I STOOD in the shadows and watched as the players came out of the locker room. When Max came out, I stepped forward but paused when a flock of women swarmed him. I narrowed my eyes. They were all holding something.
He signed copies, and it took me a moment to realize that he was signing a calendar. When he was done, he lifted his eyes up, looking for me. I walked towards the staff parking lot. I sensed him fall in behind me. We got into the vehicle and didn’t speak. It was only when we pulled out of the parking lot, away from potential eyes and witnesses, did I breathe a sigh of relief.
When we arrived at his place, he yanked at his tie. “I’m going to change. Make yourself at home. Grab a drink.”
I poured myself a glass of wine.
“What did you think of the rest of the game?” he called from the bedroom.
“I think you’re winning over the crowd.” I wandered around his kitchen. He had some bills on the counter. A big canister of protein shake powder sat next to a blender. “I also noticed that you had some new fans outside the dressing room.”
“Yeah,” he sounded less enthused.
“What did they want you to sign?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar!” I laughed. “Where is it?”
“You don’t want to see it.”
“Tell me.”
“In one of the kitchen drawers.”
I pulled open drawers, noting that most of them were empty. There it was. The NHL calendar. I eagerly flipped it to the month of December.
Oh my god.
Max’s photo was stunning. He stood in his skates and stared at the camera. His sexual charisma smoldered off the page. This man, on this page, was in the next room. And tonight, he was all mine.
“I want an autograph,” I called out, unable to tear my eyes off his naked, huge muscles. And that bulge. In those black boxers. Totally not photoshopped.
“You did not just say that.”
Something dropped on the floor. I bent down to pick it up. It was a card. Something fluttered out of the card. I flipped it over.
It was an ultrasound.
My heard pounded.
“It’s not what you think.” Max’s voice from the doorway was emphatic.
I lifted my eyes to his. “I wasn’t snooping, it fell out of the calendar.”
I put everything onto the counter and then wiped my hands on my jeans.
Max stepped closer, his eyes were on my face. “Lolita’s pregnant.”
No. No. No. No.
“Okay.” My throat almost closed as I swallowed. “Is the baby yours?”
“No. I’m not the father.”
Oxygen filled the room and I could breathe again. “Oh. Okay.”
“She’s had it tough.”
“Is the dad in the picture?”
“Can I trust you with the truth, Rory?”
“Yes.”
“Lolita was sexually assaulted and her baby results from that.”
Holy shit.
He took my hand. “Come sit with me.”
I followed him to the couch. We sat looking at each other.
He broke the silence. “Did you mean that?”
“Mean what?”
“That you want this to keep going?”
Why was he asking me this again? Wasn’t it obvious? “Yes.”
He picked up my hand. “The same thing happened to my mom.”
“What happened?”
“My mom, like Lolita, was raped, and I resulted from that assault.”
Oh Max!
I squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry.”
He sat so quiet before he spoke. “When I was five, she dropped me off to live with Ronny.”
“Ronny told me that.”
“I was a terrible kid.”
“Max, you were five.”
He shrugged. “She couldn’t handle me.”
“She was the mom.”
His serious eyes held mine. “She came back when I was 12. Things were going well. I had friends, I was doing good in school, and I excelled at hockey. I lived for hockey. But she wasn’t back two days before she demanded I quit playing. In the heat of a huge fight, she told me about her assault.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“Our relationship wasn’t good. I wanted to be a good son, but I couldn’t give up hockey for her.”
“Max, no one should ask you to give up hockey.”
“When I was 15, I got offered a scholarship to go to hockey school. She told me that if I went, she’d never forgive me.”
I could hear the emotion in his voice and it made me want to weep.
“I’m glad you went,” my voice sounded fierce.
He leaned over and wiped a tear off my cheek. “Are you crying for me?”
“Yes.”
He pulled me over so I straddled his lap. His two thumbs wiped the tears off my face. “I never want you to worry about Lolita, okay?”
“Okay.”
“She’s only a friend.”
I stared into his concerned eyes. “That’s why you’re helping her, because she’s like your mom.”
“In part. And because no one deserves what happened to her.”
I touched the butterfly bandage on his forehead and then traced my fingers over his lips. “You are an amazing man, Max Logan.”
His kiss covered my mouth. I moaned and then I felt him lift me up. He carried me through the kitchen and then lay me down on the bed.
“I want it to be different this time,” he lay down beside me.
I rolled over to face him. “How so?”
“I want to savor you.”
“Okay, but let’s hurry to the good parts.”
His smile spread over his face. “The good parts?”
“You know what I mean.”
His lips found the pulse on my neck. “This is a good part.”
My neck arched. The man knew how to kiss my neck. I tried to bring his head back up so I could kiss him. I knew when I opened my mouth to his and moaned, it sent him into overdrive, but tonight he was having none of that.
He pinned my hands above my head and continued to kiss my neck until I was almost whimpering.
When his hand pushed up beneath my blouse, I sighed because when the clothes came off, this is where things got a lot more heated, but Max had other plans. He undressed me with care.
He lifted his head to study my breasts. Breasts that were heaving with desire.
“Max.”
His blue eyes met mine as he lowered his mouth to one puckered nipple.
“Let me enjoy your body, Rory.”
His idea of enjoying my body, had me quivering like a bow with so much heat and desire, I thought I might burst into flames and we hadn’t even gotten past second base.
When he pulled off my jeans, I thought we were getting somewhere, but he left my panties on. And the man, who knew no patience during sex, suddenly had the willpower of a saint.
“Max,” I panted. “Please touch me. Please touch me.”
He ran tickling fingers up and down my thighs while his lips nibbled on my inner knee. “I’m touching you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He traced light fingertips over my apex, a sensation that drove my hips off the bed. Fighting for more. Needing more.
“Someone’s turned on,” his eyes were dark.
“Don’t torture me.”
But torture me he did. Magic fingers, wicked tongue. He’d bring me to the edge and then slide me back.
By the time he took off his pants and pressed the tip of his hot cock against my clit, I wasn’t even making coherent sounds any more.
“What do you want? Tell me?”
“You,” my head tossed back and forth. “Only you.”
He pinned my hands above my hand as he pushed inside me, his blue eyes on my face.
I worked to focus my eyes on his face. His expression made my heart want to burst. His expression was a mixture of tenderness and lust, heat and emotion.
“Max,” I couldn’t tear my eyes off his face. I wanted to stay in this moment forever. Commit it to memory. Never forget the tiny details.
The length of his eyelashes.
The emotion in his eyes.
The taste of his lips.
The sensations of him filling me up.
He shifted his hips and his eyes never left my face when I came apart. I cried out, as my body bowed and arched beneath his, but my cry wasn’t for my physical release. It was for an emotional release I didn’t quite understand. He watched me as every cell in my body flew apart and then came back together.
Only I didn’t quite come back the same person.
Something had shifted.
Something had cracked open in me and it felt like a million butterflies were pouring out of my chest.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathed, watching me.
“Please join me,” I begged, not sure what I meant.
He buried his face in my neck and I held onto him while he moved. He gathered me into his arms, and each thrust felt like commitment. Each time he drove up into me, it felt like he was becoming a part of me.
I clung to him, wishing I could fuse myself to him. Not his body, but the essence of what made Max.
When he came, he came with a carnal groan against my neck and as his big body thrust up into mine, I held onto him, overwhelmed by the intensity of it all.
“Rory,” he lifted his head and looked into my eyes, while he remained buried inside me.
“I know,” I breathed.
