Making His Play: Sister's Best Friend Hockey Romance

by Mari Carr

  All bets were off.

  He grasped her hips tighter and gave in to the raging beast she’d released.

  Over and over, he slammed into her, Charley pushing her ass higher, moving back in time with each return trip.

  Alex remembered all the times she’d checked him on the ice back in school. Hell, he wasn’t proud to admit he’d checked her just as much, pushed her into the wall, made sure she got as good as she gave.

  They’d always played rough, but this…

  She wanted to end this game, wanted to call it quits.

  No.

  Fucking.

  Way.

  She should know better. There was no way he was giving her up this soon.

  But brawn wasn’t going to win this battle.

  This one required more finesse, more skill.

  He pulled out just before she came.

  Charley snarled, flipping to her back, trying in vain to grasp his dick, to draw him back into her body.

  He avoided her hands and legs and moved away. When she kept coming for him, he left the bed completely.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? I was close,” she said, coming up on her knees.

  “You and I have a disaster to sort out.”

  She blinked a few times, clearly confused by his hard-core about-face. “What are you? Some kind of sadist? Let’s finish what we just started. One last hurrah and then we can get divorced.”

  “No.”

  She frowned, her gaze dropping to his fully erect, three-seconds-from-blowing cock.

  Charley didn’t understand his refusal.

  “I’ll finish fucking you, Charley, but only after you give in to my demands.”

  She narrowed her eyes in a way he didn’t trust for one red-hot second. Especially when an evil grin crossed her face.

  She reached lower and ran her fingers over her clit, her eyes closing in pleasure, her breathing growing shallow when she stroked it again. And again.

  Alex reached out and grabbed her wrist. Stopped her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She smiled smugly. “I don’t need you to get what I want. I’m right there.” She tried to pull her hand free, but he didn’t release her.

  When she went in with her left, he grasped it too.

  Charley put up a hell of a fight, but she was no match for him.

  His belt was on the floor at his feet, so he released her briefly and bent to retrieve it.

  Charley didn’t realize she hadn’t gotten loose on her own, didn’t understand his intent.

  So rather than try to escape him—which would have been the smarter thing—she started to play with herself once more.

  She only got two quick strokes in before he was on her, straddling her thighs, her hands back in his. He lifted them to the headboard and quickly—efficiently—bound them together there.

  Charley pulled hard, intent on breaking free, but this wasn’t his first rodeo.

  “Untie me.”

  Alex didn’t play without consent, didn’t hold a woman against her will.

  He ran his hand downwards, running his fingers over the spot where she’d just touched herself.

  She moaned, then whispered, “More, please.”

  Yeah.

  Just as he thought.

  She wasn’t afraid.

  God, given the shiny juices painting her inner thighs, he’d say she was even wetter than before.

  He pulled his fingers away, his retreat met by curses.

  “Goddammit, Alex. This isn’t funny. Stop fucking around and fuck me.”

  “Not until you give me what I want.”

  For the first time since he’d withdrawn from her, Charley stilled, stopped fighting. She was an intelligent woman, smart enough to know she was in no position to get her way until he got his.

  Of course, knowing something was a thousand miles away from accepting it.

  “What do you want?” Her question sounded as if it tasted like shit on her lips.

  “A honeymoon.”

  His words seemed to catch her off guard. “Aren’t we sort of in the middle of that? And aren’t you basically fucking it up?”

  Alex shook his head. “All you’ve given me is a night and a morning. A proper honeymoon should last longer.”

  “But we’re leaving today. I’m flying back to Wisconsin and I assume your ticket says Baltimore.”

  His did.

  But tickets could be changed.

  Alex had no reason to return to Baltimore immediately now that the season was over.

  Besides, his one trip home each year always happened around this time. He was on the road with the team over the holidays, so he always made the journey to see his folks shortly after each season.

  He’d planned to visit his parents in a couple of weeks, after completing some end-of-season duties for the team. But that trip could be moved up.

  He did a bit of sex math in his head, working out an equation that would help him determine how long it would reasonably take him to fuck Charley out of his system.

  Then he compared that answer to how long he could remain in Wisconsin and put off his off-season duties to the team.

  He had an afternoon exhibition game to raise money for the organization’s charity. There was a big gala at a swanky hotel following the game, same night. Black tie, champagne, hoity-toity music, hobnobbing with the rich and famous.

  It marked the official end of his duties to the team before the summer break.

  The event was two weeks from now.

  That could work.

  Maybe.

  “I’m going back to Wisconsin with you.”

  She crinkled her nose. “That’s your idea of a honeymoon? Going back to our hometown where we will be surrounded by our family?”

  “We’ll stay a week or so. Long enough for me to visit my parents and for you to pack a bag. Then you’re coming back to Baltimore with me for a week.”

  Charley struggled against the bonds again, but the belt held tight. She sighed. “Why on earth would I go to Baltimore?”

  “I have a charity thing, an exhibition game the owner of the team puts on every year, followed by a gala. I have to attend. You can be my date.”

  She gave him an are-you-fucking-with-me look. “You can’t tell me you don’t have a dozen rink bunnies who wouldn’t give their left tit to go to this game with you.”

  “I’ve got two dozen rink bunnies I could call. But I’m not because you’re going with me.”

  “Why?”

  Alex knew he was a pretty cocky guy, but that didn’t change the fact that he was surprised by her resistance.

  Charley was, hands down, the only woman he’d ever met who wouldn’t jump at the chance to go to a swanky party with him.

  “Because that’s what good little wives do,” he replied, fully aware his answer would piss her off.

  “You do realize you can’t keep me tied up like this forever. And when I do get loose, I’m kicking you in the balls for that.”

  Alex bent lower, running his lips over her cheek, down to her neck.

  She tilted her head, giving him ample access to kiss her there.

  “You wouldn’t want to damage the crown jewels,” he murmured.

  She ignored his warning. “So let me get this straight. You’re demanding a longer honeymoon. One that includes a week in Wisconsin and then another week and a date in Baltimore.”

  He nodded.

  “And…that’s it?”

  “What else did you expect?”

  “Honestly, I thought you were going to make sure I didn’t demand alimony or some kind of shit like that.”

  Alex hadn’t considered that for a second. While he had Colm, a lawyer who was a friend and fan as well, and who beat the word prenup into his brain whenever they went out, it never occurred to him that Charley would ask him for one red penny because he knew her, knew she never would.

  “You want alimony?” he asked.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Kick
ing you in the balls twice now.”

  Alex chuckled.

  “No, you jackass. I don’t want alimony. I want a divorce…or an annulment…or whatever it is we have to do.”

  “And I’m going to give it to you.” He paused, then added the word, “Eventually.”

  Alex liked the sound of that word because it was undefined. It meant they both got their way—she’d get the annulment, and he’d get a lot more nights between her legs.

  They could fuck until the cows came home.

  But first…

  “So you agree to my demands?” he asked.

  She studied his face in silence for a long moment.

  Long enough he thought she was going to say no.

  “I don’t understand your demands. Aren’t you the poster child for one-night stands?”

  “I like fucking you, Charley. I think we’re pretty good at it.” As he spoke, he stroked her clit, then he pushed three fingers inside her. She was tight and he could tell he was stretching her.

  “Oh God,” she said, all air, no sound.

  “We’re really fucking good at this.”

  She closed her eyes. “Harder.”

  Alex pressed deeper.

  No woman had ever made him so hard, so horny…so desperate to fuck.

  “Say yes,” he insisted. “Tell me you’ll give me what I want, and I’ll fuck you so hard, you’ll see stars.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Alex paused, his fingers lodged deep. “Open your eyes, Charley. Look at me.”

  She blinked a few times before she managed to focus.

  “Say yes again. Because I’m going to hold you to it.”

  She held his gaze, her gorgeous green eyes locked with his. He saw something there he didn’t fully recognize, something that flashed then vanished.

  “Yes.”

  A single word had never sounded more beautiful.

  Alex pulled his fingers free of her clenching pussy, shifted until he was between her outstretched thighs, positioned his cock, and drove home.

  No home had ever felt sweeter.

  And as he pounded into her, he started to fear he’d never want to leave home again.

  Chapter Ten

  Charley had parked her car at the airport before what she had expected would be an uneventful, painful trip to Vegas.

  Instead, she’d gotten drunk and married.

  To Alex, a man who’d never been in love, who’d sworn to die a bachelor.

  Today was supposed to be the first day of the rest of her life.

  Not...whatever the fuck this was.

  Alex had changed his ticket, then somehow, he’d miraculously managed to upgrade both of them to first class.

  By doing so, he’d ensured they didn’t have to talk to Bella on the flight home. She and Josh had been in business class, and Charley could almost imagine her best friend burning a hole through the curtain that separated the two cabins, dying to know what had happened between Charley and her brother last night.

  She and Alex had stayed in bed way too long this morning, which meant they were the last two to board the plane before the doors closed. She’d caught just a glimpse of Bella before they took their seats and the flight attendant instructed them to fasten their seat belts for takeoff.

  Charley had hoped to use the flight time to nail down a few of the fuzzier details of Alex’s bizarre demands, but the fucker had ordered them both cocktails—hair of the dog and all that—and fifteen minutes later, she’d fallen sound asleep until the plane landed in Wisconsin.

  Alex had them off the plane and their luggage claimed before Bella could catch up to them.

  No doubt, he was as anxious to avoid his sister as she was.

  That point was proven as they climbed into her car and his phone buzzed, for the tenth time since they landed. He’d looked at the screen the first couple of times. Now he didn’t even bother to take his cell out of his pocket.

  Then Charley’s phone buzzed.

  Nope.

  Not looking.

  What the hell was she going to say to Bella?

  How could she tell her best friend she’d gotten tequila-wasted and married Bella’s brother on a lark?

  As they pulled out of the airport parking lot, Alex turned to her. “So where do we live, Mrs. Stone?”

  Charley flashed him a dirty look. “It’s still Ms. Matthews. And I have an apartment on Hamilton Drive. Your parents—and your room—are still on Hollingsworth Street.”

  He chuckled as if she’d made a joke. “I’m not staying with my parents this trip, wifey. It’s our honeymoon, remember?”

  “I thought you were coming back to Wisconsin to see your family.”

  “I’m sure we’ll see them quite a bit this week.”

  Okay.

  It was clearly time they hammered out some of the details of this so-called honeymoon.

  “We?”

  “You and me,” he said, as if that explained it all.

  “I see your parents all the time. I still live here, remember? What I’m asking is…how are we both going to see them this time? As old friends or…”

  Fuck.

  She didn’t even know how to say the words.

  After all, the words married couple when spoken in relation to her and Alex felt like a completely foreign concept.

  One that also felt entirely too good.

  “You want to know if we’re telling people we got married?”

  Charley started to nod, then shook her head.

  No.

  That wasn’t her question.

  Ever since they’d woken up this morning, Alex had made a lot of demands. And while she hadn’t had a problem with him demanding that she come that third time, Charley decided it was high time she issued a few demands of her own.

  “No. That’s not what I’m asking. Because we’re not telling them that.”

  Alex looked as if he wanted to argue that point with her, but she wasn’t about to budge.

  “I mean it. If you want to stay with me, cool. I honestly don’t give a shit if people think we hooked up in Vegas and decided to keep the affair going, but there’s no way I’m telling our family and friends we got married.”

  “Charley,” he started.

  “I’m not debating this. For one thing, even if we said it was just a joke, our mothers would ignore that fact, lose their minds, demand we plan some big-ass party to celebrate, and nag us to start having babies right away. Your mom might be a grandmother already, but I’m an only child and my mother’s grand-maternal instincts are very, very strong. They’re banked at the moment, but I promise you, you do not want to trigger them.”

  Alex feigned a wince. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  “And that’s only one of the reasons. I’ve been single one red-hot minute. Ben dumped me for Beverly and everybody in town knows it. While everyone will joke and kid with you about the impromptu, drunken elopement, saying ‘guys will be guys’ and all that bullshit, you better believe they’ll be looking at me differently, and I’m not about to have everyone start calling me Poor Charley, the girl who got dumped twice in one week.”

  “Charley—”

  She wasn’t finished. “And another thing, there’s no ‘eventually’ to the end of this mist…thing.” She stopped herself just before calling it a mistake, recalling Alex’s earlier threat. “At the most, we’re doing the week here in Wisconsin and the week in Baltimore. After that, we sign whatever papers your lawyer draws up to set things in motion on the annulment. Our little secret. Forever.”

  “What do you mean ‘at the most’?”

  “I mean…” She stumbled.

  She didn’t want to say what she meant.

  Because saying it would pretty much guarantee the whole thing would end here.

  Spending another two weeks with Alex was certain to wreck her.

  One night in, and she was pretty overwhelmed by all the feelings he was sparking in her. She wanted to chalk it up to rebound sex, bu
t the truth was…she’d been half in love with Alex before he even knocked on her hotel door.

  It was crazy, but after three years, Ben had done little more than wound her pride.

  She didn’t doubt for a second that two weeks with Alex would completely shatter her heart.

  And while confessing that to the commitment-phobe Alex was probably the wiser course of action—because he’d definitely run for the hills—she wasn’t ready to give him up yet.

  Alex might not have a clue how to fall in love, but Charley had no problem in that area.

  So instead, she lied.

  “I’m just saying…if we get bored before then, we’ll call it quits earlier. You can take one of your Barbie dolls to the charity event.”

  He didn’t reply immediately, and for a second, she was afraid he was going to press her on her answer. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe the “get bored” excuse.

  “You done?” he asked.

  She caught a glimpse of his grin and rolled her eyes, perfectly aware that she’d been ranting a bit.

  “Yeah. I’m done.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I agree. We’ll let everyone believe we’re just hooking up. We won’t tell them about eloping.”

  “Thanks.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, then they hit the outskirts of town and the conversation became a walk down memory lane as they recalled spending Friday nights after the high school football games at Frenchie’s, the ice cream parlor they’d just driven past.

  Then they rehashed their finest moments on the ice, both of them marveling at the improvements that had been made to Max’s Ice Rink, thanks, of course, to some very generous donations from Alex.

  “Here we are,” she said, pulling into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

  Alex grabbed their suitcases from the trunk, following her inside.

  She and Ben had shared this apartment on the second floor until three days ago.

  As she unlocked the door, she turned to Alex. “I should warn you. A lot of Ben’s stuff is still here. He only packed a bag the night…we split. With the wedding, there hasn’t been time for him to move out the rest.”

  “That’s no problem,” he said as they stepped inside. “I’ll help you relocate all of it to that dumpster we just walked by outside.”

  Charley laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Come on. I’ll show you around.”