Page 90 of Pucking Strong (Jacksonville Rays #4)

He blushes. Exactly the reaction I wanted. I love the way the warmth blooms in his cheeks under that soft spray of freckles. Each one is a fleck of caramel I want to taste. As he notes the hungry look on my face, a nervous smile spreads on his. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Hopefully you,” I tease. “After my massage, of course.”

He snorts a laugh, pulling away. “Are you serious right now? You’re finally gonna let me massage you?”

Feeling lighter than I have in days, I flip onto my stomach and place my face back in the cushioned cutout. “Lock the door and dim the lights.”

I listen to him move around the room. The soft click of the door lock already has my cock twitching.

I regret lying so eagerly on my stomach, pinning it to the table with my hips.

Music starts up on the Bluetooth speaker.

Cassidy was playing something that sounded like spa music. Teddy plays smooth, soft jazz.

“Novy and I had agreed on an hour-long, full-body massage. Is that what you’d like as well?” His tone is clinical. My sweet man, he’s trying so hard to be professional.

Determined to rattle him, I shrug a shoulder. “Let’s just see how long we last.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t imagine we’ll make it more that fifteen minutes before you’re asking me to suck your cock— ah —”

I wince as he twists his fingers into my hair and pulls my head up and out of the face cradle, forcing me to look at him.

He doesn’t bother hiding his smile or the heat in his eyes.

“Keep pushing me when I’m just trying to do my job, and we won’t get to the part where I ask.

I’ll just flip you over right now, jerk that ass to the end of the table, and make you take me. ”

Before I can respond, he lets me go, and my head flops back into the cradle. I chuckle, adjusting my hips so I’m not crushing my hardening cock.

“I’ll start with your shoulders,” he declares, rubbing his hands with oil. “What level of pressure would you like?”

“Hard.”

He steps up to the head of the table where I can see his shoes. “Let’s begin.”

The moment his warm, oiled hands start to touch me, I relax.

He moves them methodically over my shoulders, his pressure firm as he follows the line of each muscle, finding each nerve bundle, every knot and ache.

His pressure is divine as he works the knots loose in my left shoulder first. I mutter a curse in Swedish and he eases up a little.

“Feel good? Not too much pressure?”

“’Sgood,” I mumble, my eyes closed in bliss as my body goes slack.

“I had no idea you were carrying so much stress in your shoulders,” he says after another minute or two. “Babe, you’re riddled with knots.”

“I know.”

“I’m gonna talk to Brady. We need to finesse your cooldown routine. There’s stretching we can modify, heat therapy, and you need to swim more.”

“Swim?”

“Mhmm. It’s great recovery for you. Hockey is so high impact. I know you love to run, but you need your therapies to do less damage, not more.”

His comment about my love of running makes me smile. But I can’t fight the relieved groan that escapes me as he starts to really dig into the knots on my lower trapezius muscle.

“I don’t know if Novy told you, but I have a strict ‘no sex noises’ policy on my massage table,” he teases, still digging in deep with his thumbs.

“That sound was involuntary,” I grunt.

His pressure lightens as he works a knot loose, each movement so measured and controlled. “Hmm, well, just don’t do it again. Second warning.”

I stiffen. “Second warning? What was the first?”

“Seriously? You boasting that I’d be begging to suck your cock within the first fifteen minutes of this massage. Now, lie there like a good little hockey player, and let me do my work.”

With a heavy huff, I exhale, relaxing back onto the table.

“Karro starts aqua aerobics for her leg in a couple weeks,” he says after a few minutes. “We could both go with her and get in some laps at the pool.”

I smile. “You know if we both go, she’ll demand we get pizza after.”

I’ve been traveling so much lately. Karolina has determined that any time all three of us are able to make it to her PT together, it’s a party that must be celebrated with pizza and chocolate milk.

“I’ll concede to the pizza if you promise to take better care of yourself,” he replies.

I reach for him. I can’t help myself. Dropping my arms from the table, I brush my hands up the back of his thighs.

Now it’s his turn to groan as he tenses, but he doesn’t step away. “You know, I’m really trying to be professional here. I want to make this good for you, baby. I want to help you.”

“You do help me. You’re so good to me.”

He swats my hands away, moving to the side of the table to work on my middle back.

“Okay, so then let me really help you. I could start massaging you more at home. I hate to feel like you’re not getting what you need just because we’re married.

I’m more qualified than Cassidy, and I have gentler hands than Brady or Jeff—hey—”

I push off the table up to my elbows, grabbing him by the wrist before he can step away. “You do help me.”

He looks down at me, shaking his head. As I watch, tears spring to his eyes. Then his shoulders sag.

“Hey … what is this now?”

“I just feel so helpless,” he admits. “There’s nothing else I can do. How can there really be nothing else?”

We’re not talking about massages now. “I know,” I say. “I feel the same.”

Sighing, he takes his free hand and cups my cheek. “Oh, Hen, you’ve done everything you can.”

“As have you,” I assure him. “All we can do now is wait.” Turning my face into his hand, I kiss his palm, breathing him in. His skin smells faintly of warm honey from the massage oil. “What do you need from me?”

“What?”

I hold his gaze. “We can’t keep running, mitt hj?rta. Not from this. We have to stay, and we have to wait. So let me distract you. Take what you need from me.”

He lets out a shaky breath, his gaze darting around the room as he tries not to look at the long lines of my all-but-naked body lying on this massage table. Why is he holding himself back from me?

Fighting a smile, I raise a brow. “You’re allowed to look at me, mitt hj?rta. You’re allowed to enjoy what you see.”

“I feel guilty,” he admits. “Is that crazy? Like I’m not allowed to have good things while there’s this constant threat of the one big bad thing—”

“No.” I sit up, swinging my legs off the table as I pull him to me. “No, we can’t live like that. Whatever happens with Karolina, there’s still you and there’s me. That doesn’t change.”

He bites his bottom lip, shaking his head. His gaze is focused somewhere near my clavicle.

I brush my hand over his hair, trailing my knuckles along his cheek. “Talk to me.”

“I’m only in your life because of Karolina,” he murmurs. “If she goes … if I can’t help you keep her—”

“Stop.” I cup his face with both hands. “Christ, is this the weight you’ve been carrying for weeks? You think this is all on your shoulders?”

“Months,” he admits. “Since Sweden. And it is all on me. Elin said it; the judge said it. But, Henrik, what if I’m not enough—”

“You are.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m not?”

I sigh, pressing my forehead to his, my eyes shut tight. Slowly, he relaxes a little, his hands lifting to wrap around my wrists. “You make my world stop,” I whisper.

“What?”

I lean away. He needs to see me, needs to see the truth in my eyes. “That’s what Novy and I were in here talking about just before you arrived. He called me a runner. He told me I should run to you because you’re where everything stops for me.”

His eyes widen. “He really said that?”

I nod. “I know that you only came into my life for Karolina. I’m asking you to stay in it for me. Not because I want your help with Karro. I don’t want your massages or your smoothies or your interior decorating skills either.”

He fights a nervous smile. “Okay, so I think you’re trying to be sweet right now, but to me that just sounds like a whole lot of rejection …”

I chuckle, brushing his cheek with my thumb.

“I’m trying to say that you’re enough. Badly, apparently.

” His smile flickers and I can’t help but reach out and touch it too.

“It’s not about what you do for me,” I go on.

“Or what you do for Karolina. It’s who you are that I care about.

I want you, Teddy. Just as you are. I want you in my life. Stay.”

He steps back as I slip off the edge of the table and stand. Operating on instinct, I drop down to one knee, reeling him in by the hips. He drops his hands to my bare shoulders. “Henrik, what are you doing?”

“I want you to stay with me.” Pressing my face to his hip, I breathe in the cool scent of his athletic body spray. He squeezes my shoulders, his breath catching on a gasp as I cup his crotch, feeling the hardening of his cock beneath my hand. “Stay with me,” I repeat.

“Henrik …” He whispers my name with the reverence of a prayer.

Slowly, I tug his pants down, relishing in the sight of the cut lines of his hips, the lean, banded muscles wrapping his thighs. He’s my perfect work of art. Powerful and beautiful. His cock hangs hard and heavy for me, waiting. He’s always waiting for me. My patient man.

I take him to hand, and he curses, one hand shifting to brace the back of my head. I look up, needing to see his face as I wrap my lips around his tip and taste that first essence of him. He groans, lips parted on a breath, as he watches me suck and tease.

He’s fooling no one with this hesitancy.

His hand is like iron on the back of my head, keeping me in place.

I push back against him, loving the struggle, as he finally steps in with his hips, making me choke.

I hum with relief, hungry for more, my hands gripping tight to his ass.

“Make it stop,” I pant the moment he lets me up for air. “Teddy, please.”

“I know,” he soothes, all his hesitancy shattered. “Eyes on me. Don’t look away.”

I drop down to both knees, rocking back on my ankles, as Teddy takes over. He’s gentle but direct, guiding my actions with soothing words. “Just let go … I’m right here, baby. I’m not going anywhere. Look at me.”

I groan with relief, taking his cock to the back of my throat again and again. He sets a punishing pace, fucking my mouth like he owns it. God help me, he does. We both know it. Every part of me is his now. These last few months have changed us forever. How did I ever live without him?

“Baby, I’m gonna come,” he pants, making shallower thrusts with his hips. “Open your mouth. Show me. Wanna watch you take my cum.”

I tip my head back and open my mouth. Teddy keeps one hand fisted tight in my hair, holding me just how he wants me.

Then he curses softly as his other hand makes a tight fist around his shaft.

He jerks himself hard and fast, just a few quick pulls before he sighs with relief.

Our gazes hold as warm cum jets from his tip, landing on my waiting tongue.

Like a fiend, I devour, claiming every drop.

But it’s that look of ecstasy I was really chasing. This is where the world stops. In this moment, lost in the look of love in his eyes. There is no worry, no stress or pain. There is nothing outside the marrow-deep knowledge that Teddy is here with me.

Sated and drowsy, I lean forward, all but slumping against him. “Stay,” I say again, eyes shut tight as I press my face to the bare skin of his hip and breathe him in. “Please stay with me.”

His hands are gentle as they touch and soothe, his fingertips brushing through my hair. “Where the hell am I gonna go, huh? You’ve ruined me, Henrik. One look at you, and I was done. Just say the word, and I’ll follow you anywhere.”