Game On

by Victoria Denault

“Too bad my mom didn’t drop dead when I was little, so I would have had a chance at being adopted,” Mackenzie blurts out in a hard, pained tone. Before I can react, she’s up and walking out the door calling over her shoulder. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Night!”

  Oh God, that poor girl. She’s right, though. Her chances of being adopted aren’t as good. Of course the fact that she ran away from two foster homes and skipped school a lot has already labeled her with a behavioral problem, even though she’s been great with me.

  I look back down at the file in my lap and reach for my cell phone. My dad answers on the second ring and I’m grateful it’s him and not Mom. He has an easier time talking about this stuff than she does. She still gets upset thinking about my early years.

  “Hey, princess!” I know it’s silly that he calls me princess at twenty-six but I love it. “What’s up?”

  “I have a weird question that you probably can’t answer, but I have to ask,” I say quietly.

  “Okay…that sounds ominous. Talk to me, Goose.”

  I smile again at his Top Gun reference. He’s obsessed with Tom Cruise movies, which is pretty ridiculous for a refined, retired CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and it’s one of the things I love most about him. “I was wondering if you guys knew the names of the other kids that were in that foster home I was in.”

  “The one with the abusive assholes?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, princess, that level of information on the other kids would have been private,” he says, explaining what I already know. “We were only given access to your file.”

  “I was just wondering if the social worker mentioned it or it slipped out or something,” I say as I stand up and put the file back in the closet, knowing Mackenzie will be out of the shower soon and will need her privacy. “I thought maybe you could casually bring it up with Mom. She remembers every detail of all that stuff. Maybe she’ll remember a name.”

  “I can try, but you know how worked up those memories get her,” he cautions. “If she gets all moody, I’m making you come over for dinner so she remembers how perfect you turned out.”

  I laugh. “Okay, deal. And Mackenzie too.”

  “How’s that going by the way?” he asks, his tone growing somber again.

  “Good,” I reply as I leave her room and walk down the hall to my own. “We’ve got little bumps but no major ones. Not yet.”

  “And how long is she staying?”

  “Haven’t decided,” I explain. “It’s up to the judge. I’m holding the spot in Daphne’s for her as soon as they say she can live there.”

  “Hmm…” my dad says and it sounds like he’s got an opinion he doesn’t want to share.

  “What?” I say as I gently close my door and drop down on my own bed.

  “Nothing,” he says, even though I know it’s something. “Anyway let me poke your mom’s memory and get back to you Sunday at Mac’s little shindig. Why don’t you send Mac on by for dinner tomorrow night. We only got to meet her briefly last week and we’d like to get to know her better.”

  “You’ve got a deal, but I’m warning you, she has trouble getting a handle on her potty mouth,” I smile. “Night, Dad.”

  “Night, princess.”

  I dream that night of things that haven’t haunted my brain in decades. A cold hand around my arm. A deep, cooing yet menacing voice. Sickly sweet breath. A child screaming and the sound of cracking glass.

  Chapter 19

  Brie

  Almost twenty-four hours later I’m staring at Alex and it’s impossible not to laugh. He looks so damn confused and out of place and maybe even truly terrified that I am completely and profoundly amused. With each store we go into, his anxiety and confusion seems to deepen. I thought it was bad in Sephora, but now that we’re in Forever 21 he’s basically apoplectic. I really shouldn’t laugh, but as he picks up an off-the-shoulder shirt that clearly wouldn’t reach the belly button of anyone over the age of five, his eyes bug out of his head and his brow furrows and his nose crinkles. I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.

  He turns to me, butt hurt. “I’m glad you find my confusion and fear so delightful.”

  I cover my mouth with my hands hoping to keep the giggles from escaping. “I’m sorry. I am. It’s just you look so damn cute.”

  He startles at that. “I do?”

  “Like a puppy seeing his reflection in a mirror for the first time,” I reply and he frowns. “Eager and confused and scared all at once.”

  He puts the shirt back on the rack and turns to me, his face serious. “No man wants to be compared to a puppy. ‘Cute’ is not a compliment.”

  “I wasn’t trying to compliment you,” I reply softly as he takes a step toward me. I love that he asked me to help him find a birthday gift for Mackenzie. Still for the first hour we’ve been shopping he’s been a little distant. I’m hoping joking with him will loosen him up.

  “I was just stating facts,” I continue. “And you know what? It’s kind of nice to see you vulnerable. You’re always so cocky with the right comebacks, or pickup lines, for everything.”

  He smiles so deep it makes a dimple appear on his cheek that I’d never noticed before. It’s tiny, just below the scar on his cheek, but it’s damn sexy. He reaches out and takes my hand in his. It’s a subtle thing, his fingertips just lightly clinging to mine, but it changes the energy between us—makes it electric. “I’m not good at being vulnerable. I don’t like it. Cocky is better. It’s easy. It gets me what I want.”

  “And what is it you want?” I ask, my voice taut with need. His smile deepens and darkens in the same instant.

  “Other than to find a gift Mac won’t laugh at?” he says with a chuckle and steps closer again so now we’re standing almost on top of each other in between racks of discount clothes. “I want to take you home and do exactly what we did the other night, only better.”

  I smile. “Better? I don’t know how you improve on perfection.”

  He grins again and his hand leaved mine and circles my waist pulling me to him. Our bodies connect and he feels warm and hard—especially the part pushing into my hip. Honest to God, my knees get weak. His hand slides to my ass as his head dips to my ear. “So stop poking fun at me and help me find the perfect gift, so I can get you home and give you the perfect orgasm.”

  “She likes music,” I sputter suddenly. Apparently the promise of the perfect orgasm has given me inspiration. “She sings a lot and she mentioned she used to want to learn an instrument. She didn’t say which one.”

  He grazes his lips across my cheek, like a kiss but with much more friction thanks to his perfectly unshaven face. I feel that friction through my entire body. His hand on my ass squeezes and then it’s gone and he’s grabbing my hand again. “Viens. We need to find a music store.”

  Alex buys her a guitar at a store near my place and a lesson package too.

  “Mackenzie’s at my parents’ place for dinner, so she won’t see us with it and we can hide it under my bed,” I explain.

  “So we’ll be alone, in your place, in close proximity to your bed,” he says and winks at me. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

  As we exit the store, his phone starts ringing. He glances at the screen and scowls before hitting the ignore button.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he mutters. “I’m just going to be a healthy scratch again.”

  “What does that mean?” All I can think about is the scars on his back as soon as he says “scratch.”

  He adjusts the guitar case in his hand and we continue down the street. The store is only a short walk from my place, but it’s blustery out so it won’t be a leisurely stroll. “It’s what you call it when the coach doesn’t let a guy play even though he’s not injured.”

  “Why would he do that to you?”

  We turn the corner onto my street. “Because he’s trying to make me do this fucking TV thing and I keep blowing off the producers when
they call. I don’t want to do it.”

  “Can’t you just tell him that?” I ask. “Instead of wasting everyone’s time.”

  “I tried, but he’s insisting. I thought if I blew off the producers long enough they’d give up and go for someone else, but instead they complained to management,” he explains. “Coach said I either give them the segment or I can kiss my ice time good-bye, which makes him an asshole because I’ve been playing really well lately.”

  “Why don’t you want to do it?”

  “The same reason I wouldn’t let you put my name on your auction flyer,” he replies and shifts the guitar case to his other hand, then takes mine with his free one. “I don’t want to have my personal crap out there. This show profiled Devin a couple of years ago when he was married to his first wife. They filmed his house, his kid, his wife cooking dinner. They asked him like a thousand questions about growing up and his family and even interviewed his parents for the segment.”

  Oh. I get it now. I hold his hand a little tighter. “Is there any way you can set the rules? Like tell them it has to be about the present and not the past? Or that you only want to focus on hockey and not your family?”

  “I doubt it, which is why I’m just avoiding the calls and am about to end up in the press box.” Another scowl darkens his face but he fights it this time and tries to smile at me. “Tell me something good from your day to get my mind off this.”

  The memories of my day come filtering back and I frown. “My day was beyond shitty. There was a leak in one of the bathrooms upstairs at Daphne’s House and it turns out we have a burst pipe in the ceiling and the plumber swears we need to replace everything. Before it really starts to freeze outside or will have pipes bursting every five seconds.”

  “That sounds expensive.”

  “He quoted me eight grand.” I get the heavy leaden feeling in my belly like I did when the plumber first told me. “I’m getting a second opinion tomorrow, but if it’s true and I have to replumb the place I’m in serious financial trouble. I have to raise our profile and get in some more donations as fast as I can.”

  The setting sun softens his face, but the worry painted across is still visible. “I can make a donation.”

  “You already do. Your time,” I remind him firmly as we start to climb the stairs to my place. “And I know you made a hefty donation at the fund-raiser.”

  I slip my key into the lock and open the door. “You mean the Barons tickets and the false promise of sex to the winner?”

  I turn and look up at him, giving him a hard glare and he bats his eyelashes at me innocently and tries to pretend that wasn’t a comment meant to tease the hell out of me. He lives off his sex appeal. I bet he’s gotten out of more traffic tickets with just a wink and a smile. “I mean the check you wrote. Len showed it to me. It was more than generous and I can’t ask you for more.”

  “You aren’t asking. I’m offering,” he replies as we step into the hallway and I close the door.

  “I appreciate it and I may have to take you up on it, but what I really need is media coverage,” I explain. “I did get an email from The Times asking me a few more questions about a press release I sent a while ago, so fingers crossed they write a story.”

  We kick off our shoes and coats and head straight for the bedroom. I help him tuck the guitar case under the bed making sure the big bow they put on it doesn’t get squashed. As soon as I stand back up, his lips are on mine.

  I still want to ask him about his foster home and maybe share my suspicions. But after the day we both had and how good this kiss feels, I decide to wait. Mac will be back sooner rather than later and I want some adult time with him before then. So when he deepens the kiss and starts to undress me, I not only let him but I return the favor.

  This time the first orgasm he gives me is with his perfect mouth. Without even letting me lie down, he kneels before me, tugging my pants down my legs along with my underwear and he starts kissing me. First my thighs, then my clit and then I feel his tongue and I shudder and sigh at the incredible sensations. My hands curl into his thick, soft hair and he murmurs something I don’t catch, but I don’t care. I’m too consumed by the way his mouth is moving over me. His hands slip around my thighs and he grabs my ass tight.

  I’m still standing, but I can’t feel my legs. My whole body is quaking and my neck snaps back and stars shoot across my closed eyes as I come harder than I’ve ever come before. My knees are suddenly made of Jell-O and I start to drop vaguely hoping I land on the bed, but I’m too spent to care either way. He’s on his feet, his arm around my lower back, holding me up as he buries his face in my neck and lowers me onto the bed. “You’re going to wreck me,” he whispers into the crook of my neck. “And I’m going to let you.”

  My eyes flutter open and our eyes connect, and I’m breathless at the pain in his face. Oh my God, what the hell happened to him. I slide my hand down his cheek. “Alex…”

  He silences me with a kiss. His lips never leave mine long enough for me to speak—to tell him I would never hurt him—and I think that’s intentional on his part. The sex is incredible. He’s this mix of rough and gentle, fast and slow and he knows exactly how to hit a G-spot. He gently sucks on my neck and tells me confidently, “I’m going to make you come again now,” and then moves his hips a different way and it’s like he tapping a button and my whole body detonates. I fight off the wave of oblivion long enough to clench down on his dick and he swears in French and the vein in his neck throbs and he comes with me.

  He gets up to remove the condom and then lies back down next to me, pulling me into his chest. We don’t bother with blankets because we’re both still sweaty and panting. I listen to the thump of his heartbeat against my cheek as he runs his fingertips up and down my back. “This is nice,” I confess softly.

  “Mmm…” he responds, his voice heavy and deep.

  I blink, take a breath and tell him what he wouldn’t let me tell him earlier. “I’m not going to wreck you.”

  He doesn’t say anything for so long that I worry he didn’t hear my words. But I can’t bring myself to look up at him. I don’t want to see his face because I’m worried he’ll look pained again or worse, angry. “I’ve had my share of empty promises in my life and I don’t want to add you to that pile. So just don’t make any promises okay?”

  It’s not okay. And I want to promise—to come out and declare—the exact opposite. That I won’t wreck him. That I’ll do everything I can to make sure no one wrecks him ever again, but I bite back the words because he won’t believe them anyway. So I’ll just have to show him. So for now I change the subject. “Are we going to tell Mackenzie about this?”

  “Us?” he asks and I nod against his chest. “Yeah, I guess we have to because I intend to be around a lot and I’m pretty sure it’ll start to get obvious.”

  “Should I just tell her, or do you want to? Or should we do it together like we’re starring in some awkward sit-com?” I joke, and I feel his body shake with a laugh. “No matter how we do it, I don’t think she’ll care. She likes having you around.”

  “And by the time we start to turn into a bickering old couple, she’ll be living at Daphne’s on her own anyway,” he replies and I feel a tiny little void start to open up in my heart at the thought of her moving out, which jars me a little bit. “Man I wish they had a place like Daphne’s when I was a kid. Would have made life so much easier.”

  “You never told me how you ended up in a group home for troubled boys,” I say and reposition myself so my hands are laced on his chest and my chin is resting on top of them. “Why did they move you there from foster care?”

  His face doesn’t flicker or twitch. No frown or scowl takes over. He remains passive but his eyes change. The color seems to darken and the softness is gone, the glassy postorgasmic quality hardens. “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve probably got an hour before Mac comes home.”

  “I’d really rather not get into it tonight.”
His tone is stern and foreboding like he’s warning me to stop. Change the subject. Let it go.

  “You don’t know how I learned French, do you?”

  He looks down at me finally, instead of up at the ceiling. “I assume it was a summer in Paris or a winter in the Alps or however it is that princesses get their linguistic skills.” He winks as he teases me.

  I lift one of my hands and flip him the bird. He laughs. “C’est pas jolie, ca.”

  I ignore his comment and tell him my mom was French Canadian.

  “Quebec?” he asks, his accent in full force and it’s hot as hell.

  “Oui.” I take in the happy surprise on his handsome face. “That’s where my parents—the Bennetts—adopted me from.”

  I wait for him to let that information sink in. He rolls me over so he’s on top and kisses me slowly. When he pulls back he’s all mischief again. “Finally something about Quebec that I like.”

  I smile at that and fight the urge to close my eyes and moan as he starts kissing his way down my neck. I can feel his cock coming to life against my thigh and as much as I would love a round two, I want to talk more. “I was in one foster home before they adopted me. How many were you in before the group home?”

  “Fuck,” he says lowly and starts to untangle himself from me and stand up. I get to my knees as he swings his legs over the side of my bed, and I drop a hand on his shoulder to stop him, just above the branch of his tattoo with the single leaf. He shrugs it off though and stands up anyway. He paces for a second, running his hand through his hair, his eyes on the fluffy fake fur rug by the side of my bed. “I told you, I didn’t want to get into it.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to push. I just—”

  He swears again and reaches for his jeans. “You just felt like hearing a sob story? That’s what you like after some hot sex? To make me feel weak and vulnerable. Is this what people do in a relationship? Should I make you talk about how your mom died and why you don’t have a dad?”

  He’s being mean and hard, and I’m suddenly feeling like an idiot sitting here naked so I get up and grab my robe as he yanks on his jeans and reaches for his shirt.