by Toni Aleo
“If you have to,” I snapped and left the yard through a side gate, striding down Maybury Road, heading to god knows where. He quickly caught up with me; he was six two to my five eleven, and he had the longest legs; he may not have been a professional hockey player like his brother or me, but he was fit.
And muscled, hard, tempting, and a hundred kinds of lust rolled into one sexy package.
We walked in silence for a while until the house was a long way behind and we were heading for the park, which promised wide-open spaces.
“How have you been?” Archie asked as we went through the ornate metal gates before standing aside to let a woman walking six dogs pass us. Archie went to a crouch to fuss over a black lab, and I waited for him to finish.
There was no way I was answering his question. There would be no talking on this walk if I could help it. Talking led to laughing, which ultimately led to kissing, and way more. That was what had happened last time, and I knew today wouldn’t be any different.
When we resumed walking, I hoped to hell he’d forgotten what he’d asked, only it seemed that he wasn’t as forgetful as I wanted him to be.
“How have you been?” he asked again.
I ignored him until we reached a stand of trees, and we took a small trail through them where it was more private.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I rounded on him.
He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gazed at me with a thoughtful expression.
“Unless I’m mistaken, right now we’re just walking,” he finally offered. Something in his soft tone pushed all my buttons, and anger sparked inside me.
“I don’t want you here.”
He shrugged. “But I am here, so deal.”
“And stop texting me,” I snapped angrily. “I don’t need your idiotic comments about finding space or keeping my head up or taking chances. So stop.”
Archie took his hands out and held them palm up. “I thought we were friends,” he said.
“Friends don’t add kisses to every text and tell me they care. Friends don’t intrude in my life when I don’t want them there. Hell, real friends leave other friends the hell alone if they ask them to.”
I’m losing the will to explain this.
Archie sighed. “What if I don’t want to be just friends?”
I shoved at him. “I don’t even like you anymore."
Archie closed in on me in an instant, cradling my face and kissing me so quickly I didn't have a chance to escape. He pushed me back into the trees, into the cool shade, deepening the kiss.
At any moment I’d be able to move.
I don’t want to move; I don’t want to stop. Oh God, I want to kiss him so bad.
I gripped his jacket, not sure whether to push him away or haul him closer, and then he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, and it was game over. All the denial in the world couldn’t have made me push him away, not when he was the only man I’d ever kissed who could make me feel so much.
My ass hit a trunk, and then he crowded me, as only he could, sucking on my lower lip, biting my neck, rough and hard, and everything I craved. I pushed back, then grabbed his ass, held him close. I heard myself groan; listened as he cursed into the kiss. We were on fire and close to losing control.
He knew that, and just as it’d always been, it was him who cooled the passion.
The kisses gentled, and with that came the realization that we were standing in the park, where anyone taking this path could see us. I panicked, my chest tight, but he cradled my face and kissed the tip of my nose.
“You do like me, at least for this,” he murmured.
“I don’t.”
“I love you, Logan.”
“You can’t. We can’t.”
“I send kisses on my texts and care about you because I love you, Logan.”
“I said you can’t.”
“No one can tell me who to love.”
He stepped away from me, his hands back in his pockets, and I couldn’t fail to see how turned on he was. Just like me.
This had never been our problem. The sex had never been the issue.
It was everything else.
“Well, I don’t love you. I never did,” I lied.
I waited for him to demand I tell him the truth, call me on my lying, but he offered a soft, sweet smile and nodded.
“I know you think that,” he murmured, straightened himself, and smiled again lit his eyes. “Come on, let’s find somewhere for coffee.”
“No, I want to go home.”
He looked torn, but he didn’t argue, and silently we walked back the way we’d come, and when we reached the pool, he went indoors. I stayed out with the guys and hoped to hell they didn’t ask any pointed questions.
“I don’t see ice cream; did you get any ice cream?” Lee asked.
“You never asked him to, jackass.” Mase shoved Lee off his sunbed.
My cell chimed with a voicemail from my agent, and I knew I had to make a concerted effort to talk to the man who made me money. I listened to the message, closing my eyes and willing myself not to lose my cool when he detailed a new endorsement for men’s fragrance. Why couldn’t he get me endorsements for my sticks or sports gear? Why was I pigeonholed as the fragrance-guy holding the sexy woman? That was the most left-field thing that I could’ve been forced into. The last advert had involved two women and me, as if I’d know what to do with one, let alone two.
I didn’t send back a reply and instead watched the three kids rough and tumble, all of them ending up fully clothed in the pool and deciding between them that they earned enough money to order an ice cream delivery.
Ice cream on Christmas Eve? Just another reason why Christmas in Dallas was messed up.
Chapter Two
Christmas morning sucked as well. Mom and Dad called, but it was more of a “Merry Christmas, we-have-breakfast-and-yoga” kind of call. Individually, I spoke to my brothers and sisters, with associated nieces and nephews, but each call was quick. I’m not sure if it was me letting them go so they could enjoy their family time, or them falling for my lies that I had a busy day planned.
Busy day, my ass.
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and considering how miserable I was to be stuck there and feeling sorry for myself. Not to mention wondering how I was going to avoid Archie . We played Dallas on the twenty-seventh, and then we went back home, so I only had to manage a couple of days.
There was a knock. Archie pushed the door open and then closed it behind him. He was wearing a jacket, that damn beanie covering his hair, ready to go out somewhere I assumed, and he looked so good.
I sat bolt upright on my bed. “What the hell!” I whispered loudly. “Did anyone see you come in?”
“Merry Christmas to you too. Lee suggested breakfast out. Mase and Connor jumped at the chance, so it’s just me and you in the house.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just walk in—”
“Merry Christmas, Logan,” he repeated, then crossed to stand by the bed, holding out a gift wrapped in silver paper, with curling ribbon and a bow, the whole enchilada.
I immediately felt Canadian guilt that I didn’t have anything for him, and then it hit me that this was a ridiculous reaction to have.
He shook it a little, and when I didn’t take it, he sat and placed the gift on the bed next to me.
“Open it for me,” He softened the words with an added, please.
Hypnotized by the tone, I huffed and reached for the gift, a rectangular, flat box. Making short work of the decorative ribbon, I slipped the box out of the paper and opened the lid.
As soon as I saw the frame holding a photo of the two of us from last year, smiling, a selfie taken in a moment of madness, I froze. In that single moment caught on his phone, I was happy. I was myself. I was everything that I held inside me and more. I was in love, or at least I was falling fast. Emotion tightened my throat, and my chest hurt. We’d given everything up the next day
, me going back to the team, him staying here, and it was over.
I glanced up at him, and he looked weird. Then he laughed. “I hope you don’t think I’m a stalker or something, keeping photos of us together, but this one is perfect, and it just seemed right.”
I met his gaze steadily, but I was lost for words. I had photos of us together, locked away in a box I couldn’t bring myself to open. Telling him that would be like admitting how I felt about him, even to this day. I couldn’t do it.
“I don’t think you’re a stalker,” I offered because it seemed like the right thing to say.
“I love you,” Archie repeated. “I don’t think I will ever stop loving you, and if the only contact we have is me texting you after a game and you ignoring it, then at least you know I’m there, and that I will wait for you.”
“Don’t—”
“Don’t love you?” He caught my face in his hands, cradled me, and stared right at me. His eyes were the palest blue, almost gray, beautiful, full of love. I knew he was telling me the truth. “I can’t stop loving you.”
Something made me move then; I tugged him toward me, and I could have stopped there, but God help me, I didn’t want to. It had been too long since I’d had him close.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I murmured, but then I reached up to push the beanie from his head so that I could card my fingers through his thick hair. We were going to kiss again, properly, not in anger but with all the unrestrained passion that I’d only ever felt with him. After nearly a year, it was inevitable, and for a few moments, maybe I could believe that I was in love with this man and that we had a future ahead of us. He pressed a kiss to my lips and then stopped. For a crazy moment, I thought my warnings had gotten through to him.
And I felt bereft.
So I yanked him back and deepened the kiss, and then all I could do was hang on for the ride. He pressed me to the bed, and my cock was hard against the zipper of my jeans. So turned on and needy. He murmured soft words against my skin, made me all kinds of promises, kissing his way down my body and slipping my fly down enough to free my cock. The first familiar touch of his mouth and I arched up; I couldn’t help it. He pulled back a little and smiled up at me, his lids heavy and his hand in constant motion along my cock.
“Okay?” he asked. I don’t know what he was asking. Whether his lips and fingers on my cock were okay? Or was he asking me if him sucking me down, his cheeks hollowing, was okay? God, it was more than okay; it was mind-blowing. I scrambled to find purchase in the messed-up sheets and quilt, giving up and burying the fingers of one hand into his hair again. The other I balled into a fist and pushed into my mouth, anything to stop the noises I wanted to set free. I loved the feel of his hair; it was shorter than it had been last winter but still long enough to tug as he sucked me.
I was closing in on orgasm lightning fast, and I pulled at his hair harder to warn him. He didn’t move, and I lost the will to fight, arching up and coming so hot that I closed my eyes, stifling my shout with my fist. He licked me, sucked me, made his way back up my body. I reached between us mindlessly, him helping me to get his cock out. He climbed higher and leaned over me, kissing me as I pulled him to his own orgasm. The kisses we shared were breathless, messy, and I heard someone laughing and was shocked that it was me. He buried his face in my neck when he came, and I pressed a kiss to his blond hair, wrapping my arms around him, holding him tight as he lay against me.
This was what last winter had been like, fiery passion and the intoxicating taste of each other. This had been everything to me. I wished it could’ve been real.
“You need to go,” I murmured into his hair.
He levered himself up and away. “You're telling me to go,” he said. It wasn’t a question, just a profoundly sad statement.
“You have to,” I said because anything else was just wrong.
We kissed one last time, and then he left the room, zipping his jeans as he walked.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter Three
I only ventured downstairs when I heard that the kids were back from their Christmas Day breakfast thing. The TV in the main room was showing Elf, Christmas music played on an iPod, and Connor was singing along. There was a pile of baked goods on the counter, the smell of bacon, the guys were loud and laughing, and I needed that. Archie was with them. I saw him bent over a piece of paper, scribbling one of his lists, a croissant in his other hand and flakes of pastry on his shirt.
His need to make lists for everything was endearing. Every part of his life was based around some plan of action, fully committing to every step, every decision, and never second-guessing himself. He’d scheduled our lives together, spoken about children and a future, as if it was something he could plan the hell out of. I think that was the worst thing; that I had listened to everything he said, and never once said it was all bullshit.
Not until that last day.
“I don’t see video games on the list.” Lee huddled next to Archie, taking his pen and adding an item to the list. From experience, that was not going to go well with Archie, who side-eyed Lee, hip checked him out of the way, and turned the paper over to start his list again.
“Video games are not a Christmas Day thing,” Archie admonished, and I smiled. Of course, at that moment he glanced up at me, saw my smile, and grinned in return.
What if someone sees that?
I hurried to the coffee pot, which was nearly empty except for a layer of sludge at the bottom, so I covered my discomfort by making more of the black stuff.
Connor placed his mug next to mine. “Merry Christmas Pretty—”
“Logan,” I corrected in that tone that only an older hockey player on the team could get away with. Connor was one of the good guys, but he was new and needed to know that he didn’t get to call me by my hated nickname.
He winced. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” I murmured and realized Archie was blatantly watching the small exchange. He knew I didn’t like the name I’d been given as a rookie. We’d talked about it, and all he’d said to me was that I was pretty, in a sexy, manly gorgeous way, and then he’d kissed away my dissent.
He always knows what to say.
“I still think we need video games.” Lee pushed.
Archie covered the list up, and like that, he took his attention away from me. I could still taste him on my lips. I wanted to stalk over there and kiss him again, bend him back and devour him whole. My entire body was tuned to him, and I needed that to stop. Right now. Sex muddied the waters and made everything seem like it would work out okay.
“Uno?” Connor checked the list. “Wow, I haven’t played that since I was eight.”
Mase took one of the new coffees and noogied me, which was as heinous a crime as calling me Pretty Boy. I settled for glaring at him, and it worked because he moved to Archie and the list, glancing back at me warily.
Archie picked up the list. “Okay, Mase you’re on snacks. I saw Cheetos, and don’t even tell me you three don’t have other things in your room. Connor, download some more Christmas music, anything that is older than all of you. Lee, you’re in charge of drinks, and I don’t mean beer.”
They scattered, which left the two of us alone.
“What about me?” I asked and wished I hadn’t when Archie straightened and then stared right at me.
“I have something special for you,” he said, and I tensed. What was he going to say? Or do?
“What?” I checked behind me in case anyone was still listening.
“I need help with the fireplace,” he announced.
Glancing out of the window at the cool, but not cold, Dallas day, I waited for him to explain why we needed a fire. Maybe a fire pit outside, in the dark, but in here, now?
“Ambience,” he explained. “We’ll open windows.”
I followed him into the front room, where he stopped in front of the enormous stone fireplace, hands on hips, regarding the setup as if it was going to light itself.
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“This isn’t going to work,” I announced when he poked at the wood piled neatly at the side. “I wasn’t a scout; I don’t know how to make a fire.”
“Of course it won’t work. I just wanted you to myself for ten minutes.”
What the hell?
“No.”
He went from smiling and teasing to dangerous in an instant, and I waited for the explosion where he told me I was overcautious or stupid or a hundred other things that we’d thrown at each other on our final day together. He wanted me to be something I couldn’t be; he wanted to be able to love me and have me love him back.
I can’t.
“It must be so hard,” he whispered and then held out a hand to touch me. “To give up everything.”
I moved away so quickly that I stumbled over a stool and ended on my ass, ignoring his hand and standing back up. “I haven’t given up hockey, and that is all I want,” I snapped.
He looked so sad. “Hockey won’t be there forever, Logan.”
And that was my cue to head back to the kitchen and focus intently on making more coffee.
At least he left me alone.
Somehow, we made it through Christmas afternoon, and not one video game was played. We ate all the Christmas cookies that Connor’s granny had sent him a week back, watched The Grinch and Home Alone. I lost every hand of Uno, entered into a heated debate about football, and ate my entire body weight from Lee’s stack of Cheetos. Through all of it, I knew Archie was checking on me every so often. I could feel the heaviness of his stare on me. But it was a good Christmas, and while not as cold as I wanted or with any snow or indeed my family, I found myself smiling for most of the day.
Mase got a call just before ten, from the same girl whom he’d been texting all day, and from the way he blushed scarlet, I knew it had to be a phone-sex booty call, underlined by the fact he left for his room in a rush. I didn’t imagine we’d see him again tonight. When Lee vanished as well, the three of us left moved to sit by the pool, the patio heaters taking the edge off the night’s chill, and hot chocolate underlining what had been a good day. We talked about everything and anything, and things only began to go wrong when Connor started to talk about his girl back home.