Not a Player (Laketown Hockey Book 1)

by A. J. Wynter

  My heart leapt into my throat. “What?” I croaked.

  “You’re going to think it’s ridiculous.” He took off his hat, stared at the Otters’ logo, and rubbed the brim with his thumbs.

  “You can tell me anything, Kane,” I reached my arm around his broad shoulders and squeezed them tightly.

  He stared at the water and I waited. After what felt like an eternity, he continued. “All I’ve ever wanted is to play professional hockey.”

  “And you will.” I squeezed harder.

  “What if it doesn’t happen?”

  I’d had this exact same question running through my mind for years, although mine was about figure skating. “Where is this coming from, Kane? You’re on the scouts’ radar and you are an amazing player. I do think this is kind of ridiculous, but I get it. I’ve had to battle to get those negative thoughts out of my mind. They’re toxic, Kane.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Oh, but I do.”

  “No, Jess. I have this coin.”

  “Coin?”

  “My Uncle Joe, my mom’s brother gave it to me. I’ve kept in in my hockey bag ever since he disappeared.”

  I dropped my arm from his shoulders so I could move to face him. “What does this coin look like?”

  “It’s solid gold and has a pirate ship on one side.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  His hands were shaking, and I took them in mine. “From the second I got that coin, my luck changed. And I know it sounds stupid, but I always felt like my Uncle Joe was with me, looking over me while I played.” He sighed, “That morning, when I saw you at the rink – I was looking for my coin.”

  “I was wondering why you were there,” I smiled and tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear.

  “If I don’t have the coin, I don’t think I’ll make it.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Kane.”

  “See.” He stiffened. “I knew you would think that it was stupid.” He put his hat back on his head.

  “Listen, I get the superstition thing. You’re a hockey player, it comes with the territory. But a coin doesn’t make you skate the way you do. A coin doesn’t give you the on-ice intuition you’ve got. A coin doesn’t give you a slapshot faster than any guy in the league.” I squeezed his hands again. “Kane, you scored the winning goal in the last game. You didn’t have your coin then, did you?”

  He shrugged and then nodded. He cupped my cheeks in his hands and kissed me. “And if I hadn’t lost the damn thing, I never would’ve walked in on you changing.”

  His eyes shimmered and he kissed me again. I held his wrists and let the world disappear around us. After we pulled apart, he rested his forehead on mine.

  “Hey, Kane,” I pulled back so I could look him in the eyes.

  “Yes, baby?”

  Baby? I raised my eyebrows. That was a first and I can’t say that I didn’t love it.

  “The Gala.”

  He groaned. “I know.”

  “I know that we’re taking it slowly, you know, keeping this between us until we figure out what’s going on, and that we never talked about whether we were, you know...” As I fought for the right word, Kane held my hand and rubbed my fingers.

  “Exclusive?” he suggested.

  “That’s the word I was looking for.” I leaned my forehead against his chest. “We never talked about that.”

  “Did we have to?”

  I looked up at Kane. The golden hour was working its magic and his eyelashes glowed in its light. “Jessie, I haven’t been with anyone since I met you. Fuck, I can’t even imagine being with anyone else.”

  I breathed out. “Me neither.”

  “Why are we taking it slowly again?”

  “You aren’t allowed to date an Otter’s sister.”

  He snorted. “Fuck Dylan. I bet you he wouldn’t even care. And, if we had told him I wouldn’t be stuck being a piece of arm candy this weekend.”

  There’s one thing that Kane isn’t lacking, and that’s confidence. “In the Calvin Klein model situation, you’re the arm candy?” I joked, trying to lighten the tone.

  The sides of his mouth turned up slightly and then he shrugged. “Are you sure you’re okay with it?”

  I had thought about it the entire boat ride across the lake. No, I didn’t love the idea of Kane going to a black-tie event with a model, but at the time, it seemed like the decision was going to make his home life a lot smoother, and I just want to keep things simple for him. “Kane, I’m going to be there. It’s not like you’re going behind my back. I’ve decided to treat it like a business transaction, and maybe if you do too, it won’t bother you so much.”

  He tilted his head and stared at the horizon. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said.

  “And, I trust you.” I couldn’t believe those words had just come out of my mouth, and I repeated them, if only for myself to hear. “I trust you, Kane.”

  Kane draped his leg over the side of the dock and dangled his foot in the water. “Jessie, you are an incredible woman.”

  “Wait,” I said.

  He drew his foot out of the lake and looked at me. “I want to amend that statement.” I couldn’t hide my smile, and the concern lifted from his eyes. “I trust you everywhere except at the end of a dock.” I crab walked on my hands and feet away from the edge.

  “Come here, Jess.”

  His voice was serious. He stood and held out his hand, but I hesitated. “I’m not going to throw you in, I promise.” I let Kane pull me to my feet.

  He stroked my hair. Behind him, the sky looked like strawberry sorbet as he held both of my hands in his. “I love you.” The water lapped against the dock as my entire body flushed hot with adrenaline.

  Tears brimmed in my eyes and I didn’t hold them back. “I love you too.” Tears spilled down my cheeks and Kane brushed them away with his thumbs and then kissed me softly. I whimpered into his mouth and then laced my fingers around his thick neck, kissing my boyfriend hard.

  When we finally broke apart, the sun had disappeared, leaving purple streaks across the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before the first stars started to appear.

  “Do you want to stay at my house tonight?” I asked.

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than your uncomfortable bed, Jess.” He slid his fingers between mine and we walked down the dock. As we neared the marina, I pulled my hand from his and pointed to the light that shone out from the garage bay. “Dylan.”

  “He’s still here?” Kane asked.

  “He’s taken on a second job. That’s where he’s been every night. We didn’t have to worry about him walking it on us at my house after all.”

  There had been a few nights when I’d shoved my pillow in my mouth to muffle my moans and screams when Kane’s face was between my legs.

  Kane and I continued walking, but he took a step away from me. “The exhibition series is over on Saturday.”

  I thought that the player’s code was really fucking stupid, but Kane took it seriously – almost as serious as his coin, or not having sex in the dressing room. “Just a few more days, Jess.” He whispered. Dylan was suspended for the rest of the season, which included the exhibition games. Until they were over, he was still technically an Otter, and as an Otter’s sister, I was technically ‘off-limits’.

  “He’s not going to care,” I had argued, but it didn’t make a difference. Kane wasn’t going to break the code, and I wasn’t going to point out the fact that just because no one knew about ‘us’ didn’t mean that he wasn’t breaking it.

  Once we passed the danger of the marina and were safely seated inside the Volvo, Kane threaded his fingers between mine and I drove to my house with one hand, squinting through the cracked windshield. The radio was playing that Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow Picture song and Kane turned it up.

  “Really?”

  “What? It’s a good song,” he smiled and squeezed my hand.

  From that moment, I knew that hearing Picture would
bring me back to the time in my life when I’d felt the most complete – and even though I hated the song, I loved it for giving me that memory.

  My belly clenched with a combination of excitement and guilt. That coin was in my skate bag. I had completely forgotten about it. I found it the first day I skated at McManus’s place and tucked it in my bag, planning to turn it into the lost and found. I knew he’d be ecstatic when I gave it back to him, but I wanted to wait – he needed to know it wasn’t the coin that made him a great player – it was him.

  THE BED CREAKED AS I slid under the sheet and I clicked on the fan that sat on my nightstand.

  “Did you set your alarm?” Kane asked.

  “Three-thirty,” I said.

  I snuggled into his armpit and he squeezed me tightly, partly to cuddle, but mostly to stop me from falling out of the bed. I ran my fingers through the hair on his chest. He was the first boyfriend I’d ever had with a chest full of hair, and I was surprised to find out that I loved it. Running my fingers through his hair and hearing him murmur in appreciation had awoken a primal side of me I didn’t know existed. My lower belly clenched with the urge to feel him inside me. “Kane.” My fingertips explored his chest and trailed back and forth between his pecs.

  “Mmmmmm?” His eyes were still closed, and I wondered how close he was to falling asleep.

  “What do you think people would say if I showed up at the gala with you?”

  He opened his eyes and kissed my forehead. “That we look good together?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean, do you think your family will accept the fact that you’re with me, and not with someone who has an important last name like Yates?”

  Kane propped himself up on his elbows and my fingertips moved their exploratory mission to his now popping six-pack. “Tiffany might, but who gives a shit. My dad won’t care, just as long as you’re not a Boston fan.” His chest shook a little as he chuckled at his bad joke.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, baby. And if for some reason he does, who cares? You’re the woman I want, even if your last name is Mold.”

  I smacked his flexed abs. “Moss is so much better than Mold.” I threw my leg over Kane, straddled his hard body, and kissed him. His cock tented out the sheets and easily bridged the seven-inch gap between our bodies, the tip brushing the crotch of my panties. I pulled the sheet down, revealing his manhood in all its rock-hard glory. “You weren’t going to sleep,” I said eyeing his cock, my body aching for the moment when its girth pressed into me.

  “Guilty.” He held up his hands stickup style. “Now get those fucking panties off.” In an athletic feat worthy of an Olympic gymnast, he tossed me off his body while somehow rolling me underneath him, so that he was now straddling me. He jammed his hands into the front of my pink lace underwear and ripped them apart.

  “Hey, those were new.” I couldn’t believe that he had just torn them in half.

  “I’ll buy you a new pair.”

  His voice was muffled as he kissed the increasingly sensitive space on my belly just below my belly button. My feet involuntarily pressed into the mattress, lifting my hips off the bed. Kane’s face was so close, I could feel the warmth from his breath between my legs and my body prickled with goosebumps. “Kane, I don’t know how much longer I can take this teasing.” I balled my fists up in the sheets as he moved closer, his scruff tickling my sensitive skin as his breathing teased the ache between my legs. He moved to kiss my belly again but returned to tease between my legs once more. I writhed in the sheets.

  “I can make you come without touching you.”

  “Oh god, Kane. Your breath IS touching me,” I moaned, and he blew on me like he was blowing out birthday candles. I was convinced he was going to tease me all night long, so when the warmth of his lips finally met my skin, I flinched and then groaned as pleasure rippled through my torso right to my fingertips. I gripped the sheets and it only took about three seconds for the orgasm to crash through my body.

  Panting, I laid there, my face flushed with heat as I tried to recover, and I heard the sound of Kane biting open a condom wrapper. He extracted the sheets from my right hand and kissed my palm. “How was that?” He kissed up my arm, his stubble tickling me as he trailed across my collarbone, holding my hand in his. He kissed my lips and his cock lingered between my legs, waiting. He pressed into me lightly, his hips moving slowly like his lips, teasing me, retreating, then coming back for more. I hooked my leg around his back and pushed on his ass with my heel, urging him to thrust. I needed Kane Fitzgerald to make me feel whole.

  “Uh, uh.” He resisted the pressure and continued his subtle rocking, his arms trembling at my sides. I grabbed his forearms and nipped at his lip. His eyelashes batted open and he groaned. “I love you, Jessie. And fuck, I love this tight pussy,” he growled, and I gasped with the force of him thrusting into me with all his strength. The tender and teasing hockey jock gone, replaced with a wild eyed and growling man. “Oh Jessie,” he groaned and gripped my shoulder tight, his cock twitching inside of me before he collapsed on top of me, panting.

  Before I could say anything, he propped himself up on his elbows, still hard, still inside of me. “It’s so hard for me to control myself when I’m near you, even kissing you, but taking it slowly, that...” He paused to catch his breath. “That was...”

  “Incredible,” I finished, letting my fingers linger in his hair. He rested his head on my bare chest. “Kane,” I whispered. His breath had slowed to the even pace that I recognized. He was sleeping. “Good night.”

  Letting him go to the Gala with Bronwyn Yates wasn’t a mistake. He was mine and no waif-like supermodel could ever replace what we had. I grunted under Kane’s weight as I reached for the phone, it was only eleven p.m. He needed some sleep. I needed some rest. For the first time since I’d moved home, I turned off the alarm labeled ‘practice’. I wanted to be in Kane’s arms more than I wanted to work on that damn lutz. One day off couldn’t hurt.

  The phone chimed as I held it in my hand. It was a text from my brother.

  Dylan: Call me, it’s important.

  I let my thumb hover over Dylan’s number, but didn’t want to wake Kane. It could wait until morning. I tossed the phone on my nightstand and nestled into my boyfriend’s arms.

  Chapter 27 – Kane

  Something was wrong. I felt too rested. Jessie was snuggled into me, holding onto my arm in her sleep. The light on her face was brighter than it should’ve been.

  “Jessie,” I whispered.

  Her lips parted and she let out a light snore that almost sounded like a purr. “Jess.” I nudged her and pulled my arm out from underneath her. “We slept in.” She rolled into me and murmured something incomprehensible. “Jess, wake up.”

  Nothing but a nuzzle and then her light snore-purr, which was cute as hell. I reached over her, and my heart sank when I checked the time on her phone. “Jessie, it’s 5:45. We both missed our practice.” I shifted her off my body and sat up, trying to figure out what I would tell Covington.

  Jessie rubbed her eyes and sat, stretching her arms over her head. “It’s okay. I turned off the alarm, I thought we both deserved a little rest.” She rested her hand on my morning wood and leaned in to kiss me. As tempting as it was, Kane Fitzgerald didn’t blow off practice, and as far I knew, Jessie Moss didn’t either.

  “Jess, what were you thinking?” I sat on the edge of the bed and patted the sheets looking for my boxers.

  She sat beside me and rested her hand on my shoulder. “Come back to bed, Kane.”

  “No, Jess. I think I’m going to go.” I got dressed and slipped my phone into my pocket.

  She swung her legs out of the sheets and stood. “Come on, Kane, It was just one practice.”

  I took a deep breath, holding in my anger. If Dylan was in the house, the last thing he needed to hear was some guy yelling at his sister. “You of all people, you...” I pointed at her and she leaned back, “should know that
that’s not true. The Jessie I know never misses practice. She knows that she’s going to the Olympics and Olympians don’t sleep in, they don’t miss practice just to what, get a couple of hours of extra sleep and maybe a morning fuck?” I hissed through my teeth.

  Shit. Her eyes were filling with tears. “I’m sorry for just wanting a few extra hours in bed with you this morning.”

  I was an asshole.

  “Jess, I—”

  She stepped into a pair of jeans and zipped up a green hoodie over her bare breasts.

  “What are you doing?”

  She turned and her eyes flashed, “You don’t have a car here, I have to drive you.”

  “I’m sorry, Jess. I know how important skating is to you, and you know how important my hockey career is to me.”

  “It was irresponsible, I get it.” Her voice was growing louder in its defensiveness. “It won’t happen again.” She shoved her feet into her Birks and stomped down the stairs. If Dylan was sleeping, he wasn’t anymore. I followed her down the stairs and held my hand on the front door over her head. She pulled hard, but I wouldn’t let her open it. She turned, crossed her arms, and leaned against the lace curtain.

  “Jessie, come on,” I whispered.

  “You don’t have to whisper.” She pointed to the tray of assorted footwear beside the door. “His work boots are gone. Dylan’s not here.”

  I was mad at her, but not enough to turn it into a full-blown argument. I teased her finger, trying to get her to uncross her arms. “Jessie, let’s not fight about this.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but I didn’t give her the chance. “I’m sorry.”

  She softened and let me hold her hand. Looking down, she said, “You’re right, and I don’t think that I’m mad at you.” She sighed. “I’m mad at myself. We should’ve gone to practice this morning.”

  She beat herself up worse than I did. It was something that I saw in other players gunning for the NHL, and I knew firsthand what it was running through her mind.

  “Hey.” I leaned in and kissed her lightly. “Why don’t we do something else and call it a cross-training day.”