“Nope,” he said, laughing. “We’re on a four-day, good-weather weekend, baby. The newlyweds wanted to spend time together before the season starts, so I came here to spend that time with you.”
Smiling, she said, “Good. Stay.” Standing close, she reached out and stroked her fingertips on his thigh, asking, “What did you think of Ruby?”
“She’s a sweet kid, loves you a lot,” he said, rolling his head back and forth on the comforter, winding his hand around hers. “You should join me down here, baby. I’m comfy, but I’d be comfier if you were lying on top of me. Come comfy me. Please?”
Curling her hand around his, she smiled at his coaxing tone, but shook her head. “I need to go grocery shopping before I let myself relax too much.”
He raised his head, looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face. “Why? What do we need at midnight that can’t wait for the morning?”
“Well, coffee for one. Something for breakfast for another—” she said, and he interrupted, laughing.
“You didn’t see PBJ and Hurley when they came in, did you?” he asked, mentioning a club member and prospect as he rolled off the bed. “PBJ said Hoss organized the grocery run. Come look, they hooked us up. Let me show you.”
She reached out, letting him take her hand as he led her into the kitchen. She watched as he opened the pantry door and then the cabinet next to it. To her surprise, both were filled with food, canned and boxed goods. There were containers of pasta sitting alongside mix packets for gravy and one-skillet meals. He opened the small cabinet over the coffeemaker and pointed wordlessly to the tub of coffee sitting on the shelf. Shaking her head, she opened the refrigerator to find it stocked with milk, juice, fresh vegetables, and fruit, along with lots of other things. Hoss had thought of everything, it seemed.
“Now will you come comfy me?” He wrapped himself around her and bent his knees to gain leverage, pressing their torsos together and lifting her effortlessly. He walked towards the bedroom as her feet dangled around his shins, swaying back and forth with his strides. “No funny business. I know you’re tired, baby. I just want to lie beside you in the bed. I’m comfier with you. Wrap yourself around me and comfy me.”
DeeDee twined her arms around his neck, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’d be happy to,” she murmured, taking a deep breath. Once in the bedroom, he quickly disposed of his clothing then slowly removed hers, lovingly kissing her as he did so, his hands stroking the revealed skin until she moaned into his mouth.
Leaning down to pull back the comforter, he tilted his head and looked at her with a soft expression on his face. “Mmmm. Looky what I found under all those clothes. A nakie DeeDee, my favorite kind. Come on, comfy me,” he said, lying down and tugging on her hand until she yielded and tried to snuggle into the bed alongside him. “Aww naw, not a chance, baby. I don’t get you often enough, so I want to feel you all over me. Comfy me, baby. You’re on me all night long.” He shifted until he pulled her partially onto his chest, reaching down to drag her knee up and across his hips.
Wrapping one arm around her waist and cradling her head into his neck with the other, he hummed softly as she relaxed into him. “Yeah, baby, sleep. We’ll bum around in the morning, settle the last few bits into place. Make it entirely yours. Je t’aime, DeeDee. Night, baby.”
***
She woke by slow stages the next morning, becoming aware she was still spread out over Jase’s chest, his arms firmly holding her in place. Sighing, she flexed and stretched her feet and ankles. Feeling his chest shaking, she picked up her head to look at him through her bangs. His eyes were open and gazing back at her, a look of mirth on his face. “Are you laughing at me?” she asked, frowning.
“What are you doing with your feet, baby?” he laughed, releasing his hold on her for a moment while he stretched his arms towards the ceiling before wrapping them even more tightly around her.
“Stretching them,” she said, asking “why?”
“You made cute, little, baby dinosaur noises. Rawwrrah. Rawwaarrrah.” He kissed her nose. “Cutest thing I’ve heard in my life, eh? First thing in the morning, she’s cute. This woman’s gonna be the death of me.” He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, laughing. “Baby dinosaur noises. Heaven help me.”
She leaned in and kissed him softly, feeling his chest expand as he took a deep breath when their lips made contact. Bringing up one hand, she slowly stroked her thumb across his cheek. “I need to use the bathroom and stuff, but I’ll be right back.” He grinned lazily and his arm around her waist tightened.
“What if I won’t let you go?” he asked, and she stroked his cheek again.
“I’m pretty sure you’ll have to let go eventually,” she whispered and watched his expression change, becoming darker, his features tensing with desire.
“No. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.” He took a breath and she squeaked as he rolled to the edge of the bed with her, pulling her up and into his arms. “See? I can completely do this constant contact thing.”
When they returned to the bedroom, he laid her gently on the bed, stretching out alongside her. Propping his head up on one hand, his other idly caressed and stroked her breasts, his thumb slowly circling her nipple. He watched his fingers on her skin, traveling back and forth between the two objects of his attention, and his light touch caused her to shiver with anticipation.
Without a word, he reached down and pulled the comforter up to her waist then tilted his head and pushed it down to her hips. Glancing up at her face, he grinned and pushed it down mid-thigh, trailing his fingers up the inside of her leg before he cupped her pussy. “I’ll warm you up, but I don’t want to miss a thing,” he said softly.
He leaned down and covered her mouth with his and she tasted toothpaste and Jase, sighing as he slanted his lips across hers. His fingers parted the folds of her pussy, one thick finger trailing up and down before pushing inside. Tongue teasing across the seam of her lips, he thrust slowly with his fingers as his tongue assaulted her mouth, twisting with her own.
With a sigh, she spread her legs farther apart, giving him full access to her core, and he responded with a groan, his hips pressing his hard erection against her hip. Murmuring against her lips, he said, “Want to be inside you, baby.” She nodded and he moved to lie between her thighs, hips cradled together.
She reached down between them, taking his cock in her hand and stroking him slowly, root to tip, rolling her thumb across the head. Teasing the slit, she spread the silky liquid across the crown of his cock and he hissed, thrusting through her fingers before stilling. “Baby,” he whispered, “put me inside you. Let me in.” She smiled, her lips against his shoulder and complied, easing the head of his cock to the entrance of her pussy. She took a deep breath as she rocked her hips up and he began to enter her, then he paused before going more than a couple of inches inside.
He groaned and twisted his head to press his mouth to hers. “God, DeeDee. I’ll never get enough of you. I hate not being here for you. With you.” He thrust deeper and she rocked her hips again, matching his movements. “With you. In you. Here, now,” he muttered, slipping an arm down underneath her back, “all the time.” Hand cupping her ass, he tilted her hips a little farther and sank to the root, her pussy clenching hard around him as he seated deep inside her. He froze in place, the only movement his fingers clutching her asscheek, the only sound his desperate breathing. She flexed her internal muscles again, gasping as his cock twitched in response.
“Fuck,” he ground out, and with a lunge he moved again, hard and fast, his hips pistoning against her. “Baby, I can’t,” he whispered on a groan, and she smiled, loving that she could make him lose control.
“I’m there,” she whispered back, and she was. All it took was a touch of his teeth on her shoulder in a gentle bite and she was rising up to meet him, back arching off the sheets as she came.
Jase reared up over her, his gaze steady on her face, watching without slowing as she shuddered
underneath him. Thrusting harder, he was pounding into her, and she recognized the slap of the headboard against the wall, the loud sound punctuating every movement. Their gazes remained locked together as his mouth opened in a silent cry, hips pushing his cock in deep and holding there, his stomach muscles jerking as he came. There was a softness to his expression, even as every muscle tensed, and she let herself soak it up, feeling cherished and loved, hoping her features reflected the emotion back at him.
***
By the time he headed home two days later, they had settled the apartment and she moved a few of the extra things back to storage. Living in the clubhouse had her accustomed to minimal clutter, and she found she now preferred less over more.
Kissing him goodbye, she smiled against his lips when he whispered, “Je t'aime et je te verrai bientôt, baby.”
“What does that mean?” She raised an eyebrow as she questioned him. He had been saying it a lot over the past couple of days, and while it sounded sexy as hell, she hadn’t taken time to wonder about the meaning behind the words until now.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said, pressing a kiss against the corner of her mouth.
She frowned. “Je t’aime means I’ll see you soon?” He said that phrase most frequently, and the use didn’t match the meaning.
Laughing softly, he kissed the other corner of her mouth. “No, that’s je te verrai bientôt, baby.”
“Then what does je t’aime mean?” she pressed for an answer.
“Something you aren’t yet ready to hear,” he murmured, kissing her with tautly controlled passion. “I gotta go, baby. See you soon.”
“Je te verrai bientôt,” she mangled the phrase, smiling up at him, and he chuckled against her lips as he kissed her goodbye.
Traded
“I’m serious, Cap’n,” Jase said from his deceptively casual pose in the chair facing Daniel’s desk. “This is what I want. Bring me any deal, as long as it gets me where I want to go.” He might not look it, but he was nervous as hell about this conversation, because it was going to dramatically change the direction of his career and life.
“But why?” Daniel’s face screwed up into a frown and he tented his fingers, propping his elbows on the desk. “In another year, I’ll be retiring, which would leave you the leading franchise player in the forward position. More money, more time flying up and down the sheet. If you do this, you’re going to be starting from mid-rung again. Not bottom, because you’re too damn good and have enough experience to carry nearly any line. But mid-rung for sure.”
“You’ve said you’re retiring every year for the past four, and yet here you are, stitched and iced from last night’s game.” Jase laughed, because while Daniel was nearly at the upper age range for a hockey player, he didn’t think the guy had ever actually considered retiring until he married Mica. She hated the physical side of the game with almost as much passion as she loved Daniel, and you could see her give a full-body flinch every time he took a hit or checked someone.
“And I’m okay with mid-rung. There’s less pressure to convert, less expectation to perform, but still plenty of ice. You know me, I’ll work my way up, Cap’n.” Jase needed Daniel to understand and get behind what he was requesting. “I need to be there. I thought about setting up an apartment for offseason and when we’re not playing, but that’s not enough. There’s no way that would be enough.”
Leaning forward, he settled his forearms on his knees and looked at Daniel earnestly. “Six months out of a year total isn’t enough. I need to be there all the time I can be. I understand I’ll take a salary hit, but I’m still solid from my days in Europe. I’m not worried about that.” He rushed to say, “That’s not saying you can tell them that. I want the best deal. But…I want a deal. I need to move to Fort Wayne. I’ll hate like hell playing across the circle from you, but I gotta go. I’ve considered all angles, looked at other possibilities, and I’ve made up my mind.”
“You love her,” Daniel said wonderingly, and Jase nodded.
“Yeah, I do.” That heartfelt statement seemed to convince Daniel.
“You tell her yet?” Daniel asked.
“Not in so many words,” Jase said with a small smile, thinking of his secret phrase. “I wanted to make sure I could pull this off before I said anything.”
“Okay,” Daniel said, rubbing his face with both palms. “Okay. I’ll give Tridents’ management a call tomorrow, see what I can scare up. Jesus, I hate losing you, Jase. We make a hell of a team. You talk to any of the guys yet?”
“Nope, wanted to hash it out with you first. You know, make sure we were on the same page.” Jase dropped his gaze, looking at the floor between his feet. “I’ll miss playing with you, man. I’m glad you recruited me when you did. Coming back from Russia was tough, but you helped stabilize things…me. Forever grateful, my friend. You are my lucky charm in a lotta ways.”
Jase’s thoughts turned to his time spent in the KHL. “I was such a kid when I went over to the league. Everything was an adventure. Hell, even getting paid was an adventure sometimes. The money was good, but now and then I wonder where I could have gone if I hadn’t spent those years there.”
Getting off the plane in Moscow, he was lost from the start. He knew he had a connecting flight to Penza, but the boarding pass printed in Edmonton was in English and French, while most of the signs in the airport here were in Cyrillic. He tried stopping a man in a business suit to ask if the man spoke English, but was brusquely pushed aside as the man kept walking.
“Spencer.” A voice called his name and he turned, seeing a group of men standing near a desk. They all looked like him in nearly every way, meaning they had broad shoulders, were physically fit, and had hockey gear bags. Walking over, he lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave.
“Yeah, Jase Spencer,” he introduced himself, shaking a hand offered by one of the men.
“Milton Carmichael, d-line,” the man said, and Jase nodded. He knew the name if not the face.
There were introductions from the other men, and Jase asked, “The plane for Penza board here?”
Laughter erupted around him and he grinned, not in on the joke, but knowing that something was going on. Carmichael said, “Plane is canceled; we’re waiting for one more guy and then we get in a truck and drive for ten hours. We’ll get in about four a.m., and practice starts at six.”
“Peachy,” was all Jase said, leaning a hip against the wall. They chatted as they waited and he found that most of the players were Canadian or Swede, but there were two Americans and a Fin. The language differences between their varied nationalities and the native Russian players would make chatter difficult, but he wasn’t worried. He knew the physicality of the sport was universal.
By the end of that open-sided truck ride, the players’ relationships had begun to gel; then the camaraderie from their hard-skating practices flowed naturally into flawless games. A few of the men were unable to deal with the culture change and bailed, but he found a solid core of players that remained on the team for game after game, season after season. Jase was one of those players; he had found a comfortable niche on the team and planned to fill it for the foreseeable future. The money was good, creature comforts were accessible, and hot chicks with zero relationship expectations and little knowledge of English or French were easy to find.
He had been playing in Russia for nearly three years the night he received a phone call from his mother. Having gone home only a few weeks earlier during the offseason, he was somewhat surprised to hear her voice over the crackling and hissing line, and Jase felt a shiver of fear, immediately knowing the call was bad news.
“Jase, it’s Mom,” she said, and his breath caught in his throat at the stress in her speech.
“Ma,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Son, it’s Sharon. She’s in the hospital. I wanted to call you before you heard from anyone else. She’s going to be okay, but she’s at Royal Alexandrea in Edmonton.” His mother sounded exhausted, abo
ut ready to collapse.
“What happened? Where’s Da?” He was full of questions, but these were enough to begin.
“Dad’s in with her right now, son. I stepped out to call you.” She took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “She was in a car accident. She’s going to be all right, but she’s knocked around pretty good.”
“I’ll get the first flight home, Ma. I’m so glad you called.” His body sagged against the wall, leaning on the flat surface for support.
“No, Jase. She’ll be out of the hospital before you could even get here,” she argued. “Stay and play, we’ll schedule some phone calls. I know she’ll be right glad to talk to you, but I don’t want you throwing your season away by leaving. You know what they’ll do.”
He did know; he had seen it in action several times as players had family emergencies. They would leave for a couple weeks, but by the time they could return, the slot in the team was full. Negotiations here were different from back home, and he had not seen a player successfully lobby for their position back after missing more than two games.
“Tell me about the accident.” He sidestepped the conversation about going home, deciding to play that more by ear based on what he could get out of her in the next three minutes.
“She was leaving work and had just gotten out on the highway at Blackfalds, and some pickup bashed into her car. They hit pretty hard and she lost control, wrapping around an electric pole. The car impacted on the passenger side and her seatbelt saved her. Thank God she was wearing it.” She paused for a second. “Jase, she was OUI.” She didn’t elaborate, just put it out there and let it rest between them. Oh, God, not again, he thought, taking several deep breaths.
“Was she drunk or stoned?” He asked the question in a flat tone as if the answer didn’t matter.
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