I work my hand up and down my shaft harder and faster. “Solana,” I whisper harshly, as lightning shoots up my spine and out my cock, warm jets spurting against the wall of the shower. I grunt in ecstasy as the orgasm continues to roll through me, until I’m bled dry, my dick softening in my hand as the static and buzzing in my head subside.
Holy fuck. I’m wrecked. Just from jacking off to the image of her. Just from seeing her for five minutes in the last ten days.
I push off the shower wall shakily, noticing that the water is cooling I’ve been in here so long. I quickly wash up, shampooing my hair as well, then turn off the water and climb out.
Crap. I’ve been working so hard not to give in to this insane desire I have for her, but it’s not working. She’s still the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing I think about at night. I spend most of my time hoping for a glimpse of her—in the lobby, the elevators, the hallway. The truth is, I spend a lot more time with Ambrose than he needs, but it gives me the excuse to go into her apartment—see her belongings, smell her, feel closer to her.
Hi, I’m Mick The Czar Petrovich—hockey player, youth league coach, and stalker. Nice to meet you.
As I get dressed in clean clothes and comb back my wet hair, I can’t help but wonder if she ever feels the same way. Like she can’t get me out of her head.
Or maybe I was all too easy to forget about, like a night out on the town, fun in the moment, but utterly forgettable the next day—a blur of lights, dancing, and loud music. Maybe I’m the human equivalent of a nightclub. You don’t want to see those in the bright light of day, they’re always a disappointment.
I sigh, reminding myself it’s all for the best. Solana’s not the only one who needs to focus on her future. My hip is pretty well healed, almost never causing me pain, and gaining range of motion every day. I’ve narrowed my job options down to three that sound the most interesting—commentator for hockey playoffs and the Olympics, consultant to the NHL for the development of wellness programs for post-injury players, and national spokesman for the youth hockey association.
None of these are full-time gigs, and two of the three require travel, but they’re enough to get me started, give me focus, and most of all, get me back into the world that means the most to me—hockey. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get over the ache I carry for the loss of playing, but being around the sport helps some. Seeing others playing and having the kind of passion I do about it soothes me. Makes me remember hockey is bigger than me, bigger than any one person or team.
What makes hockey so significant is that it supersedes individuals, time, location, all those things. It winds its way through lives, cities, and decades. Hockey is a common denominator, and the way our world looks today, we need all of those we can get. So, I’m focusing on how I can best be a part of that common denominator going forward. Not on what I’m missing, not on what I’ve lost.
And when it comes to a certain sexy blonde next door, I need to focus on keeping my lust to myself and dealing with Solana as the friend I said I’d be, and not as the stalker I secretly harbor.
When I get back to the apartment next door, Ambrose is still lying on his towels, but now the whole bundle has been transferred to Solana’s lap. She sits in a pair of flannel pajama pants, and a tight tank top, holding the sick cat and murmuring sweet nothings to him. I have never been jealous of an animal in my life, but I can admit I am now.
“Look what just got delivered,” I say, holding up the bottle of antibiotic pills that Vanya dropped off with the concierge desk a few minutes ago.
“Oh thank goodness,” she says. “He still seems really warm.”
“Well, he’s going to get warmer right now, we need to do another compress to keep that wound open so it’ll drain.”
She grimaces at me and I walk over to take the cat from her. As I lean down to lift him, I feel her breath on my skin, warm, sweet and spicy, it’s all I can do to stop myself from groaning at the sensation.
Gritting my teeth I carry Ambrose into the bathroom, laying him on the counter in his nest of towels. Luckily, he feels so bad he doesn’t try to get up. I’m squeezing out a warm washcloth when Solana comes into the bathroom with me. She stands on the other side of Ambrose and looks at me in the mirror.
“I should probably learn to do this. I bet you’re tired of taking care of him.”
I shake my head. “Nah, now that he’s oozing less it’s not so bad. Kind of reminds me of when my brother and I were always rescuing bugs, lizards, mice, whatever we could find. We’d try to doctor them, whether they needed it or not.”
I pet Ambrose on the head as I lay the compress on his wound. He makes a pained noise, but doesn’t fight me. This is round six or seven today, and he seems to understand at this point that it’s for his own good.
“How much younger is your brother?” she asks.
“Three years.”
“And he’s an artist, right?”
I smile as I rinse out the compress and put it back on Ambrose, who makes the same I fucking hate this noise.
“Yeah, Dmitri’s amazingly talented. And also has the whole tortured artist thing going on. He’s moody and dramatic and women love it.”
She laughs, and I feel my body unconsciously lean toward her, trying to catch a bit of her light and joy. She’s like a magnet to my iron, the pull is steady and strong.
I finish up with Ambrose and pat him dry. “Could you hand me that tube of antibiotic cream?” I ask, pointing across the counter.
She does and I slather the poor cat in the stuff.
“Now, we have to figure out how to get the pills in him,” I say.
“I think you just pry their mouth open and stuff it in,” she tells me with a wince.
I pull the bottle out of my pocket and pour one out into my palm. I read the label, which says one pill three times a day.
“Wow. Three times a day for ten days. That’s a lot of prying and stuffing.”
“How will I ever do that?” she laments. “I’m not here enough hours in a day to give him three doses.”
“I’ll do his midday dose,” I console her.
“You can’t keep filling in for me. I’m supposed to be taking care of this cat and really, you’re the one who’s doing it all. You keep him company and feed him and water him and actually notice when he’s sick.” Her brow furrows and she purses her lips as she pets him softly.
It’s then that I see it, the purplish bruise that mars one side of her small wrist. As I look at it I notice another further up near her biceps, and another on the opposite arm.
I reach out and take her wrist gently in my hand. “Solnishka?” I ask quietly.
“What is this?”
She shrugs as she looks down at the wrist too. “I don’t know how I did it. I’ve got like, ten of them all over. I guess I’m just thin skinned.” She gives a small laugh and my mood darkens considerably.
“What have you been eating?” I ask, rubbing my fingers over her purplish skin lightly. I hear her breath hitch when I do it, but I’m too angry right now to think about what might be happening between us.
“I don’t know…food. I usually don’t have time to eat in the mornings so I grab a bagel when I get to the office. Then I keep a bunch of those ramen packages at work so I can throw some boiling water on them and eat that for lunch.”
“And then you have a steak and some salad for dinner, right?” I question, one eyebrow raised.
She flushes slightly. “Um, more like some toast or maybe a bowl of cereal?”
“Baby,” I croon, all semblance of being only her friend flying right out the fucking window. “You’re bruising like this because you’re malnourished. You probably have multiple vitamin deficiencies going on. You can’t eat like that for weeks on end and not have it start to affect your health.”
I wash my hands, stuff the antibiotics back in my pocket, then hoist Ambrose in one arm and take Solana’s hand. After dragging them both to the livin
g room I put Ambrose back in his nest on the sofa. He closes his eyes, worn out from having his wound treated.
“Now,” I say, leading Solana into the kitchen, “you are going to eat some real food, and you are going to take a whole handful of vitamins, and then you are going to get a full eight hours of sleep, and if I have to call your boss in the morning and explain why you won’t be there any earlier than eight a.m. that’s what I’ll do.”
I open up the refrigerator and am greeted by the sight of…nothing. No food except a half-gallon of milk and an ancient bag of baby carrots. I turn to look at her.
“Cereal’s in the cabinet,” she offers, cringing.
I shake my head in disgust. “I’ll be right back.”
Thirty minutes later I’ve fed her steak, grilled vegetables and a kale smoothie all from my kitchen. I’ve also stood over her as she swallowed seven different kinds of supplements, including vitamins K and C, both of which help prevent bruising.
Now I have her relaxing on the sofa, Ambrose ensconced next to her while I do the dishes.
“You really don’t need to do those,” she says for the hundredth time.
“Too late,” I answer, drying off my hands and pressing the “on” button for the dishwasher. “They’re already done.”
I go to the living room, and even though I ought to sit away from her, across the room in one of the armchairs, I don’t. I take the spot on her other side, away from Ambrose, and I lean one elbow on the back of the cushions, watching her as she lays her head back and sighs in exhaustion, her eyes drifting shut.
“You can’t keep pushing yourself like this, Solnishka,” I say gently, unable to stop my hand from reaching out and touching the strands of gold hair spread across the suede.
“It’s just for a while,” she answers, her voice sluggish. “And it’s working, I got a promotion.”
I smile. Of course she did. She’s bright, ambitious, beautiful. She’ll get anything she wants, but I can’t allow her to kill herself in the process.
“Baby, I’m really happy for your promotion, and we can celebrate later, but right now you have to hear what I’m saying. You’re going to make yourself sick. And then you won’t be able to work at all. You’re spending over twelve hours a day at the office, eating garbage, and never getting enough sleep. You need to start taking better care.”
She mutters something before turning onto her side and cuddling into the sofa. I watch her as her breathing quickly evens out and it becomes clear she’s fallen fast asleep.
I look at her and the cat, both a little worse for wear, exhausted, wounded, needing a little TLC, and I realize that this matters to me. A smart little blonde and a foul-tempered cat. I want to be here, looking out for them both, making sure they’re well and happy. It’s like a light punch to the gut, the way I feel sitting here watching the two of them.
“Okay, Solnishka,” I whisper as I stand and lean over her. “Let’s see just how well this hip of mine is really healed.”
It takes me a moment to adjust her weight as I stand, but once I have her balanced I don’t feel any telltale discomfort, so I make my way to the bedroom where I lay her down and tuck her in.
“Sleep well, Solnishka,” I whisper, kissing her cheek before I leave the room.
“And, Ambrose,” I say after I’ve gotten him to finally take his pill. “It’s you and me. Don’t hog the bed, right?” Then I curl myself around the cat as well as I can on the sofa, before shutting my eyes and falling fast asleep.
26
Solana
A loud thud followed by a man’s curses wakes me from a dead sleep. My heart races as I listen to rustling and clunking coming from the living room. Oh my God, Ambrose! What if someone’s broken in and hurts him? Wait. My sleep-clogged mind struggles to catch up with everything going on around me. Mick was here when I fell asleep. And I was on the sofa. I think.
Heart still beating rapidly, I tiptoe out of the bedroom and down the hall until I’m at the entry to the living room. The moonlight coming in through the large windows provides just enough light for me to see Mick sitting on the sofa, head back against the cushions, big legs spread wide, shoulders slumped. He doesn’t have a shirt on, and my racing heart switches pace from fear to that endorphin rush I get whenever I remember what it felt like to have his hands on me, his skin against mine, his breath in my ears as he plunged into me over and over.
I take a couple more steps into the room. “Mick?” I whisper.
His head jerks upright. “Solnishka? Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I wanted to give Ambrose another dose of antibiotic before morning to get him a good start on recovering. I have my alarm set to go off…” He picks up his phone from the coffee table. “In about forty-five minutes.”
“Are you sleeping sitting up on the sofa?” I ask, walking closer still, even though I feel like I’m approaching a fire and I very well could get burned.
“I was sleeping lying down on the sofa, but I rolled off.” He chuckles. “So now I’ll try sitting up instead.”
I realize that was the noise I heard.
“Are you hurt?” My mind immediately goes to his injured hip and knee. If he hurt them rolling off a sofa in the middle of the night because of the cat I’m supposed to be taking care of, I’ll never forgive myself.
“No, bumped an elbow, that’s about it. But you should go back to sleep. You really need it, baby. Don’t worry about us, Ambrose and I are fine.”
I shake my head even though he probably can’t see it in the low light. “I can’t let you spend the night on the sofa, Mick. Giving up your own sleep doesn’t make it any better—then we’re both sleep deprived.”
“Okay,” he says, yawning as he stands stiffly. “I’ll just take him next door. I probably should have done that to begin with. He’s not using the litter box at this point anyway. He hasn’t eaten all day.”
“Sshh, stop,” I say, taking his hand in mine. “Ambrose will be fine.” I tug him toward the bedroom.
“Solana?”
“You’ve done enough. For me, for Ambrose. Just come get some sleep.”
We shuffle quietly into the bedroom and I pull back the covers before climbing in and patting the space next to me.
“It’s not like we’ve never had a sleepover before, hockey boy.”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, but I’m not sure this falls into the confines of friendship.”
I roll to my side as he settles in behind me, lying stiffly on his back. “We can go back to being friends in the morning,” I add. “For now, we’re bunkmates. Just stop worrying and go to sleep.”
I close my eyes, feeling warmer and safer than I have in weeks. I’m too tired to care that I shouldn’t have Mick Petrovich in my bed. It’s nice, and it’s only for one night—as friends, bunkmates, co-cat parents even. I sigh and snuggle in deeper, smelling his citrusy scent as it fills the bed. I’ll worry about the rest in the morning. For now, I’m happy, and sleep is my best friend.
My hips thrust against the delicious pressure that I feel on my core. “Mm,” I murmur. Something hot and wet strokes up the side of my neck and I arch into it, my breath coming faster and harder.
“Solnishka,” Mick whispers in my ear as he nibbles on my lobe. “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”
I rock against his hand that’s found its way to my core and moan. “God, me too,” I gasp.
I’m holding on to his other hand, where it’s wedged between my breasts, and I move it so that he’s palming one side. He groans and nips at me more aggressively as he makes use of my invitation by squeezing my nipple between his finger and thumb, sending electric shocks all up and down my torso. Then his fingers are sliding under the waistband of my pajama pants where I’m not wearing any underwear.
“Fuck,” I hear him hiss as he discovers I’m bare. He slips his fingers into my wet, slick channel and I cry out when he meets up with my already swollen clit.
My heart races and in the back of my mind is that little voice screaming that I shouldn’t be doing this, telling me that this is all my fault. I invited him into my bed, and now I’m letting him do this—touch me everywhere that matters—and I’m endangering my job, and also lying to him, which is the last thing I want to do.
“Don’t leave me, Solnishka,” he pleads, so in tune with me he can sense when I’m not one hundred percent with him in the moment. “Stay here and show me how beautiful you are when you come.”
Then he rubs my g-spot and my clit at the same time and all thoughts fly right out of my head. I thrust in time with his magical fingers, and in mere moments I’m crying out his name as I contract around him in a succession of sharp, rolling spasms that start in my center and spread throughout my body, causing me to stiffen as it courses through me from head to toe.
Before I can even come down he’s pulled me onto my back and hovers over me, watching me. His dark eyes are beautiful, full of something I can’t quite identify, but it makes me shiver in anticipation.
He runs a finger down my collarbone, to the start of my cleavage. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, his voice husky with desire.
Before I can think, he’s stripped off my tank top and my pajama pants, humming his approval again that I skipped the underwear. As he crawls back up my body he stops to lick between my legs and I writhe in ecstasy, frissons of arousal shooting through me with every stroke of his tongue.
“More of that later,” he murmurs as he moves over my torso, whispering kisses along my stomach and breasts. “I need to be inside of you now.”
Then he is, sliding between my legs in one smooth movement, filling me so completely I can only gasp, and it feels even better than I remember. He must feel it too, because he groans loudly, then hisses, “Fuuuck, baby!”
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