“You certainly do that,” I say, my cock thickening again as she stops in front of me, tipping her head back for a kiss. “Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?”
“I’d be too stressed about Derrick coming back,” she says, humming against my mouth as I kiss her soft and sweet. “But Friday, I’m all yours.”
“Sounds good.”
“It does and I mean it, Ian,” she says softly, resting her hand on my chest. “I want to be all yours. I’m ready if you are. I think we should take care of this V-Card.”
“All right. Then that’s what we’ll do,” I say, the thought of being Evie’s first filling me with a mix of anticipation and an odd, unsettled feeling that has me so distracted she’s been gone nearly ten minutes by the time I remember the sock I tucked under the cushion.
I fish it out and sit staring at it for way too long, wondering if it’s a bad sign that I kind of want to keep it. Even her socks are…weirdly adorable.
“Trouble,” I mutter to myself. “You’re headed for trouble.”
But am I going to change course?
Hell, no.
Chapter 21
Evie
Wednesday’s art therapy goes even better than Monday’s, but I overhear the gossip as the players work on their “found family trees”—a tree filled with people they trust to be there for them, whether they’re blood relatives or not.
Seems the two Svens got into it not once, but twice, during practice and Pete broke his stick in a fit of rage after the assistant coach called him out for repeatedly making dangerous passes through center ice.
This is pretty much business-as-usual for the Possums at this point, but I can feel how heavily the continued conflict is weighing on Ian. He’s the only one who knows how high the stakes are for the team and how much they all stand to lose if they can’t find a way to work together.
We leave separately after the session—the better not to be seen together by my brother—but I can’t resist shooting him a text when I get home—Sorry today was another rough one. I’m rooting for you and the team. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
Just a few seconds later, he texts back—Thanks, Feisty. Just keep being you. You’re helping those guys, whether they realize it or not. You’ve got a gift for this stuff. You picked the right career. No doubt.
Warmth spreads through me, making me grin as I type—Thanks. That means a lot from a guy who was pretty eye-rolly about art therapy at first.
He shoots over an embarrassed emoji and—I’m not nearly as smart as I think I am sometimes. My pep talk in the locker room this morning proved that. I’m not sure anything I say will get through to them at this point, not even if I could spill the beans about how much danger we’re really in. But I’ll keep trying.
That’s all you can do, I assure him, hang in there. I’m sending good vibes your way and studying up on how to give a quality blow job for Friday.
He sends a gif of a balding man in saggy underwear doing a victory dance in a greeting card aisle that makes me laugh out loud.
“Show me,” Jess says from the kitchen table behind me. “I need funny to get me through this code cleanup without attempting to drown myself in the toilet.”
I shift to shoot her a sympathetic look over the back of the couch. “Another rough day with the new team?”
“They’re either imbeciles or fucking up on purpose to make me look bad and take my shiny new boss job,” she says with remarkable calm. “I’m not sure which yet, but I’ll let you know when I do.”
“Poor thing. Do you need cookies? I hid some so Harlow couldn’t eat them all.”
Jess’s eyes light up, but she doesn’t look up from her screen. “Oh, yes, please. Even though I read an article about sugar causing nerve damage last night while I was insomnia scrolling that was pretty disturbing.”
“No good comes from insomnia scrolling or reading articles about sugar.” I head into the kitchen, fetching the stepladder from beside the fridge so I can reach the back of the cabinet above the microwave.
“And what about withholding funny texts from one of your best friends?” Jess tosses casually over her shoulder. “Any good come from that?”
“It was nothing,” I say, collecting the small Tupperware container from under the pile of empty coffee bags we’re collecting to earn a free sock cap. “Just a goofy thing. Not worth sharing.”
She hums thoughtfully. “Right. And I wasn’t secretly hoping to be teacher’s pet and get Ian’s monster cock to sledgehammer through my V-Card.”
I tumble off the stepladder in surprise, sending the cookies flying as I reach out to catch myself on the lower cabinets before I crush my tailbone on the tile.