Page 28 of Ice Cold, Red Hot (Coldwater Firehawks Hockey #1)

CELESTE

I hadn’t been sure what to expect, sitting out there on the bench watching the crowd wander away from the rink.

Shepherd had taken longer than I’d expected, and with every minute I waited, my hopes flagged. Had he wanted to tell me it was over for good? Had losing the game, and ending his season been too much for him?

But the second I saw him exit the arena doors, I knew that wasn’t the case.

He didn’t walk like a man who was defeated, and he didn’t have that hunted look I’d seen on him so many times—like his past was on his heels full of expectation and demands. Instead, his head was high and he looked calm. Assured. And then he’d seen me, and I’d been certain. This was not goodbye.

Now, walking at his side back to his truck holding hands, I felt the weight of promise all around us. There was still so much to be said, but I already knew that all the pain and uncertainty was over—and it was worth it.

Even holding Shepherd’s hand made me happy.

Because while the sex was… well, it was incredible…

it wasn’t the reason I wanted him. Something about the man at my side made me better.

His confidence in me, his comfort with my background, and the fact that he didn’t ask me to justify myself—it felt like an acceptance I’d never really had before.

Just as I didn’t see him as a promising hockey player on the brink of losing it all, he didn’t see me as a scrappy kid from a bad neighborhood desperate to be the one to make it out. I was just Celeste. And he was the man I loved.

We rode back to the building in silence, and when we parked outside, Shepherd came around and opened my door for me, helping me slide down from my seat so that I landed with my back against the seat and him at my front.

“Hi,” he said softly, inches from my face, our bodies touching.

“Hi,” I breathed, the anticipation between us ramping up my need for him.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said.

Before I could answer, his mouth was on mine, his hands on my body, and everything in me felt like it was exhaling a long-held sigh of relief.

I pressed myself into him, feeling every solid inch of his body against mine until I couldn’t get close enough.

Shepherd maneuvered us out of the cab, closing and locking the truck without breaking the kiss.

And then he stepped back, leaned down, and swept me into his arms like a bride, his mouth finding mine again as I laughed at the sweetness of the gesture.

He carried me to the building, and didn’t put me down until we were in the elevator, where his mouth worked its way across my jaw and down the column of my throat before he picked me up again when we reached our floor.

I was so overwhelmed by him—his body, his mouth, his tongue—that I didn’t even register entering his apartment, going into his room. The next thing I knew, I was on my back on his bed, Shepherd hovering over me.

He undressed me quickly, pulling off my gloves, my coat, my boots, and then making quick work of my jeans and my sweater. When I was clad only in my panties and bra, he pulled his own shirt off over his head and I spent a long moment in admiration of the muscled glory before me.

But after that? I let my eyes slide shut as he dropped, kissing a trail down my stomach and thighs until I was writhing with desire. Shepherd dropped kisses over my mound through my panties until I pushed them down myself, begging him silently to remove them, to give me what I needed.

Only then did he settle himself between my spread legs, slide one hand up each side of my body until he gripped my ass cheeks on either side, and drop his face to exactly the spot where I needed pressure.

“Oh, god,” I heard myself moan as his tongue flicked and curled around the most sensitive part of me. For what might have been hours, Shepherd reminded me of all the talents he had outside of hockey, until I couldn’t take anymore.

My hands were in his hair, fisting and pulling until he slid back up my body, a self-satisfied grin on his lips. “Did you like that?” He asked.

“You know I did,” I told him. As if my moans and the way my body shook hadn’t confirmed it for him. “Now take off your pants.”

“Bossy.” He complied, and a second later he was right where I needed him, notched at my entrance.

My hand reached down between us as his lips found mine again, and I stroked him as his tongue devastated my mouth. He groaned into me, sending my own need ever deeper until it ricocheted around every cell in my body and I used my hand to guide him into me.

He slid into my entrance slowly—I was so wet there wasn’t much need to wait—but the anticipation nearly killed me. I was thrusting up beneath him, trying to take him all, as he pulled back, resisting me.

“You’re going to kill me,” I whined, kissing him between words.

“You’re killing me,” he whispered. “I’m trying to make it last more than five seconds. I’ve wanted you so bad for so long…”

That just about sent me over the edge.

“God, Shepherd. We can do it again later slowly if you want. Just fuck me now.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, and I felt the mood shift.

He thrust, taking him almost all the way, in. One more thrust, and he was right there where I needed him.

“Oh fuck,” I moaned. “Oh my god yes.” The sensation was so heady, so overwhelming. Shepherd Renshaw was filling me completely, all around me, consuming my world, my energy, my very oxygen. And it was everything.

He moved slowly then, but I could feel him fighting for control as I gripped him with everything in me, needing more, wanting it to never end .

Each thrust ratcheted my body’s tension a notch higher, taking me to a point where something in the back of my mind actually feared the unraveling—would it hurt? I’d never been this ready before, this coiled for release.

Sounds were coming from my throat each time he moved, desperate, throaty, needy sounds. And when he thrust next, they morphed as my body responded.

I felt my back arch off the mattress, every muscle inside me grip and then shake before finally releasing with such power I couldn’t control it.

I heard my voice, but it was distant. I was too far away, rocketed into some other sphere by the pleasure whipping through me, circling every cell of my body and then centering in the place where Shepherd’s cock filled me so deliriously.

As I began to come to myself again, I opened my eyes to find his dark irises there, waiting. And the eye contact sent him past his limit.

He groaned, and it was a primal, animal sound as he thrust once more, then twice, and then lost control completely, his body shuddering into mine as he let go.

This time it was different between us. It wasn’t like the angry, desperate connections we’d had since being at school. This was giving and taking in equal measure—more like what we’d had over the summer. Before…everything.

Shepherd collapsed to one side, resting his forehead against my shoulder as his breath slowed.

I let my fingers trace circles across his back, smiling at the soft golden skin covering all that muscle. Happiness was blooming inside me, and I longed to embrace it, but I knew it would be a little while before I could trust whatever this newfound connection between us was .

There was so much I wanted to say—so much more to discuss.

But Shepherd was no doubt exhausted from the game, and I was exhausted from the sheer effort of my own existence lately.

I held him to me and drifted as his breathing deepened, and then I turned to my side and drifted off, sleeping deeply for the first time in weeks.