Jaxson
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I grumbled the words under my breath, but it must have been loud enough for both the women near me to hear. The one behind the desk swallowed uncomfortably, keeping her eyes on her computer screen.
And the one next to me stiffened like I’d hit her.
Everything had me on edge — last night, the talk with Will, the call from my dad. This state of agitation was one I was used to during the season. But during the season, I had ice to take this energy out on. I could skate. I could hit a puck, hit a fucking grown man if I felt like it. It was why I went out after every game, too — win or lose.
Because if I didn’t do something with this energy, it would eat me alive.
I pinched my eyes shut, forcing a calm breath before I managed somewhat of a smile that I aimed at the receptionist. “We’ll take it,” I said, referring to the only room they had left.
The one with a single queen bed and no pullout couch.
I was too damn tired to keep driving any farther tonight, and we had found a small town that I was pretty sure only existed because a highway ran through it.
I was also anxious to talk to Grace, especially since she hadn’t opened her mouth once to speak to me since I picked her up. She just sat with that goddamned fake smile plastered across her face, staring out the window, like she couldn’t sense that something was off.
Which I knew was bullshit.
Then again, I hadn’t said a word either — mostly because I didn’t know where to start, or what to say, or what I fucking wanted.
Half of me felt pulled in the direction of obligation to, and respect for, my teammates.
The other, stronger half only felt pulled to her.
“Do you at least have a rollaway? A cot?” I asked. Having a room with only one bed certainly wasn’t going to help me in my attempts to keep my hands to myself. And that was what I needed to do. I needed to back us up into friend territory.
Even as I thought it, I internally laughed at it actually happening.
Like I could be just her friend after I’d seen every slender curve of her body, after I’d watched her pin her lip between her teeth and ride out an orgasm with those jade eyes locked on mine.
The receptionist — whose name tag read Emily — grimaced. “Unfortunately, we have many families staying with us, and—”
I waved her off before she could finish. “It’s fine. Thank you.”
The words were clipped as I handed her my card, and when I snuck a glance at Grace out of my peripheral, she had her arms folded around her, a somber look in her eyes.
Fuck.
That was worse than her fake smile.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I could have called her after the tournament and told her I couldn’t come get her. I could have picked her up and started driving toward Tampa. I could have encouraged her to leave me behind and get on a plane. I could have broken all this off and given her the choice.
Instead, I’d picked her up and made her suffer through an hour drive to the middle of fucking nowhere Missouri in complete silence.
I was a bastard.
I didn’t know what to do, what to say. All I knew was that I didn’t want to let her go, even when every fucking sign in the universe pointed to that being the right thing to do. I was a selfish prick, like a dragon sitting on its gold knowing I can’t even spend it.
“Here you are,” Emily said, handing me two plastic key cards. “You’ll be on the bottom floor, right down this hallway to the left. Ice and vending are across the hallway, and our breakfast starts at six.”
I tapped the keys on the counter with a muttered thank you before grabbing Grace’s luggage and steering us down the hall.
I’d only taken a few steps before she dashed out in front of me, snatching a key from me as well as the handle of her suitcase. She dropped my duffle bag at my feet.
“I can handle my own shit,” she said, lifting her chin. “And don’t worry — I’ll sleep on the floor. Wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through accidentally touching me.”
Grace landed her blow straight to my chest — especially when her eyes watered a bit with the words.
Of course, in true Grace fashion, those tears didn’t get the chance to fully form before she whipped around and stormed down the hall, scanning the key and shoving through the door to our room so hard that it slammed against the wall.
I couldn’t swallow past the knot in my throat, and I stood there in the hallway for a long moment before following after her.
When I did, I walked right into a Grace Tanev tornado.
A shirt hit me in the face, and I peeled it off me and dangled it from one finger as I shut the door behind me and set my bag on the floor. On closer inspection, I realized it was the little crop top she’d been wearing all day, and I looked up just in time to see her tug on an oversized Harry Styles t-shirt to replace it.
It was huge on her, and because it fell to her mid-thighs, I couldn’t be sure if she had on anything underneath it.
There were more pressing things to attend to anyway — considering she had her bag half-opened and shoved to the side and was currently ripping pillows off the bed. She threw two down to the ground, leaving the other two on the mattress, and then she ripped the comforter off in one fell swoop that somewhat impressed me, given her size.
“Grace, you’re not sleeping on the floor.”
She ignored me, stomping past me and into the bathroom with her toothbrush and face wash in tow. She slammed the door shut, leaving me to look at the disaster of a room.
This is going splendidly.
I stepped out of my shoes, leaving them by the door before I crossed to the pallet she’d made on the short, hard carpet. I picked up each of the pillows and placed them back on the bed. I was resetting the comforter when she swung out of the bathroom, and she let out a frustrated grunt when she saw what I’d done.
“Stop,” she said, nudging me aside so she could take the pillows off. Again.
“Grace.”
“It’s fine. I sleep in tents all the time, this is the same thing.”
She plopped the pillows on the floor.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she clipped, and she plopped down onto the floor, yanked the comforter from my hands, and wrapped it around her until she looked like a burrito.
“Don’t do that.”
She tried to glare at me, but her eyes betrayed her, watering again against her will. She shut them tight and burrowed deeper into the comforter without responding.
Slowly, I sank down next to her, careful to give her space, but close enough to let her know we weren’t dropping this.
“Let’s just get some sleep,” she tried.
“Not until you talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Well, that’s just too damn bad.”
Her mouth popped open as she looked over her shoulder at me.
“You don’t get to do this,” I said, pointing at her and then the space between us. “Not with me. You may have everyone else convinced that you’re happy go lucky no matter what life throws at you, but I see through it. You’re not okay right now. And that’s fine. But you need to admit it, and you need to stop trying to hide your fucking emotions. Face them, and talk to me.”
“Fine,” she said, ripping the comforter off her and sitting up to face me. “You want to talk? Then let’s talk. You want to be real? Let’s be real. You,” she said, pointing her finger into my chest. “Kissed me this morning.”
Her little nostrils flared with that, and fuck if I didn’t want to kiss her again.
“You held me,” she continued. “You told me everything would be fine. And then, you ignored me. All day long. And I know it was part of our stupid game plan,” she added, putting air quotes around the words. “But you didn’t have to act like I didn’t fucking exist. You say you can see right through me? Well, I see right through you.” Her chin wobbled a little, but she held it even higher. “And you don’t have to tell me. I already know what you’re too scared to say.”
She held my gaze for a long moment, letting the words sink in. Then, she turned away from me before emotion could warp her face again, wrapping herself up in the comforter.
My heart was pounding, breath wreaking havoc on my tightened lungs as I traced the curve of her back. This woman called to me the way nothing else in the world did. My entire body, my entire being responded to the sight of her balled up and hurting.
And whatever decision I thought I’d made, whatever right thing I thought I should do?
I fast pitched it all out the nearest window, and I crawled in behind her.
I tugged on the comforter with one hand, and she stiffened, clutching it tighter. But I slid in anyway, pulling again until she relented, until I could slip under the covers and lie on the floor with her.
She was so warm, so soft. I couldn’t help the sigh that left me when I aligned myself with her — my chest to her back, my hips behind hers, our legs curling around one another. My heart softened its pace as I burrowed my face into the back of her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair.
Sweet orange and salty air.
Grace was frozen until I pulled the comforter up around us like a fortress, covering even our heads. It was like blocking the world out, and she melted — just a little, but sufficient for me to know she’d lowered her walls enough for me to climb over.
“What is it you think you know?” I asked against her skin. “What is it you think I’m scared to say?”
The muscles of her jaw worked, and I heard her swallow several times before she could speak. She was trying not to cry, and some sick part of me wished she would just let it happen.
I hated that she was upset, but I hated that she was hiding that fact even more. She’d done it her whole life, masking what she really felt because she didn’t think there was space for her.
“Grace,” I prompted, nuzzling her neck. “What do you think you know?”
“That you don’t want me.”
She whispered the words so softly, and yet they broke me like a brutal hit against the glass. Then, she curled in on herself like a little kid.
I weaved my arm around her waist, pulling her into me again, lining us up in every possible place. I wanted her to feel my heart beating when I told her the truth.
“You think I don’t want you?” I asked against the shell of her ear. Then, I laced my fingers over hers where she’d tucked it under her pillow, and I held onto her tighter as I rocked my hips.
She sipped in a shallow breath, arching her back and meeting my movement with tentative reach. I pressed my erection into the crease of her ass, tangling my fingers with hers and savoring the little moan she let loose.
“Does that feel like I don’t want you?”
Grace rolled her ass against me, and I stifled a groan, letting out a heated exhale against her neck.
Both of us were barely breathing now, our bodies winding and rolling and intertwining in every possible way. She twisted in my arms to face me, and as soon as she did, we tangled ourselves up again — my fingers in her hair, hers curling around the back of my neck, my thigh sliding between her legs, her forehead dropping to mine.
“Then touch me,” she pleaded, her words dancing over my lips.
I swallowed, gripping her to me even as I shook my head. “I’m too old for you.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” she combatted, and she ground herself against my thigh, trembling when she got the friction she was searching for. “I’m asking you to touch me.”
Fuck.
“Your brother will kill me,” I gritted through my teeth, but even as I said the words that should have made us both stop, my hand was traveling. I splayed my fingertips across her collarbone, her chest, trailing down until I felt the small curve of her breast.
I palmed her through her shirt, rolling my hard-on against her as she let out a simpering moan that I felt all the way to my toes.
My thumb roamed, running a line under the swell of her breast before I slid it over her hard nipple. I’d seen that fucking nipple pressing against the thin fabric of so many of her shirts, her dresses. The girl never wore a bra, and it damn near killed me.
But now, touching her, feeling her, hearing the sounds she was making…
I squeezed where I held her, one flawless handful, and we both let out low groans when I did.
I hadn’t felt like this since I was a teenager, since I was hooking up with a girl for the first time. Everything inside me buzzed with awareness of each place our skin touched. Grace looked down at where I thumbed her nipple through her t-shirt, pinning her lip before she threw the covers off from where they covered our heads.
She climbed on top of me with a renewed sense of confidence, lowering her mouth until it hovered just above mine.
“Do you tell my brother everything?”
She said it with a teasing smile, throwing my own words right back in my face.
But she didn’t close the distance, didn’t kiss me — not yet.
She waited, straddling my lap with her hands braced on either side of my head. One roll of her heat against my shaft had me seeing stars, and I gripped her hips like I wanted to stop her, like I had a fucking prayer of stopping anything now.
I tried to breathe, tried to find reason, tried to remember all the ways this could go wrong.
But with my hands on that girl, nothing else made sense but her.
And over the sound of my racing heart, I heard the distant sound of my moral compass shattering.
“Come here,” I growled.
One hand found the back of her neck, the other held fast to her hips, and I pulled her mouth down to mine.
Grace sparked to life under that kiss, under my touch, both of us hissing our next breaths like they burned as much as they healed. I was so hard my cock was threatening to break the zipper on my pants as I thrust it against her, reveling in the way she shook when I rubbed that sensitive apex of her thighs.
I fisted my hands in the fabric of her shirt like she was the bull I was about to ride, like I had any chance of taming the wild woman writhing in my lap. She met my bruising kisses with her own, and then she was kissing down my neck, biting the flesh just under my jaw.
“Fuck,” I cursed, and then I rolled, pinning her on top of the comforter with her chest heaving, eyes glittering, lips curling into a daring smile.
She was so beautiful it hurt — her hair splayed over that pillow, her tan skin against the white comforter, her slight frame wiggling against my grasp like she needed more. I knew before I even fully succumbed to her that no other woman in the world would ever measure up.
“Before we do this,” I warned, stopping only long enough to return the kiss she urgently pressed against my lips. “I need to know — are you still thinking about him?”
That made her still, confusion bending her brows. “Who?”
“Your ex.”
The words felt like hot coals in my throat. I didn’t want to think about anyone else touching her — not before me, not after. But I had to ask. I had to know before I gave in that she wasn’t still hung up on someone else.
Grace nearly laughed when it dawned on her, and she shook her head, wrapping her arms around my neck and lifting enough to kiss me.
“I wasn’t even thinking about him when we were… whatever we were,” she said. “He was nothing. You, on the other hand…” She traced my jaw with her finger, shaking her head. “All I ever think about is you.”
I closed my eyes, savoring the way it felt to hear her say that. If any of my logic was still here, I’d tell her she shouldn’t. I’d remind her of all the reasons this was a terrible idea.
As it was, I didn’t care if it was wrong. I didn’t care about the possible consequences.
I’d face any of it, all of it, to have just one night with her.
She dragged her nails down my chest, ripping my shirt up from where it was tucked into my pants. “You, and your mouth.” She pressed a kiss there to hammer that point home. “And this body,” she added, a wave of chills breaking over my abdomen where she touched. One hand slid down lower, over my belt, and she wrapped it around me as much as she could. “And this cock that I want to taste.”
“Christ.”
I sat back on my knees long enough to rip my polo overhead, and then I braced myself over her again, kissing her hard and biting that plump bottom lip. I rocked against her, and as soon as she had her arms around my neck again, I flipped us until she was back on top.
“Get rid of this,” I said, tugging at the hem of her shirt.
That agitated energy in me transformed into something more focused, something primal as she obeyed.
This.
This was what I needed.
She peeled it overhead slowly, the fabric clinging to her in a way that made my hands ache to do the same. I watched the slow reveal of her hips, her stomach, the bottom swells of her breasts. When she pulled it up over her head, her long hair spilled down over her shoulders, and I let my eyes skate over her like she was fresh ice on an early winter morning.
I noted everything I’d missed before — the two, small beauty marks just above her left hip, the dip of an ab line that ran from above her belly button to just under her chest, the bell shape of her breasts, how her nipples were a shade darker than her skin. I registered it all with my eyes first, and then my hands, savoring the chills that raced across her body with every touch.
“These next,” I said, tucking my fingers into the band of her boy shorts.
Grace stood, backing up a few steps so she could make a show of sliding those hot pink shorts down her tan, toned legs. My cock twitched at the sight of her completely bare, at how that apex of her thighs was dusted with just a slender trail of hair.
I took in the view greedily as my hands moved for my belt.
“You want to taste me?” I asked, and Grace’s eyes fell to where I unfastened the leather.
She swallowed, nodding.
“Come on, don’t get shy on me now, Nova,” I teased as her eyes widened. “Where are those words you had before?”
I flicked the button open with my thumb, unzipped my pants, and lifted my hips enough to slide them down to my knees.
Grace’s eyes were on the tent pitched in my briefs, and I savored her watching me as I slid those down next, my cock springing to attention the second the fabric wasn’t restraining them.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
That sound spurred me on as I stripped my pants and briefs the rest of the way off. Then, we were both naked — Grace standing above me like a statue of a Greek goddess, and me wrapping a hand around my cock with one slow pump that made me even more desperate for her.
“Now,” I said, beckoning her with my fingers. I waited until she slid her hand into mine, and then I turned her, guiding her until she stood with her feet on either side of my head. “Sit that pretty pussy on my face and open your mouth wide.”
I helped her lower to her knees, spanking her ass before I palmed it and spread her cheeks. I groaned my appreciation for the view — because I could see just how wet she was, how badly she wanted me, too.
“I’m going to eat this pussy while I fuck your throat,” I promised, grabbing her ass and pulling her down more until she was straddling my mouth. I kissed the inside of each of her thighs before running my tongue in one long, flat sweep between her legs. “Let’s see who comes first.”
