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Chapter Eleven

Lars

I was someone’s father and what I knew about parenting could fit on the surface of a puck.

The last three days were spent in a fugue: practice, gym, run, skate, eat, sleep—barely—and start all over again.

I was a wreck. I needed to get to grips with this monumental change in my life or my game was going to suffer.

Thank God for Adeline. Reaching out to me when she heard about the paternity test was not on my bingo card. I shouldn’t have called her from the locker room, but I’d needed to hear her voice, a calm I took with me into the game.

Just after four in the morning, I let myself in, reset the alarm, and tiptoed through the house.

We had moved Mabel’s crib to the guest room, so I knew that’s where Adeline would be sleeping.

She had said she wanted to be close as it made things easier when the baby woke up.

All good. To be fair, I didn’t need to check in on the baby.

I had no doubt that she was sleeping, in good hands, doing better without me—or a combination of all of the above.

I checked the guest room anyway.

Empty.

My pulse spiked in panic. Maybe Adeline had taken Mabel to her parents’ house, but surely, she would have told me.

She’d texted about everything else, not that I really needed to know things like, Mabel sucked down her bottle like a champ or Mabel slept for four hours!

My lack of excitement about this stuff affirmed I was a bad choice and the sooner I could get Vicki back in the mix, the better.

I whipped out my phone. No message. Stepping into my bedroom, I got the shock of my life.

Adeline, in my bed, like some sort of Goldilocks checking out the mattress situation.

Beside her, on the same mattress, was the bassinet with a chubby little fist resting on the edge, playing peek-a-boo.

Adeline’s hand was close, as if she was God reaching out to Michelangelo’s Adam to give him life.

My thundering heart calmed, relieved at finding them both safe, but that state didn’t last as my senses recalibrated and recalled that a very attractive woman was in my bed.

The duvet cover was pulled back to reveal a shapely leg joined to an even more shapely ass, the curve of it enough to make my mouth water.

Her underwear was that boy short type, but nothing about this woman’s form suggested “boy.” I’d never expected to see it and because of that, I wasn’t ready.

But my cock was. There it went, stirring up a storm, and it wasn’t just her ass that had me in tatters. One perfectly rounded shoulder with what I imagined was silky, touchable skin, just begged for my lips.

Why was she in my bed? What was wrong with the guest room? And was Mabel okay?

On cue, the baby made a gurgling noise and gave a fist pump like she was celebrating my win—all of them: hockey, fatherhood, a hot woman in my bed. The thought made me chuckle and the sound made Adeline stir.

She turned over, blinked, and pulled at the duvet, an instinctive move to cover herself. But there was more. She jerked her body away so quickly her head thumped the headboard. I got the impression she would’ve drilled through the wall if she could, so eager was she to put distance between us.

The light from the corridor highlighted more than shapely curves and soft skin. It shone on the fear in her eyes.

I took a step back. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

“I—” She shook her head and turned to the baby. Relief passed over her features, though she didn’t relax. Her body remained on high alert. “I planned to be awake before you came back.”

“We made good time.” I leaned against the doorframe, aiming for casual. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her smile was thin. “No problem. She almost slept the whole night through.”

“Except I just woke her—and you. Go back to sleep.”

She passed over that. “You won your game. Congrats.”

“Yep. It was a good one. How were things here?”

The duvet cover had slipped enough to reveal the swell of her breasts hugged by a camisole. I receded further into the shadows where this inappropriate leap in sexual awareness belonged.

Adeline chuckled, completely unaware of my discomfort, but it was better than the frightened deer look. “I probably overshared about Mabel’s bodily functions.”

“No, it was good to hear. Normal stuff.” And it put this, whatever this was, on a clearer footing. Baby poop, erection killer. “So, how come you’re in here?”

In my bed.

“She doesn’t like the crib, but she loves the bassinet. I wanted to have her at eye level or close enough, but the guest room bed is a little small for both of us and this California King is the bomb. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Mabel let out a little cry and Adeline reached over to soothe her, though not before she paused a moment, perhaps waiting for me to step in. When I didn’t make a move—an unfeeling monster, here—she took over with the surety I’d come to expect. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Just hungry.”

“I’ll feed her.”

She looked up. “You sure?”

“I’m up and you should get back to sleep.” I moved forward and leaned over my daughter. Mine. I still couldn’t believe it.

Rather than scoop her out, I picked up the handles of the bassinet, a move that made Mabel expel a strange noise.

“Was that …” I checked in with Adeline. “A giggle?”

“It was!” Adeline’s mouth stretched wide. Damn, that was a pretty smile and?—

Keep your happy for your own daughter, not someone else’s .

I turned back to Mabel, anything to avoid Adeline’s smile and how it made me feel. “You liked when I swayed this bucket thing, huh?” I did it again, giving it a swoosh back and forth. The motion yielded more gorgeous giggles.

From both of them.

I fed Mabel, burped her like a pro, and returned her to her crib in the empty guest room.

Adeline had said she didn’t like it, so I left her inside the bassinet, cradled by the crib.

She’d also told me that on the baby’s back was the best position, at least until she was twelve months or could roll over on her own.

So much to learn, and I didn’t know how I could keep all this information in my head.

Mabel seemed happy right now and soon enough her translucent eyelids shuttered closed.

I felt grimy after traveling back on the plane. Usually, I’d take a shower before hitting the sack, only Adeline was asleep in my bed, so the master bath was out. That left the guest one. Luckily, I had spare underwear in my holdall, so I slipped into the shower and turned it on.

This bathroom didn’t have my soap or shampoo, but what must have been Adeline’s sat in the caddy. I uncapped the shampoo bottle and took a sniff.

Instant hard-on. Fuck.

That’s what her hair smelled like. I’d noticed it when she handed off the baby last week, when we stood so close her scent had lodged in my brain and stayed there, waiting to be reactivated like a sleeper spy.

I checked the label. Orange blossom and jasmine.

I didn’t think I’d smelled that before, or if I had, I had no idea what to call it.

But now, all I could think was this scent was Adeline.

Adeline in my nostrils, curling into my lungs, giving my cock a burst of life it hadn’t had in months. Years. Apparently, there were hard-ons and there were Adeline hard-ons.

Christ, I needed to ignore that and wash my damn hair. I lathered up, and of course that only made my cock harder. That sleepy smile of hers snuck into my brain and made itself at home. Her shapely leg, the curve of her ass, peeking out of the duvet cover in my bed.

My bed.

Harder again. Hard enough to slam through the shower tile.

I refused to touch my dick. That was a first, unable to stroke myself because the fantasy that inspired it was so taboo. My teammate’s daughter. The man’s child.

No longer a child, though, but a gorgeous, curvaceous woman.

The cami strap slipping off her shoulder, the swell of her tits straining against the stretchy fabric.

Those full, red lips, a little puffy from—from what?

From wrapping around my rampant cock, that’s what.

At this rate I wouldn’t need to touch myself because I was getting there on filthy thoughts alone.

I rinsed my hair, then picked up the body wash.

Not mine. Hers. I didn’t recall the scent which was good as it didn’t send me into a raging need to stroke myself dry.

I applied the wash to my body, careful to avoid my groin, at least until I came back down to earth.

Until I had descended from the clouds of fantasy where Adeline was on her knees, her ponytail at hand level.

In my dream, I refused to grab it. Ignored it like I ignored my hard-on.

I rested my forehead on the tile, looking to cool down. Anything to bank the need. But it was no use. Images of a sexy, sleep-pliant woman swirled in the suds, heading to the drain. Adeline’s moss-green eyes, with that movie goddess tilt, half-lidded as she hauled herself to wakefulness.

I couldn’t, but … why? Fantasies were rocket-fueled by the forbidden. This one would be harmless because I would never act on it in real life. No one would ever know.

Having given myself permission, I encouraged her lips to nudge my cock, just a kiss, but it wasn’t enough.

I needed more, the sweet, velvet suction of her mouth.

I needed control. I grabbed hold of that ponytail—in reality, my dick.

One touch was enough to set my balls alight with pleasure.

Lust bolted through me. The scent of orange blossom permeated the steam as my hand gripped hard and stroked roughly from base to tip.

Make it quick. Get it over with, send the guilt down the drain.

The wrong girl—no, woman—with her lips moving up and down my cock.

I squeezed the tip, held tight to the base.

Holding onto the perfect picture of Adeline sucking me off, her lips swollen, her cheeks hollowed out as she blew me and my mind.

My balls sizzled, heavy with spunk, and with one last tug, I came in thick spurts against the wall and with Adeline’s name on my lips.