Page 15 of Her Puck Daddies
Still, all I say is, “Yep. Afraid so.”
“Do you know why?”
God, I hate speaking for other people. “I do.”
Ava looks exasperated. “Care to enlighten me?”
If I must.
“They’re not…” Shit. How do I articulate this in a manner that won’t offend her? “They’re uncomfortable having you massage them.”
That’s about as simple and cut-and-dried as I can put it.
“Because we had sex?”
“Well, yeah,” I admit.
She folds her arms over her perfect tits—not that it does anything to hide them. Even with that pink scrub top doing its best to camouflage the view, I know exactly what’s underneath. I’ve seen them, touched them, sucked them, and no amount of fabric is going to make me forget.
Hell, I remember everything about that night with a clarity that could drop me to my knees if I let it.
The way I laid her out on that king-sized bed, her highlighted brown waves fanning out around her like a damn halo—except nothing about what we did was angelic. The way I spread her legs, lined myself up behind her, and slid my cock into her slick, greedy pussy as it squeezed me like a fitted sheath. And when I spanked her clit with just enough force for her to cry out, I felt her fall apart right there on me. Those hot, pulsing spasms milking my cock, drowning me in her pleasure.
I need to shake this memory, bury it somewhere deep, but damn if she isn’t standing right in front of me, looking like sin in scrubs, making it impossible to think about anything else.
I suck in a sharp breath, leaning over the table to cover my cock that’s plumping like the dough of a rising baguette. And while her work on me didn’t do this, remembering how she felt to fuck in bed certainly has.
Thankfully, she starts walking toward the sink to wash her hands. “You say that like it’s my fault,” she argues, and I have to force myself to remember what I just said.
Oh yeah, the ‘they won’t let you massage them because we all had sex’ thing.
“If they’re the kind of guys who think it’s fine for them to screw around all they want, but the instant a woman gives in, she’s a slut, then you might as well tell me now if that’s what they think of me.”
Well, I didn’t see that coming. But before I can even open my mouth, she barrels on.
“Because that’s a double standard. And frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m not going through that again.”
Something in her voice, sharp and edged with something deeper, clangs in my ears like a broken bell. This isn’t just frustration. It’s experience. A wound that hasn’t fully healed. Has she worked with assholes before? Or is this about something worse? Someone worse?
“They’re not like that, Ava. We’re not like that,” I say firmly. “Did anything about that night make you feel like you weren’t wanted? Like you weren’t respected?”
She glares at me over her shoulder, her expression unreadable but undeniably heated.
I clear my throat, shifting in my seat. “Well… disrespected in the wrong way, I mean.” Fuck, that didn’t sound any better. Three guys, one girl—some would consider that bad in every sense of the word.
“Levi and Eric aren’t bad guys,” I continue, trying to smooth this over. “They just need some time to figure out how to handle you being here when they weren’t prepared for it.” I pause, trying to find the right way to ask the next question.
“H-Have you… been around some bad guys, Ava?”
She clams right up, which tells me a lot more than she probably wants me to know. I see it—the way her soft, doe-like eyes darken, shadows creeping in, swallowing the warmth I saw just moments ago. And damn, it stirs something deep inside me, something primal and protective.
I don’t just want to comfort her; I want to obliterate whatever put those shadows there. Chase them away, burn them to ash, make sure they never touch her again—no matter what it takes.
Which is a strong overreaction, considering we barely know each other beyond our one night together. Yet, here I am, gripping onto this unfamiliar need to protect her like it’s my own damn heartbeat.
Maybe it’s because I was always really close with my parents. When they were alive, they were my biggest fans, and when I got drafted, they traveled for some of my games. I was their golden boy, their ticket to greatness, as they liked to say. We didn’t have much growing up, but with them, I never felt without. My older sister, two years ahead of me, and I were tight, too. We still are. She’s a doctor living in Mexico with her husband, whom she met at the clinic there. We talk every couple of weeks, joking about who’s going to be the first one to become an aunt or uncle, but with both of us buried in our jobs, who knows if it’ll ever happen. I was always the protector in the family—of my sister, my parents, anyone I cared about.
But wait... do Icareabout Ava?