Page 17

Harrison

L ovie takes a seat on the couch, her brown eyes fixed on me. She has that serious look again—the strict, librarian thing that only heightens the arousal stirring in my stomach.

I think about what she said earlier—about this only being sperm. I think about what I said—feeding her in pursuit of the goal. But maybe the truth is that I’m just old fashioned. There’s a certain rightness to cooking for a woman—feeding a woman—before you take her to bed.

Cooking for her felt right. Having her there, sitting at the counter, sipping on her tea and watching me work—it’s the first time in a long time I had a sense of satisfaction after finishing a meal. I was pleased to see that she liked it, hungrier at seeing the pleasure on her face.

There’s something about her presence in this apartment that makes it feel far more like a home.

Now, I join her on the couch. The TV is still on, volume low, and Lovie glances over at it, a laugh bubbling up out of her throat.

“Shit, sorry,” I mutter, reaching for the remote. Hockey is probably the last thing she wants to think about while trying to get in the mood.

When I glance up at the screen, I realize it’s playing a recap of our game from last night—the win we barely scraped together.

“It’s okay.” Lovie surprises me by reaching out and putting a hand on my arm, keeping me from turning it off. Her eyes are on the screen. “Were you watching it?”

“Yeah.” I clear my throat, slowly set the remote back on the coffee table. When I glance at her, I expect to see a thinly veiled anger, something like what used to live on Eliza’s face when I spent too long away, kept the game on the TV, brought it up in conversation.

Lovie shakes her head, crosses her arms, leans back, and says, “I was, too. Before coming over here.”

Something light and warm opens up in my chest, and I clear my throat, leaning back, too, glancing between her and the TV. “Did you want to…?”

“We could just finish watching it,” she says, tilting her head at the screen. “Based on the data I’ve been gathering, it seems like the mental resiliency training has been working. But Greenhill’s test showed he didn’t need it. Would you agree with that assessment?”

“Ha.” The laugh comes out of me, the sound dry, when I think of the third line right winger with a quick-flare temper and a penchant for snapping hockey sticks. “I would not.”

For the next hour, we sit together, watching the game, cracking jokes, and pointing things out. Lovie impresses me with her new knowledge of the game, and I’m reminded of just how smart she is when she points out minor details most players wouldn’t even notice.

At the start of the third period, I reach over and put my hand on her thigh. At first, it doesn’t seem like she even notices, but then she shifts, sliding so her leg is closer to me.

My focus on the game wanes as I touch her, sliding my thumb over her knee, getting my fill of the feeling of her skin—so impossibly soft. She has to be one of those women with a ten-step skincare routine.

I imagine her here, stepping out of the shower in her towel, sitting on the edge of the bed, running lotion over her legs. Looking up and smiling at me when I walk through the door, when I start to untuck her towel and push her back onto the bed?—

Lovie lets out a little noise, and I realize my hand is between her legs, my fingers grazing the edge of her panties, teasing.

“You like this?” I ask, voice low and rough as I slide a hand over her neck, my fingers in her hair, my thumb brushing over her cheek. I trace the path of her throat as she swallows, turning to me with a dazed expression on her face.

“Yeah.” She nods, and I lean forward, taking her lips with mine. Right now, she smells like shampoo and vanilla lip balm, which I feel transferring over to me. When I slide my tongue over the seam of her lips, she tastes sweet.

“Does it matter where?” I ask, pulling away, eyes flicking to the bedroom, then back to her. Part of me wants to get her in my bed, open up the comfort and possibility, but I have always loved a good couch fuck.

The game is still playing on the screen, but it’s the last thing in the world I care about right now. It’s one of the rare moments in my life in which something takes precedence over the game.

It takes her a moment to recover from the kiss, and when her eyes refocus, she shakes her head and says, “No. I’ll just want to lay on my back after, tuck my knees to my chest.”

A hunger rises up in me at the sound of that—something new, foreign. I want to help her with this, make a baby happen for her. And I’m going to love the process.

I kiss her again, tangling one hand in her hair and using the other to push her down on the couch. Her legs fall open and I push one knee between them, applying pressure that makes her groan.

Not for the first time, I recognize the fact that Lovie is gorgeous. A knockout.

She could easily show up on the front of a magazine, all smooth skin and perfect proportions. Even now, she looks like something from a photo shoot. With her hair spread over the arm of the couch, and her eyes dark, unfocused, she looks like something I could swallow whole.

And so I do, sliding down her body until I reach the waistband of her jeans. I unzip them, hook my thumbs in the loops, drag them down her legs, watching as she lifts her hips readily for me. I slide them onto the floor, heart pounding in my throat at the thought of tasting her again.

But when I get her panties off and lean down to settle myself between her legs, she stops me with a gentle tug on my hair that makes my cock jump, already pressing hard against her leg.

“What?” I ask, but I’m not sure the word comes out fully formed. Instead, it just sounds like a grunt, a barely-there, lust-thick note.

“You don’t have to—” she clears her throat, looks up at the ceiling, and my eyes wander down to her chest, the way her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. “This is about sperm, remember?”

“Sure.” I maintain eye contact, lean down, and press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “And this is about getting me in the mood, Waters.”

“You’re—” she stops, clearly distracted. I smile against her, savoring the way she reacts to me. The control I have in this moment. When she can, she manages, “You’re not already in the mood?”

“What can I say?” I slide my tongue through her, and when she starts to squirm, I reach up and grab her ass, her hips, keeping her in place. “I’m playing hard to get, Waters.”

I touch her and taste her until she comes apart for me, and I lap up every last drop of her, my cock straining heavily against my pants. The moment she has her breath back, she’s reaching for them, popping the zipper, which basically undoes itself at the slightest suggestion.

Then I’m kicking them off, and she’s stripping her shirt over her head, trying to reach back for her bra. I want to tease her—to tell her that this is just sperm, so why does she need her shirt off?

But the sight of her naked breasts knocks the words from my brain, and I lean forward, taking one of her nipples in my mouth, biting gently, bringing up my other hand to pinch her other nipple until she starts to buck her hips against me.

“Are you in the mood yet?” she gasps, which makes me laugh against her skin. When I pull back, she’s smiling, too, but the kind that’s tinged with pain—anticipation. Want.

For a second, our eyes catch and hold, then I’m breaking away from the moment, running my palms up the inside of her thighs, pushing her legs open and slotting between them.

She lets out a noise when I notch myself in her entrance and lets her head fall back, one of her hands gripping the top of the couch.

When I slide inside her and find her tight, wet, her legs wrapping around my waist, I close my eyes and send up a prayer that we end up making a baby—but that it takes a lot more than a single try.