Page 7

HALLIE

I went home with Solace. Finally. He didn’t beg after the catastrophe in the office. Actually, he didn’t say much at all. Hux did, though, negotiate the pay rise and diagonal job shift I both appreciated and needed after the WAGS drama that got me right out of the main office and into the coaching department.

In my new role I’d report directly to Coach. Ward Bishop would be my direct boss from now on. The formidable Chimeras trainer glowered at Hux as the team captain laid out exactly why I now shared his space. I understood his mood shift—not that Ward Bishop had more than two, anyway.

No one else dared to invade his space either by choice or by design unless they were one of his team, and in shit at that. Yet here I stood between Solace and Huxley’s combined bulk.

Ward observed me in utter silence for the better part of two minutes. I knew better than to fidget, having seen him discard wannabes from the team’s reserve squad for less.

“She can stay if she can keep up with me.”

Hux pressed his fingers gently between my shoulder blades in a show of support. “She’ll keep up, sir,” he murmured.

Ward’s eyes narrowed. “And she needs to know the team’s stats.”

Solace’s whole frame vibrated as he held in a laugh. “Better than any of us,” he assured his coach.

My new boss’s eyes fixed on me. Cold as the ice the boys skated on, silver hair dominated his temples in a sea of darkness. “I’m not some playboy like these kids, sweetheart. If you think you can waste my time, I assure you, we will be having a different sort of conversation you won’t enjoy in short order.”

I held his gaze. “I just told the WAG squad to take down the porn show they threw of me up on the office walls because I was sick of their bullshit. I couldn’t get my work done with that crap going on. I’d appreciate someone who actually understands what work is, sir,” I added, aiming for Hux’s air of respect.

Ward’s eyebrows rose. “Isn’t that different?” he muttered.

Solace let out that laugh he’d repressed. The sound boomed around the rink. “Yes, sir. She is.”

Which was how I ended up in the passenger seat of his car for the second time that day, headed for his place after we stopped in at mine so I could leave feed out for Mica. My hands tucked into my lap in a knot, I stared at the townhouses passing by in the shitty part of town I lived in near the commercial area where rent was cheap. Slowly the buildings moved into suburban homes, and then grew bigger. My heart stuttered as I took note of the luxury cars lining drives and the house frontages that took up more space than five of my townhouses.

“I think I’m in the wrong area,” I choked, running my fingers along the door handle when Solace pulled up into a black bricked, electric gated drive.

An imposing, three story home set well back from the street with manicured gardens I knew Solace didn’t look after himself surrounded me as he drove us deep into the property. The gates shut silently behind us, locking us in.

“You’ll be fine.” His hand closed around mine in a firm, warm grip.

“I can’t afford to leave the car.” Or be in it. I looked down at our tangled fingers. “Solace, I?—”

He pulled his car up sharply on the dark gravel before the house and switched the engine off, turning to face me. “Come in so you can thank me for getting you a new job today. Then we can work on your punishment for fucking running from me when we arrived at the office and getting yourself into all sorts of trouble before I could be there to help you,” he growled, wrapping his other hand around my wrist. He trapped both of my hands on either side of me against the base of the leather bucket seat.

I gasped out loud at both the indignity and the imprisonment. “I could have gotten myself that job with Ward. And Hux was there to help,” I protested.

“But you got into trouble all by your fucking self, beautiful. I couldn’t breathe. I worried about where you were, what they’d done to you. How much you’d hurt because of them.” He rested his forehead against mine.

Coal dark eyes bore into mine as I stared back, struggling to breathe.

“I can look after myself,” I whispered.

“But you don’t have to. Not anymore, and not every time. I’ve got you. We have got you, beautiful,” he murmured, and I knew he meant hum and Huxley. What they’d done this afternoon after I stood up for Hux with the not-WAG who shouldn’t have been in the building in the first place.

I closed my eyes and breathed out. “Alright.”

“Yeah?” He rubbed his nose against mine. “Gonna let me thank you and punish you tonight, welcome you to my place? Cause now you're here, you know I’m gonna want you to move you in.”

I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes shut. He’d ask me to open them in a minute, and I would, but I wasn’t ready just yet. “I know, Solace. Mica is a non-negotiable.”

“Done.” He kissed me swiftly, unbuckled my seatbelt and scooped his arms beneath me.

My eyes flung open as my massive hockey defender slithered out of the driver’s seat and lifted me along with him.

“That should not have been possible. Or so easy.”

“Leave the impossible things to me, beautiful. I’ve got plans for tonight that involve a pretty girl, whichever room in my house she chooses, and tearing those clothes off her.” His fingers trailed along my body as he set me down. “The door’s unlocked. Run, Hallie.”

“The door’s un– Who did that, and why?” I stared up at him, a frown twisting my lips as questions layered upon each other in my mind.

Solace stared down at me, not a smile in sight. “Run, beautiful. I’m faster than you think.”

I stared for a second longer at his closed, formidable face. My heart rate picked up when he didn’t move or say anything else. Just watched me like I was his next meal.

I knew this mood. This was the Solace who used to prowl across the parking lot when I left the Jericho Chimeras building each night when I started working with them.

From that first night when I wasn’t sure if I’d end up in the back of the trunk just like the man who keyed Hux’s car. But Solace kept his distance. Just watched, walked behind me, and then…he stopped. I got on my bus and I went home.

Every night after that, we repeated our same strange dance. Him watching me, me knowing he was there, until the night he approached me and our dance changed.

This was that mood only…tonight was nothing like that.

Run, beautiful.

I took one last look at those dark, hard eyes, already lost in shadow, and I ran.

Pivoted on my heel, dropped my bag and my files on the drive where they scattered like so much rubbish, and I sprinted.

He could have caught me at any time. I knew that. I didn’t have a clue where the door to his house lay beyond the archway I spotted when we pulled up that disappeared into darkness. I headed toward that with a silent prayer. Behind me, gravel crunched as he walked— walked —after me. Long, slow steps that shot delicious, uncontrolled fear through me.

Come in so you can thank me for getting you a new job today. Then we can work on your punishment for fucking running from me.

Run.

That’s what I did. Busted through the unlocked door he seemed to have planned, not caring if there was some employee in his house I might scare the living daylights out of as I found the foyer, the hallway, and the living area, then the kitchen in the world’s fastest tour of Solace Hunter’s home.

My legs shook as the front door shut. No, it slammed. I spun on the spot, found a new doorway and raced through it, only to find Solace hulking form on the other side, striding toward me.

I stared over my shoulder at where I swore the front door just shut. “But, the?—”

“Run, Hallie.” His teeth bared as he unbuttoned his shirt from the top down.

My feet didn’t have the three second delay option my brain took, already moving up the curved staircase I found through the next arched doorway. I took those two at a time, my thighs and lungs screaming in tandem. This office girl might work for the Chimeras, but she sure as hell wasn’t one. Not in the fitness department.

Fingers caught at the hem of my skirt. I let out a yelp and powered through, really running now, in full flight mode. This might be Solace, but also?—

This part of him scared me in all the best ways. He was huge and intimidating as shit.

I found a bedroom at a glance and a bathroom, bypassing both of those as options leading to instant doom. The next doorway looked like a hall. I turned it down and realised my mistake.

“My office. Interesting choice.” Solace’s hand closed around my waist. One hand, that’s all it took. He squeezed my curves in an inescapable grip.

It took me less than a second to understand just how sweetly Solace had been playing with me since he broke his vow of silence and approached me. His other hand slid up my front until his fingers caught my jaw and tipped my head back. Our eyes met, my panic and uncertainty meeting the raw, ravaging hunger in his.

“Solace—” I whimpered, my voice a bare thread, needy and pathetic.

“Fuck,” he cursed, propeling us forward. My hips hit the edge of his desk. He bent me over the hardwood, pushing everything in front of me off the other side. Muted thuds announced heavy things meeting lux carpet. He didn’t seem to care. “Christ, I can't think when you make sounds like that, Hallie. The things you do to my mind…” He hissed out a breath, releasing my jaw to rip my skirt up, grinding into me from behind. “At least here I don’t have to worry about anyone else hearing you when you’re in my home, or watching you. Though I do owe you a punishment.”

“What for?” I clung to the desk’s glossy, hardwood surface. My feet slid apart on the plush carpet beneath my feet when his boots tapped my legs open.

His hand slid between us, stroking my pussy through my panties still damp from our playtime early this morning. A moan left my lips as I leaned into his desk, tilting my hips up in a silent plea for more.

Solace froze. His touch disappeared. For an endless, impossible moment I thought I’d offended him.

“I’m sorry—” I started, with no real concept of what I was apologising for.

His palm came down on my panty-covered ass in a spank hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. “Fuck, there’s those little moans that I love. Like I fucking love you.” Another spank on the same side, then he switched.

I gasped between spanks, tried to breath but it took me a minute before he stopped, both of us panting as tears coated my face.

He leaned over my body, encompassing me with his bulk as he traced hair back from my face and kissed my cheeks. “I promised you a punishment. You did so well, beautiful. Fuck, today scared me. I didn’t want to see you hurt.”

“I was scared too,” I admitted. “Terrified I’d have to walk out and never see you again. But you were there, and you stayed with me through it. After. That made it different to last time. I wasn't insignificant, and I wasn’t forgotten. Passed over for someone…else,” I finished.

His breath came hard as he worked at his pants. “Never gonna pass you over for anyone, beautiful. Never. Do you understand that?”

I didn’t get a chance to say yes before he shoved my panties aside and thrust deep inside me. My scream bounced back at me from his study walls as he set a punishing pace. Solace’s large, scarred hands gripped mine, stretching my body across his desk to the other side, and clamped my hands to the edge.

I struggled to breathe between the new position and his weight braced over me, how deep he drove inside me. His grip meant I couldn't let go, and I couldn’t get away from him.

A second later, I was grateful for the support as he hammered into me, so brutal I thought I’d pass out. I couldn’t keep up with his rhythm, barely breathing through each impossible thrust that bordered on painful.

Pleasure slammed me as I clung to the desk, glad he held me pinned to him for fear I’d be washed away beneath the onslaught of his desire.

My orgasm rolled through me with all the grace of an oncoming tsunami. It didn’t stop there—or rather, it didn't stop at all. I screamed into the cold wood, my cheek turned to the side as my thighs trembled around his.

Solace’s shout above me felt like that claiming I’d avoided for so long. But with him it was different. Maybe he had claimed me a whole lot longer ago, on that first night he watched me and walked behind me to the bus stop. My pussy clamped tight at the idea that I had been his for so much longer, milking his orgasm from him.

Bliss overwhelmed me as I trembled in his arms. Fluid gushed down my legs. My cheeks flushed at the added humiliation, but a large part of me didn’t care. I was in his arms, his home with him. No matter how intense Solace Hunter could be, right now, with him wrapped around me, I was safe.

“I love you,” I murmured against one massive, inked wrist, pressing my lips to his skin.

Solace’s arms wrapped tight as he slumped over me, one fist braced on the desk beside my head.

“Fuck, I love you,” he murmured, finding my mouth and kissing me deeply. “This is a forever thing, Hallie. The love, the overwhelm, playing, the punishments. I’m not ever gonna stop. Just…move the gray pussy in with me. And the white bedding. I still want pictures.”

I giggled beneath him, trying to find enough space to fill my lungs. “I’d probably agree to anything right now,” I admitted.

“I figured.” He kissed me again. “We’ll get to the punishment part later.”

My breath hitched. “Wait, Solace?—”

“We have got to talk about your avocado habit in the kitchens, beautiful.”