I bailed on my date before he had the chance to order dessert.
My emotions were so tangled up I could barely hold down what I had eaten, let alone consume anything more. So, with a polite kiss on the cheek and a hug, I parted ways with Damon and headed home.
Home.
That made me laugh.
The fully furnished condo I was staying in with giant windows, a sweeping city landscape, and a bed far too big for only me could hardly be considered home. It was my clothes in the provided dresser, and my toiletries in the bathroom, and my usual food in the fridge. But it wasn’t my small bungalow near the beach. It wasn’t my garden or my macramé wall art or my compost ready to be put to good use.
Still, it did bring me a small comfort, and I sighed when I kicked my heels off once I was inside.
I poured a glass of wine, which I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t regret in the morning. We had a game the next day, and that meant I’d be up early reporting on all of it. My head was already pounding from the night’s events.
But not as much as my heart.
What was even happening?
I sank into one of the leather armchairs in my living room, crossing my legs and attempting to relax. But I didn’t sit there for more than sixty seconds before my thoughts started whirring, and I couldn’t make sense of a single one of them.
I wanted to feel victorious, to bask in the glow of having succeeded in what I’d had planned for the evening.
But the look on Vince’s face, the way he’d tongued his cheek and nodded like I’d disappointed him…
It left me feeling sick.
Before I knew it, I was up and out of the room, out of my new home, taking the elevator up a few floors and walking barefoot down the hall to Vince’s door.
I knocked hard three times, knocking again when he didn’t immediately answer. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I would say. Did I still want to fight? Did I want to apologize?
Did I want to fuck?
I knocked again.
When he didn’t answer, and it was suspiciously quiet inside, my heart leapt into my throat. I immediately wondered if he’d gone out, found someone, and gone home with her.
Then, I immediately chastised myself for caring, because the whole point of tonight was to cement how not his I was, and yet…
“He’s at the gym.”
I jumped at the unexpected voice, a little scream slipping from my lips. When I turned and found Jaxson at the opposite end of the hall, I sighed.
“Jesus, you scared me. You live here, too?”
“Nah, just dropped something off at Carter’s,” he explained. Then, he repeated his earlier sentiment. “Vince went to the gym, the team one at the arena. Third floor.”
I nodded, swallowing. “Is he okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
Jaxson arched a brow, giving me a pointed look like he wanted me to confess something. When I didn’t, he saluted me before disappearing inside the elevator.
I still didn’t know what I was doing as I went back to my place, threw on a pair of sneakers, and headed for the lobby. Those Nikes looked ridiculous with the dress I was wearing and my full face of makeup, hair blown out and styled, but I didn’t care.
I also wasn’t thinking straight, as evident by the fact that I was on my way to the arena in the middle of the night to find the guy I had worked so hard to get off my ass in the first place.
The walk was quick, the arena just a couple blocks from the condominium. It was dark and quiet at the arena when I arrived, and I was surprised when the key card they’d given me allowed me access in at all. It was almost eerie, walking through there with just a few lights on. There was someone cleaning the floors, and they nodded at me as I passed, but didn’t bother to ask who I was or why I was there. I guess they assumed that if I had a key to get in, it was fine.
My hands shook as I took the elevator up to the third floor, which was where the executive suite was. I wandered around a bit aimlessly before I finally made my way to the team gym, and when I did, I stopped, watching Vince through the window.
He was the only one in there. Hell, we had to be two of only a handful of people here at this hour. There were no concerts tonight, no events at all, and it was damn near midnight.
For a moment, I let myself watch him, taking in the gleaming muscles of his back as he pedaled on the bike. His powerful thighs worked as hard as they did on the ice, his arms flexing where they held the handlebars. He was an absolute machine — steadfast and focused.
He was dripping in sweat, watching himself in the mirror like he hated the person he saw.
Then, those eyes flicked to me.
I swallowed, using my key card and again surprised that it granted me access to join him. He didn’t slow his pace, though. Just kept his eyes on the mirror and pedaled even faster.
He wasn’t wearing headphones, and the gym was completely quiet, save for the sound of his labored breaths and the whir of the bike.
“I didn’t know the team gym was open twenty-four seven,” I said in way of greeting, folding my arms and looking around at all the equipment. I remembered spending his first day off here, watching him go through his routine with the rest of the guys before working on recovery.
Vince ignored me.
“I’m surprised to find you here, especially the night before a game,” I continued. “Figured you’d be resting.”
His watch made a buzzing noise, and he slowed his pace, sitting upright and hitting a button on the side of it. Then, he grabbed the white towel hanging over the bars and mopped the sweat off his face.
He still didn’t say a word.
I moved closer. “Look, about earlier…” I paused, because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say. “I… I’m sorry, okay? If I…” I laughed a little before finishing that sentence with hurt your feelings, because I was certain Vince Tanev didn’t have the capability of having his feelings hurt.
He slowed all the way to a stop, hopping off the bike and draping the white towel around his neck. He grabbed a wipe next, cleaning the bike seat.
Then, he strode right past me on the way toward the exit.
A voice in the back of my mind told me I should apologize. No, it urged me to grovel, to admit I was wrong and immature for playing whatever stupid game I had been playing at the restaurant. I shouldn’t have said what I’d said.
But I did, because I had to. I needed to. It was the only way to protect myself.
Everything was such a mess inside me, two opposing forces battling for dominance. On the one hand, I wanted to give in, to throw myself at this man’s feet. On the other, I wanted to fight.
It was that urge that won out.
“Wow,” I said, turning to face him and watch him go. “Cool. So this is how it’s going to be now? I turn you down, so you give me the silent treatment?”
He paused then, and I noted how his fingers rolled into fists at his sides, those back muscles still rippling in the low light of the gym. Only one light was on overhead, and it bathed him in menacing shadows, highlighting the cuts in his body even more.
It was psychotic, how much I loved that I’d made him stop with those words, how much I got off on knowing I had the power to make his fists clench.
“I said I’m sorry,” I repeated.
He cracked his neck.
“Well, that’s real mature, Vince,” I said, tonguing my cheek on a laugh when he didn’t respond. “I’m so glad we’re both adults. I’m so glad—”
My next words were sucked out of the room, along with all the oxygen in it, because Vince spun on his heel and charged toward me. My heart lodged in my throat, eyes wide as I took in the snarl on his lips, the furrow of his brows.
He was a man on the edge, and I’d just shoved him over.
But I wasn’t scared.
I stood there, not moving, waiting for him to wash over me like a barrel wave that would take me down to a world I’d never known. My chest heaved with my next breath, and in four long strides, he invaded every inch of my space.
Every inch of me.
He sucked in a harsh breath through his nose as his hand reached out for me, snatching my chin just like he had that day in Boston. His eyes flared when I didn’t pull away, when I leaned into the touch, pushing until I was sure his fingers would bruise me.
I held his stare, both of us breathing hard and shallow as he squeezed my jaw and tilted my head even higher.
It was just the permission he was looking for.
“I’ve had enough of that fucking mouth of yours,” he husked.
And then he kissed me.
We both inhaled a fiery breath the moment his lips crashed down onto mine, and he held me there like he was afraid I’d pull away. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I pressed up onto my toes, threading my hands into his hair and twisting the strands between my fingertips — tugging, pulling, demanding more.
Vince released his grip on my jaw, reaching down to palm my ass, instead. He lifted me, pulling me into his massive arms as my legs wrapped eagerly around his waist.
We were on the move then, his mouth still devouring mine until my back slammed against the wall.
No, not the wall.
The mirror.
“This fucking mouth,” he breathed, biting my lip until I winced. As soon as he released it, I was kissing him again, asking for another lashing. “This fucking dress,” he said, his hands fisting in the velvet fabric at my hips. He nudged my chin with his nose at the same time, giving me no choice but to let my head fall back as his lips descended on my neck.
His hands gripped my hips while he wedged himself between my thighs, and he ran his tongue up my neck and along my jaw before sucking my earlobe between his teeth.
“You have me so fucked up, Maven. Every waking hour, every waking minute of my life is wrecked by thoughts of you.”
I whimpered as his hand slid under the hem of my dress with those words, and he teased the line of my lace panties, running one fingertip along the edges that hugged my inner thighs. I spread wider, wanting him to cross that fabric boundary.
“You are so deep-seated in my mind, in my being. I will never be rid of you.”
That made my heart stop, my anxiety trying to snake its way in. I pressed my hand to his chest, making him look at me, ashamed of the weakness in my voice even before I spoke.
“Even once you’ve had me?”
His eyes danced under those bent brows of his — one scarred, one perfect — and he dropped his forehead to mine on a long sigh.
“Especially then,” he breathed against my lips.
For a moment, I thought he was second-guessing, thought he might pull away and put my feet back on the ground, help me right my dress, and tell me we shouldn’t.
So, before he could, I grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him into me again.
“Then I guess we’re both fucked,” I said, and I licked his lip until he opened his mouth and let me in.
He kissed me on another deep inhale, smothering the curse and any resolve I had left to fight the chemistry between us. Even if it was just once, even if this was all we had — I wanted it.
It was all-consuming, that kiss — his hands completely destroying my blowout, his mouth completely destroying my lipstick.
Him, completely destroying me.
He wrapped me up in his arms, holding me to him as my back left the mirror. He held all of my weight then, and he kissed me every step of the way until dropping me carefully onto a weight bench. I didn’t have a chance in hell of catching my breath when he released the kiss, and as soon as he did, he yanked my hips until my ass was hanging over the edge of the bench, my body in a tilted, awkward angle.
My hands flew up to grip the first thing they could find — a cold barbell — and then Vince smacked the outside of my thigh.
“Lift,” he commanded.
I pressed weight into my heels on the floor, just enough for my ass to rise off the bench. Vince shoved my dress up to my rib cage, wetting his lips at the sight of my thong before he hooked his thumbs in the band of it.
“Let me see you,” he said, slowly peeling the fabric down over my thighs. As soon as it was past my ass, I sat down again, and I had no choice but to lift my legs and let him peel it the rest of the way off.
When my panties were tossed somewhere behind him, I tried to put my legs back down, but he clamped his hands over them and held them up — ankles wrapped together in one of his hands, legs fused together, my bare pussy framed by the swells of my ass propped on the edge of the bench.
“Fuck me, this is a beautiful sight.” He quirked his scarred brow at my sneakers next, laughing a little as he popped one off and then the other.
“Don’t judge,” I breathed.
“Pet, the only thing I’m judging right now is how fucking soaked you are,” he said, kissing the inside of my ankle once he had my socks discarded. “Stubborn girl. How long have you been this wet for me?”
I ripped out of his hold, pressing my toes into his chest. “Don’t call me pet.”
“You like it.”
I tilted my chin in defiance, but couldn’t fucking deny it — so I kept my mouth shut.
Vince smirked in victory, and then he grabbed one of my ankles in each hand and slowly, painfully slowly, opened me.
His eyes drank me in as he spread my legs, and he stared at where I knew I was glistening for him before he dropped to his knees in front of me. He placed one of my feet on the bench, the other on the floor, and then he hooked my hips and tugged me even closer, my hands holding the bar now working overtime to keep from falling on top of him.
He seemed to notice because he nodded at that bar with a wicked grin. “Hold tight,” he said, and then he descended.
It was a slow, teasing torture — his lips kissing up my thigh that was propped on the bench. He flicked his tongue over my clit just once before he was kissing down the other thigh, and I squirmed, gripping the bar so hard I wondered if I’d callous.
Vince Tanev was on his fucking knees for me.
There was no thought more erotic than that one.
Just when I thought I’d combust from him kissing and licking and nipping at all the skin around where I really wanted him, he wrapped his arms up and under my thighs, holding the weight of me before burying his face.
His tongue covered me, hot and wet and with the perfect pressure to make me tremble beneath the touch.
“Oh, fuck,” I cried, trying to sit my ass back on the bench so I could spread wider for him. But he kept me up, kept me shaking and holding on for dear life as he worked. My heart was pounding, the reality of the moment stealing my breath. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was a bad idea, that I wasn’t being professional, that this would all blow up in my face.
I couldn’t find it in me to stop. I never wanted him to stop.
“Jesus, Maven,” he breathed against me, swirling his tongue over my clit before sucking it between his teeth. I bucked my hips, and he did it again, and again, finding the rhythm to drive me toward an orgasm. “So fucking sweet. So fucking you.”
“God.” In a feat of strength, I held onto the bar with one hand, and the other jutted out for his hair, guiding him where I wanted him.
And then all contact was lost.
My ass dropped to the bench, and Vince grabbed my hand, guiding it back to the bar.
“I said hold tight,” he reminded me, and then he kissed me hard, his mouth wet with my pleasure before he crawled down my body again. And he moved even slower this time, taking the opportunity to forcefully tug at the top of my dress until my modest breasts spilled over the top of it.
He licked his lips, my taste there, like he was savoring every sip of me as he palmed my swells and rolled his thumbs over my nipples.
“I knew you had pretty tits even before I felt you that night in the hot tub,” he said, shaking his head in awe as he took in the sight of me. And what a sight it had to be — my dress shoved up over my hips, pussy wet and spread open, breasts spilling out, hair mussed, lipstick smudged. “But fuck, my imagination was so far off. These,” he said, squeezing me before he leaned down to circle one of my nipples with his tongue. “Are perfect.”
“Vince,” I breathed.
“Mm? Is there something you need, pet?”
I glared at him, but before I could press my toes into his chest and kick him away, he snatched my ankle, spreading me wide.
“You need only say it,” he teased, a challenge in his eyes as he held me like that.
I was tempted to kick out of his grasp, but instead, I leaned up a bit, enough to stare down at him when I said, “Eat. Me.”
He grinned. “With pleasure.”
He didn’t delay this time. He enveloped me — wrapping my thighs in his arms again, balancing me in the air as my grip tightened on the bar. His mouth was ravenous, his tongue that of an expert, sliding up and down and in me. He used the tip of it to flick my clit in a quick, merciless motion, holding me to him when I tried to back out.
“Ohhhh fuuucckkk,” I cried, my legs trembling so hard it hurt. It was like having a full body spasm, but I pushed and stretched and opened, reaching, holding tight.
And then I let go.
It struck me only then that we were in a public place, when my cries rang out in that gym and echoed off the walls. I hoped the people who were still in the building weren’t on the third floor, and I really hoped there weren’t cameras in this gym.
Those thoughts lingered only a second, though, because the orgasm was so powerful, it eradicated everything else from my brain. I was lost in that moment, that climax, the waves after waves of pleasure that rolled through me and made my toes curl — all courtesy of Tampa’s hotshot rookie.
When I was spent, I let out a short burst of a breath, collapsing onto the bench. My hands were red and raw when I released them from the bar, my legs still quivering.
Vince smiled against my pussy, kissing it lightly before crawling up to kiss my mouth.
“Cameras,” I breathed.
“I already took care of it.”
I blinked. “How?”
He nodded toward the top right-hand corner of the room. To my horror, there was a camera, but his t-shirt was thrown over it, blocking the lens.
“I didn’t want to get reamed by coach for working out the night before a game,” he explained.
“Audio?”
“None,” he promised. He captured my mouth again with a long, slow kiss. “No one gets my girl like this. No one but me.”
Those words unraveled me, sending any paranoia I had skittering away. I tried not to overanalyze, not to latch onto the way his lips curved when he said my girl. I knew as well as he did that this was just one night. It was giving in to the fire between us that refused not to burn. It was fighting and fucking because that’s what we were meant to do, from the moment we met.
All thoughts were wiped clean when he grabbed my wrists and pulled me to stand, his eyes skating over every inch of my skin.
“You should see yourself right now,” he said, biting his lip.
And then, like a lightbulb went off, a little smile curled on his lips, his eyes wide.
He tugged me away from the bench, stealing another kiss, and then he grabbed my hips and spun me around.
Until I was looking at myself, at us, in the mirror.
