“Fuck me,” he groaned. “You feel so good.” I held my position on the end of the bed while Jack continued to feed me his steel shaft over and over until I thought I might be the one to come again. I panted and groaned. I’d never felt so powerful or alive. My body was flush with sexuality. Warm from his lips. Raw and expressive. He grunted with a faster pace. He was going to come.
“You too,” he commanded. “I want you to come again, gorgeous.”
My fingers slipped between my legs quickly. My lips almost broke contact with his cock. I could barely concentrate. They felt good.
“Shit. I can do better.” His cock popped from my lips. He laid me on the bed, twisting me in position by the waist. I gasped when he roughly shoved my knees open, mounted me facing the opposite direction, and began running his tongue between my velvet lips. He hungrily sucked my clit as if he was going to make it his again.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. My mouth opened just in time. He pushed his cock into my mouth with authority. I took it fully in the first thrust. The new angle was easier. He could go deeper, as deep as he wanted to fuck me upside down. Jack wasn’t the kind of man who was timid about where he wanted his cock. The look in his eyes at the edge of the bed could light wildfires. I’d never seen that kind of admiration. As he pumped in and out of me from both ends, I wanted to light wildfires with him.
Our bodies moved with desperate friction. I couldn’t call his name. I could only mew. But he grunted and his cock pumped into my throat. I swallowed rapid gulps of his cum while he sucked ruthlessly on my explosive orgasm. The screams were stifled in the back of my throat, bouncing and echoing off the thickest parts of his shaft. Oh fuck, he was yummier than I thought.
We both took a few breaths before Jack withdrew from my mouth. He made an impressively nimble one-eighty spin on the bed and drew the sheet on top of us.
I aligned with his body. “Mmm.”
“Is it okay if I stay?” he asked. His lips pressed behind my ear.
“Yeah. Phoebe’s not here. It’s fine. I don’t want you to go,” I answered. “We have the rest of the night.”
He tucked his hand around my waist. I didn’t want him to go anywhere. Not after my body was still shaking.
“You okay?” He ran his hand along my arm. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fine. It’s just what I do after…” I bit my lip. I couldn’t see his face. “So that was the no sex promise?”
He kissed my shoulder. “Yeah. We don’t have to rush it. We’ll take it slow.”
I pushed up on my hand and maneuvered to face him. “That’s not slow, at least not where I come from. I don’t know about the Czech Republic.”
“Shit. Did I? Should I have stopped?”
“No.” I touched the side of his face. “Where did you ever get this slow idea? Not that there is anything wrong with it? But I consider what we did as pretty intimate. Aside from the obvious risks from sex, it’s just as intense.”
“I just thought that you’d want to avoid the other kind of sex.”
I stared at him. God, he was too gorgeous and sexy. Naked. He was also naked.
“The other kind of sex?” My brow furrowed. “Wait.”
He shook his head as if he knew I had already pieced it together.
“You’re worried I’ll get pregnant?”
“No.” His response was fast. “No. No.” He tried to lower me to the pillow. “Fuck,” he mumbled. “I knew I would screw this up.”
“Just tell me, Novak. Did you think about that?” I searched his eyes. “Do you think I’m some overly fertile woman because I already have a kid?”
“That’s not it. No.”
“Then what the hell is the other kind of sex?”
There was a full ten seconds before he answered me.
He exhaled. “Noelle, I need to tell you something.”
18
Jack
I had fucked up. Royally. Catastrophically.
The anger and betrayal in Noelle’s eyes after I told her about what I had overheard at her dad’s party gutted me.
She sat on the edge of the bed, facing the wall once I finished the entire playback of the conversation with Daniel.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she asked. “You could have said something in the car or when we were drinking wine.”
“I got distracted. You. Me. We had an empty house,” I tried to explain. How did I justify why I kept quiet? Tell her her lips had to be kissed? Tell her her tits needed to be sucked? That wasn’t going to get me out of this.
“I wanted to tell you about Phoebe’s dad when I was ready.” She paused. “I wasn’t ready. That wasn’t a public conversation. Damn it, my brothers are so nosey.”
“Do you want me to go?” I made a move toward my clothes. “I’ll get out of here.”
“No. You can’t leave. We have to talk about it.” Her voice was sharp.
My stomach clenched. Shit. I wanted to be the guy to listen. I’d never once been that guy in my life. Noelle looked at me over her shoulder. Her hair fell across her spine, brushing the curve of her waist. God, she was the sexiest woman I’d ever known.
“You’re right. We should talk about it.” I sat forward. “But I’m fine. Really. I get that you have a past. Phoebe didn’t grow on a tree.”
She sighed and climbed back into bed. “I want to tell you what happened. My way. Not through the hallway grapevine.”
“Okay. I’ll listen.” I stroked the side of her arm. “I won’t go until you kick me out.” I smiled.
She pressed her palm over my heart and rested it there. “I was twenty. I worked at a bar in the summers on break. Sometimes over the holidays they’d let me pick up shifts to make extra Christmas money. Basically, I was waiting tables one night after a Dires-Scores game and the entire Scores team came in to celebrate. They won,” she added. “It was some kind of holiday series they hosted every year. But, I don’t pay attention to hockey. You’ve figured that out about me. Anyway, I met this player named Alexi. And he was hot and older and I’d broken up with my boyfriend a few weeks before. I was feeling rebellious and gutsy. Alexi told me he was in town for three nights.” She shrugged lightly. “We spent three nights together. They were fun, wild, and unprotected. And the result was Phoebe.”
“Okay.” I studied her lips when she spoke.
“I never wanted anything from him. Nothing. We were both completely consenting adults with a no-strings-attached attitude. I’ve never asked him for a penny. And I won’t. But I hate him for not believing me. For not wanting to meet Phoebe. For not even trying to get to know his daughter. That’s my only regret. My true regret in all of this.” The warmth from her hand seeped into my ribs. “He didn’t take advantage of me. He didn’t seduce me. I don’t know how to tell my story without sounding like I was tricked. I wasn’t.”
“It’s okay. I get it. I do. You don’t have to convince me. You have the right to sleep with who you want to.”
Her eyes flickered with sadness. “But it never feels that way. It doesn’t feel like women can sleep around casually and not be sluts. It really sucks. I’m still that girl deep down. That’s what scares me about you. I want this. I want sex with you.” My chest rumbled. Fuck, I wanted her too. “But I can’t bring guys home and hook up. I have to make decisions that are best for Phoebe. I can’t be impulsive like I used to be.”
“You still seem a little impulsive to me,” I tried to lighten the mood. “Quick off the cuff observation.”
“You have made it hard not to be.” She smirked.
“Nothing wrong with being impulsive when you know something is right.” My heart hammered wildly.
She blinked. “Danny thought I should tell you about Alexi. He thought it was wrong to let you skate against him and not know the truth.”
“I can put him in the wall for you,” I offered. “It’d be my pleasure.”
She giggled. “No, that’s okay. I’d like to put him in the wall myself, but I’m not real
ly going to start taking hits out on the guy.”
“Just say the word.” I tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I’m trying to figure you out, Jack.”
“What’s there to figure out?” The sheet was pulled back enough that my thigh was hit by the air. She traced the scar. My chest tightened. It was hard to let her touch it. To study it. I tried to relax.
“How a man who has never done any of this can be so damn good at it?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll screw it up again, like I did tonight.”
“You screwed up. True. But I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated about how you found out. I’m not sure yet when Phoebe will be old enough to learn the truth. It’s always there. You’ve seen her on the ice. It’s because of him. Sometimes it hurts so much to see her love hockey and her not know why.”
I thought I felt something fracture in my chest. I’d always wondered if my father played. Did he love it? Was he a good skater? Had he tried to go pro? Did he know who I was? I knew nothing about him. Nothing. I didn’t want Phoebe to go through life the same way. No kid should.
“Are you going to tell her about Alexi?” I asked.
She nodded. “I think she deserves the truth. But when she’s old enough to handle it. I still think six is a little too young.”
I didn’t know the first thing about parenting. I wasn’t going to weigh in, but her answer gave me unexpected comfort. For now, I would listen, but maybe there would come a time when she would want to hear what a little boy who never had a father would have wanted.
19
Noelle
“When is Lucy coming back?” Phoebe shoveled a spoonful of Cheerios in her mouth. “I miss her.”
I stirred creamer in my coffee. “It’s only been a week since she was here. It’s not that much time.” Although to a child, a week was a month and a month was ten years. Her concept of time always made me laugh.
“Can’t you go somewhere?” She looked at me over her cereal bowl.
I almost spat out my coffee. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I want to play with Lucy. The only time she plays with me is when you go to work at night.”
“Phoebe, you know I’m not going to that job anymore,” I reminded her. “I thought you would be happy we get to hang out more. And no more chili out of the freezer.” I smiled.
“What about Jack?” she asked.
I blinked. “What about him?”
“He took you to dinner. Go somewhere with him.”
“Jack’s practicing with the team. He’s really busy, honey. It’s hard for him to go to dinner now. He was out of town last night for a game.” I was reluctant to admit to her that I knew exactly where he was. We texted every day. We talked every night. Even from the hotel in Denver.
It was clear now that the team was back from the break, he didn’t have much free time. His goal was to start in a game. He spent hours with the trainers. He spent hours skating. He was in the gym. He worked his leg every day. I’d never seen anyone push their body as hard as Jack pushed his.
He was scheduled to fly in this morning from Denver. He had another game tomorrow night, but still no word on when he would play for the Dires.
Part of me was grateful for his focus on hockey. It made us slow down. It forced space and days between us. If given the chance, we’d have an explosive physical relationship. If that’s all we had, it wasn’t going to be enough for me. So, I made rules. The first one was no more overnight dates until I knew Jack was the kind of man I could count on.
“Mommy?”
“Hmm?”
“Can Jack come over here since he’s too busy to take you somewhere?”
My stomach performed a cartwheel. “I don’t know, honey. He’s probably too tired.”
“Just call him.”
I eyed my daughter. Saturday mornings usually entailed us talking about what cartoon marathon she was going to watch before we headed to the library. Sometimes Alana stopped by, but she texted this morning and said she was too tired to move. Breakfast conversations never revolved around my dating life. What I didn’t know was if Phoebe wanted to see Jack, or if she was trying to push him on me. Were six-year-olds capable of being matchmakers?
“Mommy, just do it,” she pleaded.
I twisted my lips together. “Okay. I’ll call. But I’m sure he has practice. He has a job. Don’t forget that. He works all the time.” I didn’t want her to get her hopes up, no matter what motivated her invitation.
Phoebe grinned. “He’ll come over. I know it.” She dropped her bowl in the sink and skipped to the living room. She didn’t bother to stick around for the answer. I laughed. She was confident enough for the both of us.
Jack picked up on the second ring. “Hey, we just landed.”
“Oh. Okay. You can call me back.”
“No, I’m waiting on my bags and some gear. I have a few minutes.” His voice was rich and deep. Every time I heard it something melted inside me.
“Okay, so Phoebe and I were wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner tonight. That’s if you don’t have team stuff. Which, I understand if you do. I told her not to expect anything, so—”
“Noelle, I’d like that. Dinner sounds good.”
“Really?” I stopped short of pouring myself another cup of coffee. I was expecting a no.
“Yeah. The guys are pretty banged up after the game last night. Some of them are working in the therapy tubs today, but everyone else is off. We have light practice tomorrow morning. I can’t stay late. But I’d like to have dinner at your house.”
“What about 5?” I asked.
“5 o’clock sounds good.”
“We’ll see you then.”
I placed my phone on the counter. Now came the hard part. What did I feed a two-hundred-pound hockey player?
* * *
I sliced the avocado in half and gently removed the pit.
“Is that how you do that?” Jack leaned over my shoulder. I felt his warm breath on my cheek. His hand rested on my hip. “I’ve never seen it up close.” I felt his waist against the small of my back.
“Mmmhmm.” I carefully placed the knife on the cutting board. I wanted to lean into him, even if was only for three seconds. I wanted to inhale his cologne. I wanted to absorb the heat radiating off his chest.
He moved the hair off my shoulder and kissed the back of my neck. “I didn’t know making guac was so sexy.”
My body rang with desire. If I spun in his arms, his lips would crush mine and I’d be lost.
“It’s not supposed to be,” I argued playfully.
His thumb ran under the band of my jeans. “When you do it, it is.”
I sighed. Dangerous. This was dangerous.
Phoebe slid into the kitchen in her socks, whipping her Wonder Woman cape over her head. I jumped enough to jerk Jack’s hand off my waist.
“Are the tacos ready?” she asked. “It smells like they’re ready.”
“Not yet,” I answered. My cheeks were flushed, and I didn’t know how to steady my pulse. She stole a chip out of the bowl. Her eyes landed on Jack then me. “I have to finish chopping a few things. Only a few more minutes.”
“I’m so hungry,” she whined.
“Why don’t I help you with that puzzle I saw on the floor?” Jack suggested. “Unless you need my help here. I can stay.” His eyes darted back and forth.
I smiled. “Go do the puzzle. I’m almost done.”
He lingered and I knew he was considering whether he should try to kiss me, but Phoebe tugged on his T-shirt and he followed her out of the kitchen.
I exhaled and pressed my palms into the counter. I wondered how I would follow my own rules.
The taco bar was eaten. The dishes were stacked in the dishwasher. The kitchen was dark. The three of us moved into the living room. Phoebe got first dibs on a movie. She made a watching pallet with blankets and pillows and curled on the floor in front of the TV.
Jack rested his
arm on the back of the couch.
“Thank you for being okay with this,” I whispered.
“Why would you thank me? This is exactly what I wanted to do tonight.” He tugged me closer, so I was pressed against his body.
“Really? You wanted to watch a Disney movie?” I giggled.
“I missed out on this kind of stuff growing up. It’s like I finally get to see what it’s like. I definitely wanted to watch a Disney movie with you.”
I moved my hand over his chest and drew my knees on the couch, so I was cocooned against him. “If you want to catch up on the full catalog, Phoebe is the perfect movie buddy,” I offered. I had seen each movie no less than ten times. I could pass this one off on my daughter.
The idea that Jack had never experienced Saturday nights like this broke my heart.
“When I was a kid my mom would make popcorn on the stove. A huge pot of it. Cal and Daniel would fight over this one plastic bowl that had Mickey Mouse on it.” I laughed, thinking about whether either of them remembered that tacky bowl. “Once we all had our popcorn then my dad would turn off all the lights in the den and he’d start the movie. Of course it was from the video store so we only had twenty-four hours to watch it. It made Saturday nights seems like they were very important.”
Jack’s fingers ran along my arm. I felt his chest rise with heavy breaths. “What else?” he asked. “What was something else you did as a kid?”
In the years since my mom had died, I had asked myself the same question. What were the most important memories? What were the things she did or said that stuck with me? How did I pass that on to Phoebe? How did I fill her childhood with moments that she would love the rest of her life?
“We used to take big family trips every summer to the beach. My parents rented the same house year after year.” I lowered my voice before Phoebe turned up the volume again. “It was always such a huge deal because dad would have to leave Basham Brothers. But my mom insisted we have summers together as a family. If he ever tried to wiggle out of it, she’d lose it.”
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