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CHAPTER 3

EMERY

I love hockey. It’s been in my blood since the day I was born, the first daughter to an NHL star after four boys—who all grew up to play in the big game, too. Grangers love hockey.

But I’ve never, ever wanted to bang a hockey player.

Especially not a grumpy one, because life is way too short for that—although Alexei Artyomov’s frown didn’t appear until my brothers showed up.

Come to Calgary , my mom said. It’ll be fun , she said. We’ll get to see Forrest play against Connor, and have a family dinner with three of the five Granger kids.

Never mind that I’m in my final term at college, and since I don’t have a lucrative pro hockey career to look forward to, maybe I should actually give that my full attention.

Never mind that nobody in the family came to see my team play this season. And sure, yeah, we had a shit season that’s already over, but Forrest is having a brutal season, too, and here we are in Calgary anyway.

At least my parents always get me my own really nice hotel room. I might be neglected, but I’m still spoiled in my own way.

And they let me pick the restaurant for dinner.

Which is good, because it turns out that our family dinner the night before the game isn’t just family.

Mom forgot to mention that Forrest has an intensely hot new best friend who doesn’t speak a lot of English, but is fluent in eye-fucking.

The hot goalie is off-limits, Emery Granger. He is not sex on a stick for you to lick.

Would my family notice if I snuck off to the bathroom and gave my V-card to my brother’s teammate?

Coming from a family of pro-hockey players and playing at an elite level myself, I have to say that athletic bodies don’t usually impress me.

But the Calgary backup goalie is stunning. Taller than everyone in my family, and broad but not thick. His wingspan is incredible, like his arms go on forever, and his shoulders…

A girl could sit on those shoulders with ease. Maybe rub myself against his face…

I look up at the ceiling, my cheeks heating up. I have never in my entire life had an explicit face-sitting fantasy about anyone, let alone a stranger sitting across from me while my family discusses the wild card spots for the playoffs.

Our food arrives, which helps me re-centre myself and regain control over my body. In the hierarchy of things I care about, hockey is at the top, followed by food, family, school, music, working out in general, fashion, and way at the bottom, sex. So it should be easier than it is to ignore my reaction to Alexei.

I threw a bit of a tantrum until my mom let me pick the restaurant, which is more foodie than my brothers usually like, but the steak here is well-rated. They got their steaks, and I have a really amazing scallop dish with asparagus done four ways—foamed, gelled, pickled…and frozen in an unexpected sorbet, which I’m instructed to eat first, to set the stage for the rest of this course.

If the hockey thing doesn’t work out for me, and women’s hockey has a way of not working out, I might go to culinary school so I can learn how to make asparagus ice cream that delights on the palette.

“Mmmm,” I say, savouring the bright, grassy flavour. “Oh, wow.”

“It’s good?” From across the table, Alexei is staring at my mouth intently. A ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his lush, elegant mouth. “It sounds good.”

I lick my lips and wink at him. “It’s delicious. You have to like asparagus, probably, but it’s fun.”

“Fun?” He waves down the waiter and points at my plate. “I want that, too.”

Beside him, Forrest chokes on his first bite of steak. “Man, no,” he tries to intervene. “It’s asparagus .” He gestures at the pickled slices draped perfectly over my scallops. “Look. Green shit. You don’t like green shit.”

Alexei frowns. “I don’t like salad . She says it’s good. You heard her.”

Forrest narrows his eyes at me. “Oh, I heard her. She’s a shit disturber.”

“What does shit disturber mean?”

“She’s tricking you.” My brother changes his voice to sound like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars. “It's a trap.”

“Oooh.” Alexei looks back at me. “You try to trick me?”

“No trick,” I say with a straight face. “But yes, vegetable.”

He shrugs. “I still try. I like the way you sound when you eat it.”

Someone really should tell him it’s indecent to say things like that out loud. But I’m not going to, because I’m enjoying how uncomfortable my brothers are right now. When you’re the youngest of five and your four older brothers are all pro hockey players, it’s not that often you get to shock them.

I let my gaze linger on Alexei’s interestingly stoic face as I lazily say, “Yeah, Forrest. He likes the way I sound when I eat it.”

“Emery Granger,” my mother says.

Connor coughs and changes the subject to the hotel his team is staying in ahead of tomorrow’s game. Not the same place we’re staying at, and he’s wondering how the amenities compare. Mindless bullshit I couldn’t care less about.

Alexei watches me lick a bit of asparagus foam off my spoon, something flickering deep in his otherwise serious gaze, and I smile.

* * *

“Emery! Wait!”

I turn around just short of the entrance to the hotel I’m staying at with my parents.

Alexei jogs across the street, an unexpected grin on his face. “You are alone.”

It sounds like a statement, rather than a question, and he has no idea just how accurate that observation is.

Baby Granger has always, will always, be alone. Even when I fly to a whole other country to see my family.

“Where are your family?” His breath puffs out between us, reminding me just how effing cold it is here in Calgary tonight.

“My parents went to Forrest’s apartment.” I rock back on my heels as recognition glints in Alexei’s eyes. “But you knew that.”

His nod is bold and unashamed. “I knew that.” He gestures at the hotel. “I could…buy you a coffee?”

“We just had coffee after dinner.”

His smile broadens. “Black espresso, one sugar cube. Yes.”

The fact that he noticed how I took my coffee does funny things to me, leaving me speechless. And judging by the way his expression shifts, it’s no secret. I’m pretty sure my pleasure at being seen is written all over my face.

He steps closer, and suddenly he’s all I can see. Thick black hair falling forward over slashing eyebrows. His skin is paler than my hearty Midwest pink-cheeked aesthetic, and his jawline is impeccable. If his hockey career ends too soon, he could pivot to playing an elegant vampire on the big screen no problemo. “Then I wish I could walk you home. But I am too late.”

“Too late for what?” My question is breathless and silly. He’s already said it, but I don’t want this conversation to end. I like the way he’s curved over me way too much for my own good. I lick my lips. “I’m not home yet. You could walk me to my room?”

His mouth curves into a beautiful smile. “Yes. I will.”

His hand ghosts in the small of my back as he guides me through the lobby to the elevator.

We have to wait a minute, watching the floor indicator count down, and neither of us say anything.

My heart is pounding. I know what I’m doing here. I’m inviting my brother’s teammate to my room. Not just to walk me to the door, but inside.

And once he’s in my room, we’ll do things that I haven’t done with anyone else yet, and tomorrow when I see him play hockey in the net behind my brother, I’ll pretend this never happened.

I’ve been around hockey players my entire life, and for the last four years, I’ve shared an arena with an entire team of college-aged boys.

I know what this is and what it isn’t. I’ve just never wanted this before tonight.

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open.

We have the lift to ourselves, and as the doors begin to close, we turn to face each other.

“My brother can’t find out about this,” I start to say.

Alexei’s already looking at my mouth. “You will be my secret.”

“Yeah, I get it—” The rest of that thought dies on my tongue as he takes my face in his hands and tips my head up to meet his confident mouth.

I will be his secret .

My brain goes fuzzy at the first lush, experienced press of his lips. It’s a take charge, confident kind of kiss, which is exactly what I need.

For all the surface similarities Alexei might have with the annoying, immature hockey players that surround me, this kiss promises he’s a different type of man. Cosmopolitan and mature.

A guaranteed good time, worth pausing my preferences on for a single night. Fantasy material for the foreseeable future.

And maybe, just maybe, reason to visit Calgary again.

“Kiss me back, solnishko.” He chuckles as he strokes his thumb along my jaw, guiding my mouth to open wider for him.

I blink in surprise, then lunge up at him just as the elevator dings, arriving at my floor. He’s laughing, too, as he lets me kiss him for a hot second before slickly putting distance between us in time for the doors to open.

When my tummy does a nervous free fall, though, he catches my hand and squeezes. “It’s okay?”

The way he says it is different than in English, more of a question that I interpret as Are you okay?

I nod. I’m fine. Breathless and on the precipice of something I haven’t done before, but very eager.

Too eager?

Screw it. If he doesn’t like my too eager energy, then that’s for him to sort out.

I drag him off the elevator and around the corner, down the hall to my hotel room. My parents are on the same floor, but in the other direction, and they aren’t here right now. That’s a problem for later, when I’m going to have to sneak the hot Russian goalie out. But there’s a stairwell right next to my door.

This is happening.

My fingers shake as I pull out my room key. He takes it from me and turns me around, pressing my back to the door, leaning over me, fisting the key just above my head. A slick, smooth move he’s done a hundred times before, I’m sure. He takes my cheek in his other hand, his fingertips leaving electric pathways on my skin as he angles us together for another, deeper kiss.

This time, there’s no ding to interrupt us.

His fingers sink into my hair, burrowing under my wool beanie, and I wind my arms around his neck, closing the gap between our bodies.

“I want you,” I whisper between kisses.

“Yes,” he pants back.

And then he’s opening the door and we stumble into my room, winter clothes unzipping and falling here and there.

By the time we get to the bed, he’s pulled my shirt out of my jeans and is squeezing my bare waist in his hand, a hot, electric touch that puts the kisses to shame.

I unbutton his shirt as fast as possible, wanting to see the hard, muscled body I can already feel through his clothes. His shoulders are ridiculously wide, the rest of him narrowing down in an exaggerated vee to tight hips that feel as if they were built for wrapping thighs around.

My legs move restlessly against his, already thinking about doing just that.

He settles his weight beside me and tucks me in against him, cocooning me into a warm, delicious kiss-filled space. Up close, he smells faintly tropical, like coconut and something else. It’s unexpected, and I breathe him in as I work at his shirt. When I get his last button free, my fingers brush the erection straining beneath his fly, and my breath hitches.

His, too.

“Touch me again,” he grinds out.

I turn my hand and cover the bulge pressing against his dress pants. Even through fabric, I know his cock is long, proportionate to the rest of his oversized body, and thick enough around that the thought of him being inside me makes my head spin.

“Fuck.” His breath catches, and that’s so unexpectedly beautiful I have to take a second.

I made Alexei Artyomov make that sound. I did that. Tomboy, little sister, virgin-at-twenty-two-not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that Emery Granger.

I grin and squeeze him.

“Oh,” he says, a less flattering sound for sure.

“Is that too hard? I’m not sure…”

He searches my face, his expression confused at first, then softening. “It’s perfect.”

It isn’t, but when I ease up, he rocks his hips forward. His eyes burn, and that feels perfect. We find a stroking rhythm quickly, and his hands work their way up under my turtleneck.

I haven’t been this aware of my breasts since puberty. Each inch of lazy progress he makes adds another throb of heaviness to my smaller-than-average-and-kind-of-pointy tits.

By the time his thumbs stroke the underside of my sports bra, I’m arching my back and practically preening for his touch.

“This is okay?” There’s a rich, cocky edge to the question, though. He knows it is. He’s teasing me, making me wait and want more than I ever knew I could.

“Yes,” I whimper. “Very okay.”

“ Very okay ,” he parrots. “I like that. Can you say, touch me, Alexei?”

I laugh weakly. “Touch my breasts, Alexei.”

“Good girl.” He sweeps his thumbs up, just barely glancing my nipples with the fleshy part of his palms.

I want so much more.

“Touch my nipples, Alexei.”

He catches my mouth with his as he strokes me again, this time more firmly. He drags his thumbs across my nipples, back and forth, back and forth, and then his fingers hook into the top of my bra and tug it down.

I sob into his mouth.

“My sexy secret,” he rumbles against my lips. “I need to taste.”

The surreal sight of his dark hair disappearing under my turtleneck—and then the feel of his mouth latching on to my bare breast—is a new core memory.

This is what it feels like to be intimate with someone. Literally like being licked by fire.

He sucks at both breasts until I’m panting, then grazes my nipple with his teeth before he rears up and hitches my hips up in his hands. “Get naked. I taste you now.”

I stare up at him.

He grins. “Please?”

I laugh. “Are you for real? You don’t have to beg for that, I promise.”

“You promise what?” He looks confused.

I wonder just how much English he speaks. He’s got the dirty talk cornered.

As I’m trying to figure out the simplest way to tell him he’s way sexier than anyone at college, he misreads my pause as nervousness. “Don’t be shy, solnishko.”

I repeat the endearment. “What does that mean?”

“Little sun.” He leans forward and twirls his fingers through my short blonde bob. “Are you like the sun everywhere?”

“What…” Then understanding dawns, and my face turns hot. “Yes. I’m blonde everywhere.”

He mutters something in Russian as he unzips my jeans. The urgency is a universal language that I understand, though.

I may not be experienced, but I’m not exactly shy about my body. I know what it can do, and I know I’m physically fit. Cute, even. A solid eight, maybe a nine to the average guy. A seven to jerks, but Alexei doesn’t feel like a jerk. I would wear a bikini in front of him and feel pretty confident.

But he’s going to get me naked naked.

Satisfying his curiosity about my pubes kind of naked.

That’s…so naked.

My belly quivers as he peels me down to my panties, my jeans scraping down my thighs, then his hands skimming back up them. His gaze drags all over my body on its way to my face, and when his attention settles there again, it’s magnetic.

I can’t break the connection.

There’s a distant vibration of a phone, and that doesn’t break the connection.

Don’t read more into this than simple sex, Emery Granger.

I’m really trying not to, but he’s staring at me like I’m a wonder. How is a girl not supposed to fall head over heels in love with this kind of attention? I’ve never in my life had this much attention.

He finally ducks his head and kisses me right below my belly button, his lips just as sure and confident here as they were everywhere else. As he inhales deeply— try not to think too hard about what that means —he shifts his whole body, levering down a bit. His hips unmistakably grind into the mattress— focus on that, that’s fucking hot —and then his mouth is on the cotton covering my mound, kissing me through my panties.

“Solnishko,” he murmurs. “Smells like summer.”

I cover my mouth to keep from screaming something silly like I love you or marry me , and it’s good because the next thing he does is tug my panties to the side and lick up the seam of my pussy, and that makes me actually scream.

“Fuck yeah,” he growls. “Be loud, Emery.”

Can’t. This room is booked in my parents’ name. Oh god, oh god…

His tongue goes everywhere. Deep and up and down again, then up, all the way up, licking between my pussy lips until he finds my clit, and there he stays, tongue kissing my virgin pussy in a way that makes me plant my heels on the bed and press my hips up into his face. Shamelessly. Needfully. Desperately.

“Alexei,” I groan around my fingers.

He mumbles something back. I close my legs around his head, and he pushes them wide open. My panties get in the way and he rips them off, sending them flying through the air.

I forget about muffling the sounds I’m making and I reach for him, my hands grabbing his head and holding him… there.

His long, capable fingers wrap around my hips and lift me to his mouth.

Thighs shaking, I try not to wrap myself around his head again, but he’s turning me inside out, his suction on my clit is so perfect. My thighs curl in, my legs sliding over his broad, strong shoulders, and then I’m coming so hard I see stars.

Deep, incredible pulses start at my clit and rocket through my belly, out to my limbs, leaving nothing tingling pleasure in their wake. I drift in the thick wonder of it, my breath hitching and my ears buzzing, until Alexei peels my thighs off his ears and presses his mouth to the inside of one leg.

“Good, yes?”

I laugh and nod. “Um…yes. Incredible. I didn’t know mouths could do all of that, but now that I do know, I feel very, very special.”

“Yes, incredible. Special.” He laughs with me, kissing my mound and then my bare belly, before crawling up beside me. He’s still wearing clothes, his dress shirt merely undone.

He looks elegantly debauched.

I am…

I glance down.

My turtleneck is shoved up into my armpits. My sports bra is yanked down below my breasts. And beneath that…I’m totally naked.

We need some balance here.

“Your turn,” I whisper.

He leans in and kisses me, tasting like me, his mouth still wet. “In a minute. First you enjoy.”

“I’m enjoying.” I tug at his belt. “I want?—”

From somewhere near the door, a phone vibrates again.

I sigh. “I should get that. If it’s my parents, and they come here next.”

He groans and rolls onto his back, waving me off. “Yes. Okay.”

I peel off my turtleneck and bra first. If I’m going to roll off the bed naked, it might as well be all the way naked.

He watches me, his attention wolfish.

I twirl at the end of the bed, then point to his erection. “Unzip, mister. I want to taste you next.”

As I search my coat for phone, I hear the unmistakable sound of his zipper, then a sexy string of Russian words. My phone’s not there, so I turn back to see if it’s in my jeans, when I feel the vibration again next to my foot.

Not my phone.

His.

I hold up his coat. “Your phone, Alexei.”

“Don’t care,” he says, his eyelids hooding his gaze, his attention locked on my face. “I want you. Need your mouth.”

I set the coat down again, and his phone tumbles out of the pocket, screen up.

Tatyana calling

It’s none of my business, of course. We’re just… Whatever we’re doing.

But then the call ends, and on the Lock Screen there’s a notification that he’s missed three calls and a bunch of messages, too.

“Who’s Tatyana?” I ask lightly. Picking up the phone, I lob it in his direction. “She keeps calling. It might be important.”

He swears under his breath in Russian. I mean, I don’t know that it’s a swear word, but it sounds like one. “I turn it off. Come here.”

Against my better judgment, I crawl onto the bed as he fiddles with his phone, and wind my arms around his neck.

But as I kiss his jaw, his body goes from hot and needy to rigid and cold.

Definitely don’t fall in love with this one, Emery Granger.

Hockey players are all the same.

“Is it, umm…?”

He peels me off his body with a heavy sigh. Closes his eyes for a beat, then opens them again, and the expression there…it’s not the man who was just between my legs.

Without saying a word, he disappears into the bathroom. There’s running water, and I use that as cover to race to my suitcase to find something that’s easier to pull on than a turtleneck and jeans.

When he returns, holding a glass of water, I’m in an oversized t-shirt and underwear. The flimsiest of armour, but it’ll have to do.

“Drink,” he says, pressing the glass into my hand. “I have to go.”

I stare as he heads for the hotel room door.

Then I find my voice. “No goodbye?”

He turns around and shoves his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. “I am trouble for you.”

“Why, was that your drug dealer?” It’s a joke, and a bad one. I hope it’s a joke, anyway.

“It is my ex-girlfriend.” His mouth pinches. “She is having a baby.”

Is that worse than a drug dealer? It feels like it is. I barely hear my voice over the ringing in my ears. “What do you mean?”

“In labour, yes? You know the thing? She is having a baby.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Now.”

I huff a shocked breath. “How ex are we talking here?”

He doesn’t answer that, which makes me feel great. “You will find better than me, Emery. And then you will forget me. It is for the best.”