Chapter 3

“Where’d you get to last night?” My jaw clenched and my hand closed in a fist over the ten dollar bill I’d just been handed. “I came by to give you a ride home but you were gone already. Did you go out with the girls?” It probably sounded like an innocent question, from one friend to another but I knew better. I could hear the underlying menace in his voice.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I lied, mostly because it was none of his business and as much as it had seemed like a good idea to me at the time to go home with that college kid, I’d woken up in an entirely different frame of mind and no longer felt like throwing that particularly disappointing event in Tristan’s face. 

“You should have let me know,” he continued, following me to the bar where I handed over the bill and the next order.

“I don’t have to report my movements to you T. You gave up the right to know what I do and where I do it when you slept with Candy.” Just saying her name made me grind my teeth. I hadn’t cared that my roommate was a stripper; her body, her life, at least until I caught her giving my boyfriend a free lap dance.

“Sugar, come on now, you’re not still mad about that are you?” Dylan, the bartender did his best not to laugh and kept pouring the beer while I rolled my eyes. 

“No, you know what T, I’m totally fine with it now. I mean, really I should be thanking you for helping me see the light and realizing what a complete fucking douchebag you are,” I turned and grinned malevolently at him, “but that doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly developed a serious case of the stupids and want to get back together,” I added before turning to grab the pitcher of beer and the four glasses to go with it. 

“I thought you’d join in,” he whispered in my ear, the whiskey he’d been drinking making my eyes burn, his breath heavy and warm on my neck. “I know you’re kinky like that,” he added, putting his meaty paws on my waist. 

“Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me.” It wasn’t a request but when Dylan reached for the section of the counter he could lift and immediately be on our side of the bar I shook my head. I didn’t like other people fighting my battles for me. 

“Baby, you know you don’t want that,” he purred in my ear and pressed himself up against my back. I grimaced, fighting the urge to toss my cookies. 

“Now Tristan,” I insisted as firmly as I could without actually screaming it. 

“Hey, jerk off, hands off my girlfriend.” I looked up at Dylan as soon as I heard the voice and he had the strangest expression on his face, like when you move a dog’s food bowl and they’re just confused. 

“Well this should be interesting,” he mused and then stepped back from the counter and crossed his arms over his considerable chest. I frowned at him, just to let him know that while I didn’t think I needed his help yet that I didn’t appreciate being abandoned altogether and then I peeked around Tristan’s bulk to see the kid from last night standing about a foot away with the same cock sure grin on his face that I’d wanted to slap off his face. 

“Oh god,” I breathed, closed my eyes and put my hands on the bar. “He is sooo gonna get killed.” 

Admittedly the kid was built better than I’d first given him credit for but he was still a pipsqueak in comparison to the man who still had a firm grip on my waist. Tristan had a pansy name, at least according to his friends, but there was nothing pansy about the six foot four diesel mechanic. He was built like a security gate, tall, broad and impenetrable. 

I felt Tristan’s hands withdraw from my waist and waited for the sound of his knuckles breaking bone. It took a minute, but what I heard instead was him laughing. 

“You’re fuckin’ kidding right?” I didn’t know if the question was aimed at me or at the kid but I kept my mouth shut and used the distraction the college boy was providing to slip under the divider and behind the bar. 

“Who’s the kid?” Dylan asked, still leaning against the back counter as if he was getting ready to watch a fashion show and not a prize fight.

“A stray I made the mistake of taking home,” I sighed. I heard Dylan chuckle under his breath and heaved another sigh. “Yeah, I know, I bring this shit on myself.”

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I didn’t like the way he was holding her and I especially didn’t like the way he was breathing on her neck. I’d almost turned around and had plans to offer the flowers I’d purchased to the first homeless person on the street and then I heard her growl at him. I’d dug the way she’d growled at me in bed. It was hot. But when she growled at him I suddenly heard my sisters and fear in her voice and the big brother in me took over.

“Hey, jerk off, hands off my girlfriend.” I knew I probably should have just told him to take a step back but as Sharpie is over fond of pointing out, I rarely think before I speak. 

I watched the guy let go of her and turn around. It was kinda like the first time John Scott walked into our dressing room. I looked up and found myself staring into the guy’s chest. I had to look up again to actually look into the guy’s eyes. 

“You’re fuckin’ kidding right?” the guy sneered at me. I play with and against guys that are big like this fucker was and I know better than to show fear but on the other hand, I’m also used to having someone bigger than me back me up. “Does your mommy know you’re out this late slugger?” he sniggered, reaching out to pat me on the head, or mess my hair, either way I blocked it with my cast. It hurt. I winced. He laughed. “Hey Bethie honey, get this kid a lollipop.” His big hand reached to swat her ass but she wasn’t there. She was already on the other side of the bar. 

“C’mon T, don’t be such an ass,” she sighed and I was disappointed to see pity in her eyes. She really thought this big meathead was going to beat the snot out of me and she felt sorry for me. 

 “Aw c’mon sugar, I’m just havin’ some fun with the little guy,” he crooned at her like he really meant it, like he hadn’t had murder in his eyes when he’d looked at me. “I mean, c’mon, you wouldn’t really sleep with him.” I looked around him at her and watched the blood creep up her neck and into her face. He must’ve seen the same thing because his hands curled into fists the size of small houses. “Aw shit, you’re kidding me right? This fuckin’ pipsqueak?” 

“Fuck off T, just leave him alone, please?” It stung, having a chick plead for my life. I could hear the guys in my head howling with laughter right now. 

“Hey, I’m over here,” I reminded him, probably unadvisedly. I could hear Coach Q in my head telling me to stop picking fights I had no chance of winning and that there’s only so many times that speed and agility are going to win before someone much bigger than me puts my head through the boards. 

“What’d you do pipsqueak?” the big guy asked and then flexed his chest muscles so that for a long moment I was sure he was about to Hulk out, that his t-shirt was going to actually give and rip away from his juiced up torso. “Did you pay her cuz I can’t see any other way except maybe a pity fuck my Bett would get into bed with a guy like you.” I didn’t like when he said it but one glance in her direction told me she liked being spoken about as a piece of this goon’s property even less than I did. She made a move but the bartender put one hand on her arm and she went still. I guessed right then that I was in it alone; just me and my cast, no Seabs, no Rat and no Buff to back me up. 

“Well if you call it a pity fuck to ride me half the night like and wear my ass out then shucks, I guess I’ll take it,” I grinned up at the big gorilla and watched his cocky smile fade around the edges. I knew it was going too far even as I did it but I couldn’t quite stop myself from giving it that old ass slap and grind motion. It was one of those stand-bys that you go to when you’re a guy, like all those times I tease Tazer about his mom being a MILF. I know it’s the wrong thing to do but it’s just too funny not to do it. 

I ducked when the guy made a grab for me and it might have been one of the only times that my size and speed came in handy off the ice. I dodged and weaved while the big guy stumbled around after me like he had two left feet until I managed to get a table between him and me and I thanked the big guy up above that this was a rough enough area of town that the tables were bolted to the floor. 

He stared at me, his nostrils flaring and all the veins in his neck and head bulging out and I wondered if this was going to be it, a headline in tomorrow’s paper about me dying in a bar brawl. I could hear the sports guys laughing right now, thinking I deserved it. But just when I thought he’d just reach over the table and grab me by the collar he straightened up, shook it off and went back to looking unimpressed. 

“Well if she’s gone all gold digger on me, I guess you’re welcome to her pansy boy.” 

I watched him walk out of the bar, relieved that he hadn’t turned me into a wet spot on the floor but also wondering why he’d suddenly changed his mind. There were a few Hawks fans in Buffalo, not many, but there was a chance I’d just run into one. 

“Wow, you must have horseshoes up your ass.” I turned to see her pouring a shot of something thick and golden into a shot glass, which she quickly downed and then poured another. 

“It has been suggested,” I admitted, thinking of all the times that other guys had taken a beating I’d probably...no, undoubtedly deserved. 

“You probably should keep going while you’re ahead and make yourself scarce before he changes his mind, comes back and beats your ass,” she added, pouring a second shot which she pushed towards me. She eyed the flowers that were still in my hand. I held them out towards her. “Really?” she managed to look embarrassed and nonplussed all at the same time.

That had been my reaction when I’d stopped at a flower shop to the buy them too. I wasn’t normally...well, ever, moved to buy flowers even for girls I dated, which I hardly did but I had never, and I mean never bought them for a chick I’d just banged, no matter how hot she was.

“What? A gentleman can’t buy a girl some flowers?” I’m pretty sure I’d heard Stalberg use that line, or maybe it had just come to me but either way, she took them, stuck her nose in the top of the bouquet and then turned her back on me. I was pretty sure she was just pretending to look for something to put them in while she tried not to look too impressed. I was willing to bet that big guy with the full ink sleeves had never bought her so much as a single rose. 

Point to me. 

“So you’re still going with that whole gentleman shtick?” she asked once, I guess, she had her expression under control and pulled an empty jug from beneath the bar which she then began to fill with water. 

“Well I guess that depends,” I replied, leaning over the bar just a little, getting my schmooze on and getting in her space at the same time which wasn’t easy with a bar between us. “Will you go out for dinner with me?” I hadn’t planned to ask her when I came in despite having stopped to buy flowers. I hadn’t really known why I’d come back looking for her, except for maybe a second helping of pretty earth shattering sex. 

“I’m working,” she answered quickly. She had a point. The bar was starting to fill up but then again, I had no place that I needed to be. 

“I can wait,” I told her, pulling a ten from my wallet. “I’ll be right down at that end of the bar when you get off.” She gave me a long hard look and for a moment I was sure she was getting ready to tell me to bounce but finally, as she dumped the flowers into the jug, she shrugged. 

“If you’re still here,” she mumbled. 

“I will be,” I told her with a grin. “Bring me a beer when you’re ready.” 

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Every damn time I looked up that night his eyes were on me. It was a little creepy but at the same time I kept thinking about how he’d stood up to Tristain, right up to where he hid behind a table, and I was at least half impressed. The flowers had put him over the edge. I was pretty sure the last guy to buy me flowers had probably been my dad the day I’d graduated from high school. That, I kept telling myself, was the only reason I hadn’t shooed the kid away yet; he’d tugged on one of my only sentimental strings. That and he kinda had the whole eager puppy vibe down to a science. 

Or maybe, I told myself as I grabbed my coat from behind the bar, it had been the way he’d fended off the advances of at least a dozen blondes with better bodies than mine while he’d been waiting for me. If he’d done it on purpose just to get on my good side, he’d done a fantastic job. 

“So I know this place,” he said, appearing at my side as I stepped out onto his side of the bar. 

“Oh yeah,” I mused, heading towards the exit, “another hotel room?” 

“I was actually thinking about this diner I know but...whatever the lady wishes,” he replied with that crooked smartass half smile. 

I wasn’t in a rush to get back into bed with him so I opted for the diner where I sat nursing a blueberry tea and a piece of apple pie while he gobbled down a couple of burgers and a whole plate of fries like he was a starving kid from Africa, or a growing teenage boy. 

“High metabolism,” he explained with a grin as he wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“That won’t last forever,” I told him, wondering if his father was the size of a Mac truck. 

“Can I get you anything else...Patrick?” the waitress, who to my eyes didn’t look old enough to be working this late, had been eying him like a piece of candy ever since we’d walked into the place. He looked up at her and gave her one of his dazzling boyish smiles.

“You want anything else, Bett?” he asked and turned that smile onto me. It really was like being in the center of a spotlight. It made me want to squirm right under the table and hide except that I’d never been a fan of girls like her in school and if I had something one of them wanted for once, I wanted to rub it in. 

“Just you sugar,” I purred and reached over to stroke my hand across the back of his, remembering too late that it was the one with the ketchup on it. 

“Cheque please,” he grinned up at her and she made a face at me that would have made Medusa proud. The minute her back was turned I grabbed a napkin and wiped off my sticky fingers while he pulled his wallet out. 

“Geez does George Costanza know you stole his wallet?” I asked as he pressed a pair of twenties into her outstretched hand and then, with a flourish, added a five. 

“I’ve got important stuff in here,” he replied with a wink, tugging just the corner of a foil condom packet out of one of the sections. I rolled my eyes. “So where to?” 

 “My place,” I muttered, sliding out of the booth and doing my best to ignore his ‘hit the jackpot’ grin. 

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It had been done to me but I still felt just a little guilty as I pulled back the sheet to reveal the full length of her sleeping body so I could take a picture with my phone. She wasn’t Playboy hot but she was hot enough that I knew texting a picture of her to Tazer would give him spanking material for a week. As I dropped the sheet back over her shoulder she yawned and rolled over, giving her back to me in the tiny double bed against the far wall of her equally tiny bachelor apartment. I hadn’t been in an apartment this small since I’d played for the Knights.

I rolled out of the bed and went looking for something to do. There was no Playstation, no Xbox, not even a Wii. There was a small TV, probably nineteen inch, and a few dvd’s piled beside it, none of them porn. I shuffled through them and decided that the period dramas would probably put me to sleep when what I really was, was hungry. 

There wasn’t much in the tiny galley kitchen either. There was a lot of bottled water in the fridge, a block of marbled cheese and bunch of apples. I took an apple and bit into it, letting the tart juice run down the back of my throat. I would have preferred left over pizza or even cold spaghetti but after a couple of bites my stomach stopped growling. 

What there was a lot of in the apartment were bookcases, overflowing bookcases. I looked at some of the titles of the well worn, dog eared paperbacks and made a face. Most of them were that kind of stuff they try and make you read in highschool that you just end up buying the Coles notes to do your book report with. There was Dickens, Brontë, Austen, Shakespeare, the lot. Not a single dime store romance novel like I usually found in the collections of the girls I banged. 

My phone vibrated in my hand, almost causing me to drop it. I’d forgotten I was still holding it. There was a text from Tazer. 

‘She’s too good for you I can tell from here’

I smirked and put back a coverless copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

‘It’s my dick she sucked’ I sent back and laughed to myself. I knew what the response was going to be before my phone vibrated again. 

‘Loser’ was the exact reply I’d expected. I was about to send back another text, I was just trying to think of a good name to call him when I heard a rustle of sheets and then her bare feet hitting the floor. She rounded the corner, wiping sleep from her eyes and then stopped and stared at me. 

“I thought you’d left,” she muttered and just for a second I thought she looked disappointed. 

“No babe, I’m still here,” I told her and offered her what was left of the apple I’d been eating. She waved me off and went to the fridge where she took out a bottle of water, twisted off the cap and downed it like she’d just done a two minute shift. I watched her neck work as she swallowed and followed the long line of her neck down to her tits with their rosy pink nipples and felt my body stir in appreciation. I tossed the apple core into the kitchen sink as I monitored a drop of ice cold water sliding down over her collarbone, right before I caught it with my tongue. 

I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her onto the counter. She looked a little startled but mostly bemused as I settled myself between her thighs. 

“Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked. I grinned and shook my head and slid my cock home. 

Chapter 2

“This place?” It was a quiet, suburban street where all the windows were dark at the witching hour. It was a sweet two up two down peaked roof house that was probably from the fifties with a welcoming looking front door and an urn standing on a brick post at the end of a driveway that could have done with some TLC. I stared at it and imagined walking through that front door to be welcomed by his mother in curlers and fuzzy slippers. 

“Yep,” he replied, pulling the key from the ignition and reaching for the handle on the inside of the driver's door. 

“Wait...you live here?” It definitely wasn’t the kind of run down place that college kids usually rented, even though, on second glance I realized a giant addition had been added. 

“Yeah,” he answered again, grinning over at me like I’d asked something funny. Like there could be any other answer to that question. I glanced up the driveway again and shook my head. 

“let me guess, with your parents, right?” I asked, already feeling the answer in my bones. 

“Well yeah, and my sisters,” he answered as if I should have known it and, more remarkably, like it wasn’t weird to bring a random hook up home in the wee hours of the night to mom and dad. 

“Oh hell no,” I snapped, sitting back in the black leather seat, crossing my arms and staring straight ahead. “I am not going into your parents’ house.”

“Mine’s the one above the garage,” he pointed out, like it mattered, like it made one damn bit of difference to me.

“Look, I was only going along with this...,” I bit off the next words that had nearly spilled from the tip of my tongue. He didn’t need to know about my personal life and exactly what a shit storm it was.  I didn’t feel like telling him that the best way I knew how to get over someone was to get under someone else.  I just wanted to hook up and then roll out and forget about him. I wasn’t up for pancake breakfast and small talk with mom and dad. “Y’know what, I’ll just call a cab. Where am I?” I pulled my phone out and started to call but he reached over and took it out of my hand. 

“We can go back to your place, if that’s what you want.” I stared at my phone and then at him and shook my head. I didn’t like sharing my bed. It wasn’t exactly a phobia, it was just that I liked to roll over onto cool sheets, not a wet spot and I didn’t like having a blast furnace next to me either. “Okay, a hotel then,” he offered and I blinked at him. He’d gone from cool and confident to desperate and it made me look at him differently. 

“A hotel?” 

“I’ll pay,” he offered, pulling his wallet out and flashing what looked a hell of a lot like a platinum card to me.

“Y’mean Daddy’ll pay,” I mumbled, looking at the card and considering a night spent between clean sheets on a mattress that didn’t have hills and valleys. “Yeah, okay fine,” I grumbled and his whole face lit up like a kid who’d just got his first bike. 

“Okay,” he grinned and fished in his pocket for his keys, stuffing them back in the ignition and putting his foot to the floor. 

____________________________________________________________________

I knew exactly what the girl at the front desk was thinking as I handed her my credit card and signed us in. I ignored her disapproving look, mostly because she did, even though she was pretty preoccupied with checking out the lavish lobby. Of course she’d noticed the way the front desk clerk had looked down her nose at us. She definitely had, but she wore the same tight lipped expression Tazer did when he was ignoring someone he didn’t want to talk to. 

“Ready?” I asked, flashing the security card at her. She shrugged one bare, milky white shoulder at me and then followed me to the elevators. We didn’t talk when the doors closed. She watched the numbers light up over our heads as she leaned against the back wall. This would usually be the point where the drunken puck fuck I’d dragged back to a hotel on the road would be on her knees giving me head or at least draped all over me, sticking her tongue in my ear and pawing me. For a brief moment I wondered what the hell I was doing here and then the doors opened and  she stepped out into the hallway, turned and looked expectantly at me. 

“Well, are we doing this or what?” she asked and then strode down the hallway like a model on a runway, with her long, toned bare legs mesmerizing me so that I ended up happily stumbling after her like a kid being lead along a trail of cookie crumbs. 

“Do you want a drink or something? Are you hungry? We could get room service,” I suggested as I slid the card through the reader and watched the three little lights go green. I pushed the door open and turned to look for her answer which is when she slammed me up against the wall and kissed me. 

Not like I was about to complain. I’d been trying to figure out how to make the transition from not touching to getting down to it anyways so I was completely good with her making the first move. I heard the door click shut behind me as I went for her ass and cursed my cast as I tried to grab hold. There was nothing sexy or smooth about shoving my cast against her ass, but she didn’t seem to mind or at least she didn’t show any signs of being put off by it. In fact she grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me into the room, right back to the bed.  

“You have something, right?” she whispered into my ear as she backed up onto the bed and bit down on my earlobe. 

“Of course,” I replied, reaching down to tug her tank top up over her head. I hadn’t been without protection in my wallet since I was thirteen and not just because I’d been precocious as a kid but because puck bunnies start picking out the talent early, hoping to hitch a ride to the big show. I plucked a foil square from my wallet and she nodded, taking it from my hand and climbing off the bed. 

I didn’t argue when she reached for the zipper on my pants. I’ve been given head more times than I can count and I enjoy the fuck out of it every time. Getting head’s like eating pizza, even when it’s bad it’s pretty good. Not that I was worried about her being bad at it. The way she took control, the way she dove right in and grabbed hold of what she wanted told me she was going to be a fucking pro. 

I moaned out loud when her tongue swirled around the head of my dick like she was licking cheap ice cream, the kind you’ve got to get through fast because it melts so damn quick. I dug my good hand into her hair, wrapping that copper silk around my fingers, not with the intention of doing more than making sure I had a good view of a pro at work but one warning look from those green eyes of hers’ and I didn’t give her so much as a tug as she swallowed me whole. 

I wasn’t rock hard yet. I’ve been with too many chicks to get hard too fast. I can make it half way through a porn film before I get really hard, unless the chick is super hot or diving down on some other chick, in which case I’m like a thirteen year old all over again. I kind of liked that she took me in over her tongue when I was half soft. It felt kind of cool for her to suck on it like that, to get hard in her mouth while she rolled my balls in one hand and stroked the back of my thigh with her other hand. 

I like watching my dick go in and out of a girl’s mouth. I don’t know what it is but it’s fucking hot. I know not all chicks like it, some treat it like a chore, like washing dishes, something that just has to be done and they get to it but you just know by the way they just spend all the time moving you in and out over their tongue that they're not into it. Then there are chicks like this one that have turned giving a blow job into fine art. She used her tongue and her teeth and her lips and her hands. A little nibble there, a long, slow, deliberate lick there and then she pursed her lips and blew across the divot on the head of my cock and I fucking shuddered. 

“Damn baby,” I grinned down at her, “that’s fucking hot.” 

“Jesus Christ you sound like Paris fucking Hilton,” she laughed as she grabbed the foil packet and the next thing I knew I was gloved up, her fist at the base of my dick. “We’ll see how hot you are,” she added, reaching back to undo her bra and shrugging it off like it was nothing to see her tits. I don’t care how old you are, five or fifty, it’s always good to see a pair of boobs. 

“Hey, slow down baby,” I said, reaching to stop her as she went to unzip her denim skirt, “it’s not a race. Believe me, I can last all night,” I told her with what I knew was my cockiest grin, the one that made so many guys want to slap my mouth guard out on the ice. 

“Sure,” she said and peeled her skirt off so that she was standing there in a pair of black panties, nothing special, just black cotton bikini panties with a little bow on the front. They weren’t the kind of panties that girls usually wore when they wanted a guy’s attention but for some reason, on her they seemed sexy. She wasn’t wearing a lot of make-up either, a little lip gloss that was gone now and some eyeliner and mascara I was guessing, but from what I could tell, nothing else. She kind of gave off this hot girl next door vibe and for just a minute I thought about Tazer and how he was always wishing that girls would make less of an effort. “Well?” she asked and stared expectantly at me. 

I looked down at my pants pooled around my ankles and had to waddle to the bed to pull my vans off so I get my socks and pants off. Last was my shirt and the minute I pulled it over my head she made a noise. It wasn’t a gasp but it was the kind of noise that said she was surprised to see definition and muscle where I’m guessing she’d expected a bit of a beer gut. 

I don’t work out like a fiend the way some guys do or at least the way Tazer does, like it’s the most important part of his day, aside from playing. I can always come up with something else I’d rather be doing. But this year I’d promised to show up at training camp in better shape and of course there’d been those less than flattering pictures making their way around the internet that a lot of the guys had been giving me the gears about, calling me soft and other, worse, things. 

I gave a little flex and it was too much. She rolled her eyes, turned around and hooked her thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties then shimmied out of them. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t let a comment fly about her ass, even though I appreciated the view. It went with her legs, the kind of ass you could definitely bounce a quarter off of, tight and muscular but still feminine. I wanted to grab it and slide my dick into her pussy from behind just so I could put my hands on it but I didn’t, because the view she replaced it with was even better. 

She turned over and lay there on her back, waiting for me and I think I stood there too long just appreciating the view but it was hard not to. In fact it was hard to ignore the urge to grab my phone, take a picture and send it to the guys asking what they were doing for their summer vacation. She was tanned just about everywhere and the thin tan lines on her hips and around her tits were like highlights, like ‘read here’ and I did as I crawled eagerly up onto the bed and immediately closed my lips around one of her dark pink nipples. 

______________________________________________________________________

His kisses were sloppy, all sort of wet and off center like an eager puppy’s. I was half afraid when he latched onto my boob like a hungry baby that he might try and go down on me and it would be one of those all style and no slam dunk moments but luckily he just got between my thighs and rammed his cock home like a heat seeking missile. 

He wasn’t going to earn any style points there either. He grabbed both of my legs, pressed them as far apart as they would go and just sort of, went to town. He watched himself going in and out of me like he was impressed with himself, as if that was the best part of show. He didn’t make a move to change positions, the angle, or, god forbid, touch me at all. I waited, lying there, being serviced as if I were no more than a blow up doll and wondered what in the hell I was doing this for. Tristan had friends who would have gladly agreed to enter into a little revenge sex, guys I knew by reputation would have been better than this.  Hell, there was a waitress back at the bar that I’d been told swung both ways that, in that moment, I was thinking had to have been better than this. 

“Let me be on top,” I breathed, scooting back so that he slid out. He grinned, like I’d just handed him a cookie and flopped down onto his back so hard that he bounced. His boyish enthusiasm was kind of cute but what I wanted right then wasn’t cute. What I wanted was to get off with the fewest complications. 

“Oh yeah baby, ride ‘em cowgirl!” he grinned up at me as I lowered myself down over him. He wasn’t big and he stuck straight up like a flag pole so it didn’t take any special manoeuvres. I put my hands flat on his chest and rocked my hips forward so my clit pressed against his pelvic bone. I bit down on my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Oh yeah, you like that huh baby?” he asked and I reached forward and pressed my fingers against his lips. 

“Shut up,” I hissed and rocked my hips again, harder this time, hard and fast. I gasped out loud this time and I could see his answering grin even behind my fingers. He pressed up into me and I gasped again. That I hadn’t expected. I’d sort of thought he’d just lie there and let me do all the work but he grabbed my hips and forced himself up into me, once, twice and I couldn’t help it. I leaned back and watched his abdominals work as he fucked me. 

“Oh yeah, you like that,” he grinned, ignoring my scowl as I dug my fingernails into his thighs. 

“Do you always talk this much?” I hissed at him and he laughed, actually laughed. Then, with one powerful movement that no guy I’d ever been with had ever been able to do, he rolled me onto my back and kept pumping. I was impressed and maybe for a moment a little breathless and I’m pretty sure he took that as encouragement. He started grunting and slamming into me like he was trying to fuck into the mattress.

I didn’t want to but I liked it. It was exactly what I needed. I met him thrust for thrust, our bodies coming together like two prizefighters standing toe to toe in the middle of the ring and scrapping it out. By the time I was getting close sweat was beading on his forehead and I could feel my own running down between my breasts. 

Snaking my hand between his body and mine I pressed my fingertips against my clit and immediately felt my entire body snap to attention. His eyes got wide and he stared at me like he couldn’t believe what I was doing, like no girl had ever had the need, or I was guessing, the stones, to get herself off but he was beyond actually putting the question that was clear in his eyes into actual words. 

His breathing had gotten ragged and his pupils were huge. His face had gone all red and I could tell he no longer had control over his body. He was slamming into me, balls deep, with complete abandon and I was working my clit like I was trying to erase it. When his eyes rolled back in his head I was right behind him and when he roared like a lion at feeding time at the zoo I let my own cry loose, my body arched up off of the bed and all I could see behind my eyelids were pretty patterns. 

__________________________________________________________________________

I woke up yawning and stretching and face down in pile of pillows that looked like they’d been used in a sorority pillow fight. The once crisp white sheet was wrapped around my legs so tight I had to kick and twist to get free enough to reach my phone as it tried to vibrate off the edge of the bed side table. I pulled it across the empty bed and peered, one eyed, at the screen. It was Kaleta which meant I was late for the gym.

“Sorry dude,” I yawned, “I guess I slept in.” 

“Yeah, yeah, play another song Kaner. Get your ass in gear.” I made another noise and turned over, intending to apologize to the lovely waitress I’d fucked the stuffing out of, only to find the side of the bed I’d expected to find her on empty. 

“Huh...dine and dash.” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kaleta asked, sounding bored. I could hear weights clinking in the background, which meant he was already at the gym, which meant I was really late. Our usual meeting spot was a coffee shop down the block. 

“Girl I took...well the girl I was with last night...she’s gone,” I explained, sitting up and running my fingers through my hair. 

“Aaaand?” Kaleta queried, still sounding like I was putting him to sleep and irritating the shit out of him at the same time. He should get together with Tazer, they could have a Kane bitch and moan fest. 

“Well I dunno, I’m usually the one bugging out before they wake up,” I explained, looking around the room for a sign that I was wrong, that she still might be here somewhere, just maybe on a trip down the hallway for ice or something. 

“Count your lucky fucking stars,” he snorted and I could see his smirk from here. “Like you were gonna ask for her number anyway. Now if you’ve finished acting like a fucking girl, get your butt to the gym” he added and then promptly hung up. 

I put my phone face down and lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. The smell of sex still hung in the air and cock stirred at the memory of waking up in the middle of the night, rolling over and slipping between her thighs, feeling that tight dancer’s ass pressing back against me as I fucked her from behind. Her pussy had been tight like a virgin’s but she was definitely not one of those. I could still feel her mouth around my joint and the thought made me smile as I slid one hand down under the covers and....

My phone vibrated across the bed. I reached out with my free hand and grabbed it. It was a text from Kaleta. 

Don’t go back to sleep!

“Fuck, I’m up, I’m up,” I grumbled and then thought about what I’d started and smiled to myself. “Maybe just a few more minutes.”

Chapter 1

6 Weeks Previous

“Wanna sign my cast?” 

As a pick up line, it bordered on cute and so did the blonde blue eyed boy whose arm the cast belonged to. I looked down at the cast, at some of the crude pictures someone had drawn on it and then up at him and wrinkled my nose. 

“Don’t think so.” 

“Not even your number?” he asked, holding a Sharpie out to me. Who brings a pen with them to a bar, let alone a Sharpie like he’s expecting to sign autographs or something? In the age of twitter, facebook and iPhones, a guy with a pen was not only an anomaly; it was downright strange and presumptuous in a cute kind of way. 

“On your arm, for you to share with all your friends, why don’t I just write it on the bathroom wall?” I chuckled and started to turn back to the bar where I was currently waiting for my drinks. It was a new line but he wasn’t my type. He was stocky and blonde and clearly one of those beer guzzling co-ed types back for the summer from some southern party college to sponge off his parents and party with old friends. He was exactly the kind of guy I spent most of the summer fending off; guys that didn’t fit into the blue collar crowd that made up the regulars at Casimir’s; cops, rail workers and shift workers from the nearby Labatt’s plant. 

“Why don’t I give you my number then?” he asked, reaching for one of the coasters on my tray. I arched my eyebrow at him. 

“First of all, let’s see some i.d. and second of all, what makes you think I’d want that?” I asked as I started to carefully slide the drinks onto my tray; two green apple martinis for the office girls in the back corner and another pitcher for the off duty cops playing pool. 

“C’mon, look at this face, of course you do,” the college boy said with a grin that I was willing to bet usually stopped traffic  on whatever Ivy League campus he was home from; all straight white teeth and a cocky wink. 

“Does that ever work for you?” I asked, carefully balancing my tray as I turned to head towards my tables. 

“Are you saying it’s not working for me now?” he asked, holding the coaster out to me like it was something I should want, like a get out of jail free card. I looked down at the coaster with the boyish scrawl and then up at his goldilocks curls and sky blue eyes and shook my head. 

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, but good luck with the other townies,” I told him and walked past, making sure that I gave my hips an extra swing as I did. I could hear his entourage hollering about his epic failure and loudly giving him the gears about his inability to pull and I had the urge to turn around and tell them that it was unlikely that any of them in their polo shirts with the popped collars were going to have much luck in this place.

“Those guys giving you a problem Beth?” I slid the pitcher onto the raised table near the pool table and shook my head. 

“Nothing I can’t handle Jack,” I told the fatherly traffic cop with the middle aged spread and the greying temples. He looked past me at the rowdy group of young men and looked ambivalent. 

“Well you let me know if any of them get out of hand,” he offered and I knew what he really meant was that if even one of them grabbed my ass he’d gladly pick them up by the backs of their two hundred dollar Tommy Hilfiger jeans and toss them and their loafers out into the parking lot. I smiled and took his ten bucks. 

“You’ll be the first to know,” I promised, stuffed the bill into my apron and headed over to the pair of giggling secretaries who were eyeing the frat boys like somebody  had just delivered a large pizza to a Jenny Craig meeting. “Ladies,” I smiled as I put a coaster down in front of each of them. 

“Do you know them?” one of the girls in her too tight pencil skirt and fussy silk blouse with the feminine ruffles asked. I glanced over my shoulder to find the one with the cast openly ogling my ass as I put their drinks down. 

“Nope,” I replied, taking the twenty she offered while I searched in my apron for a five to give back to her. 

“But you should definitely introduce yourselves. Should I drop them off a pitcher from you?” I suggested, holding the five out towards them and hoping they’d ask me to keep it and add another and then they’ll push two tables together and order lots of beer and give me a big tip. 

“Send a guy a drink?” the one girl with the too bright Barbie pink lipstick and the bottle blonde hair whose roots needed doing looked at me like I’d just asked to try out for the cheerleading squad. Like I’d ever be that stupid; with my boobs I’d end up with two black eyes before the first cheer was over.    

“What was I thinking?” I smiled as she snapped the five out of my hand and then held her hand out for the other fifty cents, bitch. I dug two quarters from the deepest recesses of my apron and put them in her hand more gently than I really wanted to. “I’m sure they’ll be over soon,” I added in as sincere a tone as I could manage before I turned on my heel and headed for the table of factory workers who had just sat down. 

“You shouldn’t fight it,” a voice purred in my ear. I didn’t even miss a step but I did laugh. 

“I’ll give you an A for effort frat boy but why don’t you try those girls back there,” I suggested, pulling a pen from behind my ear and pointing back towards the secretaries, “they look like your type, cheap.” I hesitated just a foot away from the table of big, hungry looking men. If I wanted a sizeable tip, and I did, I knew it wasn’t going help to have an advertisement for teeth whitening and axe body spray hanging off me like toilet paper stuck on the bottom of my shoe.

“Let’s face it, I’m the hottest guy in here and you’re clearly the hottest girl, it was meant to be.” He capped off his newest attempt by grabbing my wrist. I looked down at his where his fingers curled around my arm and then up at him and watched my displeasure dawn on his young face. “Okay, it’s not cute anymore. Go play with your friends.” He took his hand off my arm like he’d burnt it and turned and walked swiftly away. I shook my head and then painted on my best greet the customers smile and got out my order pad. 

________________________________________________________________________

She was fucking hot. I only had eyes for her from the minute me and the gang stumbled into the bar. We were slumming it, or at least I was. Back in the Windy City I would never hang out in a dive like the one my boys took me to that night but back home it was kind of fun to go hang out where the yokels did and just be one of the guys,  just one more annoying privileged college kid home for the summer. 

That night we weren’t necessarily on the pull, not that I was in the habit of turning down free pussy if it was offered. The goal that night was to get shit faced and probably go to the rippers and then stumble home and wake up the next afternoon and hit the gym. I had promised Coach Q that I’d come back in top shape, that I wouldn’t use the cast on my wrist as an excuse to do nothing, get soft and out of shape. I knew I was on thin ice, not just with Coach but the other guys on the team and management too. Maybe I’d let the Cup get to my head....

Okay, I totally had. But fuck, I’d won the fucking Stanley Cup, I hadn’t seen the reason to bust my balls to win it two years in a row. I’m not like Captain Stick Up His Ass; I actually like having fun and I’m definitely not busting my hump trying to get tied down. I like being free and I like chicks, all chicks...well hot chicks anyway and she was hot, even if the first thing I saw was just her ass. 

She was leaning over the bar, waiting for an order, her ass wrapped in a tight black denim skirt and the artfully ripped black t-shirt revealing some kind of artistic scroll work on her lower back. She was bopping to some heavy rock song with a killer guitar riff and I couldn’t take my eyes off that ass. First my guys dared me to go up and spank it but I knew that shit only worked back in the Windy City where I could pretty much get away with fucking anything. So when I turned down the first dare they upped the stakes. Tap it and I wouldn’t have to pay for drinks for the rest of the weekend. Considering my accountant had just been on my ass about getting my spending under control I thought that was a bet I had to win. 

She was having none of it though but when I saw that her auburn curls and bright green eyes were a match to her fabulous ass I was even more determined to win the bet. I may not be as competitive as Tazer but I don’t exactly like to lose either. But when she shot me down for the third time and her eyes got all cold and she gave me that fuck off and die look, instead of deciding that she wasn’t worth it and just getting out my credit card, I got my own game face on and sent my friends ahead to the strip club without me. 

“I wouldn’t bother man,” the bartender warned  when I asked when her shift ended. I shrugged, giving him one of those ‘you don’t worry me’ grins that I’ve pretty much got down to a fine art. I’m not a big guy in a world of goons and I’ve pretty much managed to avoid using my fists so far. 

“I’ll take my chances,” I told him, signing the visa slip and handing it back to him. 

“Your funeral man,” the guy smirked, separating my copy and handing it to me. I stuck my wallet in my back pocket and headed out the door to wait. She wasn’t far behind me and I watched as she pulled her hair from the practical pony tail and shook it loose, sending waves of copper curls down over her shoulders. She was dragging her fingers through it as she looked up and saw me leaning against the passenger door of my H2. 

“You’re fucking kidding me.” She stopped and rolled her eyes but she didn’t turn and walk back into the bar or run away, both good signs as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Drive you home?” I offered. 

“In that pimpmobile?” she scrunched up her nose and it almost made me laugh. I feigned being hurt instead, clutching my chest. 

“What’s wrong with her? She’s beautiful?” I cried and that made her laugh, even though she tried to cover her mouth and turn away. It was too late. I’d already seen it. 

“If you drove that thing into my neighborhood the cops would think you stole it,” she told me seriously, “and if you dropped me off in that thing, they’d bust me for soliciting.” 

“I’ll chance it if you will,” I told her and meant it. I was getting an eyeful of her legs, long dancer’s legs, legs with muscular calves that I was already imagining wrapped around me.

“Yeah well,” she dug into her purse and pulled out a bus pass, “I’m not much of a gambler.”  

“C’mon,” I tried appealing to her, pushing off from my Hummer and following her as she headed away from the bar and from me, “what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you take the bus this time of night. Who knows what kind of perverts and ruffians might be on the bus at this hour.” 

“Ruffians?” she stopped, turned and looked at me with a single, raised brow.

“What? It’s a word,” I grinned, not actually sure if it was or if it was something my dad had just called me when I was little. She pursed her lips and gave me one of those once over looks that had nothing to do with checking out what labels I was wearing or how big my biceps were and everything to do with trying to decide if I was a rapist. I could hear voices in my head that sounded a lot like my teammates laughing their asses off at my expense. 

“Gentleman huh?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and aiming this unimpressed look at me, her head tipped to the side, her curls falling over her bare shoulder. She’d taken off the ripped t-shirt and was now in just a tank top with thin spaghetti straps.

“You won’t know unless you give me a chance,” I offered, my arms out, giving her my best innocent look. She narrowed her eyes and gave me a long hard look before she heaved sigh and shrugged. 

“I guess if my time is up, it’s up.” I felt like I’d won a game. I could feel the big goofy grin on my face and she rolled her eyes again at me but the corners of her mouth turned up and I could feel it in my bones. I was winning her over.

Not my Hummer though. Even as she climbed inside she looked thoroughly displeased with her surroundings. It was such a different reaction to the girls I usually picked up that it made me laugh which made her frown at me. 

“What?” she asked, her arms once again crossed defensively in front of her. 

“You hate my ride. You really do,” I pointed out as I turned to look behind me as I backed her out of the now mostly empty parking lot. 

“Well it’s kind of...ostentatious and, besides, who needs anything this big?” she asked, giving me that look that, without saying it out loud, asked if I knew that I was trying to make up for not exactly being the tallest guy in the world. 

“Ostentatious?” I repeated slowly and carefully and she rolled her eyes again.  Tazer does that to me sometimes. He also does it when a puck bunny I’ve brought for dinner makes a ‘chicken of the sea’ comment. That’s why he never bothers to ask their names; he just calls them all Jessica, whether they have big boobs or not. 

“So does it usually impress the girls you pick up?” she asked, not bothering to give me a definition. I’d guessed it wasn’t good anyway. 

“I guess,” I replied casually. I knew that half the girls I picked up would have said so even if I’d been driving a Prius but I liked my ride and didn’t much care if they did or not. It kind of impressed me that she didn’t say she liked it just to make me happy though. It was kind of novel, like getting a new stick. 

“So did you win the bet then?” she asked, turning to look at me when we cruised up to a stop light. I shrugged and she snickered. “Yeah, I guessed there was something like that going on. So what do you need for proof, my panties or something?” 

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I admitted, keeping my eyes on the light; not because I was worried I’d blush like Captain Chastity Belt would have but because I didn’t think the smirk on my face was going to help me get to what would win me the bet. 

“Oh, I see. So that’s why you haven’t asked me which way we should be heading?” she asked and I could feel her gaze boring into the side of my head like one of those drills they use on you at the dentist. “So you’re not even going to ask me? You’re just going to assume because I got in your fancy ride that I’ll sleep with you?” she asked in a tone that was not very encouraging. 

I glanced over at her, gave her my best, most dazzling ‘trust me’ smile and said, “yeah.” 

“Wow,” she sat back and just stared at me, open mouthed. “What fucking school do you go to where this shit actually works?” I’d already figured out that she thought I was a frat boy and it was obvious she didn’t recognize me and I didn’t really think that putting her in the pictures was actually going to help me at this point, so I played along. 

“Chicago,” I said, not knowing the actual names of any of the schools. 

“Wow, fuck off, and this shit actually works? This whole smooth operator shit you’ve been laying on me actually works for you there? Wow,” she shook her head and smiled. “I’m hella impressed.” 

“Thanks,” I said and meant it which made her laugh, the kind of laugh that started with a snort and ended with her wiping tears from her eyes. 

“Jesus, please tell me you’re joking,” she sighed, reaching for the sunshade, pulling it down and checking her mascara in the tiny lit mirror. 

“About the lines working or that I want to fuck you?” I asked, straight up. She paused, one hand on the sun shade, the other under her eye. 

“The lines,” she said slowly and I grinned. 

“Oh yeah, they do sometimes. I‘m totally taking you home and fucking you though.” She blinked, tucked the sun shade back up and gazed over at me.

“Uh huh. I got that,” she smirked and then turned and stared out the passenger window and didn’t say another word.