by Skye Jordan
She braced for the void. The cold. The emptiness.
Tate made the familiar requisite moves and Olivia used her hands to push herself up. She let her legs fall free of Tate’s hips and he stepped into to the kitchen for cleanup while Olivia straightened her dress and picked up her panties from the floor.
As she straightened, Olivia looked out the dining room windows onto the gardens, silent and beautiful in the middle of the night. And she realized that instead of leaving a nagging ache inside her, Tate had given her a sense of… Of what? Calm? Peace? Wholeness?
All she knew was that when he stepped up behind her, wrapped her in his arms and lowered his head to kiss her neck, Olivia’s heart felt light, when it usually felt heavy.
“What do you think?” he murmured. “Do you want to stay with me tonight? If it’s too much,” his voice dipped, “I… I understand.”
Olivia was still waiting for the hole at the center of her body to open. With any other man—every other man—regardless of who he was, how much she liked him as a person, how much he liked her, how great the sex was, the loneliness after sex had been almost instantaneous. But she wasn’t feeling that now. What she was feeling was the stirring heat between her legs when she thought of Tate Donovan owning her for the rest of the night.
She tilted her head back, kissed his jaw and told him, “If that’s what happens when we’re still fully clothed, I want to see what happens when we get naked.”
4
A chime drew Tate from sleep. He reached out blindly, slapping at the nightstand to silence his alarm. But his hand hit the mattress.
Disoriented he opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of the bed. Sprawled diagonally on his stomach. Naked. Confusion hurt his head. He hadn’t slept naked since…
Almost before his mind touched on Lisa, it veered toward Olivia.
Instantly awake, he pushed up and looked around. He pulled in a breath to call her name, hoping she’d changed her mind about leaving in the early morning hours. But then he saw her sparkly heels missing from the floor—all she’d had on by the time they’d made it upstairs—and let the air leak from his lungs in disappointment.
He rolled to grab his phone and turn off is alarm, and his body ached in that deliciously well-used way that spurred wicked memories. Groaning, he dropped his forearm across his eyes. Last night had been—hands down—the best night of his life with a woman. And that included his wedding night.
“How fuckin’ sad is that?” he muttered.
Even sadder, she’d stuck hard to what he’d discovered was her personal rule with men—one and done. Nothing he’d done had enticed her to entertain the idea of seeing him again—not withholding orgasms until her nails dug into his headboard and his sweat dripped on her chest. Not the foot or back massages. Not talking and laughing in the dark. Not finding utter bliss curled around each other as they fell asleep, arms and legs twined, bodies fused.
Nothing.
And he’d still never give it back.
Best. Fucking. Night. Of his life.
Over.
Fuck.
His self-esteem took another hard hit, just as Tate was pulling it to its feet.
He opened his eyes and looked at the angled ceiling of his bedroom. “What the fuck am I missing?”
What didn’t he have that other guys did? What made Faith stick to Grant? Eden stick to Beckett? Mia stick to Rafe? Tate was a good guy. After Lisa, he thought he might have been lame in bed. But last night cleared that up.
He sighed, edging toward resignation, something he’d gotten too good at over the last year. Maybe Olivia was right. Maybe a clean break early was for the best. Not that Tate would know anything about clean breaks. Lisa kept popping up in his life when he least expected it. But he had to admit, the thought of seeing her now didn’t bother him so much. Knowing he wasn’t broken. Knowing he could still attract real, sweet, fun, gorgeous women like Olivia helped heal that particular festering wound even if it was now replaced with a new one.
Tate sat up and swung his legs off the bed, groaning at the protest of all his under-used muscles that had gotten a workout last night. He shuffled to the bathroom to shower. He couldn’t be late to hockey camp if he harped on the kids for coming in late. It was time to get over the first one night stand of his life and focus on the real thing.
But that didn’t keep his mind from wondering to all the things he’d do with Olivia if he had another night with her. Or how amazing it felt to have a woman in his bed again. He let his mind stray toward doing it again, with someone else. Maybe one of the puck bunnies so prevalent at the bars they hit after games or at the hotels where they stayed on the road. Just letting one of them follow him up to his room the way so many of the other guys did. The idea made Tate want to squirm.
Tate loved sex. In fact, he could become borderline obsessed with it if he had all the time in the world to indulge with someone like Olivia. But that was the thing—he loved sex with a woman he connected with. Which, he just realized, why sex with Lisa had been so unfulfilling in those months before he’d discovered she’d been cheating. Because they hadn’t been connected.
He forced his mind back where it belonged, dressed and grabbed his gear. But on the drive to the rink, Tate found himself wondering how long it took to fly to Paris. How much it cost. And how often he’d be willing to make it for a night like last night.
Pulling into the parking lot, he laughed at himself. “Fuckin’ long way to go and a lot of money to spent just to get laid, you idiot.”
Only…it had been the best night of his life.
“Life is short, you know?”
Tate pulled his duffle over his shoulder with Olivia’s words ringing in his head. He certainly wasn’t getting any younger. The money for travel wasn’t an issue. He could fly first class back and forth to France every week for years and never run out. But time was a problem. During the season there was rarely two days in a row when he could get away to make that trip, and the season took up between eight and nine months of his year.
And what in the hell was he doing, thinking about flights to France after one freaking night with the woman? The woman who didn’t want more than one night? This was exactly why he’d never been cut out for one-night stands. Because if he was into a woman enough to sleep with her, he didn’t want to stop at one night.
“Hel-lo.”
Tate startled at his friend’s voice, singing the word. He stopped in his tracks and swiveled toward Beckett who came up on his right. “Shit, man. You scared me.”
“Your head was in the clouds.” Beckett was looking at Tate like he’d grown a second head. “What’s up?”
“Nothin’.” He reached for the door to the practice arena and held it as Beckett entered, then followed. “Man, what a turnout last night. You’d almost think people liked you or something.”
Beckett grinned. “I think they secretly love my daughter and soon-to-be wife most.”
They said hello to the guys behind the desk and passed into the locker room designated for the Rough Riders.
That whole whirlwind romance between Beckett and Eden still made Tate uncomfortable. But he’d warned his friend plenty of times. Tate even pointed out how he himself hadn’t listened to the warnings from friends and family before he’d married Lisa. But Beckett was adamant about tying himself to Eden after only dating her six months.
And Tate had to mentally smack himself for judging Beckett when not five minutes ago Tate had been considering flying to fuckin’ Paris to get laid.
“What in the hell’s gotten into you?” Beckett asked over his shoulder as he continued to his locker. Both men dumped their duffels, grabbed their helmets, skates and sticks and headed toward the ice.
“What do you mean?” Tate followed Beckett into the rink, settled by the familiar, refreshing
whoosh of cold air on his face.
A handful of kids were already on the ice, supervised by a camp coordinator. Tate and Beckett dropped to the
bench, toed off their shoes, pushed into their skates and started lacing.
“I mean that look,” Beckett said, glancing sideways at Tate. “That grin. The extra bounce in your step. From the moment you got out of your car, you’ve had some fuckin’ swagger going.”
“I don’t fuckin’ swagger.”
“You do today. You didn’t even look this happy when you heard you were going to the Olympics. Me, I was swaggering for weeks. You just thought it was cool.” He waggled his finger at Tate. “You didn’t have any of this shit going on.”
Tate laughed and shook his head. “What shit?”
“That, right there.” Beckett started on his other skate. “Any other day you’d have told me to fuck off.”
“I would not.”
“Not in an asshole way, just in a don’t-bug-me way.”
“Whatever.” Tate grinned down at his skates as the laces moved effortlessly through his fingers.
He did feel different. He’d felt different from the moment Olivia had entered his life the night before. Lighter. Brighter. Happier. If he just kept the whole “I’ll never see her again” thing out of his head, Tate felt great.
“Thanks for making the right move with Quinn’s sister last night.” Beckett’s words snapped Tate out of his thoughts.
His smile dropped and his chest chilled. He had nothing to be ashamed of. He knew that. Still, he felt…weird about everyone knowing he’d had a fling with Olivia. “What?”
“Quinn’s sister. The cook? She saved our asses last night. I’d hate to think about what would have happened if Matt had kept her out and she’d gone home. God, what a disaster.”
Tate relaxed a little. “Yeah, you got lucky. She’s more of a chef than a cook.”
“Oh yeah?” Beckett tied off his skates and sat back giving Tate a speculative look. “Well, cook or chef, she impressed the hell out of Eden. She wants to fire our wedding planner, who fucked up the scheduling of our engagement party in the first place which lead us to Quinn and her mother, and hire their family to handle the whole wedding.”
Tate lifted his brows. “Wow, that’s great. But you should tell her, you guys can hire Quinn and her mother, but you can’t hire Olivia.”
“Why not?”
Tate felt Beckett’s eyes burning into him as he tied off his laces. He straightened and scanned the ice where all but a handful of kids had arrived. “Because Olivia lives in Paris. She’s only here for a couple of weeks.”
A moment of silence filled the space between them, peppered with shouts and laughter from the kids echoing through the enclosed rink.
“Huh,” Beckett finally said. “You sure know a lot about a woman you briefly before she got dragged into the kitchen. How long—exactly—did you talk to her?”
“I don’t know.” Tate laughed it off and shrugged. “I wasn’t checking the clock.”
More silence followed. More staring.
Tate rolled his eyes. “God, I hate the way you do that.”
“Do what?”
“You know what.” When he cut a look at Beckett, he found his friend grinning. “Fucker.”
“So?” Beckett nudged with too much hope, too much anticipation. “Did you ask her out before she left? Take her for a drink after? What?”
Tate knew his friends and family wanted to see him happy, but sometimes he got confused between what he wanted and what he wanted to do to please them.
Tate leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Flashes of his night with Olivia teased him with the first taste of her warm mouth. That first press of her curves against his body. The first real flutter of life back in his heart.
He had to tell someone. If he didn’t, it would come out in another way, a bad way. If he was going to tell anyone, Beckett was the person he trusted most.
“Yeah.” He exhaled, and with the secret on the tip of his tongue, Tate’s stomach clenched with a blend of guilt and disappointment. “I, uh…I took her home.”
“Cool,” Beckett said. “So you talked to her on the drive? Did you get her number? Did you make a date with her?”
A tingle of laughter rose up in Tate’s gut. He had such a reputation for not sleeping around that even when he admitted to it, no one believed him.
“No, Beck,” he said, glancing at his friend. “I didn’t drive her home. I took her to my place.” It took an extra push of effort to get the next words out. “She spent the night with me.”
The mix of shock and disbelief on Beckett’s face made Tate laugh a little, but he was grateful when he saw most of the missing boys arriving on the ice. He started to stand. “Kids are here—”
“Wait.” Beckett grabbed his arm and pulled Tate back to the bench. “They’ll wait. This is important. Bro, talk to me.”
A little of that guilt Tate was trying to get rid of snuck in. “Everyone does it all the time, including you before Lily and Eden. I’m not gonna be telling you anything you don’t already know.”
“Hey, I’m not judging you, man. I’m just surprised. It was never your style, not even before Lisa. And there’s been no one since Lisa. Then, bam, you meet a girl, talk with her, what? Thirty minutes, tops? And take her home the same night? I’m just checking in with you. Making sure everything’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure,” was Tate’s automatic response, because on the surface, everything was okay. “I mean,” he shrugged, “we just…she’s just…”
“Special?” Beckett finished for him.
Tate let the air he was holding release. “Yeah, I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess? You fuckin’ took her home, Tate.”
“It just sounds, I don’t know, juvenile I guess. I liked her. We clicked. I took a chance.” He shrugged. “She made it easy.”
“No, this doesn’t have anything to do with anything she did. I’ve seen women literally fall all over you—as in, you had to unhook them to get away—and you still didn’t take them upstairs to your room. Dude, remember those twins that sat in the hall outside your room in Tampa?”
Tate started laughing and rubbed at tired eyes. “Crazy women.”
“I met her,” Beckett said. “I went into the kitchen last night after I found out our caterer was rushed to the hospital to give birth and met Olivia.”
Tate’s head came up. “Rushed to the hospital to what?”
“She didn’t tell you?” When Tate shook his head, Beckett said, “Our caterer went into labor right before the party started. Olivia didn’t go in and help out. Olivia went in and took over. Eden gave the family a ridiculous tip that was more like a second freakin’ payment.”
Tate’s mouth hung open as his mind replayed the night. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about the caterer, which wouldn’t have been unusual when he’d been hanging out with the guys most of the night. Olivia sure hadn’t mentioned it. Tate had hung on the woman’s every word and that was certainly something he would have remembered.
“You know Eden,” Beckett said. “She admires anyone who’ll run toward a problem instead of away from it. After it was all said and done, Eden wanted to canonize the woman.”
That made Tate smile. As a paramedic in DC, Eden saw her share of rough situations. “I could see that.”
“Hold on,” Beckett said, frowning. “Isn’t she from out of town? Isn’t she here visiting her family?”
“Oh yeah. Way out of town. She lives in Paris.”
“She lives in Paris?”
Tate laughed, but it held less humor than resignation. “I know how to pick ‘em, right?” He shook his head and another wave of disappointment tried to drag him down. “It doesn’t matter. It was just one night.”
Beckett stood and parked his butt on the half wall between the rink and the bench, facing Tate. Crossing his arms, he settled a smile of anticipation on Tate. “So? How was it?”
Olivia filled his mind, and his body and heart responded. He couldn’t keep the fucking smile off his face. He dropped his head and rubbed at the burn in his cheeks w
ith both hands. “Oh, my God,” he laughed. “Best fuckin’ night of my life.”
Beckett broke into laughter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Tate grew serious and glanced up at Beckett for a second. “I didn’t know it could be like that, man.” He refocused on the floor, a little hard to believe it really happened now that he was mired back in everyday life. “She’s…”
Everything I never knew I wanted.
And she lived in Paris.
“She’s great. But, again, it was one night. And she doesn’t want anything more. I’m just a fling for her.” On a deep breath, he looked at the ice. “Come on, the kids are waiting.”
“Nah, nah, nah, hold on.” Beckett put a hand on Tate’s arm. “You deserve a good woman in your life.”
“Dude, I can’t change—”
“I’m not saying you can or you should,” Beckett said. “I’m just saying that if it was that good and if she’s here for two weeks, then why don’t you think about getting as much of that good as you can while she’s here?”
“Because you know me, Beck. You know after two weeks with her—”
“That’s not true. If you fell deep for every girl you slept with, you’d have been married fifty times.” Tate sent him a look, and Beckett amended, “Okay, twenty times. Whatever. My point is that you don’t fall hopelessly in love with every woman. Look what you’ve already done. You had one hell of a night and you’re already resigned to putting her into your memory banks. You have the ability to have a short, casual relationship with a predetermined end date without heartache if you frame it that way in your mind ahead of time.”
Maybe with someone he hadn’t connected with so immediately. Or so completely. Maybe with someone who wasn’t quite so delicious. Or so sweet. Or so devilish. Or so sexy. Or a hundred other things he’d already come to either love or admire about her. But Olivia was a little too much of everything all wrapped into one woman. Sure, he knew there was a lot to learn about her. But he’d also had enough girlfriends and been around long enough to know how to spot the important things. Not to mention his painful divorce to a shitty woman, which taught him all those things to watch out for, all those things not to do.