by Kate Meader
Kennedy went on the charm offensive. Reid could have told her that was never going to work.
“Mr. Durand, don’t worry, I was there. In fact, he really jumped in for me because I was such a dummy thinking I could save this little guy. He was so brave! And Bucky’s so happy.” She grinned her dazzling smile and turned smoothly to the server, who had just arrived. “I would love a glass of Pinot Grigio.”
“Make that two!” Nadine seemed happy to have a woman in the mix. These dinners were usually dull for her. “Or maybe we should get a bottle. What do you think, Kennedy?”
“I’m game if you are, Nadine.”
Henri Durand was a handsome man, a weathered silver fox with plenty of scars from the ice battlefield to give his face character. Kennedy could see shades of Bastian in there, but that broodiness he was giving off was all Reid.
“How much longer are you in town?” Kennedy asked.
“Just a couple of days,” Nadine said. “We leave after the game. I’d like to have time to shop but you know …” She waved in explanation at her husband.
“Oh, that’s a shame you can’t stay longer. Next time, we could do something fun together.”
Next time? The only way “next time” was happening was if Kennedy slowed her roll and stayed put. Yet saying it didn’t feel wrong on her lips.
Not at all.
“I hear you used to play hockey, Mr. Durand, and that you coached the boys to greatness. You must be so proud of them.”
He muttered, “They’ve done well.” It obviously killed him to admit it, which made her want to needle him even more.
“I’ll say! Both of them at this level. That’s amazing. Learned from the best.”
He assessed her, unsure what to make of her relentless cheer. “So what do you do?”
“Oh, this and that. Yoga by trade, but I also look after dogs for a number of clients. That’s why I’m here so Reid can be assured Bucky is being cared for while he travels.”
“You’re living with Reid for the dog? Then why are you here?”
“Even dog sitters need to eat,” Reid said dryly.
“True, and this dog sitter loves to eat! As for living in, Reid was determined to keep Bucky and kenneling him while he’s away wasn’t feasible. That’s where I come in.”
She wasn’t sure why she wanted to poke at this man, maybe because his reputation as an asshole preceded him. Hard to believe he had fathered sunny Bastian. Genetics, so strange.
Henri merely stared at her, evidently mystified. Fine, she didn’t need to win him over. After a little small talk about the meals they each had their eye on and the restaurant scene in Montreal versus Chicago, Nadine prompted Kennedy for information.
“A dog walker and a yoga instructor. That sounds interesting!”
Nadine was definitely the peacemaker, kind of like Bastian, though a little less peace-making and little more bomb-throwing might be better for this lot. “Sure, I love it. Do you do yoga, Nadine?”
“Me? Oh, no. I’m not sporty.”
Bastian laughed. “Nadine, yoga requires no sporting aptitude whatsoever. You’re essentially lying down the entire time.”
Kennedy gave him a playful punch. “Hey! I’ll have you know that yoga requires exceptional core strength.”
“I’m trying to not scare her off. I think she’d have a blast at yoga.” He grinned at Nadine. “Honestly.”
“Speaking of trying, I’ve been needling Reid to join my class but he’s worried about looking silly.”
Reid sipped his water. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I just don’t want to show you up in front of your students.”
“My students would love you joining in.” She shot a smile at Nadine, and included Henri in it, too, though he didn’t deserve it, the grump. “I do a yoga class at the senior home where my gran lives and Reid is quite the hit there. The ladies love him, especially when he hangs and plays bingo.”
That woke Henri from his sunshine-inflicted stupor. “You’ve got time to play bingo, Reid? Not from where I’m standing.”
Reid tensed beside her, and for what? Not spending every single second doing his job? Not even that, practicing to do his job.
Reid was the hardest working person Kennedy knew. A beast when it came to preparation, and it showed. Since she’d moved in, he had played at least ten times and had scored in more than half the games. If anyone deserved a little R&R, it was this guy.
“He’s having a great season,” Kennedy said. “Not that I know much about it but my sources tell me he’s doing well.” She slid a smile Reid’s way.
He held her gaze for a moment, just long enough to tease a secret grin from him. Meaning that he didn’t smile at all but she felt it in her soul.
“What the hell are they doing, moving you from the wing, Reid? Did you ask for that?”
“Dad,” Bastian said. “We’re trying to eat here.”
“How many Cups do you have?”
“One,” Bastian said, then added cockily, “Two by the end of this year.”
“Come back to me when you have four.” He addressed Reid. “And that team’s not going to win another Cup playing you at center. God knows you’ve done well with what you’ve got. You’re a decent right wing. You’ll be lucky if they keep you on the second or third line after the novelty wears off. And you need to keep above 50 points to guarantee they’ll offer you a contract next year. Center won’t get you there.” Durand Senior was getting mighty agitated. “This is what happens when women are put in charge.”
“Coach Calhoun is a man last time I looked,” Reid said, which made Bastian laugh.
“Don’t get smart with me. Guy’s a hack. They should have put him out to pasture years ago.”
“Henri …” Nadine tried to soothe him.
“Maybe goals aren’t everything,” Kennedy said. “Isn’t hockey about teamwork and brotherhood? Does it really matter who scores the goals as long as the team wins? And from what I can see, Reid’s contribution, whether on wing or at center, has immense value. So maybe cut him a break?”
Henri’s lip curled in disgust. “Let the adults talk, cherie.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Reid said.
“It’s okay, I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Reid skewered his father with a look, and like all bullies when challenged, the man reddened and backed down.
But when she reached over to squeeze Reid’s pillar-thick thigh, he flinched. Damn. This was going to be trickier than she thought.
31
Reid parked in the resident space outside his apartment building and turned off the engine. On the way home, he had remained silent, shutting down any attempt by Kennedy to talk to him.
“So, that was kind of intense. Is he always like that or was that the special version he brings out for guests?”
His hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles straining through the skin. She was being flippant, mostly because she had no idea how Reid truly felt about this man who cared only about winning. No other subject at dinner gained traction. Every word from Durand Senior sucked the life out of the room.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I made things difficult between you and your father, but frankly, the man is a dick.”
“C’est vrai.” It’s true. She knew that much French. She knew that much Reid. “I’m sorry he ruined your dinner.”
“He didn’t. I mean, that sticky toffee pudding was amazing. But I think he ruined something. I think he’s made you miserable and it hurts me to see how much he hurts you.”
He shook his head. “Kennedy, you don’t have to defend me to him. It’s not your job.”
Then whose job was it? Bastian had tried but even he couldn’t make any headway. Nadine just rolled her eyes as if her husband’s cantankerousness was a joke instead of truly harmful. As far as Kennedy could see Reid was all alone here, bearing the brunt of familial pressure to succeed.
“You’re solid gold, Reid, you know that?”
He turned sharply, his lips parted in shock. “Kennedy—”
“You are! You completely undersell yourself. You know what I see?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “A guy who would rather hide his decency behind a scowl, who thinks his kindness puts him at a disadvantage and his big heart is a weakness. I will always defend you, Reid, because you won’t take the time to do it yourself.”
His big chest heaved with emotion. He looked baffled, those gorgeous denim-blue eyes soft and shining. “That’s not me,” he said faintly. “I’m not decent at all.”
“Push the seat back, baby.”
“The seat?”
“The seat,” she repeated as she leaned over, pressing her breasts against his arm and pushing the button that moved his seat back. In one swift move, she straddled him. “I don’t think I’ve truly demonstrated how flexible I am.”
“Kennedy, you don’t have to—”
But she stopped him with a kiss which had him responding with so much hunger, so much heat. A complete knee-melter. Good thing she was sitting over the thickest thighs in hockey.
Big hands pushed her dress up around her hips. Clever thumbs got to work, kneading, pressing, creating a sensuous friction. Eager to keep up, she unbuttoned his dress pants and unfurled the hard, beautiful length of him.
What a sight. Fully-aroused and all hers.
She mentally chided herself for that hers thinking. That would not do.
She needed to keep her wits about her. This was what she’d been telling herself for weeks: don’t get sucked in by the dog or the man or the rootedness of it all. Keep it to the realms of pleasure, maybe a stretch to friendship. That’s why she defended him against his father’s verbal blows.
She was being a good friend, nothing else.
She started to stroke but he was already hard and perfect.
Despite the circumstances—the front seat of a car, the aftermath of a bad night, the desperation in that kiss—there was a reverence in how he touched her. How he slipped her breast out of her borrowed dress and brought it to his mouth. She arched off him, her head touching the roof of the car.
Unable to stand the pleasure, she moved her hands down, touching, mapping, loving this beautiful, pent-up, hurting man.
He was less closed off these days, but still bound by his upbringing. By the lessons his father had taught him. That only through a rigid self-control could he be worthy of that man’s love.
He needn’t exercise that kind of restraint here. She was determined to rattle Reid’s cage.
While he was clearly determined to destroy hers.
She suspected he could hold out all night, could demonstrate that control, to make a point. To himself, perhaps. He had nothing to prove to her.
She curled a hand around his neck and nudged his mouth away from her breast.
“I need you inside me.”
His hand trailed down her stomach, over her mound, his palm encouraging her thighs to part further. Gladly they obeyed his silent order.
“You’re … wet.”
Of course she was. This was Reid. “Now.”
The crinkle of foil, the quick adjustment to secure their protection, then he lifted her like she weighed nothing and brought her down to sheath him, the push excruciating in its deliberateness, exquisite in the pleasure wrought from her inner walls.
Both the ones at her core and the ones surrounding her heart.
“Ohhhh.” Her moan didn’t sound like her. Each cell had come to life and was now tingling with the stretch of thick, glorious fullness.
He closed his eyes, but if she had to feel it, she needed to see everything from him as well.
“Reid.”
His eyelids snapped open, and in those pools, she saw relief, pleasure, maybe even affection. Dangerous to think it. Even more dangerous to rely on it. She recentered herself, drawing on her seduction skillset. On that detached version of herself that loved sex without entanglement, life without roots, the present without a thought to the past or the future.
“Hi,” she whispered. “Stay with me. Talk to me.”
“You want to talk?” The words sounded strangled, which made her feel more in control. She was seductress and healer.
“Yes. Tell me what you’re doing. How good it feels.”
“Of course Kennedy wants to talk. Of course she wants a blow—” He lifted her body and thrust up into her slowly. So slowly. “… by-blow …” He pushed deeper, with a stroke that consumed. “… account of how I’m fucking her.”
“Yes. I want to hear all of that.”
He clasped her hand and held it over his heart, intertwined with hers.
“You want to hear how you’ve been driving me mad? How I’ve had to stroke one out twice a day just so I won’t embarrass myself in front of you? How I hate when my brother and every single guy on my team talks to you and takes your attention? How I despise the smiles you give them because it’s one less for me?”
This wasn’t what she had meant at all. She wanted him to verbalize his desire; she wasn’t even expecting it to be focused on her. After all, any woman in the roommate situation would have made him break. Because it was there.
Wouldn’t they?
But now he’d started, she wanted to hear everything.
“Those smiles for them …” He stroked a special spot and oh, that was good. “… aren’t the same as what I give you.”
He moved inside her, finding another untested point of pleasure. “They’re not worthy to look at you, Kennedy.”
Her heart liquefied. She knew her self-worth but in a general “I am woman—hear me roar” sense rather than a Kennedy-is-awesome sense. No one spoke to her like this because she didn’t allow them to get close.
She would never have expected Reid to be the first. Surly, rude, irritable Reid.
She craved his voice. Not just to hear him say nice things about her, but to hear him speak. To hear what was going on inside his head. His heart. His soul.
“More,” she murmured, meaning the words and the hands. Meaning Reid.
He rubbed his nose against hers, and it shouldn’t have been a turn-on but it was. A turn-on for her heart.
“You want to hear how I’ve wanted you since the minute you walked into my apartment? Longer than that. Since the first day I saw you at the coffee shop. You were talking to someone and you laughed at something they said, and my pulse went boom. And believe me, I have the steadiest fucking pulse on the planet.”
All this time? Surely, this was just the heat of the moment. Her ability to smart-ass her way out of this conversation failed her.
“You know what you are, Kennedy?”
She might have responded with a what, but it came out as a moan.
“Five foot two of chaos. You waltz in, disrupt everything, turn my life upside down, and make everything crazy.” He stroked deeper, making her moan.
Making her feel.
Now that he’d started, he wouldn’t stop. All these words, made for her and her alone. “I belong here.” His hands tightened on her ass, fusing their bodies and souls together. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”
“Reid, I—”
He sucked on her lip. “Just let me imagine, ma belle. Laissez-moi rêver.”
She didn’t need to understand French to know what he was saying.
Stay with me. Love me.
It wasn’t her intention to change up his life but that’s what happened when atoms collided, chemical reactions occurred, and new substances were created.
This was what happened when you let yourself fall.
32
Reid opened up the computer to check on an idea he had for Kennedy’s Christmas gift.
Last night, his roommate had been amazing, and that was before she had climbed aboard him in his car. She knew exactly what he needed. Her. Only her.
Something was different about the sex, too.
It wasn’t just that she called him decent, kind, and big-hearted—labels he
would never have slapped on himself in a million years.
It wasn’t just her defense of him, though that was soul-wrenching in itself.
It was how she clutched him when she came, like she never wanted to let go. Like he was the one person who could hold her heart safe and give it the care it deserved. Kennedy needed him as much as he needed her.
But he was still worried about scaring her off. He had almost said something he couldn’t take back. He had almost begged her to stay.
As if she couldn’t figure that out with his desperate sweet nothings. She knew. He’d felt her body melt as he told her she was his and he was hers. He wanted to take care of this woman, cherish her so she didn’t work so hard, give her a reason to stay still.
It was what you did for people you loved.
Usually a phone call from Henri would dampen his spirits, but when Reid saw his name flash on the screen, he didn’t tense up. He didn’t even wish the call away. All this progress!
“Hey, Dad.”
“You ready for tonight?”
“Sure, you’ll get a good fight.”
Henri cleared his throat and seemed to take a moment, which was in itself so rare that Reid’s heart missed a beat. “You know I’ve only ever wanted you to succeed, Reid. Do even more with your talent than I could with mine.”
Huh. That was the first time Henri had ever mentioned the word “talent” in reference to Reid. Maybe Nadine had said something.
“You push hard because you want the best for us.” Reid knew there was love in Henri’s action, but it was a fucked-up version where he called the shots and dictated the terms. Reid was beginning to think he should distance himself from his father’s “love.”
Surround himself with people who were less obsessed with perfection.
He had placed too much emphasis on self-denial, on his harsh regimen. After all, sex hadn’t suddenly dimmed his focus. A raspberry brownie wasn’t going to send him on a rocketing descent to the AHL. If anything, Kennedy and Bucky and this home life gave him something to look forward to.