Page 3

CHAPTER 3

ONE AND DONE

KAYDEN

"There are so many better options than this."

Emory ignores me and strides into the lobby of a hotel that's barely a step above the kind that rents by the hour. There's only one armchair, shoved into the corner and looking less comfortable than a park bench. I'm shocked the person working the desk isn't behind a thick plexiglass partition.

"It doesn't have to be my place," I say, following behind her. "But I'd really prefer some place that won't give me chlamydia from just looking at the blanket on the bed. I've got money."

"What's the shortest term stay you have?" Emory asks the woman working at the desk before glancing over her shoulder at me. "Do you rent by the minute?"

I step up beside her, careful to avoid touching the counter with its permanent dark stain from years of people resting their hands in the same spot. "We need all night. All night long and well into the morning." I place my hand on the small of Emory's back, but she tenses and steps out of my reach.

"I'll give him the benefit of the doubt," she tells the worker. "Give us your finest ten-minute room, please."

The woman seems unimpressed with us as Emory hands her a credit card. "One night minimum. Second floor." She slides our key card across the counter. "The pool is closed for maintenance."

"You really think we'd use the pool at a place like this?" I look around the lobby one more time. A brown-stained ceiling tile sags under the weight of a water leak. Below it, there's a bright yellow bucket. I'm not sure what I smell hanging in the air, but I'm sure it's not cleaner.

"Check out is at 9:30am," the woman continues, unfazed. Her voice is flatter than the parking lot out front. "No free breakfast."

"What a shame. I was looking forward to a giant serving of salmonella. Come on." I take Emory's hand and start down the hall before the clerk can tell us the only plumbing is in the outhouse out back. "I hope you're okay with stairs. God knows what people have done in that elevator. It probably doesn't work anyway."

Emory half-heartedly tries to pull her hand away as I push open the door to the staircase, which, surprisingly, only smells like mold. "You can let go of me."

"Listen, Ginger, we're going to be doing a lot more than holding hands in just a few minutes, and you're going to love every second of it. Soon, you'll be begging me to touch you, so you might as well get used to it."

"In a few minutes, I'll be closing my eyes and pretending you're one of the Hemsworth brothers, so unless you can do an Australian accent, please stop all activities involving your mouth."

At the top of the stairs, I turn to face her. "I promise you won't be saying that when I have you on that bed and your panties on the floor."

"Nope, you still sound like an American." She draws two pinched fingers across her mouth, telling me to zip it, but I take that hand too and pull her so close her breasts press into my chest.

"You want to do this, right? You and me in this room behind me that's probably dirtier than the primate house at the zoo?" She doesn't say a thing, so I quirk an eyebrow. That always works on women for some reason .

"That eyebrow does nothing for me," she says, but the look on her face tells me different.

"Say it Emory. Tell me you want the most spectacular sex you've ever had. Because that's what I'm going to give you. I am going to fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk for a week. You're going to be in a wheelchair because of the dicking I'm about to give to you. Just as soon as you say you want it. Say the words, and I won't need an accent because my tongue will speak a language you've never experienced before. Say it, Emory."

"Um, hi? Excuse me?" There's a light tap on my shoulder, and I turn around to see a shirtless man standing just behind me. "Sorry. I just need to get past you to the ice machine please." He holds up a brown ice bucket as he squeezes around us. "Oh, and girl, if you don't say yes to him, I will."

"Yes, Kayden. I want to get this supposedly magical… you know," she whispers with a quick glance over her shoulder. I can barely hear her over the clanking of the ice machine, but I read lips well enough to know exactly what she said, even if the way she's biting her lower lip didn't already tell me.

"Good choice." I take the key card from her hand as I lead her toward our room. The light on the lock flashes green as I swipe the card in front of it, and I say a quick prayer that there isn't dried blood on the carpet inside.

"I'm in room 218," Ice Machine Man announces as he walks past us. "In case either of you changes your mind. Or both of you."

"Oh my god, get in the room before he tries to join us," Emory hisses and practically shoves me in. I twist us so my back ends up against the wall as the door slams shut.

I pull her tight, and as soon as our bodies touch, my cock goes hard. "It seems that you like being against me."

"Me? I'm not the one with the dick cosplaying as a sword. Let go of me, and I'll show you exactly how much I like being against you when I run to the other side of the room. "

"What if I don't want to let go?" I whisper against the side of her neck. Strands of her hair dance under the breath of my words.

She grinds her hips against me, and my head rolls back. It feels so incredible. "Then you're going to make a mess in your underwear."

If I don't get them off soon, I just might. I haven't been with anyone since last season, and my balls are just about to murder me. "Damn it, Emory." I let go, but even without me holding her in place, she doesn't move. "Already can't get enough of me?"

She presses her palm flat to my chest and runs her hand down. Across my abs and over my waistband until she cups my balls. A groan escapes my mouth before I can stop it.

"I think it's the other way around," she whispers. "I think you can't get enough of me. Why else would you stare at me from the minute I walked in today? You're obsessed with me, puck boy. And I think I could break you right now if I wanted to."

I wrap my hand around hers and press it even harder into me. A jolt rips through my body, and my balls would scream if they could. "I think you do want to break me. But you're not going to get the chance."

I lock my eyes on hers as I walk her backwards across the room. Even in the dim hotel room, her light green irises are sparkling. "Tonight is all about you. Before we're done, you're going to call me Daddy." She snorts, and even her laugh is sexy. My body is obviously not made to go this long without sex.

When her legs bump against the edge of the mattress, I drop to my knees and slip my hands around the back of her thighs, sliding my palms up to lift her dress. Jesus Christ, those thighs. I lean down and kiss the center of each one. First her left and then her right. All I want to do is plant myself between them and never come back up again, but I force myself to rock back, away from them while I cup her ass. I knead my hands over the silky material of her panties and then trace a finger down the line of her crack.

She gasps as I press between the cheeks, and it takes her a moment to catch her breath. "You're not even close to where I want you."

"Then tell me, Emory." I kiss her thigh again and slowly work my way up. Brushing my lips against her soft skin as I move. "Tell me exactly what you want from me."

She drops to the bed, and it drives my finger even further between her cheeks. "You know what I want. You're so close." She's practically growling at this point. I've never had a woman growl at me. It's incredibly hot, just like everything about her.

"I do. I know exactly what you want." I stand, guiding her to lie back on the bed as I straddle her. "But you'd better believe I'm going to take my time giving it to you."

I bend over her and kiss along her collarbone. Goosebumps ripple across her skin. "I love your freckles." I make it a point to kiss each of the large ones along the top of her chest.

"I hate them."

I stop and look up at her. "Don't ever say that. Every single one of them is beautiful, Emory." My lips fall back on her, but I move higher this time. Up the side of her neck and along her jaw. Her breaths grow more shallow. Under me, her body is writhing. "Do you like this?" I rest my palms on her shoulders as I plant kisses along her jaw.

"Kayden…"

"I know, beautiful, but you're just going to have to wait. I'm taking my time with you." I flex my hips against her just as my lips get to her chin. I am going to devour every inch of this woman. This might only be one time, but she's never going to forget it. I want her thinking of me every time she has sex for the rest of her life.

I slip a hand between us, between her legs. She's already so hot. I find the edge of her panties and slip my fingers inside as I brush kiss after kiss on her chin. My lips moving up toward hers, just as the pad of my middle finger finds her clit.

"Kayden…" Her voice is more urgent now, so I slow the motion of my finger. I want to hold her on this edge for hours. Just as I kiss the delicate skin between her chin and lower lip, she plants a hand on my chest. "Kayden. Stop." She pushes me away. Hard. "Right now."

I slide off her and stand at her feet. "What's wrong?" Her eyes are wild. Not from being on the edge of coming undone. They're desperate with panic. "Talk to me, Emory."

She looks right through me, her chest rising and falling with each rapid breath. After several seconds, it begins to slow, and she turns away. "It's nothing. Just… stay lower please."

"That was not nothing. I am so attracted to you, Emory." More than I've ever been attracted to anyone, but I'm not going to tell her that when this is just a one-night stand. "But we're not doing a single thing if you don't want to." I step to the side so she has room to sit up or even leave, if that's what she wants.

Instead, she reaches for my hand.

"I'm fine—I swear—and I do want this. I'm attracted to you too. Even if admitting that feels like stepping on sharpened glass shards."

"Ouch." I clutch my free hand to my chest.

"Razor sharp glass shards that are mixed with white-hot coals." She smiles up at me. "Oh, and poison too."

"I think I get the picture." I sit on the edge of the bed. Her hand is still in mine, but I leave plenty of space between us.

She brushes her thumb back and forth over my knuckles, and my breaths sync to the rhythm of her touch. "Despite all that, I still want this with you. Just no…" She motions towards her lips. "No kissing here. But please don't stop, Kayden."

"Well, since you're begging, who am I to say no?"

She slaps my arm. "I am not begging. I would never beg. But since we're both here and since the room is paid for, we might as well take advantage of it."

I trail a finger across her stomach. "We are both here."

"We are." She lets her eyes close and with her hair spread around her, for a split second, she looks angelic.

"I would hate to waste this lovely room." I lie beside her and slide my finger up to the band of her bra. She moans at the touch.

"It did cost almost forty dollars."

I try to hold in my laugh, but a tiny snort slips out. "Then I need to make sure you get your money's worth." I watch her face as I trace the outline of her bra, searching for any sign of discomfort as I move to her nipple. Her eyes are still closed, but her mouth falls open at my touch. So I press a bit harder. Even through her dress and her bra, her nipple hardens under my touch. "I'd love to take this off and see you. If that's okay."

She bites her lower lip and nods.

"Good girl." Even though I'm no longer touching her, she moans at the words. "You like that?" I ask, but it's so obvious there's not a question.

"I do," she whispers, as if she's afraid to admit it.

I lift her hips from the bed, raising the dress to her waist. She takes it the rest of the way as I kiss her bare stomach. The women I'm used to are athletic, with stomachs that are almost as flat and taut as mine. But that's not Emory. She has so many more curves than those women. I wish I could take all night and explore each one. "You are such a good girl." I punctuate each word with a kiss along her stomach and down to her panties. Dark purple with a lace front. I plant kisses along the lace. Lower. Between her legs. "Can I take these off you too?"

She nods, and I ease them down. I know she wants me to hurry, so I do the opposite. Inch by inch, I work them down until, after an eternity, they're around her ankles.

"How do you ever score any baskets as slow as you are?"

I chuckle. "You really don't watch hockey, do you?" I slip the panties off her and massage my way up her calves. Then her thighs. God, these thighs are going to kill me, and I'll love every second of it.

"I tried watching a game. For Lily. I don't get the point."

"The point," I use a finger to draw circles along her cleanly shaven mound, "is to score a goal by getting the puck into the other team's net." I slide my finger between her legs, and she spreads for me. "Like this." I tease the finger around her clit and along the side of her folds. Her breaths are more rapid now, and I can't help my smile.

"Pretend this is the net." I circle around her opening. "Sometimes you can go right in." I slide her to the edge of the bed and kneel between her legs. "That's quick, but it's boring. No one wants boring. I prefer the goals where I have to sneak around. Like this. " I swipe my finger over her clit and then down her folds. "Other times, you might need to come around from the rear." With my other hand, I reach behind her and skate my finger from the back of her thigh toward her ass. "That's called a wraparound." I lean forward and kiss my way down to just above her clit.

"When you put it that way, it doesn't sound bad at all." Her words are more breath than sound.

I wrap my lips around her swollen nub and suck it into my mouth. She gasps, so I flick my tongue across it and let go. Then I lick either side where her thighs meet her pelvis. Finally, I draw my tongue up her center.

"Hockey is beautiful, Emory. " Her breath catches and her thighs tense as I kiss along her slit. "To play it, you need grace and power. But only the very best players are great at both."

She props herself up so she can look at me. Her eyelids are already heavy, and I know that she's close. "Is that you? One of the very best players?"

I shrug. "You tell me. Are you ready to call me Daddy yet?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm never calling you that."

"You'll call me that."

I bury my face against her pussy, working my tongue along her folds and then up again to her clit. I don't hold back this time. I pull it into my mouth until she whimpers. Then I let go and sweep my rough tongue across its sensitive surface. Again and again until she's trembling.

"This is going to be so good you'll celebrate the anniversary of this day." I pull her clit into my mouth one more time. "Are you ready to say it yet? "

"Doesn't your mouth have better things to do than talk?" Her words are trembling as much as she is.

"A good girl would say it. Be a good girl for me, Emory."

Her back arches and she growls. Her eyelids are pinched shut, and her breaths are coming quick now. "Fuck you, puck boy." She grinds the words through her clenched teeth.

The feeling of my laughter must be enough to send her off because her thighs clamp the sides of my head. I suction her clit fast, like I'm milking it as she comes apart around me.

She's doing her best to not scream, but her moans are so loud, I have no doubt the neighbors can hear exactly what's going on here. I keep working my tongue until her muscles relax and she starts to squirm against me. "Say it now."

She looks up at me, her eyes still distant from the haze of her orgasm. "Maybe other women tell you what you want to hear, but that's not me. I've had better. In fact, I had better in the ladies' room of a restaurant last week with a man I barely even knew."

"Has anyone ever told you that your nostril twitches when you lie?"

"Apparently it twitches when I'm in the presence of a self-important, mediocre man too."

"Mediocre?" I kick off my shoes and unzip my pants, ripping them down my legs, but not before I take a condom from my pocket. My dick is so hard now that it hurts, and I don't know how I'm going to last more than a few seconds.

She sighs. "I should have known."

"Known what? That you'll never have better than this? That this is going to ruin you for other men? You might as well swear off sex with anyone else after tonight."

"Known that you'd wear black boxer briefs. So unimaginative."

I smirk. "Don't like them? I can fix that." I yank them off and toss them somewhere behind me. "Better?"

The side of her mouth curves as she shrugs.

"Now I know you're lying. This is the apotheosis of dicks. It's the kind of dick the ancient Greeks painted on the side of their vases twenty-five hundred years ago." I rip the foil packet open and roll the condom on.

"More like the tiny prick on Michelangelo's David ."

I move between her legs and guide the tip of my cock through her folds. "My dick is the entire slab of marble the David was made from, and right now you're going to be a good girl and take it all. You can try to tell me you don't like it, but your face is already giving you away and I haven't even started yet."

She draws in her lip and looks up at me. "Before you slab me with that thing, have you ever been with a trans woman?"

"Not that I know of. Why? Do you need letters of recommendation? Does your pussy have an entrance exam? Because I promise you, I'll ace it."

"Why didn't I insist on the no talking rule?" Emory shakes her head and reaches into the purse lying on the bed beside her. "I don't really make my own lubrication. At least, not enough. Here. Do you know how to use this?"

"Do I know how to use lube? I could write books on the things I know about sex."

"If only you could write. Such a loss for the world."

"It's a shame this beautiful pussy is right here in front of me, because I would love to fuck that smart mouth."

She slides lower on the bed, pressing her opening against my dick. "Don't worry. My pussy is smarter than you are too. You're outmatched no matter what part of me you fuck."

I grin as I squirt lube onto my finger and slide it inside her. I don't know the last time I had this much fun while having sex. Maybe never. She's not wrong about the women I usually hook up with. Most of them do tell me what they think I want to hear, and I always thought that was fine. Now, I don't think it is. But it's what I have to settle for. "You really think your pussy can handle what I'm about to give it?"

"I think it's more than ready to show you what it can do. "

I slip inside her, not bothering to be gentle because I know that's the last thing she wants from me. I plunge until I can't move any deeper inside her. Then I pull out and plunge back in again. "Jesus, Emory. You're so tight for me. This feels…" I don't even have the breath to finish my own sentence. I've never been with any woman who feels this amazing.

"Shush. Don't ruin this by… by talking. Save that big dick energy for actually—goddamn, Kayden—for actually fucking me." I drive into her again and again and then add my thumb to her clit. Almost as soon as I do, her head rolls back. "Fucking hell, puck boy." She doesn't bother trying to be quiet this time.

"You're such a good girl for me, Emory." I want to see the look on her face as she comes, but my eyelids are scrunched tight as my own orgasm rips through me. It feels like my body is literally exploding around my cock. Inside this woman. My knees go weak, and I have to reach out to Emory's leg for support. I've never felt like this with anyone else. It has to be because I've gone so long without an orgasm.

When I'm completely spent, I pull out of her, toss the used condom into the hotel room trash, and fall onto the bed beside her, staring at her. At the tiny bump on the bridge of her nose that I would never notice if I weren't this close. At the strong line of her jaw. At her forehead, shiny with sweat. There are several strands of hair stuck to it. I brush them out of her face. "That was?—"

"What are you doing?" She bolts up and glares at me. "No cuddling. We made rules, Kayden."

I chuckle at her now-raspy voice and tap my index finger on her lips. " You made rules."

"You didn't seem to mind them when it meant you could stick your dick in me. I'm going to get cleaned up. You need to be gone when I'm done." She goes to the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.

"At least let me walk you to your car."

She doesn't say a thing. Just turns on the shower.

When the water turns off, and I hear the screech of the shower door sliding open, I roll off the lumpy mattress and stand against the wall opposite the bathroom door, waiting until she opens it.

"You're still here."

"I'm still here. So is Ice Machine Man. I'm walking you to your car."

Her eyes dart to the door, as if she's considering taking her chances without me. "Fine. But it doesn't mean anything. Just an acquaintance walking another acquaintance to her car so the weird guy doesn't get any ideas. No touching. And goodbye is goodbye. I'm flying back to Colorado in the morning. Got it?"

"Trust me, I don't do relationships. This is it. One and done."

"One and done."