Page 24

24

SARAH

“ I know it’s late, but I have a surprise waiting for us,” my voice is giddy as I tell Riley and I’m barely able to hold in my excitement.

His face is lit up from the glow of the dashboard and I see a smile lift his cheeks. “Well it’s clearly not you sitting on my bed wrapped with a bow.”

I lightly hit his thigh. “Perv.”

“What? It’s Christmas time. The time to unwrap all of the presents.” He states his case as he pulls into the parking garage and whips into his spot.

“Play your cards right and that might be a present for you.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and hop out before Riley can stop me.

With Riley no longer my client, I’ve never felt more balanced in all areas of my life. Mason officially announced his retirement, Nate is visiting family in Virginia, and the soccer player I was working with decided he no longer liked my direct approach with his image so we parted ways. It was no skin off my back as I managed to sign on two more football players and one of Nate’s teammates. I meet with them before the end of the year to discuss their goals and what they want their personal brand to reflect.

“Oh are we making lists?” Riley asks when he finally steps out of the car. He snags his bag from the backseat and we head over to the elevator bank.

“No,” I draw out and push the button to go up. We have no wait and head straight into the elevator car. “Besides, I wouldn’t even know what to ask for. I buy all of my own things.”

“Hmm,” Riley starts and I rest my body on his and look up at him. His eyes are darker in the elevator, but that’s what I love about them. “I’ll have to do some serious re-con.”

I narrow my eyes at him and push off when the elevator opens. Riley’s “re-con” involves texting my best friends and getting their input. Jokes on all of them because none of them will have a clue as to what to get me. Although, I’ll never turn down a pair of shoes.

Riley moves around me to open the door and swats me on the butt as I pass. I go right to the bedroom because the surprise is in here.

The sound of Riley’s bag hitting the floor with a thud signals he’s saying hi to the girls. Pixie is still coming around to me being around while Sasha usually hangs off my body anytime I’m here.

“Blue, I know it’s late, but–what is this?” He asks when he gets to the threshold.

I’m standing by the bed with my arms pointing to the bed.

“You got us matching jammies?”

“Mm hmm. Baby, you’re freakishly tall and muscular, so I had a tough time tracking down a matching set.”

Riley wastes no time and pulls off his sweatshirt while I eye his tattooed and rippling torso appreciatively. His sweatshirt hits me in the face and his chuckle is muffled. I’ll never stop appreciating his physique for as long as we’re together.

Our matching pajama set in question is a navy blue color with gingerbread houses, candy canes, presents, snowmen, and basically everything Christmas print all over. Riley pulls on the solid blue henley, which I’ve come to find that he favors over any other type of shirt so his excitement is palpable when he puts the shirt on.

I’m not shy about changing in front of Riley. But anytime I take something off my body, he takes everything else off and we end up in bed.

“Are you going to change?” Riley asks as he slides his jeans down his legs.

“Yep. When you leave the bedroom.”

“I can control myself.” He states as he also slips his boxers off and I meet his eyes. The devilish grin is telling.

I cross my arms and pop my hip to the side. He’s so full of shit and he knows it. His pants slide up his legs and they fit perfectly.

“Okay, princess, I’m going to the living room.” Riley holds his hands up in surrender and walks backwards to the living room.

I wait until I hear his shit talking to Pixie about how it’s me who can’t control themselves. Shaking my head, I peel off my arena layers and decide to rinse off before heading back out there. I’m brushing my hair out when I hear Riley complain that I’m taking too long.

“Do you know how hard it is to see you skating across the ice and then having to wait for you to finish your post-game talks and then shower?” I point out to him and I look into the bedroom to see him spread eagle on the bed.

With my Christmas pajamas on, I turn the bathroom light off and crawl over him on the bed. His hands land heavy on my hips and his eyes land on my face. It’s definitely love I see reflected back at me. And I realize that it no longer scares me. Love with Riley is an adventure that I’m not afraid to take.

His position shifts suddenly when he stands up and carries me to the living room. My legs wrap around his waist and his hands lock under my butt. I place a kiss on the side of his head before he’s dropping down onto the couch with The Santa Clause already cued up.

“Now, we only have time for the first movie since someone took so long getting dressed,” he explains and I pinch him in the side resulting in a yelp. “But, we can watch the second one tomorrow night.”

“If I’m back in time,” I tell him and press the play button on the remote.

“What do you mean?”

I cover us with one of the many throw blankets, this time a festive throw blanket, which is more like the size of a large tent, and turn to Riley. “Kamryn and Mason are wedding planning. Well, mainly Mason since Kam is busy with the holiday season.”

“Did they set a date?”

Scott Calvin’s holiday work Christmas party fades onto the screen. If the 90’s had a vision for what it looked like, they nailed it.

“Yes. They chose April.”

“That soon?” Riley’s surprised.

“Trust me. These two talked about marriage when we were in college. So this speed is no different. Plus, I think they want to start a family sooner rather than later.” At the time, I wasn’t going to ask him since we were temporary, but now I can. “Would you want to be my date to their wedding? I mean, we can’t sit together during the ceremony since I’m officiating it. But there’s always the reception.”

“I would love to.”

I turn back to the movie with an uncontrolled smile on my face but I feel Riley burning a hole in the side of it with a question ready to fly off his tongue.

“Do you want a family?”

There it is. I lean forward and press the pause on the remote. Turning, I slide my leg over his and give him my full attention. “I thought you wanted to watch a movie?”

“I do. But I think–no, I am curious about what you want for your future. You’re much further ahead than I am in life and I wasn’t sure if that’s something you thought of.” In this moment, he looks much older than his twenty-three years and it shocks me that he could even be thinking about a family this soon into our relationship.

“Momma and I had this talk at Thanksgiving,” I tell him and his eyebrows fly to his hairline and I nod with a closed smile. “When I was with my ex, we were of the mutual understanding that work came first. We were both so–I don’t want to call it power hungry, but that’s what we were. Our jobs were our top priorities, or so I thought. Maybe I was so hellbent on succeeding that I brushed off his little comments about how our friends' kids were cute or how this couple just announced their pregnancy.” I smooth out the furrow in the middle of Riley’s forehead. “That may have been why when he told me the girl he cheated on me with was pregnant, I was in shock. Mostly angry that he did that behind my back. So that day, I pushed away any thought of ever having a family or loving someone. But then you came along and threw everything I thought I didn’t want out of the window. Kids were never in the cards with anyone from my past. Neither was a future. And maybe that was a good thing. Because with you now I think I can see it all.”

Riley lunges forward and takes my mouth in a burning kiss. He effortlessly pulls me over so I’m straddling his hips. My explanation was more of a silent love declaration and if this kiss means anything it’s that this is it. His tongue teases at my lips and I open. My breath is stolen as he licks into my mouth and Riley’s hands wrap around my waist, holding me in place. This isn’t just a kiss. It’s a declaration that we might finally be on the same page in the same chapter and on the same sentence. Not that we were ever on different pages. But this feels like our story may finally be written and completed at the same time.

I slide my hands through his now almost shoulder-length hair and break the kiss. His eyes are wild and his lips are red from our kiss. “I love you, Riley. I had this big speech planned–”

“I love you too. I remember telling you to let it be me when you decided to love again. I’ve been wanting to say those words to you for weeks. But I didn’t want to scare you away.”

“The only thing that would’ve scared me was you not feeling the same way.”

He leans forward and shakes his head. The tips of our noses brush together and my heart sings. “No, Blue. You wouldn’t have scared me away. But I think I was just waiting for you to catch up.” With a kiss to the tip of my nose, he slides me off his lap but keeps me tucked close as he presses play on the movie.

Is it possible to want to burst from so much joy? This has to be what Kam and Emily felt when they declared their love to Mason and Adam. Because I never felt this with Paul. In fact, he was less of the touchy-feely type. Maybe I’m finally realizing it wasn’t love with him. Just…contentment.

The alarm blaring causes me to jolt and cover my head with a pillow. “Turn it off,” I groan.

While we finished the movie, we went to bed later than either of us was used to. Riley told me that he had an alarm set for 06:30 but it felt like we just closed our eyes. The sound stops and he slides over me, staying under the covers, and laying his head on my stomach with his arms wrapped around me.

“I snoozed it, so we have ten minutes of extra sleep before I have to head to practice,” he tells me groggily.

His body weight on me is like having a personal weighted blanket that’s also heated. I pull the pillow off my face and tuck it back under my bed. Lifting the covers, I see Riley’s back rising and falling in a deep sleep. How he manages to fall asleep so fast is a surprise to me. Soon sleep pulls me back under. If only for a little while.

It’s only when I’m back to sleep that the alarm goes off again. I reach under Riley’s pillow and turn it off. His breathing has changed so I know he’s waking up.

“Time to get up, baby.”

He holds me tighter and presses his face into my stomach. Rumor has it, is that when couples enter the dating stage, they put on what’s called ‘love weight’ and while I was never overly toned, being with Riley has ensured that I never skip meals. He’s also a health freak during the season so we fit in daily walks as part of his light exercise training. I remember complaining about my extra curves because the fit of my clothes was different and he made me stand in front of the mirror and point out every flaw while I watched as he loved on every inch of my body.

His lips trailing over my stomach pull me out of that memory. If it’s one thing Riley loves is our mornings in bed. He’s especially needy when he knows I have to go back to Cincinnati for the day. My breathing changes when his hands cradle high at my rib cage and I sling my leg over his waist.

“What do you want, Riley?” I ask as he trails up my body and leaves no spot untouched with his kisses.

“To slide my cock so deep inside of your pussy it’s all you think about for the rest of the day.” He tells me and gently pulls a pointed nipple between his teeth.

I whimper when he teases the other with a light touch. “So do it.”

Riley kisses up my torso and hooks my other leg over his arm. He slides into me with no resistance and groans into the pillow behind my head. “Fuck, baby. How does this get better every time?”

I ask myself that every day. If I love sex, then Riley loves sex with me in general. I’ve come to learn that hockey players have an exceptionally high sex drive. No spot in Riley’s condo has gone un-Christened. No sexual position has gone untested. But this–sleepy morning sex has to be my favorite.

My hand fists his hair and I lick a trail up from his neck to the spot behind his ear that I know drives him wild. His thrusts stutter before he’s sliding back into me. I feel the early sign of my orgasm and Riley’s swear tells me he can feel it too.

“I want to try something,” I manage to squeak out.

Riley pulls back and I can see the sweat glistening on his inked chest. His thrusts never stop and I bite my lip when his pubic hair rubs against my clit. “What’s that?”

“Are you close?”

“Yeah, baby. Just waiting on you.”

I moan through the pleasure. “Okay, stop moving.”

Riley stops his thrusts with confusion. “Did I hurt you?”

I shake my head and move my hand between us. His eyebrow quirks as I rub my clit in fast circles with him still inside of me. The eye contact and the zing of pleasure that shoots up my toes and to my spine causes my orgasm to pulsate out of me.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. What are you doing to me?” Riley asks as I feel his cock swell and his release spill inside of me. He falls down into the crook of my neck and I squeeze around him while still rubbing my clit as I milk him for all he’s worth. That causes another tiny orgasm to rack through me. “God damn, you’re fucking perfect,” Riley says and kisses the side of my neck and my shoulder.

When the last of my orgasm fades, my body sinks into the bed and I wait for my heart to stop trying to pound out of my chest. A few moments later, Riley pulls out of me and places a kiss on the center of my chest before rolling off the bed and into the bathroom. The toilet flushes and the shower starts up seconds later. I roll off the bed as gracefully as possible and lightly jog to the toilet to pee. I look up and see Riley cheesing at me from behind the glass and I roll my eyes. Living with Riley, I got acclimated that there is essentially no privacy. He likes to remind me that he’s had his tongue in my pussy so why shouldn’t he see me pee.

I join him in the shower after flushing and wrap my arms around his waist. He switches our spots to get my hair wet even though I didn’t plan to wash my hair .

“Do you have to go to Cincy?” He asks and grabs the shampoo.

“Yeah,” I sigh. My eyes close when he rubs the soap into my scalp and my head droops back. “I’m also meeting with my new clients.”

“Lean back,” Riley whispers. “Who are you working with this time?”

“A couple of Mason’s former teammates and one of Nate’s teammates.”

Riley wrings my hair out and applies the conditioner to the middle to ends of my hair. “What happened to the soccer player?”

I feel the soft tug on my hair as he brushes the conditioner through my tresses. “He didn’t like the way I made him walk the straight and narrow path. So we parted ways right before Thanksgiving.”

“Blue, that was three weeks ago,” Riley says and gently tips my head back to rinse the conditioner out. He grabs the bar of soap and loofa deciding he’d rather wash me than himself.

“There was no skin off my back. Plus, he was already giving me trouble and a lot of pushback at the beginning of the year.”

He steps away to wash the front of my body and his forehead crinkles in concern. “Does Jeff know?”

Shaking my head, I place my hands on his shoulders to keep steady. “No. I’m a big girl, Riley. I can take care of myself when it comes to pompous, rebellious athletes.”

“I know you can.” He stands up and turns me to face the water. “Is the soap all gone?”

I look down my body. “Yep.”

“Okay. Get outta here ya goof.”

I slide past Riley and grab a towel from the warmer rack. I watch him as much as I can before I brush my teeth and wash my face. After last night, I thought we’d have a bit of awkwardness hanging around. But no, everything is all the same between us.

When Paul and I said those words to each other, I felt like I had ants crawling over me. Was that a bad sign and I just ignored it for that contentment? Because with Riley I feel like I can say it a million times and he’ll show me just how much instead. And maybe that’s where I should scold myself by thinking our age would be the biggest obstacle to overcome. Riley has debunked everything I thought I knew about him, about love, and about life. And as we stand in domestic bliss getting ready at the bathroom vanity I think, maybe, just maybe, I’ve finally found my true pair.