“Yup.”
“And there’s a bedroom?”
“Uh-huh.” She moves toward me and leans up on tiptoes for a kiss, lightly brushing her lips over mine. “You wanna see it?”
“I do, but first I wanna bend you over this damn table and fuck you right here so that every morning while you drink your chamomile tea, you remember how good it felt with my cock buried deep inside you.”
Her jaw drops—and if I didn’t need to fuck her so bad, I might even find her doe-eyed innocence cute. Right now, I’m too goddamn impatient for cute.
I grab her waist and turn her, pulling her body tight against mine. Squeezing her breasts until her nipples form hard peaks beneath the silky fabric of her top, I grind my hips, my hard-on pressing against her ass. I encircle my fingers around the nape of her neck, lay my other hand flat against her back, and push her upper body down on the table. Groaning, I shove the skirt up over her hips, and yank her panties down, exposing her sweet ass to the air.
“Spread your legs for me, Stella.”
She does as she’s told, and I lean back so that I can see everything. Jesus fucking Christ. She’s perfect, and all mine. I slide a finger down her crevice and play with her clit in gentle circular motions. She opens her legs wider. Releasing my cock from my jeans, I slide the head through her slick flesh, and when I’m confident she’s wet enough, I drive it inside her. She gasps, clutching the edges of the table as I pump into her. Later, I’ll take my time. I’ll kiss every inch, lick and taste all of her gorgeous body, but for now, I need to fuck her before I go crazy.
I slide in balls deep. Stella hisses. I don’t know if it’s too much so I ease out and rock gently back in as the bus pulls away from the stadium. Keeping my footing proves difficult as we sway back and forth, but I plant my feet and eventually find a rhythm as I pump in and out. Stella hangs on to the table, and I grab her hips, but it’s not close enough. I lean over her, bracing my weight on my forearms placed either side of her body. Her back is pressed against my chest, and my cock is so deep inside her that it’s impossible to believe we aren’t one, that we weren’t always meant for one another, meant to be just like this.
I don’t know if it’s the angle, the long absence, or the vibrations from the bus, but Stella’s legs start to shake. Her breath labors, and I know she’s close to coming. I am too, but I hold off because I want to witness her orgasm. She tightens around my cock, her eyes fall closed, and her mouth opens as her cries rip through the cabin, and I whisper, “I love you, Stella.”
My own orgasm grips me and I rock into her tight pussy, and lose all sense of awareness, until we turn a sharp corner and I almost lose my footing. I’d hate to think what might happen if we fell while I was inside her.
I lean up and stroke the hair back from her face. Her cheeks are flushed with a fresh-fucked glow and her skin breaks out in gooseflesh as I cover her body again, careful not to crush her beneath my weight.
“Come on. You promised to show me this bedroom of yours.” I ease out of her, and Stella gasps, which of course has my cock growing hard again. It bobs against her ass. I grab my shaft and rub the crown over her puckered asshole. She stiffens all over and lies completely still, unmoving. I tease us both a little more, sliding my cock’s head across the sensitive flesh, pushing without actually seeking entry. “One day, country, I’m gonna be all up in here.”
“Er . . .”
“Not now. Relax. I won’t do it until you ask me to.”
“And if I never ask you?”
“Then you never ask. But it would be an awful shame because you have one very fuckable ass.” I groan and smack it. She jolts upright and glares at me, but there’s excitement in her eyes. I grab her around the waist and throw her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and then I smack her ass again for good measure. She squeals, and I walk to the back of the bus, because that just seems like the most logical place for a bedroom. Where the hell else are they going to put it? I slide the door back only to realize halfway through that it’s automatic, and it jerks back inside the frame with a juddering whoosh. “Shit.”
“Did you just break my bus, Ross?” She’s all-business now.
“Maybe.”
“God, you and your giant paws are why we can’t have nice things.”
“Hey, my paws aren’t giant, and you have plenty of nice things I haven’t broken. Like this, for example.” I grab her ass, then I slide my hand lower and cup her pussy. “And this.”
I push the door the rest of the way open and toss her on the mattress as if she weighs nothing. Stella feigns disgust, until I climb on the tiny bed and lower my body down on hers.
In the morning, Stella begs me to stay before I’ve even fully opened my eyes, and I want to. God, how I want to, but as exhausted as I am, I also have this renewed vigor to get back on the ice and win the motherfucking Stanley Cup. My hand is twitching to hold my stick, and not the one I had in Stella until the wee hours. “I have to be at the airport at nine.”
“So you’ll stay and have breakfast with me? We have a waffle-maker. I can make waffles.”
I crack open my eyelids and frown at her. “Country, baby, you’re good at so many things, but cooking isn’t one of them.”
“Well, we’re parked at the stadium now, and this is where the busses will stay until tonight, so we could order in? Or we could get a hotel room, with a bed that you actually fit on, and room service?”
“I tell you what. You let me eat you again and I’ll make us waffles for breakfast.”
“Done,” she says, and straddles my waist. I wrap my arms around her thighs and pull her closer, until she’s clutching the headboard against the wall. She maneuvers her legs a little more until she straddles my face, and then I pull her down to me and devour her over and over until she begs me to stop.
She takes a shower as I lie on the uncomfortable-ass bed that’s two sizes too damn small for a two-hundred-pound hockey player. I don’t bother with the shower because I want to smell like Stella long after I’ve left here. This woman’s my lucky charm. Stella Hart is everything. And I plan on keeping it that way. Maybe not right now, but eventually, I’ll ask that question again, and this time I’ll mean it with everything that I am.
I stand in Stella’s tiny kitchen dressed only in an apron as she sits at the table and sips her tea. The flavor of the day is green tea and ginseng, and it tastes like shit, but she swears by it for vitality so who am I to judge? If someone took away my Gatorade during a game, I’d get their face real familiar with a puck.
What Stella failed to mention about breakfast on the road is that while she may in fact have a waffle iron, it’s the size of my fist. A child-sized waffle iron, in fact, and of course, it’s Hello Kitty-themed. So are our waffles. That stupid cat face smiles back at me from the plate, and I feel like I just grew a vagina because Hello Kitty can make some seriously delicious waffles.
“Have I mentioned how hot it is that you can cook?” Stella pokes my bare butt with her toes.
“You reckon I could give that shirtless chef a run for his money?”
“Oh, without a doubt. You’re way hotter. Especially when you’re wearing nothing but my apron and making me breakfast.”
“I can knock out a guy’s teeth on the ice with a fairly average punch, but you’re impressed by my ability to make Hello Kitty-shaped waffles? Maybe I should quit hockey altogether.”
“Hell no! I’m impressed by the way you knock out teeth. I’m also impressed you don’t fall on your ass the second you step onto the ice. Super impressed, actually, because it’s not something I can see myself doing again.”
“Nah, you’ll be fine, eh? A couple more goes around. Soon you’ll be taking our kids out on the ice without batting an eyelid.”
She flushes. Her cheeks pink up and fuck me, I need to quit thinking shit like that, and I especially need to quit saying it out loud. “Kids?”
“Sure.” I shrug. I’d lie my damn cheek against the hotplate if it would ma
ke her forget I mentioned kids at all. I don’t do that because . . . ouch, and I have no desire to scar my pretty face. Stella likes my pretty face. “One day, right?”
I stare at her, because I can’t not. I want to see her reaction. Even though I’m all blasé about it now, this is kind of a deal-breaker for me. “Er . . . sure . . . eventually.”
“How long is eventually?” I make out as if I’m just asking a question, but I really need to know. “Just a ball-park figure.”
She frowns. “The waffles are burning.”
I frown. What does that mean? Is she referencing her ovaries? Is that what women are calling their eggs these days?
Smoke hits my nose, and I turn around and flip the lid on the iron. Burnt to a cinder. Hello Kitty’s face is shriveled and browned like a haggard old lady, like my balls will be when Stella finally decides she wants to pop out a couple babies. I toss Crispy Kitty in the trash. “So, when you say eventually, you mean like what? A year? Two, tops?”
“Er, how ’bout ten?”
My brows shoot skyward. “Ten years?”
“Give or take.”
Huh. “Give or take?”
“I’m not ready to deal with babies and diapers. I almost had a mental breakdown and drove my car into a mountain,” she reminds me, as if I’m crazy for even entertaining the idea of my babies in her belly.
“Right, of course.” I nod. “But . . . you want them, right?”
“Someday yeah, just not now.”
“Okay.” I let out a steady breath.
“Wait, is this a deal-breaker for yo—”
“No.” Shit. That response was far too fast. “Of course not.”
She smiles, and her whole face lights up. “You want kids now?”
“Well, not right this second, but in the next couple of years, yeah.”
“Don’t you think that’s rushing into things just a little?”
“When you know, you know, right?” I shrug.
“Do you know?” A beat passes, and I don’t say anything. I just turn back to Hello Kitty, wipe the iron clean and slather her in waffle mix. “How much of that proposal was real and not just something you said in the middle of your orgasmic high?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying,” she accuses.
“I’m not.”
Stella huffs. “I can tell.”
“No, you can’t.” It’s all I got. No, you can’t. Fuck, what am I, five?
“Van.”
I turn and face her. “I’m not that guy, Stella. I’m not the kind of guy who does serious, or the same girl more than once usually, and I hate even saying that to you, because I know I shouldn’t be such a dick. And I have been a dick. For a long time I’ve used women like they were expendable but you’re the first who makes me want to be more, who makes me see more.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Yeah, that’s me. A sweet dick.”
She laughs. “Well, it’s a good thing I happen to love sweet dick.”
“Yeah, you do,” I say, at the risk of sounding like a fuck boy.
“I’ve never had anyone that’s all mine. I . . . I don’t know how we do this. I don’t know if you’re going to get traded to somewhere even farther away or if I’m ever going to have more than five minutes in my schedule to Skype with you each day.”
I nod and turn my back on her. I make out like it’s because I need to keep making waffles, but a beat later she wraps her arms around me from behind and rests her palms on my chest.
“Without our careers, I’d have said yes already.”
I place my hand over hers and bring it to my lips, pressing kisses over her smooth flesh. There isn’t any more to say, so I don’t. I just stand there, taking her in, loving having her body wrapped around mine because too soon, we’ll be miles apart again, wondering what the other is doing. For now, I’ll take as much of her as I can get, as much as she’ll give me in the hope that one day, she’ll give me everything.
Two months later
I drive up the road that leads to my house. I’m exhausted and miserable. I haven’t talked to Stella for two days. She was busy with meet-and-greets and interviews with radio stations, and I didn’t want to risk waking her when I knew she had another show. She’d called during morning skate, and then again later while I was dodging questions in locker-room interviews after playing like shit because I couldn’t keep my head together. Eli got run right over by that Subban asshole, and I beat the shit out of him on the ice because nobody fucks with my right wing. I got thrown in the box, too, and our empty net penalty meant the Preds hit it right in the center of the net. We lost the game. I took a puck to the obliques and another to the thigh, along with several hard hits, so not only am I cranky and tired, but I’m covered in bruises and in a world of pain. I need a soak in the hot tub, a finger or two of Jameson, and I need to see my girl, or at the very least see her through a computer screen while I jack it. She won’t sex-Skype with me anymore. Which means my dick is in a permanent state of sad.
As I round the last bend toward my drive, I slam on the brakes. An SUV is parked on the side of the road, right where Stella’s car had crashed into a snow drift. Jesus Christ, what is it with people crashing into my mountain?
I won’t let myself think that it’s her, because I’m pretty sure I would have seen the paps following her from the airport splashed all over the tabloids if it was. I pull my phone from my pocket and let the beast idle as I dial Stella’s number.
“Hey, baby.”
“Stella, where are you right now?”
“On the bus. Why?”
My heart sinks. I don’t know who the hell the car belongs to, but I do not want to find some psycho stalker bunny has broken into my house and is pretending to be my hot-as-fuck girlfriend. For one, no one could compare to Stella. No one even gets a goddamn look in. Still, I don’t want her to freak, so I know I need to play it cool. “No reason. How was your show?”
“Good. Tiring. I saw the score. I’m sorry, baby. I wish I was there to make it better.”
“Me too.”
“Listen, I gotta go. Lana wants to go over some interview questions.”
I don’t want her to hang up, but I certainly don’t want her to freak out should some crazy bitch be in my house. “Okay, call me later?”
“Sure.”
“I miss you so goddamn much.”
“I miss you too,” she says quietly. “But we’ll see each other soon.”
“Yeah. Bye, country.”
“Bye.”
I end the call and slowly continue up my driveway and through the gate in case some super-charged hockey fan comes tearing out at the vehicle. When I pull up in front of my house, it’s still.
I’m probably over-reacting. Whoever left their car there likely just ran out of gas and went in search of help. It’s not as if I’m going to come home and find Goldilocks asleep in my bed.
I climb the porch stairs and open my front door with the keys, and then I step inside and head for the other end of my house, attracted by the noise. Once there, I discover that while Goldilocks may not be occupying my bed, she’s definitely in my hot tub, drinking my Jameson.
“Hi, honey. I’m home,” Stella says.
Oh, fuck me, yes. I cross the room in three impatient strides and climb into the hot tub, clothes, shoes, watch, and all. She squeals. Water splashes out over the floor, and I don’t give a shit.
I take her face in my hands. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprise.” She smiles, and I don’t even care about an explanation. I just kiss her so hard she has to pull away, gasping for breath. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I groan and press my lips to hers. “You’re naked in my hot tub.”
She laughs. “And you’re still fully clothed.”
“How did you get in?”
“I called your mother two days ago, asked her for the spare key.”
“Jesus. My brother’s not here, is he?”
“A week? What about your tour?” I scrub my hand through my beard in agitation when I realize I could never be that lucky. “Ah shit, I have an away game in two days.”
“That’s okay, we have right now,” she says stroking my hair back from my face. “I played my last show two nights ago, so I can actually come watch you play.”
“Fuck! That was your last show? Damn it. I’m so sorry, baby. My head has been—”
“In the game, exactly where it needs to be.”
I grab her around the waist and glide through the water to sit on the seat. Stella straddles my hips, and I dip my head and kiss a warm, wet trail from her neck to her breasts. I take her nipple in my mouth and suck hard. She throws her head back and closes her eyes, and she’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen. Aquamarine eyes lock with mine, and Stella pouts. “You’re still wearing too many clothes.”
“You wanna help me out with that?”
“Sure.” She slides her warm hands up under my shirt. I flinch when she touches the bruise on my side.
“Oh my god, you’re hurt.”
“That’ll teach me for getting in the way when the other team is trying to score.”
“Oh, honey.” She covers her mouth with her hand.
“It’s okay. I know a sexy nurse who just moved into my building.”
“Oh, really?
“Really. She’s a hot blonde with a gorgeous throat.”
Stella laughs. “Oh my god, you sicko.”
“Did I say throat? I meant singing voice.”
“Sure, you did.”
She pushes the wet fabric up my torso, and I help her to pull it over my head. She throws it on the tiled floor and dips her head to look at my bruise. “Poor baby.”
“Yep, I think I’m definitely gonna need my dick sucked to feel better.”
“Okay, but first,” she says, and her hands unfasten my belt and jeans. She climbs off me to help pull my jeans down, but with the water soaking them they’re like a lead weight. I take over for her and shed my pants and shoes as quickly as I can. I toss them over the edge of the hot tub where they land with a wet thwack. She climbs into my lap again and she rubs herself against my cock. It’s been so long since I’ve felt her body on mine, I could come from that alone, but I groan and lay my head back against the hot tub because it feels so fucking good.
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