Benched

by Elise Faber

  Brit was in his arms where she belonged, and everything was right in the world.

  He savored the moment, for just a few heartbeats, before carefully reaching one arm over to his nightstand.

  Somehow he’d ended up on his back, Brit sprawled across him blanket-style, one of his hands cupping his favorite ass in the entire world.

  Yeah. Definitely not a hardship.

  Resisting the urge to massage, he snagged his phone and checked his messages.

  It was just after seven, which meant they’d barely slept five hours, but he needed to make sure all was fine with his mom.

  He scrolled through his notifications, saw a text sent not fifteen minutes before.

  Discharging this afternoon. I don’t want to see you before noon.

  The order made him smile.

  I’ll come in whenever I want, Mom. I’m an adult and therefore order-proof.

  The “ . . .” signifying her typing a response popped up on his screen.

  You’ll always be my baby.

  A pause before another message came through.

  Therefore I’m forever allowed to give you orders.

  He snorted then replied.

  Love you. See you at noon.

  “Your mom seems great,” the sleep-rumpled voice came from just below his chin.

  “Did I wake you?”

  Brit shook her head then tilted it back so she could meet his gaze. “I was just dozing. I didn’t mean to . . . eavesdrop, if that’s even possible with text messages.” She nodded at his phone. “Sorry. I should have let you know I was awake.”

  His lips twitched, along with his fingers . . . and not the ones on his phone. “You mean, take away my fun of holding onto this?”

  Her breath hitched. “You make a good point.”

  “I know,” he said and bent to kiss her.

  “Wait!” She threw up a hand and thrust it between their mouths.

  “What?”

  Her eyes darted to his and away. “Don’t you need to go to the hospital?”

  “You didn’t see that part?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I mean, yes I did. But—”

  “But my mom is a force,” he told her. “I’ve learned to pick my battles, and this isn’t one I want to fight. I’m not waiting until noon, but we don’t need to rush over.”

  “Oh.”

  He set his phone down on the nightstand and used his free hand to grip her thigh where it was slung across his hips.

  Her skin was like velvet, and the heat of her teased him, even through the layers of their underwear.

  “Any other questions?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he said, pulling her fully on top of him. “So come here.”

  She didn’t hesitate, and it felt almost as good as the sensation of her body against his. Soft against hard, and so goddamned gorgeous she took his breath away.

  Her hands grasped the top of his shoulders, her pelvis covered his—

  That was pretty much when he stopped thinking, when his reservations of the night before disappeared.

  There was only taste and sensation, desire and heat.

  “Stefan,” Brit moaned as he swept his hand under her tank top to cup one perfect, apple-sized breast. Her thighs clenched his hips, and she ground against him in the same heart-stopping, perfect rhythm that had made him come like a schoolboy two nights before.

  Using his other hand, he gripped her waist, stilled her motion in a futile effort to gain control.

  He was ready. She was ready. But he needed to make this good for her.

  “Please,” Brit said, squirming against his hold.

  “Hold on, baby.” He flipped them, pinned her to the bed. In a flash her tank top was shoved up and his mouth was on her breast.

  Her fingers slid into his hair and she gripped the locks hard, almost painfully tight. But Stefan didn’t care. The feeling grounded him, made him want her even more, until the burn of desire was coursing through his blood like a swollen river rushing down and escaping its shores.

  He switched breasts, reveled in her moan of pleasure.

  The buzzing began at the furthest reaches of his mind, a barely perceptible annoyance . . .

  . . .that got louder.

  And louder.

  Until the fact that his phone was ringing finally penetrated his consciousness.

  Brit seemed to come down to earth at the same time. “Your mom?” she gasped.

  Stefan was already moving. He pushed up and picked up his phone without looking at the caller ID.

  The masculine voice hit him right in the gut.

  “Heard about your mother,” his father said. “How much money do you need?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  “We don’t need anything from you,” Stefan spat into the receiver. He started to hang up, but his father’s next words gave him pause.

  “It’s not your place—”

  The man had the gall to try and reprimand him.

  His absentee father, the sperm donor who hadn’t made a single goddamn appearance for the first half of Stefan’s life wanted to tell him what was right?

  Stefan laughed harshly. “You gave up your place to talk to me like that about thirty years ago, dad,” he said. “What gives you the right to interfere now?”

  Silence met his eardrums. Maybe the bastard had hang up.

  A soft hand touched his arm, startling him, and he stared down into Brit’s concerned eyes. His anger, if not faded, then at least banked.

  He cupped her cheek for a second, shook his head when she pointed at the door, a brow raised in question. “Stay,” he murmured. As painful as this was—ripping open one of his oldest childhood wounds—he still wanted her next to him.

  His father finally found his tongue. “You don’t understand—”

  “Look,” Stefan said. Brit’s presence enabled him to calm his tone, to be an adult when his father never had. “This isn’t up for discussion. You left. You decided you had better things to do than be a father. There’s no place for you in my life or Diane’s.” He sucked in a breath. “Just move on. You’re good at that.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I can’t have this conversation. Stay away, Dad,” he said and hung up.

  Tossing the phone onto the nightstand, Stefan struggled for calm. He wanted to punch a dozen holes in the wall, wanted to scream and yell like a child.

  But it had always been like that, hadn’t it?

  His father could gut him faster than any other person on the planet.

  Arms wrapped around his waist, and Brit pressed her cheek to his back. It was amazing how such a small thing could bring comfort.

  A hug. Only a hug, and yet the torrent inside him calmed.

  He waited for her to ask him questions, to push for an explanation.

  She didn’t.

  Which was what gave him enough strength to open up.

  No judgments. No matter what, he’d receive no judgments from Brit.

  “My dad left my mom before I was born. He couldn’t handle being a father. They married young, barely out of high school. I came along a few years later.” He swallowed. “I get it was tough to have that much responsibility, but still.”

  Brit’s breath hitched, a soft puff of heat across the bare skin of his back. “Still,” she agreed then hesitated before saying, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” he said and gently removed her arms, turning so he could look her in the eyes. “My mom was everything. She”—he got a little choked up, had to breathe, to push down the emotion—“gave me so damned much.”

  Delicate feminine fingers traced the light plaid pattern of his bedspread. Stefan longed to lace his hand with hers then realized she had already given him that right.

  So he did.

  Instantly, the jagged tears in his heart weren’t quite so painful.

  “When did your dad come back?�
� His head jerked in surprise and she gave him a soft smile. “Seemed the likely consequence, given that phone call.”

  “I was thirteen. He showed up at a game.” The memory was imprinted on his consciousness, the day his father had tried to shred the family he and his mother had struggled so hard to create. “I looked up in the stands, saw my mom, her face pale, talking to a man.”

  Fear had swept through him at seeing his mother so diminished. Strong, tough, feisty as hell were the most frequent adjectives used to describe her. But in that moment, she’d been a poor impersonation of herself.

  Anger had followed directly after, and he’d started to get up, ready to leave the bench to go help her.

  “Luckily my coach had noticed too, and he stepped in.” It still made Stefan furious, the sheer arrogance his father consistently displayed. “Turned out there was nothing to get in the middle of. My dad had decided to sue for primary custody, and since the rink was conveniently close to his house, he’d come to deliver the papers.”

  “Oh my God.” Brit’s voice shook. “Did he win?”

  “No.” So many people had testified, written letters and donated money. They’d even shown up in court. “A teammate’s dad was a lawyer. He took mom’s case for free, and he won. And, luckily, I was old enough that the judge took my desires into account.”

  A blond head on his shoulder, a firm squeeze of his hand . . . small acts of comfort, but ones that sewed Brit into his heart.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me too,” he said. “My father didn’t even ask to see me before he loosed his lawyers on my mom.” Stefan gave a brittle laugh. “And the thing is, my mom would have let him visit, because, ultimately, she wanted me to have the chance at a father. But he decided that just because he’d made a couple of million, he’d steamroll her into it.”

  “What a prick.”

  That made a slightly more natural laugh burst out of him. “Agreed.”

  They sat on the bed for a few moments, Brit curled up into him, their hands laced together.

  “Thanks,” she eventually said.

  “For what?”

  “For sharing your story with me.” She pushed back a stray strand of blond hair. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

  He bent, pressed his lips to hers. “Isn’t that what being in a relationship is about?”

  Her teeth found her lip, bit down. “Is that what this is?”

  “Is that a stupid question? Yes.” He smiled when her expression turned affronted. “But I have the feeling you want me to say the words. Brit, you and me, we’re together. You’re different. You’re special.”

  “But—”

  He waved a hand. “Let me say this. I don’t do connection easy. I spent so long pouring everything into the sport, trying to make up for all the sacrifices my mom made, not wanting any distractions”—he cupped her cheek—“and regardless of the multitude of supposed women the media likes to pretend are parading through my door, I don’t date.”

  Brit leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. “Everyone told me you were a playboy,” she murmured.

  He snorted, and her eyes flashed open. “Ask Max if you don’t believe me. I’m more of a homebody than a partier. But the media did get something right. I didn’t do relationships . . . until you, I never wanted to.”

  “Oh.” Her gaze stayed focused on him, light brown and gentle, but there was also something almost dark lingering beneath the surface. He waited for her to say more, to respond.

  “Oh?” Stefan finally asked. “Just oh?”

  He’d poured his heart out and that was her reaction?

  “I’m processing,” she said after another tense moment. “It’s just . . . I’ve never felt like this with anyone else either. It’s”—her voice dropped to a whisper, vulnerability evident in her next words—“it’s actually kind of scary.”

  His heart squeezed tight. God. The things she did to him. “Then we’ll be scared together.”

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he agreed before wrapping her in his arms and pulling her close.

  They sat in peaceable silence for a few minutes, Stefan stroking one hand through her hair and just absorbing the moment. Never had it felt so right to just . . . be.

  So,” she said eventually, shifting so that her legs lay across his lap. His hand slid from her hair as she tilted her head back to look up at him. “Anymore skeletons in your closet?”

  “None.” His fingers found the bare skin of her thigh and stroked. “Well, none, unless you count the love child.”

  She sucked in a breath even as she smacked him across the chest. “That isn’t funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.” He slid his fingers higher and longing slammed him right in the gut. “Come down here.” Bend down and kiss him.

  “What—”

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll come to you.”

  Tumbling her back onto the mattress, Stefan took her mouth. He plundered, poured every bit of want and need, of affection and love into that kiss.

  Brit took it all and gave back more.

  She was open to him. Willing. And he was more than ready to take.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Brit

  Holy shit, the man could kiss.

  Brit was surrounded, her mouth inundated, her body almost on the brink of overstimulation. Stefan was on top of her and the heat of his skin seared her, even as the hard planes of his body pressed against hers.

  Frankly, she was always aroused just from being in Stefan’s presence. But this? In his bed with just two layers of cotton separating them?

  Her desire had been launched straight into the atmosphere.

  “Now,” she said, tearing her mouth from his to gulp in a huge breath. Her heart tap-danced in her chest, her thighs quivered in anticipation. “Hurry.”

  She literally couldn’t wait another second, didn’t want to take the chance to be interrupted again. She wanted to seize the moment and . . . well, quite simply, Brit wanted to screw the man’s brains out.

  “I don’t want to rush this,” he murmured. “Not now. Not that I’ve finally got you here in my bed.”

  “We’ve been circling this for—ah!—months now . . .” She gasped when his lips found a particularly sensitive spot behind her ear, moaned when his tongue followed suit.

  “We’ve barely known each other for two months.” A kiss to her throat, her collarbone . . . lower . . . to her breast.

  “Long enough.” Teeth found her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, tugged. “God! Stefan!”

  “Not for me.” He sat back slightly, smirked down at her, all smooth skin and muscular lines. “I’m the man with the playboy reputation, remember? I’m the one who needs to demonstrate my skills.” His expression was pure male—aroused, intoxicating, swelteringly, sexy male.

  Her mouth watered for a taste. “Skills . . .“ Callous fingers trailed up her abdomen. “ . . . I don’t give a damn about skills.” When she reached for him, he batted her hands away, and she released a frustrated breath. “For God’s sake, Barie! Fine, you’ve got skills. Now hurry up and show them off already.”

  Stefan grinned before his hands found the hem of her tank top and pulled it off. “I fully intend to.”

  Then those hands were on her breasts, and his mouth joined the party, and Brit decided, really, who was she to stop him?

  Especially since he was playing her body as if it was his very own personal instrument.

  Mouth trailing south, he kissed her ribcage then her stomach, each hipbone, and finally in between.

  His hot breath soaked through the cotton, almost scalding against the damp heat of her. He pressed his palm there, just firm enough that a bolt of pleasure made stars flash behind her eyes.

  One tug, and her underwear were off. One shift, and his shoulders pushed her thighs wide.

  Good God, the man’s mouth should be sainted.

  And his
tongue. Definitely his tongue.

  It took her less than a minute to explode around him. She was still gasping when Stefan reached across her, into the nightstand, for a condom.

  “Last chance,” he murmured when it was on and he was poised above her.

  In response, she grabbed his hips, pulled him down. “Now.”

  He slid into her on a smooth stroke, filled her to completion, and never had she felt more right, more whole.

  His groan of pleasure undid her. “God, Brit, you feel . . .”

  This wasn’t the time for more words. Movement. She needed him to move.

  “Shh,” she ordered, twisting her hips. Her breaths came in short bursts. “More. Now.”

  Stefan bent to take her mouth in a heated kiss, and then he was pounding into her.

  It was hard and rough—and just exactly what she needed.

  And when he reached between them to stroke her, to give her the pressure necessary to push her over the edge, she disintegrated emotionally, literally broke into pieces that he deftly caught, one by one, and somehow managed to put back together, making her more instead of less.

  A heartbeat later, he shattered, and she returned the favor.

  ****

  It felt like hours before they managed to pull themselves from the bed. After a quick shower—together, because really, what was better than hot water and an even hotter man beside her?—they dressed.

  “You don’t have to come, you know,” Stefan said. “You can stay here, enjoy the free day.”

  Brit slanted a glare at him, apparently fierce enough that he raised his hands in surrender and drove them to the hospital.

  Diane obviously wasn’t happy to see her son.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped. “You need more rest— Oh!” Her eyes landed on Brit, hovering cautiously in the doorway.

  Despite her resolve to accompany Stefan, Brit was feeling as though she’d made a mistake in coming. Who wanted visitors when they were in their sick bed?