I headed to the locker room, where I sat on the bench. Who did that to their kid? Was it really his job forcing him to go, or did he no longer know how to connect with his daughters? Either way, it was fucked up. She had to be a wreck.
Knowing it was too early to get dressed in my gear, I strode out of the locker room, only to nearly mow Pepper over in my exit.
“Whoa!” I grasped her shoulders to keep her upright and caught us before we hit the opposing wall. “We have to stop meeting like this,” I teased, hoping the call-back to the night we met might make her smile.
She looked at me with streaked cheeks, her eyes made even bluer by her tears, and I knew that no measure of teasing could make this right. I looked up and down the hallway, making sure no one was present to see what I was sure she would find embarrassing later. She was never one for the public eye.
Seeing the coast was clear, I pulled her back through the doorway into the locker room, so we could have some privacy.
Once the door swung shut behind us, I took her face in my hands.
“Want to tell me about it?” I asked. It was the closest I could come to implying that I hadn’t heard what happened without lying to her.
She nodded, sending a flurry of tears down her cheeks.
“My dad. He promised that if we came home to Seattle after college, we’d spend more time together as a family. Those first years when he coached the Sharks, he was always so busy. Too busy for us, at least. Not that he didn’t love us.” She nodded again as if she had to make her point. “I know he loved us. He loves us. But when our mom died...I don’t think he knew how to handle two little girls who didn’t play hockey.”
My thumbs swept the tears away, wishing taking the pain out of her eyes could be just as easy. “The scouting trip over Thanksgiving?”
She pulled her face from my hands and walked toward the bench in front of my locker, sitting where I usually did to put on my pads.
“Yeah. I guess you know what I look like when I go nuclear now, huh?” She twisted her hands and looked anywhere but my eyes. “This is so embarrassing.”
Well, shit. I took the seat next to her, sliding close enough that our shoulders touched. “If that’s what you call going nuclear, I think I can handle it. You have every right to be hurt, and mad, and whatever else you want to feel.”
She rested her head on my shoulder, more like at my shoulder seeing as she was so short. I gently moved her, looping my arm around her so she could lay her head against my chest.
She sniffled, somehow making something I usually thought was gross into incredible cuteness. Cuteness? Just grow a vagina while you’re at it.
What was it about her that made me softer? Well, she didn’t make everything softer.
“It’s okay,” she assured me. “Ivy wanted to go home with Crosby for Thanksgiving, anyway. Now she can. Not that dad can know.”
I’d better see that girl at my Thanksgiving table. My mother’s words came back to me, louder than a siren through my brain.
“Come home with me,” I offered. “My parents have a farm in Montana. It might not be what you’re used to, but it’s family.”
She leaned back and met my gaze. “But that’s your family, your private life.”
I tried not to react, to take that as a rejection.
“You are part of my private life, Pepper. Hell, you’re pretty much my entire private life. I want you there. Honestly, I don’t want to go five days without seeing you.” I brushed back a strand of her hair, savoring the silky feel of it between my fingers before I tucked it behind her ear. “Besides, friends can go home with friends for Thanksgiving.”
She chuckled softly and smiled up at me. “We do make pretty good friends.”
“Yeah, we do.” Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she hadn’t felt that instant, primal connection I had while kissing her. Maybe I really was just a friend.
My dick almost cried at the possibility. The last thing I wanted to do was be relegated to the friend zone of the hottest woman I’d ever met. Not when everything within me was screaming to touch her, kiss her, fuck her senseless until she could see what we could be together.
But what could we be together? Her father was a guillotine hanging above our heads.
“And you’re right,” she said, her attention slipping to my lips. “Friends do go home with friends.”
“True. It’s all very… friendly.” I shifted slightly, until the arm that had been around her shoulder now swept up her back, my fingers tangling in the hair at the base of her head.
“Friendly,” she whispered, her fingers trailing down my spine. “Right, because we’re friends. Just friends.”
“Just friends,” I repeated, but my thoughts were anything but. Her lips parted as if they couldn’t support the weight of my gaze upon them. Memories assaulted me, filled me with her taste, the feel of her skin under my hands. “No chemistry, remember?”
“No chemistry,” she repeated. “Definitely no sizzle.”
My fingers tightened in her hair and her neck arched, bringing her lips that much closer to mine. “No ache.”
“No desperate need to feel your weight on top of me.” Her voice dropped to the softest whisper.
Fuck, I was rock hard and ready to go, and I hadn’t even touched her. Some kind of friendship.
“No raging demand to find out what you sound like when you come.”
“Right. Because friends don’t think like that.”
We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, charged with the intensity of a thousand power plants pumping electricity into the space between us.
“No, they don’t.”
I didn’t know who moved first, and it didn’t matter. A second later, my mouth was on hers, her lips parting beneath mine as I thrust my tongue inside. Home. She tasted like home.
She let out a sweet moan, her nails scratching through my thin T-shirt as she fisted the fabric.
Friends, my ass.
I took her back to the bench, thankful it was made wide enough to accommodate NHL players. Hell, the padding almost made it perfect for this purpose. Shifting so that I knelt between her thighs, she hooked her ankles just above my ass and rocked her hips up into me, wordlessly telling me what she needed.
Bracing most of my weight on my elbows, I let myself settle between her thighs and groaned at the way she fit me perfectly. I kissed her again and again, trying to take my fill, somehow knowing it would never be enough. I could never kiss her enough to be satisfied, never get used to the feel of my hands skimming her curves, as I let one do just that. Fuck, her waist was tiny, at odds with the generous size of her breasts.
I wanted her naked, needed to see what I already knew would be perfect. My mouth moved to her jaw until I trailed open-mouthed kisses down her neck, pausing at the patches of skin that made her gasp, learning what she liked.
She squirmed beneath me and whimpered when my hand gripped her hip and squeezed lightly.
“Eric,” she pled as I lightly sucked on her collarbone.
“Pepper,” I answered, my voice slipping to a near-growl. I pulled her tighter against me, letting her feel just how much I wanted her. Driving myself crazy with the knowledge that just a few thin layers of clothing separated me from her pussy.
I rocked against her, letting my cock push against her clit through the stretchy fabric of her yoga pants.
She moaned and rocked up for another, and another, until I gave up all thoughts besides kissing her mouth, and thrusting against her.
Fuck, she was responsive. I was willing to bet my NHL contract that she was wetter than the ocean, and damn, was I going to find out.
She writhed against me, pushing my control until it was razor thin and crumbling. One of her hands slid under my shirt, grazing my waist until her thumb caressed the edge of each of my abdominal muscles. Any lower—
“Fuck,” I hissed, as she gripped me through the fabric of my warm-up pants.
“I want this,” she whispered, raking her teeth along my earlobe as she squeezed my dick for emphasis. “I want you.”
“You have me. God, do you have me.” She could’ve asked me for anything in that moment, and I would’ve given it to her willingly and without reservation.
She tightened her hand around me, her fist sliding down my length and back up again until I knew that if she kept it up, I’d come in my pants like a freshman.
I gripped her wrist and moved it above her head, where I held it captive with my other hand.
“You’re killing me.”
She gyrated her hips in answer, using her pussy to do what I’d just denied her hand. Damn, I could feel how hot she was.
I kissed her deep, thrusting my tongue and my cock in the same rhythm, until her moans turned to rhythmic whimpers, and her thighs tensed around me.
There was zero chance in hell I was going to fuck her in the locker room, but at least one of us could reach satisfaction.
“Please,” she cried softly as my fingers dipped beneath the waistline of her yoga pants. The stretchy material gave easily, making room for my hand as I explored lower.
I reached the scrap of lace that served as her panties, and then—sweet Jesus—my fingers found her wet, swollen, and hotter than the sun.
“Fuck. Pepper, baby, you’re so wet.” If I thought my control had been weak before, it was downright see-through now. My dick throbbed, aching to be inside her, to pump us both to release.
Instead, I trailed my thumb from her slick opening up to her clit, and began to swirl, giving her the friction she needed and the pressure she craved.
Her cries were breathy but soft, and I pulled up just enough to watch her face. I wanted to remember every single second of this moment.
“That’s it, baby,” I urged, moving my thumb faster, still rocking against her as if I were inside of her.
“Eric, oh God,” she keened, her muscles locking, going tense beneath me. She was close, and I’d never seen a more beautiful sight. Her lips were swollen from my kisses, her eyes bright, fevered, and the blush that stained her skin pink brought my arousal to a whole other level.