“Yeah, that’s fine. It honestly took me a moment to process, myself, so I understand needing to think about—”
I didn’t give her time to finish the sentence. The moment she’d agreed to my thirty-second delay, I pounced.
My mouth found hers, and my hands gripped the curves of her ass, lifting her to my height and pressing her against the wall.
When she tensed, I pulled back.
“This is serious,” she panted against my lips.
“So is this. Thirty seconds, Pepper.”
“Thirty seconds,” she agreed, wrapping her legs around my waist. Then it was her mouth on mine, her satin, sweet tongue stroking and swirling around my own.
I groaned and sank into the kiss, pouring every ounce of my longing and need into her. Flames licked along my skin where it met hers, and it felt like years, not days since I’d been inside her.
My cock throbbed in time with my heartbeat, pushing against my sweats, reaching for the heat that beckoned just above.
Her shorts were loose and so tiny that all it would take was a hook of my finger, and I could—
Thirty seconds are up. I had to stop before she mistook my need for not giving a shit about her stress.
With one more gentle suck of her lip, I lowered her to the ground and stepped away. She followed until I put my hand up and flat-out retreated across the small living room to put some space between us.
“Nope, if you want to talk, you stay there. I’ll stay here.”
Her forehead puckered, but she eventually nodded. She looked as frustrated as I felt, which would have brought a smile to my face had my dick not been screaming at me.
“So, Ivy knows about us,” I reminded her, crossing my arms over my chest.
Her eyes dropped to my erection, and her lips parted. Holy shit, we were never going to get to this conversation, which was just fine by me, but I knew she needed to talk.
“Eyes up here,” I reminded her with a smirk.
“Right,” she said with a little shake of her head. “Ivy knows about us.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I guess we weren’t as careful as we thought we were.” She wrung her hands. “Somehow she knew. The movie theater, our relationship, all of it. I mean, I left your beanie on the counter, and I know that’s my fault. But I thought we were careful. What are we going to do?”
“About what?” I asked.
“What if she tells? She’s so heartbroken over Crosby. She’s worried you’ll do the same thing to me.”
“I think you know I’m not Crosby.”
“I know,” she assured me. “You’re nothing like him. I know you would never trade me to get your spot back, but what if she tells and it costs you your spot? Your contract? Your family’s land?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and the distance separating us suddenly felt like too much. Within a few steps, I cradled her face in my hands, using my thumbs to brush away the two streaks of saltwater that slipped free.
“If I had to choose between you and my starting position on the Sharks, I would choose you. No second thought. No debate. Period.” I never realized how true the words were until I’d spoken them. There is nothing I wouldn’t give up for her.
She had become the adrenaline in my veins.
The natural high I’d only ever felt on the ice.
She was the first person I wanted to talk to in the morning, the last face I want to see before falling asleep.
Shit.
She’d become my very heart.
“I don’t want you to give it up for me. I don’t want you to ever look at me and think that I cost you everything.” Her eyes were liquid pools that I fell into, all too eager to drown.
“You couldn’t, Pepper. You’ve given me everything. If Ivy knows, then she knows. If she tells, then she tells. Personally, I’d love nothing more than to be able to publicly claim you as mine. Damn the consequences.” Her lip trembled, and my thumb slipped to the full curve, savoring the texture against my calluses.
“Dad will fire you. He’ll force you to choose between the team and me, just like he did to Crosby and Ivy.” Her hands gripped my biceps, her tiny nails lightly biting into the surface of my skin.
“Then I’ll choose you. None of this means anything without you. That means I don’t get my contract signed by the Sharks, then I have two other teams ready and willing to take me.” I’d do it. I’d leave Seattle behind and head to another city, another team, as long as I had Pepper with me.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered. “I’m on contract, and I can’t imagine being here without you.”
“I don’t want to leave either, but if it’s between you and the Sharks, there’s no contest.”
“Why?” She questioned with a cry. “Every player I’ve ever known chooses the game. Why would you choose me?”
Her doubt damn-near broke my heart. How could I blame her? She’d been raised in a hockey rink, by a man whose life was the game. A man who had buried his heart with his wife, and himself in his work. Her first love had deserted her the moment he signed an NHL contract, and only looked back when she was in a position to put him back in the league. All she’d ever seen from hockey players were their backs as they left her for the ice.
But I never would.
“I choose you because I’m in love with you.”
Her lips parted and her eyes sparkled with fresh tears. “Oh, Eric.”
“I don’t expect you to say it back. That’s not why I’m telling you. I need you to know that I don’t care if Ivy knows about us. I don’t care if the world knows about us. In fact, the moment we get back to Seattle, I’ll tell your father myself. Enough hiding. Enough sneaking around. I want to walk down the street and hold your hand, Pepper. I want to see you at a game in my jersey and know that you are mine just as much as I am yours, because somewhere in all of this, you took my heart, and I don’t want it back. I’m in love with you, Pepper Harris. And that’s more important to me than the emblem on the front of the jersey I put on.”
I sealed my proclamation with a kiss. It was soft, lingering, and full of the yearning that consumed my chest.
“I love you, Eric.”
I sucked in a breath, the air a hiss between my teeth.
“Pepper, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up.” She grinned up at me. “I’m in love with you, and have been for a while.”
Shit, I think my heart is going to burst. It pounded out a rhythm that reminded me of a galloping horse, racing, yet joyful. She was something I’d never seen coming, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
“Stay with me,” I asked. I was already committed to telling Coach Harris about us. There was zero chance in hell I was letting her go back to her own room alone.
“Yes,” she answered.
There was something different in our kiss—a tenderness that replaced our usual urgency. It led to soft touches and lingering caresses as we slowly undressed each other.
Once I had her naked, I gripped the outside of her thighs and lifted her to meet my mouth. With a long, hot, open-mouthed kiss, I carried her to the bed.
Sitting on the edge, I braced her knees on either side of my hips, and took her breast in my mouth, swirling my tongue around her nipple.
Her little whimpers went straight to my cock. Her fingers on my shoulders sent shocks of pleasure down my spine. I worshipped her other breast the same as the first, until she rolled those perfectly curved hips over me, dragging my dick through her wet center.
“Eric, please,” she begged, “I need you.”
“You have me,” I told her, sending my fingers down the flat of her of belly and past her tight curls until I dipped into the sweet honey that told me she was more than ready for me.
I used my fingers to stroke and pet her, urging her body toward orgasm.
She tucked her head into my neck, and I hissed as she used her tongue and lips to caress my jawline.
Then she gave up ki
ssing me and cried out with each thrust of my fingers in her tight heat, each strum of her clit with my thumb.
“Now,” she demanded, rising up and holding my face between her palms. Her eyes went hazy with pleasure, and her thighs tightened.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” I told her. Then I slipped my fingers free and replaced them with my cock, thrusting inside her with one long pump.
I took her body and lost my soul as we came together.
“God, Pepper. You feel like fire, so hot, and tight, and wet.” This was better than I’d ever experienced. More than I’d ever felt.
Her pussy began to flutter around me, and I gripped her chin, bringing her eyes to mine.
“I love you,” I told her, and then pumped again, watching her eyes flare wide as she came around me in shudders. I beat back my orgasm, willing my body to make this last.
“I. Love. You.” She barely managed to speak as I set a rhythm, making love to her as she came back down, only to bring her right back to her peak again.
She writhed on top of me, unbelievably sensuous, and completely mine.
Fuck, I felt every line of her, every hot, sweet inch—
“Damn it,” I gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
No wonder it felt so damned good. I’d never been inside a woman unprotected before, but my worry here wasn’t for me, but Pepper. Hell, just the thought of her belly swelling with my kid brought me to the edge of coming. She wasn’t a puck bunny, and I’d be more than happy to find myself trapped between her thighs for the rest of my life.
“I’m pulling out,” I promised, barely keeping my wits as she squeezed me even tighter.
“No. I’m on the pill,” she said with a gasp. “I trust you. I want to feel you come inside me.”
Holy. Fucking. Hot. Her words alone had my balls tightening with the next hot glide of my body within hers.
We were so close our bodies met at every possible inch. From her soft thighs gripping mine to her softer breasts pressed against my chest, and her sweet mouth meeting mine in a deep kiss.
She came with my name on her lips, and I tumbled right after her, losing myself in the perfection of her body.
She collapsed against me and I held her close, knowing that after this, there was no way I’d ever let her go.
She was mine.
I was keeping her.
And God help the person whoever tried to take her from me.
Even if that man was her father.
Chapter 19
Pepper
Eric’s scent of crisp soap and cedar teased me in my sleep as I woke in his bed. The Seattle sun shone through the window—we’d arrived home from Nashville late last night—and the warmth from his body radiated behind me as something tugged on my consciousness, beckoning me to wake in a hurry.
Like an alarm.
I pinched my brow, prying my lids apart.
I didn’t order a wake-up call.
I reached over, lazily grabbing my vibrating cell and shifted slightly as to not wake Eric.
A pleasant soreness pulsed between my thighs, and a thrill rushed through me at the thought of Eric in the morning. Maybe I would wake him up.
Sliding my thumb across the screen of my cell...my heart froze.
Or maybe not.
Dad had texted fourteen times, and it wasn’t even nine a.m. yet.
I clicked on the first message.
A picture.
One of me straddling Eric in the movie theater, the blanket covering the intimacy that had happened underneath, him smiling up at me with a light in his eyes that mirrored in mine.
The theater.
For a moment, the picture warmed my frozen heart. The way he looked up at me like I was his world.
Moving to the next message helped send me crashing back to reality.
Dad: Get. In. Here. Now.
Dad: Now Pepper.
Dad: Office.
Even his texts read angry.
My stomach turned and I rolled out of bed with as much ease as I could. Eric, naked save for the sheet draped over his hips, slept soundly. His red hair tossed to one side as he laid on his stomach, his strong back muscles relaxed, the black whorls of ink on his skin making him look like some kind of ancient warrior.
Losing it.
Right. I snapped out of my love-struck daze and hurried out of his apartment.
The entire car ride over my stomach churned and my heart broke.
He couldn’t fire Eric.
He couldn’t.
I wouldn’t let him.
An image of the farm, of Marie and Edward and Faith, their family’s land, flashing crystal clear in my mind. Without Eric’s support, they’d lose everything.
How ironic that he’d wanted to use this morning to tell my father, but we’d already been outed.
I pushed the gas harder, and by the time I made it to the arena, I was sprinting.
Breath left my lungs in huge gusts as I flung open Dad’s office door.
And I skidded to a halt at the sight of Ivy, standing next to Dad at his desk, her arms hugging herself like she might fall apart. Pictures—actual prints, not a tabloid—were flung in front of him on the desk.
“I had to,” Ivy blurted, tears coating her eyes. “I’m—”
I raised my hand, stopping her. Cold betrayal filled my chest, and I tore my gaze from her and pinned it on Dad.
“You can’t fire him,” I said, my voice strong, sure.
Dad shifted in his seat, his face red, his jaw clenched. “I have to,” he said. “You think I want to lose my best blocker? You think I want to cut loose a good kid like Gentry?”
“Then don’t!”
He slammed his hand on the pictures and bolted upright. “Damn it, Pepper, I have to. I gave them all a rule, and now two of them have broken it.”
“The rule was bullshit,” I snapped.
He arched a brow at me, but I didn’t cower. I respected the hell out my dad and it was time he paid me the same.
“You’re the coach,” I said more calmly. “You make this choice. No one else. You decided to set that ridiculous rule. You can undecide it.”
“I set that rule to protect you two,” he said, motioning to Ivy then me. “And look what good it did!”
“You can’t protect us from life, Dad.” I couldn’t breathe despite no longer running. My world was spiraling and I couldn’t catch a grip.
“I wanted to protect you two from this life. The life of a player. The life of drills and roads and paparazzi and broken hearts. I wanted you two to live separate, happy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe this.” He sank into his chair.
“Don’t fire him.”
“I have no other choice.”
Tears coated the back of my eyes, my blood raging. “Bentley and Chloe did the same thing, and it’s fine! You helped him—”
“She’s not my daughter!” He cut me off, the pleading look he flashed stung. “There are different rules for family. And not three weeks ago you sat here while we discussed the last picture and didn’t bother to tell me you were in a relationship with one of my starting players.”
My shoulders sank. “You’re right,” I said. “I should’ve told you then. Should’ve told you the second it became real between us, but can you blame me for hiding it, Dad? Look at this reaction. Look at what you’ve put at stake!”
“You’ve given me no other choice,” he said. “Any relationship that ends badly will not only affect me because I’m a coach and their game will suffer or they’ll hold it against me, but because you’re my daughter I’ll hate them on principle for breaking your heart.” His eyes flashed to Ivy before returning to me.
“Pepper,” Ivy said, taking a step forward, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but I did everything to bury these pictures. Pulled every string I had to make sure these wouldn’t end up on the front page. I had to bring them to Dad. You have more than your heart
at stake. This is your career. It’s more important than a player bound to drop you the second it’s not advantageous—”
“Eric isn’t Crosby!” I snapped. “And he sure as hell isn’t Mason. If you want to talk about someone trying to use me for my position, say his name!”
“Girls,” Dad chided, his palms raised. “Please.” He sighed. “We are finally together. Finally, in the same place after years apart. I just got you two back…” he cleared his throat, which had cracked. “Please don’t hate me over this.”
I didn’t.
I didn’t hate either of them.
I was furious.
At myself.
At Eric.
At how much I loved him and how much I’d cost him.
But…
“You called me first,” I said, the realization that I was alone in his office shot light into my heart. “Not Eric.”
With Crosby, he’d struck first, thought later.
“I wanted to give you a chance,” he said. “To explain. To do the right thing.”
I tilted my head. “But Bentley and Chloe—”
“Are married!” Dad cut off my pleas of reason. “And that isn’t on the table, here.” He flung his hands in the air. “Pepper, you have to decide between this fling or his career.”
My lips parted open, only a wisp of air escaping. “What?”
Dad stood, coming around the desk to lean against it in front of me. “I love you, girls. More than anything. More than this team. But I have to play both sides. And I can’t run a team with broken hearts bleeding all over my ice. Yours. His. Anyone’s.” He glanced at Ivy then back to me. “Gentry is on the brink. You know that. You track his stats. His contract coming up is going to be massive. And he’s earned every bit of it.” He shook his head. “But he broke my one rule. I have to hold him to the same standard I held Crosby, or my authority will come into question. And then my position will be in question, too.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered, unable to find my full voice.
“I’m saying, no one knows about this yet beside us. Do the right thing, Pepper. Break it off. Now. Before it gets any deeper. Before he loses everything.”
A sharp sting sliced through the center of my chest.
Blocker (Seattle Sharks Book 5) Page 18