes glittered with tears that didn’t fall. “Of course I’m worried about you and me. You’re going to leave Denver in less than four months.”
Anders shook his head. He’d tried to keep the two parts of his life separate. His developing relationship with Olivia from his future in hockey. He’d struggled to reconcile whether the two things reflected forks in the road or detours they could navigate together.
He needed to be honest with her. “Sit,” he said, leading them to the sofa. Once they were seated, he took her hands in his. “The truth is, I have no idea what’s coming. It’s unlikely, but I could get traded tomorrow to anywhere in the country. I could get traded to New York and then six months later be sent to Florida. I’m lucky enough to be considered a franchise player, the kind of player a team can be built around because I’m thought to be really good. It’s why my contract is talked about so much. And, yeah, I have made it clear I’m open to offers from big teams.”
“So, you are leaving,” Olivia stated quietly.
His heart raced with thoughts of what was coming next. “Most likely, yes. Denver made an offer already when I was traded. They wanted me to sign a one-year extension straightaway, but I figured that was only because they were two centers down. And I’m keeping an open mind. But there are other interested teams too. Mainly East Coast and Canada. But it doesn’t need to be the end of us, Liv. I know how much the distillery means to you. So, we can do long distance. And all that money I earn that you hate to be spent on you can be spent on tickets. I’ll see you when we play the Rush, when we play out west. I’ll stop over when I can, you fly out to me when you can. Whatever happens with my contract isn’t the end of us.”
Olivia shook her head, and Anders’s heart sunk to the pit of his stomach. Did she want all or nothing? Because he couldn’t give her that right now. He couldn’t stay in Denver when he wanted to play elsewhere. But that couldn’t be the end of the two of them, could it?
“Liv. In case I’m not being clear here and you need me to spell it out, I’m falling in love with you.” Tears spilled over Olivia’s lashes and he used his thumb to wipe them away.
“You are?” she asked, surprise etched on her features.
“Yeah. I didn’t expect to, but here I am. Here’s where you tell me how you feel about this, given I just laid my heart out on a platter for you.”
“Of course, I love you, Anders, but—”
“There is no but, Liv.” He slipped his hand around her neck and kissed her as he allowed the weight of her words to steady his racing pulse. Relief flooded him when she kissed him back. In a matter of moments, he’d experienced a sliver of what it might feel like if she wasn’t with him, and it had terrified him. He broke their kiss. “There are just compromises we have to make. We’ll make it work.”
Olivia sighed deeply. “It’s a lot of compromises. I can’t leave the distillery. Not when they’re working through a mess I helped cause. It wouldn’t be fair.”
Anders shook his head. “I’m not asking you to right now. I won’t have to move to wherever I’m traded until the fall. That’s six months for us to be in one place. Together. The season lasts eight months if you make the playoffs and go all the way. And while I’d love for that to happen every year, the probability of it actually happening is low. I can come back here in the off-season.”
“I manage events, though. I don’t know how easy travel is going to be for me, and I need to put—”
“Liv. Do you want me? Do you want us?”
Olivia placed her hands on his cheeks. “More than you know.”
“Then we work out the rest as we go. I get it. You have issues from last year you feel you need to put right, which requires you to stay put. And it’s going to take a lot of time-consuming work to get there. And I’m trying to figure out where I’ll be next year, and to ensure it’s a place I want to go, I need to work my ass off right now. But somehow, we’re making it work, right?”
Olivia dropped her hands to his. “Something just dawned on me.”
From the look on her face, he couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing, and he braced himself for the worst. “What’s that?”
“Neither of us are living right here in this moment. I’m still in the past, still stricken by what happened, still focused on trying to make it right. Trying to be the woman I was before all this happened. Trying to find my way back to her instead of embracing me, here, accepting it’s possible for you to love me as I am right now. And you’re in your future. You’re thinking about where you want to go and where you want to be and the kind of player you can become. How you are going to be happy once you get there, and how it’s all going to get better. Your play here isn’t about making Denver successful, it’s about building a platform to be successful elsewhere, instead of being rooted here, in Denver, with me and Karl. We’re living in different tenses, Anders.”
It was a harsh observation, but the truth of it cut through him like a knife. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “As painful as it is to hear, I think there’s a lot of truth to what you just said.”
Silence came between them as they thought on Olivia’s words. It was uncomfortable, it was cathartic. Anders looked out the large windows toward the mountain. Sunset had come and gone, and all he could see was an expanse of black. It seemed vast and empty, without any sense of direction or purpose.
“I think we need to make a pact, right now, to live in the present moment, Liv. And to do that, we’re going to have to deal with all the shit that keeps us tethered somewhere else.”
Olivia nodded. “I agree, even though it feels a little daunting.”
“It is.” It was a feeling he understood. Even though he was here, he wasn’t settled. Hell, he’d not even had his belongings shipped from Phoenix. They’d been packed up and were currently at a shipping depot, but he hadn’t even taken the basic step of sending for them. Instead, he’d left them in transit so they could be sent directly to his next des
tination.
He pulled Olivia onto his lap so she sat astraddle. He looked over her face. The intense look in her eyes, the slight wrinkle over the bridge of her nose, the freckle over the right side of her mouth. All the pieces of her that he’d fallen in love with. “I promise you, Liv. I love you enough that I’m going to try and live in the present with you. But I also know I’m going to fuck up. And it’s going to be hard with all the contract talks. But if you see me slip, I want you to call me out on it.”
Olivia smiled and it took his breath away.
“I promise you, Anders. I love you enough that I’m going to try and live in the present with you. But also know I’m going to fuck up. With the rebuild of the distillery and everything else. But if you see me slip, I want you to call me out on it.”
A loud knock sounded from the hallway, and Anders grinned.
“Who’s that?” Olivia asked as Anders stood with her in his arms and then turned to place her on the sofa.
“You’re about to learn your first lesson on what it’s like to be in love with a fucking wealthy hockey player,” he said. And he planned for the cashmere to be the first of many gifts to teach her that lesson.
“I love that color on you,” Emerson said as she pushed the door to the art store open.
Olivia caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the door. The bright red cashmere looked as good on her as it felt. It was soft, luxurious against her skin. Anders had appreciated the fit of it when she’d put it on at the chalet that morning. Paired with her fitted jeans and long black coat, she felt more confident than she had in a while.
“Anders surprised me with it.”
“Well, it suits you. Did you guys have a good time in Vail?”
Olivia thought about the cocoon they’d lived in. One without schedules and road trips and worries. “It was wonderful. The chalet was like something you only dream about, like it belonged in Architectural Digest or something. The views matched the inside.”
“Is that why we’re here?” Emerson asked.
Love In Moments: An opposites attract hockey romance (Love Distilled Book 2) Page 17