Page 32

CHAPTER 31

ALEXEI

There’s always things to do after a game, but tonight it stretches on and on. I just can’t get out of the arena quickly.

First, I have media, because of the shoot-out and the fact that it’s my former team. As I’m waiting for my turn at the podium, I hear the journalists talking about the fact that we didn’t do a video tribute to Tilman and pretend not to understand.

Then I notice a tender spot on my side when I’m getting dressed, so I have to get that looked at by our medical team. They’re pretty sure it’s just soft tissue bruising, so there’s some therapy for that before they tape an ice pack to my side.

By the time I get to my phone, there’s a text message from Emery that they’re home and everyone is in bed.

Emery

You were really great tonight, btw

Alexei

Thank you

I’m heading home now

I wanted to stay up for you but my eyes are pretty scratchy

That’s okay, sleep tight, sunshine

I’ll see you in the morning

You can wake me up if you want

She doesn’t reply to that, and when I get home, the entire house is still. Fast asleep, tucked in their beds.

I get rid of the ice pack, then head back downstairs to the kitchen in search of something to eat.

In the fridge, I find a variety of meal options. Emery has taped macro counts to them, too. I grab two servings of meatloaf, suddenly starving, and heat those up as I catch up on the scores of the other games from around the league.

The west coast games are still going, so I sit at the table and quietly watch the Vancouver-Colorado game on my phone as I eat. I like watching other goalies work. Then I rinse my plate, put it in the dishwasher, grab a fresh ice pack from the freezer, and head upstairs.

It feels like one minute I’m brushing my teeth, and the next I’m drifting back to wakefulness because I’m surrounded by dozens of Emerys, big and small, whispering and teasing and…dancing on my bruises?

“Easy,” I mumble, catching her hands as her hair brushes my belly. Okay, that’s fine. More than fine. That feels good.

“It’s early,” she whispers, her voice like silk, wrapping around my still-sleeping brain. “But you said I could…”

“Yeah. I wanted you to wake me up.”

“Like this?” Her breath teases against my hardened flesh. And then she takes my cock in her mouth.

My toes curl and my ass clenches tight as she sucks my soul straight out of my body.

At some point, I’m going to stop coming real fucking fast for her, but it’s not this moment in time.

“Good morning,” I growl when she’s finished, licking her lips like a very satisfied wildcat. “Come up here and sit on my face.”

She blushes and presses her forehead to my chest. “That was just for you,” she mumbled. “I got my period overnight. But I worried we might not get another chance before you left for the next road trip, so…”

I pull her up my body, nestling her against my side. “Wait, what? Moya polovinka, why would you not tell me? Do you need anything?”

She rolls her eyes at me. Rolls her eyes! “I’m fine.”

“Do you have bad cramps?”

“We can stop talking about my period immediately.”

“No need for secrets between us, but of course, I want you to be comfortable. Would an orgasm feel good? Maybe I could touch you a little if you don’t want me to lick you?”

She squirms. “I didn’t do it so you would feel like you need to…” She presses her face against my shoulder this time, and I can feel how hot her cheeks are.

My sweet, innocent girl.

It’s fucking hot to watch her discover how intimate we can be together, even just talking.

“The only need I feel is the one that makes me rock hard simply by holding you,” I say roughly. “My offer to eat your sweet pussy is entirely about want , not need. Not a tradeoff. You are delicious.” I inhale deeply as I gather her deeper into my arms, one hand cupping her ass as I roll her on top of me. “I want to feel your clit pulse in my mouth. I want to push my tongue deep into your pussy to feel your clamp down on it. I?—”

She kisses me, cutting me off. She tastes faintly like my seed, earthy and real.

“Please, Emery. Do you need me to beg?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

I roll us to the edge of the bed, then scoop her up and carry her into my bathroom, grateful that it’s private.

I have two plug-in nightlights in here, which provide just enough visibility that I don’t turn the lights on. Maybe the shadows will be freeing for her.

After I get the shower started, I back her up against the vanity and drop to my knees in front of her.

She buries her hands in my hair as I press my face to her belly.

“Let me make you feel good,” I say, my voice low and private under the hiss of the steam building. “Please let me.”

“We need to be careful.” Her voice catches.

“I know.” Trust me, I fucking know. “Just my hands. Just my mouth.”

“Alexei…” Even uncertain and conflicted, my name on her lips is the best sound in the world.

I squeeze her hips in my hands and look up at her. “I just want to be close to you. I’m on my knees for a reason.”

“Will you regret this when I’m gone?” The way her voice cracks destroys me.

“Never,” I swear. “I’ll never regret anything that we do. I’m begging for your sunshine. Can you let me have a taste in the shower?”

She nods, biting her lower lip, and I tug her sleep shorts down her legs. Slide off her panties, too.

Even in the dim light, I can see her eyes go wide as I nudge her legs apart, but she lets me stroke her inner thighs and the soft pout of her pussy lips.

Her grip on the counter tightens when I duck my head again, breathing in her scent.

“Please,” I whisper.

She trembles, then spreads her legs for me, giving me more access.

Fuck, the trust that takes. “Thank you,” I groan against her belly, pressing my face in against her skin as my fingers find the string of her tampon.

I ease it out of her body and get rid of it, then wrap my arms tight around her hips, squeezing her against me before I strip us both of the rest of our clothes and pull her into the shower.

Will you regret this when I’m gone?

When it comes to Emery, regret is a complicated word. The first time I touched her, it was a mistake. The second time, it was a secret. The third time… it’ll be forever.

We’re past the point of just fooling around. I want her in my bed, in my shower, on my face, on my mind…

I trace my fingers over her shoulder, onto her chest, and down to where her little breasts strain away from her body in eager points.

“I’m obsessed with you,” I whisper. “Moya polovinka.”

She shudders.

“There hasn’t been anyone else for me. Not in my thoughts, not in my bed, and not in my shower. You have consumed me even when you weren’t here, even when I thought you would never be here. Now that I have you again, I never want to let you go.”

“I can’t…”

“I know.” I swallow hard. “I won’t say it again.”

She flattens my hand against her chest, pressing her fingers against mine, urging me to squeeze her tit. “I’m not the same girl, Alexei.”

“I am not the same man. It’s okay.”

“But—”

“We are different people, yes? But the fire between us, it is the same. It needs to burn, Emery. Let yourself burn, if only for right now. Then we can forget again.”

She twists in my arms.

“I never forgot,” she whispers, her breath warm and sweet. Her lips brush against mine. Almost a kiss. Agonizing. “I tried. You told me to. Do you remember?”

“I remember everything.” I kiss her forehead, my heart pounding in my chest. “But I meant it. I wanted you to find better.”

“I didn’t.” She sucks in a quick, sharp breath and turns her face to the spray.

I wrap my arms around her from behind, and she leans back against me.

“Tell me.”

“Nobody has ever made me feel what you make me feel.”

I shouldn’t take such vicious pride in that, but I do. I’ve wondered, ever since she hugged Malik. No, before that. From the first time Forrest told me she was suddenly dating everyone under the sun, I wondered if they were treating her well enough, if she came like a firecracker for them, too.

“I haven’t even tried.” I skim my hands down her torso. “I don’t want to feel this with anyone else. I’d rather be alone with the memory of you trying to be quiet.”

She shivers.

“Yes? You liked that?”

Her pupils dilate. “Mmm…”

“Maybe you need the thrill, hmm? The risk of being overheard?”

A shudder wracks her body.

I push my hand between her thighs, cupping her pussy. “I should have done this when your family was here. Pulled you upstairs and made you come on my fingers. It wouldn’t take long, would it? If you had to be quiet for me?”

She convulses in my arms, and against my fingers, her soft cunt slicks even more.

“That’s it, sunshine. Let me feel how much you like it.” I kiss the side of her head and skate my other hand up to play with her tits again. Her nipples are so hard, little pebbles that beg to be pinched.

When I do that, she whimpers and her hips rock, pushing her clit into my fingers.

“I haven’t even begged yet, and you’re already going to come, aren’t you?”

“Alexei…”

“Don’t come yet,” I growl, but I don’t mean it, because I want that more than anything. I want her to come and come and come.

She shatters on my hand, and it feels fucking amazing. Fluttering flesh and a silky pour of arousal that coats my fingers and makes my mouth water.

I turn her, pressing her back against the tiles, and kneel. I touch her reverently, tracing the shape of her hips and the curve at the top of her thighs. The incredible softness where her legs meet her slick, swollen pussy.

“Put a leg over my shoulder.”

She laughs weakly. “I don’t know if I can stand on one leg.”

“I’ll hold you up.”

She tips her head back and lifts her left leg. I help her hook it over, tipping her hips out and lifting her up onto her toes.

“Alexei!”

I chuckle as I kiss her inner thigh. “Hold on tight.”

The groan she makes as she sinks her fingers into my hair—and digs her heel into my back—is almost as delicious as the sharp sweetness between her pussy lips.

And then when I push my tongue into her tight, clutching hole, the faint tang of copper alongside her honeyed arousal is everything I didn’t know I needed.

Nobody else has ever tasted her like this, I’m sure of it.

This is mine.

She is mine.

And when she comes for me, again, it feels like I’m hers, too.