Page 99 of Hockey Halloween
Mason
Lilith exists in my space like she’s always been here.
Our middle of the night talk where I fell asleep on her after a blowie doesn’t seem to have scared her away.
She’s standing in the kitchen of the hockey house, wearing one of my t-shirts that falls down to her knees.
She’s barefoot, her hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, and her cheeks are pink as she stands over the stove making scrambled eggs and pancakes.
I lean against the doorframe, arms folded, the cool tiles making my toes cold underfoot.
“I feel your eyes on me, Mason.” There’s a smile in her voice as she speaks.
Mason . The way she says my name curls around me like a warm, furry blanket on a bitterly cold February Iowan morning.
“Get used to it, Ghost. It’s going to happen a lot. You know you’ll need to either eat and run or make enough for whoever happens to wander in here?”
She flips open the door of the stove and gestures to the trays of food warming inside. “Already on it. Someone’s been in and swiped a plate before you were even awake.”
“That was me,” Rico appears waving an empty plate. He plants a quick and innocent kiss on Lilith’s cheek. “Best pancakes ever. But don’t tell the guys, they’ll be jealous.”
I clear my throat, making my own jealousy known. “Lips off my woman, Rico.”
He grins at me before holding his hands up. “You know she’s not my type.” He means female, but that does little to ease the barb of discomfort at seeing another man’s lips anywhere near her creamy, soft skin.
I arch a brow, and he keeps his hands up.
“Okay, fine.” He huffs out a sharp breath.
“Y’all get so goddamn animalistic over your partners.
” He thumps his chest. “Me strong man. Me claim woman. You stay away.” He grunts and snorts like some kind of wild beast making Lilith laugh, and I almost encourage him to do it again.
Fucking love her laugh.
“I know some feminists don’t like that show of brutish possession.” She stirs the eggs.
“But?” I lean forward, drawn to her magnetic aura. Fuck. She’s turning me into a poetic fool.
“But… I don’t know.” She pushes up onto her tiptoes. “I kind of like seeing that vein bulge in your neck when you’re all alpha.” She fans her face with her hand. “Isn’t it hot?” She leans toward Rico who leans her direction, drawing a growl from the back of my throat.
He shoots his thumb my direction. “And sounds like that? Phew. Talk about spank bank material.”
It’s Lilith’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “No spanking your bank over my guy, Rico.”
He thumps his chest. “Me woman. Me claim man.”
She laughs again, then shoves him gently and jerks her chin at the dining table to tell me to sit down. “Allergies?”
“Smiling,” Rico answers for me before he moves my way and grips my cheeks between his palms. “Don’t know why, he’s adorable when he does.”
She waves a spatula at Rico. “Don’t make me beat you, hockey player.”
“Ohhhh. Wait!” Ares comes in wearing what can only be described as black snugs.
They’re barely covering his dick, and I’m sure if he turned around, I’d see nothing but ass.
I’m seeing way more of my teammates junk right now than I’d like, but he’s a stripper and doesn’t give a shit.
If we have a problem with his cock, it’s our problem.
“Let me get my camera out. Can’t miss recording Rico getting his ass handed to him by Pennywise. ”
“Why are you here? You have your own apartment.” I try not to talk to his crotch, but dude is hung and it’s right fucking there.
He shrugs. “I needed to bang my girl and this place was closer.” Thank God we get a cleaning crew in once a week.
Joys of having rich teammates, they don’t let us dissolve into squalor.
All surfaces that have had Ares’s hairless ass cheeks on them in the past twenty-four hours will be cleaned in two days.
“Who’s banging?” Tate saunters in, low-slung sweats that show his impressive Adonis belt, but nothing else. Good. I’m about to go full neanderthal on this room and beat everyone’s ass for showing skin in front of my girl.
“There’s banging?” A shirtless Scott joins the group, leaning over Lilith’s shoulder to steal a slice of bacon from the plate she’s filling from the pan. She spanks him with the spatula she’d just threatened Rico with.
Scott winks at her. “I love a feisty woman.”
“Speaking of, doesn’t yours own her own building or something? Couldn’t you have stayed with her?”
He makes his pecs dance, and Lilith rolls her eyes on a laugh. “She came here after the game, remember? Where my good lady goes, so goeth I.”
Lilith covers her forehead with the back of her hand and makes a swooning noise. “So romantic.”
Athena walks in right as Lilith pretends to faint against Scott’s bare chest. “Is there an orgy happening that I wasn’t invited to?” She stutters to a stop before holding a flat palm up to Ares’s face. “Jesus Christ, man. Do you have to just… let it all hang out like that?”
Amusement lights up Lilith’s face as she finishes making breakfast. Everyone who’s in the hockey house sits around the enormous dining table, and Scott and I take over cooking from my girl so she can get a hot, fresh breakfast. She’s reluctant to hand over the frying pan and spatula, but once she’s sitting between Athena and a still barely clad Ares, she looks right at home.
I could watch her all day, the way her head tips back, that glittering sparkle in those expressive eyes, and the slightly uneven tilt of her mouth.
“Dude.” Scott bumps my hip with his. “You have it fucking bad.”
I can’t deny it. I hold my hands up in surrender. “Guilty as charged. She’s bewitching. I’ve been bewitched.”
He snorts. “I get it.” He looks at Athena like she hung the fucking sun, the moon, and every star in the sky by hand. “It’s so good to see that smile back though, Mac.” He doesn’t call me beast, and come to think of it, neither did Athena last night when she told me to look after Lilith.
“Personally, I think your smile is hotter now you have that wicked cool scar.” He winks at me. “But what do I know?”
“Would you assholes stop flirting and finish cooking already?” Athena drums her knife on the table. “We’re going to be finished before you even start!”
Lilith doesn’t cower or shy away from the chaos around her at the table, she laughs and chats to the gang like she’s been here all along.
I don’t know how that prick Johnny White didn’t know what he had, but now that he’s let her go, now that I’ve found her, I’m so grateful that he was such an epically dumb fuck.
Lilith catches me staring at her. “What?” She tips her head to the side.
I shake my head, a slow smile spreading across my face. “I never thought I’d see the day I was grateful to JW.” I swallow hard, as everyone’s eyes turn to me in stunned silence. “If you two hadn’t broken up, I’d never have found you.”
The group erupts into ‘awwws’ and ‘pukes’ and there’s a ripple of ridicule over pancakes and eggs, but when I sit across the table from my girl, everything just feels fucking right.