by Lia Riley
Afterward she lay still a moment before unleashing a throaty chuckle. “There is no humanly possible way that was your first time going down on a girl.”
He shrugged. Easier than trying to talk when his throat felt like a desert.
She tossed her head back and gave a wide stretch. “If that’s true, you aren’t just gifted, you’re a frigging prodigy. Now get over here and let me get you pants-less.”
“Why?”
“You don’t think I’m going to leave you unfulfilled now, do you? Especially after that virtuoso performance. Now I’m the one with performance anxiety.”
She reached for his buckle and he caught her hand. “You’re talking about . . .”
“We’re going to have sex, right?”
His walls were up in a flash. Not a full fortress this time, but a solid defensive structure. “I can’t. Not yet.”
Not if he wanted a prayer of mental sanity.
He’d gone mad with Margot Kowalski’s pussy against his mouth. Imagine how he’d feel with his cock buried in her, that same wetness slick on his sac.
Shit. He’d never recover. And maybe that was okay. But he wasn’t ready to commit to that. This was already swimming in the deep end of the pool. No point taking a swan dive.
“No. Don’t you do that,” she said, sensing the tension in his body, his need to run. “Bolting once from my house in a day is bad enough. Twice is unforgiveable. Especially after what we just did. Rather, what you did.”
“I . . . I’m not running to be a dick. I’m the kind of guy who has to think things through. And there’s no chance of thinking when I’m close to you.”
She regarded his face a long moment. “You’re a difficult guy, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to be. But what I just did . . .” He threw up his hands. His head was spinning.
“You ate me out.”
He frowned.
“You can say it. I was there, remember? You ate my pussy. Went down on me. Made me come harder than any time in my memory. And for the record, none of those words are dirty, Patrick. What you just did, it wasn’t dirty.”
“Never said it was.”
“Then why are you backing away.”
“Because you want more and I . . .” All he could do was leave her with the truth. “I don’t know what I have to give.”
Chapter Nine
“So, how’d it go with Patch?” Breezy greeted Margot without preamble, stepping aside to let her into the spacious condo she shared with her fiancé.
“It was . . . er . . . complicated.” Margot sat down on the edge of one leather sofa, bracing her elbows on her knees. “Actually, scratch that. It’s frigging complicated.”
“Hoo boy.” Breezy gathered a stack of financial documents off the coffee table and slid them into a folder. “Let’s hear it.”
“Sorry to barge in unannounced,” Margot said. “You’re busy, aren’t you?”
“Don’t worry. I was about to take a break. My eyes are burning from staring at spreadsheets. I’m doing a big Judy Blume push next month. Everything from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to Tiger Eyes.”
“Don’t forget Are You There God? That book was very important to Young Margot.”
“Forever was my fav.” Breezy grinned. “Gah! It’ll be so fun. I can’t wait to do the display.”
“Aw, I’m so glad you’re loving your work.” They shared a quick hug.
“Speaking of work, let’s get to it,” Breezy said. “How did your afternoon with Patch go? I’ve been waiting for an update.”
“He left an hour ago.”
“Wow. Okay. Long day on your end too. You guys must have gotten into it.”
There wasn’t a hint of innuendo in Breezy’s statement. That was the worst part. Margot felt the heat spreading its tendrils up her neck, burning a path over her cheeks all the way to her ears.
“Margot.” A spark of realization flicked in Breezy’s eyes. “What happened?”
“I don’t know?” Margot buried her face in her hands.
Breezy blew out a breath. “You slept with him?”
“No!” Margot got up and began pacing the room.
“Wow. You freaked me out. I thought you were trying to say that you hooked up with him.”
“That is what I’m saying.”
“Damn it, honey.” Breezy fell back against her chair, covered her face with an outsized groan. “You were supposed to help him, not hump him.”
“There was no p-in-v sex. Just the longest and most insane oral of my entire life.”
Her friend peeked through her fingers. “You gave him a blow job as part of his mindfulness practice? Can’t say I’m familiar with that particular technique.”
“I didn’t blow him. He blew me.”
Breezy pretended to go boneless, sliding out of her chair and hitting the floor with a faint thud.
“You had Patch Donnelly come to your house for his first day as your personal client and you had him give you lady head?”
“Don’t make fun of me!” Margot leapt to her feet.
“I’m not making fun. But this was a good professional opportunity.”
“I see.” Margot blinked. “I can read your mind. There goes Margot thinking with her lady head again. Can’t bring her anywhere without her acting like a skank. Typical Margot wrecking everything by being some sort of low-key slut.”
“What?” Tears welled in Breezy’s eyes. “That’s not at all what I meant.”
The front door creaked and Margot swiveled her head. Jed stood frozen at the front door, clutching his black overnight duffel, looking as if he desperately wished his flight had been delayed by an hour.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Jed eased in, taking the temperature of the room. “Everything okay?”
“Peachy!” Margot beelined toward the door.
“Don’t go!” Breezy recovered her power of speech and was climbing back to her feet.
“No. I don’t want to talk this out. There is too much I can’t say anyway. I’m sorry to come in here and disrupt your night with my drama.”
“You aren’t drama. You’re my best friend.”
Margot stood by the door and balled her hands into two fists. “How I just behaved was inexcusable. To you . . . and to me. I’m going to go home, eat my weight in peanut butter ice cream and rewatch the first season of This is Us until I’m dehydrated. Once my head’s screwed on, we can reconvene. Jed.” She gave him a short nod. “Sorry for the not-so-warm welcome home.”
“Margot, wait!” Breezy cried.
But she was already out.
When she left the building, the February air was a blessing for once. Her skin felt like living fire and she welcomed the light sleet. She stood still, jaw loose, belly soft, and took three deep breaths.
It had been a mistake to come here. Margot was a big girl now. And she had all the tools she needed to solve her own problems. She nibbled her nails. What happened today was intense and unexpected. Adrenaline and intoxication were still short-circuiting her system. Her laugh was short. Flustered. Slightly unhinged. And why wouldn’t it be, because Patch Donnelly had just given her the single most amazing sexual experience of her life.
And he was a freaking virgin.
She exhaled slowly and trudged to her car.
It was impossible to understand what made it so good. She’d had her fair share of attentive lovers. Of broody bad boys.
But she couldn’t think about Patch anymore. What happened today could never be allowed to happen again.
No mixing business and pleasure.
She climbed into the car and slotted the key into the ignition. The silence was too deafening so she turned on the radio. Celine Dion was singing about how she didn’t want to be all by herself.
A lone tear escaped, dripping off the side of her chin with a sullen plop.
She raised her fingers and rubbed away the remaining wetness. Where had that little sucker come from? She wasn’t a crier. She certainly wasn’t
a “sit in the car alone and sob” type.
She didn’t need to mourn something that would never happen. She needed to smile because it had happened. And move on.
Which meant that she also needed a plan.
And so help her, she’d drive up and down residential Denver streets until she’d concocted one.
The reality was that she ended up near Capitol Hill typing “Patrick Donnelly” into her phone’s internet search engine.
The guy she encountered today wasn’t the same guy who broke a man’s arm in a fight. He’d run Stefan off, but he hadn’t been violent. If anything, he’d been the opposite, cool and contained. The definition of self-control.
The first hit was a tabloid story of the fight. It had been back around Thanksgiving and the details were sketchy. The unconfirmed eyewitness reports were that Patrick and the lawyer got into a verbal altercation over a woman.
One thing led to another and both found themselves outside.
Patrick beat up the man. The rest they say was history. The lawyer’s shoulder was dislocated.
No information about the woman was shared. Who she was. What she saw.
She tried searching different variations of the same question and all came out the same way. No name. No quote. No picture.
All the evidence pointed to the fact that Patch and this lawyer got themselves into some sort of cockfight. Not shocking behavior for two men at a bar. She’d seen it all before. Heck, she’d had two guys fight over her before. Neither had a chance, but they’d been too hyped on testosterone to realize that.
But the guy at her house today wasn’t a player who thought he was God’s gift to women. For as much as he was a stranger, she trusted her intuition.
The sleet turned to snow. The world outside vanished as the windshield was covered in a blanket of white. Her breath crystallized in the cold air, an ephemeral cloud of white.
She typed his name into Wikipedia. It was jarring to have the page load and his picture stare back. Her stomach dipped as if she’d driven too fast down a steep hill. His gaze was so bright, it was as if he looked right at her. As if he knew she was here, parked on the side of the road, still warm between the legs, reading more about him.
She wasn’t being a stalker. It was Wikipedia, available for any member of the public. But no one else had felt his tongue in their pussy today.
She confirmed his age. Twenty-five. He was a Virgo. Nothing much listed under family life. Just a mention he’d gotten a scholarship to Boston College. He’d spent time in a seminary before being drafted.
A jolt struck her core. She’d known this, but it had slipped her mind, the way hundreds of facts about strangers filtered through her mind on a regular basis. Was that why he’d been a virgin? Because he’d wanted to be a priest?
She tried to imagine him without the scruff, in the black, a white collar at his neck.
Whoa, mama.
The clench between her legs was most unholy. She’d never in a million years expected to have a priest fetish, or be interested in deflowering a man, but it appeared that Patch Donnelly was challenging all her preconceptions.
She skimmed the rest of his page. Everything else was hockey related. References to career highs, winning the Stanley Cup; and lows, the fights, the penalties, the notorious temper. She searched pictures. Losing herself in the images. Never was he photographed with a woman. Rarely did he smile.
A snow plow went by, snapping her out of her reverie. Her butt was frozen and her nose was numb. Great. She had officially lost her mind.
She drove home, trying to keep her mind empty. A cup of hot tea and a good night’s sleep would go a long way to settling her frazzled nerves. When she pulled into her parking spot, a large delivery truck pulled up beside her. She gave the man a distracted wave as she trotted toward her apartment.
She was hanging up her jacket in the foyer when there was a knock on the front door.
The flower delivery man stood outside holding a bouquet of red roses.
“Margot Ko . . . walski?” he said carefully, double-checking a clipboard.
“Yes. Wait. Are those all for me? Oh my God! I’ve never gotten flowers before.”
The older man chuckled, although not unkindly.
“Well don’t go far, hun.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m coming back up.” He jogged away and returned again with tulips. Then pink roses. Then orchids. Then . . . huh. She didn’t know the more obscure flower species. And still more bouquets kept coming.
“Here’s the last one.” The delivery man was eclipsed by a profusion of long tropical fronds.
“This is too much. What do you think? Should I start selling tickets for my very own botanical garden?” Nibbles pressed against the glass, curious to discover that he now lived in a jungle. “Is there a card from the sender?”
The man shook his head.
It didn’t matter. She knew who it was.
“What did your man do to mess up this bad? I’ve seen grovels in my day. But never anything like this. Did he run off with your sister or somethin’? Take your savings and blow it on the track?”
“I don’t have a man,” Margot replied softly. “But the guy who did this didn’t mess up. Just the opposite.”
“Well lady, looks like you found yourself some kind of keeper. Although gotta say, he makes the rest of us look pretty bad.” And with that, the man tipped his hat and walked out.
“Oh wow,” Margot murmured, looking around at the vibrant colors. The room was filled with intoxicating perfumes. In one fell swoop, the dreariness of winter had vanished before this bountiful, insistent profusion of life.
Had a guy ever done anything close to this level of over-the-top romantic?
The answer was simple: hell and no.
She reached out and plucked off a petal from the closest rose, smoothed her thumb over the velvet softness. Her shiver didn’t come from the cold.
“I’m in real trouble here, aren’t I,” she said to Nibbles, to herself.
The heater came on, humming its assent.
Patrick Donnelly was leading her down an uncharted path. A guy who paid attention to her pleasure and made romantic gestures? This was new terrain.
Total virgin territory.
Chapter Ten
Patch played his heart out at practice. He wasn’t a fan of drills. Yet another sore spot between him and Coach. Practice sharpened the rest of the team, but he feared it could have the opposite effect on him. A goalie was only as good as his instincts. The team lived and died on his snap-judgment decisions. Practice for a goalie could dull those instincts. Because guys took a few seconds to set up the perfect shot. There wasn’t that sort of luxury in a game. It was all act, react. Act, react. Rinse, repeat.
But he was determined to turn over a new leaf. To get along. Go with the flow.
Besides, he had Nate Reed breathing down his neck. The backup goalie was across the rink serving as little better than target practice for a few of the shooters who needed extra work.
“Donnelly,” Tor called him over. “You’re looking sharp.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“Now get off the ice.”
“What?” He jerked. “Have I fucked up?”
“The opposite.” Tor swung his gaze to his face, gave him a cool, assessing look. “I’ve been thinking about what you said before the lockout. About how you hate practice.”
Shit. “I know I’ve run my mouth. But I’m here. Putting in the work.”
“You are. I see it. But I’m also not in this business to blow smoke up my own ass. What you said, it stuck with me. And I’ve spent the past couple months watching tapes and thinking, and . . . you were right.”
“I was?”
Tor crooked his lips in a tight smile. “You’re out there making saves, but you’re also always aware that I’m watching, and playing to what you think I want. Not for who you are.” He clasped Patch’s shoulder and squeezed. “And if you’re going to
be starting, we need to trust each other.”
Patch’s throat swelled. He wasn’t a guy who got emotional, but he respected Coach more than any other man besides Sully. His words? They meant something.
“We understand each other?” Tor asked.
Patch nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, Coach.”
“And how was being with Margot? Man, she’s something else, huh?”
Patch dropped his stick at the sound of her name. He bent, hoping that by the time he stood back up his face would have returned to its normal color.
“Yeah, something.”
“Glad it’s working out. With any luck, it’s going to be life-changing.”
“I’m not sure she’s going to want to put up with me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not the easiest to get on with.”
“I’d be willing to bet she likes you fine.”
“No disrespect, sir, but why?”
“Because she’s standing right over there.”
“What?” Donnelly whirled around and there was Margot, standing on the stairs next to Neve Angel, the new head of Hellions Public Relations.
He jutted his chin in a half nod. He’d never read the playbook about the right way to greet a woman after burying your face between her thighs.
It seemed to work well enough as she wiggled her fingers in return.
Neve clipped down the stairs, swinging her arms briskly.
“Hey, lover,” she said to Tor. “Good practice?”
“Not bad.”
Donnelly looked at the two of them. They didn’t leap into each other’s arms. They weren’t tearing each other’s clothes off. Nothing exchanged except for the most basic of greetings. And yet, despite the rink’s cool temperature, he’d have sworn the temperature just increased a few degrees.
It wasn’t in what they said. Or what they did. It was the look they exchanged, one heavy with unspoken language and clear affection.
That’s love.
And he felt a pang in his own heart. Because it looked good—simple, honest and true.
“I had lunch with Neve and she said practice was wrapping up,” Margot said by way of explanation. “Thought I’d drop by and see if you were busy.”