He chuckled quietly and slipped his arm around my waist, tugging me even closer.
“That’s certainly something,” he said, kissing my mouth. He pulled back, his eyes soft as they gazed into mine. “Every day? For…a while?”
“How long is a while?” I asked, my heart pounding.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Long enough to find out if we can stand each other with our clothes on?”
I made a show of weighing the options, then kissed his cheek.
“That sounds like a plan to me,” I told him. “You’ll get sick of me pretty quick.”
“I doubt that,” he said, his face reflecting his words. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get sick of you.”
“You haven’t seen me get so frustrated with an article that I start biting my toenails,” I pointed out.
He paused for a second, his mouth hanging open. He shook his head and laughed.
“I’m stuck on the idea that you’re flexible enough to do that,” he said, eyeing me suggestively. “The rest hasn’t even computed yet.”
I laughed at him and drank some wine. I remembered the older couple at the dance hall, teasing each other well into their twilight years.
I wouldn’t mind teasing Dante for a while, I thought.
“Do you do anything like that?” I asked him.
“What, bite my toenails? I haven’t been that flexible since before puberty,” he laughed. “I don’t know. I guess I get really difficult to live with right before a game. All of my brain power is focused on the win, the strategy, everything I know about the other team. That could probably get pretty irritating.”
His smile faded, then, and I winced internally.
“Guess that won’t be a problem for too much longer, though.”
“You need to focus on the positive,” I said adamantly. “What do you like to do, or what would you be interested in learning that you don’t have time for right now?”
He took a bite and chewed slowly, the cogs in his head turning.
“I wouldn’t mind getting certified as a dance teacher,” he said finally.
“You’d be great at that!” I told him. “You’re an amazing dancer and you’ve already got teaching experience from the team; go for it. I’d be happy to be your first student,” I said with a wink.
He laughed and nodded. “I certainly wouldn’t mind that,” he said, glancing sideways at me. “Maybe we should go back to the Revival after dinner?”
“My feet and I are barely on speaking terms as it is,” I said with a chuckle. “So, about what you were going to ask me…?”
“Ah, yes.” He looked sheepish; was he blushing? “So, I brought you here tonight to ask you to be with me…exclusively. I think you’re a brilliant woman, Livia, and while I don’t have a whole lot of long-term relationships under my belt, I want to try to make one work with you. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I’d like to face it with you by my side.”
He continued before my jaw could hit the floor, turning to meet my eyes with an apologetic little smile.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so preoccupied lately,” he said. “I feel like I’m walking into the dark without a flashlight in a place I’ve never been before. It’s always been hockey for me. I always figured I would have time to think about my plans the next year. Now, there’s only one more ‘next year’, and I never got around to thinking about it.”
“Then do everything,” I suggested. “Travel the world, doing everything you ever wanted to do. You’ll be free to do literally anything you could imagine. And I’d like to do it with you.”
“Really?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Really.”
The remainder of the date faded into a happy blur. We split a chocolate mousse for dessert, which was just rich enough to make me swear off desserts for life. Or at least a week. Everything had been wonderful—once the staff finally left us alone—and I mentally added the restaurant to my list of favorites.
I could see myself bringing future interviewees here, buttering them up with the atmosphere, food, and wine, and getting to the bottom of a real story. With a sudden lurch in my gut, I realized that the deadline for my story was mere days away, and I still didn’t have anything I could use.
I should really skip the post-dessert, I told myself.
But when Dante asked me if I wanted to come back to his place, I said yes. I would write in the morning, I decided. Tonight, it was time to live.
Chapter 23
“There was one dance I didn’t get a chance to show you,” he said smoothly as he closed his apartment door behind me.
“I’m a little more interested in the horizontal dances we could do in there,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Let me seduce you,” Dante said quietly, his smoldering gaze hypnotizing me.
“Oh,” I breathed.
He towered over me after I kicked out of my shoes, making me feel smaller and more delicate than I had in…well, ever. He led me to the living room, all brown and cream and black, and put on some music. Notes trickled slowly from the speakers. A saxophone made passionate love to an acoustic guitar as a broken-hearted piano cried. Dante pulled me into his embrace, gently pushing my head against his powerful chest, and wrapped me in his arms.
It wasn’t a dance so much as a rhythmic embrace, and it was my favorite of everything he had showed me that night. His warmth bled through my clothes, resonating with my core. It was so much more intimate than anything else we had done that it took my breath away.
All of those fantasies I had pushed away about a future with him returned tenfold, filling my mind and heart with wishes for endless romance.
He dipped me and kissed my throat. I closed my eyes and held his face with a little moan, awash in the bliss of every sensation. He lifted me slowly, trailing kisses up to my ear, then across to my mouth.
I returned his kiss, offering my lips for biting, my tongue for sucking. The rhythm moved from our feet to our hips, building the heat between us, awakening the lust which had been subdued after the Revival.
Dante led me to the couch, pulling me down on top of him as he sat. His arms circled my waist, resting comfortably on my rear. It was cozy and erotic all at once. I felt loved in that moment, and it made me misty-eyed. I swallowed against the lump in my throat and pulled away, blinking the moisture from my eyes.
“What’s wrong, Liv?” he asked, stroking my cheek with one warm finger.
“Nothing,” I said, my voice cracking. “Everything is wonderful.”
He smiled gently and pulled me down into a kiss again. His hands roamed over my body, tangled in my hair, loved every inch of me. The quivering deep in my core became a hot, empty ache; I needed him—not just now, but forever.
His hands slid down to my ankles and crept back up, slipping under my skirt to linger on my hips. I wriggled against his hardness, breathless with desire. He groaned into my mouth, exciting my senses with his passion.
He took his time dragging my dress up over my head. Once it was gone, he paused, drinking me in with his eyes.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he murmured, tracing my collarbone with one finger. “Inside and out.”
“I don’t know about the inside,” I confessed, my face flushing red. “Just don’t look too closely.”
He turned his eyes up to meet mine, and I felt utterly exposed. I was certain that he could see right through me, to every ugly, vengeful thing I had ever done; every weak and humiliating thought I had ever had.
Maybe he could, but he didn’t seem to mind; he brought my hand up to his mouth, kissing my knuckles without ever breaking eye contact. It sent shivers through my body, hot and cold in turn.
“I want to see everything,” he said, the words rolling out from some deep, primal place. “I want to know you, Livia.”
I swallowed hard. I had spent so much time hiding from people, from the world, from myself; the way he looked at me frightened me. Somehow, though, I didn’
t mind it.
I kissed him and my hands rippled over the buttons of his shirt, exposing his glistening, muscular chest. I pushed the shirt away, dragging my nails over his skin, making him shiver beneath my touch.
He held me close and kissed my skin, my collarbone, my breasts. Honeyed heat spread between us, between my thighs, between his hips, arching through the minuscule space between us. His firm, gentle hands encouraged my hips to roll across him until I was dancing along his length, building up passionate friction, driving me mad with desire. I couldn’t wait any longer.
With trembling hands, I freed him from the belt around his waist, tugging at his waistband with the frantic need to have him inside of me. He lifted his hips and me with them, until I was hovering above the couch, riding on his muscles as he slid out of his clothes.
When he settled back down on the couch, he was ready. He ripped my panties off with a flick of his wrist, too impatient to wait any longer.
“Oh,” I gasped as he pushed his hard tip against my slit.
I teased him, rocking my hips and sliding up from head to hilt without ever letting him inside. He groaned and writhed, but on top and in charge, I took my time with him.
I traced every velvety contour of his shaft, the sensations electrifying my body. In his frustration, he grabbed me in a savage embrace, pulling my breast down to his face, stimulating me with a force I had never seen from him before.
Pinching, rolling, gripping almost hard enough to bruise me; nibbling, biting, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. The whisper of pain made me cry out with pleasure as it shot down my core to my center, making me pulse and quiver with the strength of it.
His mouth still filled with my breast, he released a primal growl and slapped his hands on my hips, lifting me up to put me down on his thick, hot manhood.
My reaction was instantaneous. He pressed a thumb to my clit as he filled me, as he squeezed my breasts, focusing every sensation on that hard little point. Wave after wave of pleasure cascaded over me, building up the pool of hot pressure beneath his thumb, swirling through my mind until not a single thought remained.
I moved over him and around him with desperately bucking hips, riding toward the point of ecstasy. He bit my lip just a touch too hard, and with a cry of pleasure mixed with pain I careened over the edge in a blinding explosion.
“Yeah, baby,” he growled. “Come for me again.”
I obeyed because there was nothing else I could do. With Dante’s thumb pressed into me and his pulsing cock filling me, with his mouth and hand on my breasts, with his smell and body and those eyes, I was ready to go again before the last little pulses had even subsided.
As I quaked and trembled with the force of my release, he stood, lifting me up with him to press me against the wall. I wrapped my legs tight around his waist, drawing him into me as he sandwiched me against the cool paint.
I watched his eyes darken and close in bliss as he moved inside of me. I tasted the sweat of his skin, heavy with masculinity, spiced with lust. His breath quickened, his heart raced against my breast, and with a primal groan, he emptied into me. I held him, his head buried in the curve of my neck, as the last quakes of his ecstasy rippled away. Tender kisses and soft, murmured words carried us back to the couch.
Music washed over us as he wrapped us in a blanket and turned the lights down low with the remote on the coffee table. I didn’t want to go to sleep—what dream could be better than this? But his warm embrace and steady breathing lulled me, and soon, the room faded as my consciousness fell away.
Chapter 24
I crept through the carpeted hallways of my apartment building the next morning, still dressed in the clothes I had worn the night before. Luis’s door was open—he must have posted bail or something—but when I walked by, it slammed shut.
It sounded like an attempt at a deliberate shun, which would have made me laugh if I hadn’t been so tired. It fascinated me that the little troll still thought that I had any interest at all. Unwilling to waste any more brain energy on him, I shook it off and walked into my apartment.
Flinging my arms wide, I embraced my sacred space. My feminine touches, my useless pretty things, my pastel walls and squishy couches. Not that Dante’s place was bad. It was a handsome apartment—expensive, sound, and attractive—but it was all him. The last few days had been so draining that I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my own space, surrounded by my own things, and take a nice long nap.
“Not today,” I told myself firmly. “You have work to do.”
Dante and I had stayed up till the wee hours of the morning, talking about his career between cuddles and caresses. I’d enjoyed hearing him talk about his passion. It had given me a new idea for my article, one which I was eager to put to paper.
“No notes today. All in my head,” I murmured, glancing at the stack of legal pads which usually held the bones of my articles.
I sucked in a deep breath and cracked my knuckles, rolling my shoulders and tossing my hair back. Laser focus on.
The Making of a Legend
Thirty years ago, a little boy played in an abandoned parking lot with a thrift-store hockey stick and a flattened coke can. Too little to join his brothers in their sports, he took to entertaining himself, mimicking what he saw on his dad’s garage TV every hockey season. Through struggles in school, first loves, first heartbreaks, and his very first sports car, this boy’s first love and greatest passion remained: hockey. His name was Dante Drake.
Nearly ten years later, another little boy, Joel Palmer, was given the chance of a lifetime. His father, best friends with some of the biggest names in the game, built him his own miniature rink in their backyard. Every day, he would take the boy out to teach him how to play. This boy worked hard, until he was confident in showing off for his dad’s friends. He fell in love with the game and spent all of his spare time improving.
Dante worked hard, raking leaves and mowing lawns, cleaning houses, and babysitting. His parents never stopped encouraging him, but they were strapped for cash with three other children to care for. He persevered, however, and joined a children’s league when he was twelve years old. It was a struggle for him at first; he had never been on ice skates before, and his tin can practice was nothing like playing with a real puck on the ice. One night he went home, disheartened and discouraged, intent on telling his dad that he was going to quit.
His parents were talking when he came home. His mother was crying. Young and frightened, Dante stopped to listen. He heard his mother lament the lack of opportunities her children had, curing herself and the world for being so hard to move through. He heard his father telling her sternly that their kids were strong, smart, and talented; if the opportunities wouldn’t come, they would make their own. He held Dante up as an example. Of course, Dante couldn’t quit after that. He would never break his mother’s heart if he could help it.
At the same age, Joel was beginning to feel the pressure. His father constantly talked about how he would make the big leagues and make them all rich. Though his family had never been poor, Joel’s dad was always on the lookout for the next big thing, his next big break. Joel didn’t want to be his father’s golden goose, and said as much. In spite of his father’s insistence and frequent rages, Joel abandoned the game for two full years.
When Joel was in seventh grade, his father barely survived a heart attack. When his father was in surgery, Joel overheard his mother talking with her sister, telling her that she didn’t know what they were going to do if he didn’t pull through. That very night, Joel refroze his homemade rink and began practicing again, swearing to himself that his mother would never have to worry for her future ever again. He joined the youth league and instantly became the star of the county; by the end of the year, he had caught the nation’s attention.
Dante threw himself into his training and made his parents proud. He put himself through college on a hockey scholarship, and found himself a manager before graduation. Within a few years, he
was signed to the Portland Harriers, in a moment which has been permanently immortalized on his mother’s living room wall. He made it—through the sweat of his brow and by the skin of his teeth, as his father would say—and he is rightfully proud of his accomplishment.
Joel literally skated through the children’s league and college hockey. His next stumbling block was during his sophomore year of college, when both his parents were seriously injured in a car accident. Joel moved home for two years until his sister graduated and was free to take over, by which point Joel was barely able to get back on the college team; one more setback likely would have been the nail in the coffin of his career.
That final setback came in the form of yet another heart attack. This one was not so merciful, and his father passed away. Joel was prepared to drop out of college to care for his mother, forfeiting his hockey career before it began, and it was only the generosity of Mick Alder, co-owner of the Harriers and his father’s best friend, which kept him where he was. Alder took care of Joel’s mother financially, and offered Joel’s sister an annual stipend to attend to their mother’s day-to-day needs, thus enabling Joel to finish his college career and become available for the major league. On the day of Joel’s graduation, Alder signed him to the Harriers.
You may think that these two star players from such different backgrounds would never find common ground. Dante will admit that it was difficult for him to accept Joel at first; he perceived him to be spoiled, from a privileged background—a child who had everything handed to him. Joel found Dante to be rough and frequently unreasonable. Through a great deal of hard work and intentional team playing, the two of them finally found their footing.
“I want him to struggle. The only way to actualize your potential is through struggle and hard work. Joel has the potential to become a legend in his own right, and as his mentor and team leader, it’s my job to make sure he gets there.” – Dante Drake.
Wanna Puck? - A MFM Bad Boy Hockey Star Menage (Share Me Book 1) Page 11