34. Dante #3
His hands settle on my thighs, heavy and warm.
Mine slide into his hair, tightening until his scalp prickles under my fingers.
He looks up at me with the grin still on his mouth, flushed and open in a way he only gets after a win, and my hand tightens further.
A soft gasp escapes him, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
Behind us, Maya types faster.
I kiss him again, slower this time, deeper, swallowing the low groan that rumbles in his chest. The couch shifts under us. Cole’s grip tightens, and his mouth opens under mine, the sound he makes low enough that Maya’s typing falters again.
Then the keys start again.
One sentence.
A pause.
Two more lines of typing.
She hits send, then closes the laptop.
“Done,” she says.
I lift my head from Cole’s mouth. My lips feel swollen, sensitive. “Fast. Should I be concerned about the quality?”
“Should I be concerned about the three turnovers you had in the second period?”
“Those were strategic puck placements,” I say.
“Strategic puck placements. To the other team,” Maya says.
“I was testing their defensive structure,” I say.
“You were testing their defensive structure by giving them the puck.”
“Repeatedly,” I say. “For science.”
Cole laughs under me, his hands still on my thighs, his laughter vibrating through my body. Maya’s mouth fights it. She loses.
“Get over here,” she says. “Both of you. I’m tired of watching you from sixty feet away.”
I climb off Cole’s lap. He follows me up, one hand still hooked in the back of my shirt.
Maya is standing by the desk now, laptop closed behind her, and I reach her first this time, my hands on her waist, pulling her in.
She tips her chin up, eyes dark in the dim room.
The scent of her—warm skin and the faint floral of her shampoo—hits me, and my body tightens with a fresh, sharper want.
“You played the best game I’ve ever seen tonight,” she says, low, just for me.
“I know,” I say.
“The arrogance.”
“You just said it was the best game you’ve ever seen. I’m agreeing with your expert analysis.”
“My expert analysis also noted the turnovers,” she says.
“Your expert analysis is standing very close to me right now.”
“She can leave,” she says.
I tighten my hands on her waist, feeling the delicate bones beneath my palms. “She hasn’t moved.”
Her hands are on my chest. She pushes up on her toes and kisses me hard, her teeth catching my lower lip, the bite she knows makes my hands tighten.
I pull her flush against me. Against my mouth, she makes a sound that goes straight through me, a low, hungry noise that unravels my control another inch.
“You taste like Gatorade,” she says.
“You taste like the wine you drank while I was winning a championship,” I say.
“Someone had to stay hydrated.”
“You were sitting in a press box drinking pinot while I blocked a shot with my shin.”
“Your shin is very brave. I’ll write a feature about it.”
I bite her neck. She gasps. Her hand fists my shirt, and the sharp pull of fabric against my shoulders is a brand.
Cole comes up behind her. His chest presses to her back, his mouth at her ear. “Is this the part where you two stop flirting and admit you want to take your clothes off?”
“We’re debating,” Maya says.
“You’re debating with your tongue in his mouth,” Cole says.
“It’s a persuasive technique,” Maya says.
“Take her to bed,” I say to Cole over her head. “Before she writes an editorial about my turnovers.”
“You take me to bed,” Maya says, chin up, eyes on mine. “You want me? Come get me yourself.”
I pick her up. Her legs wrap around my waist, reflex and muscle memory, her weight a perfect, familiar anchor.
Cole follows close down the hall. My mouth stays on her neck, tasting salt and perfume.
Her hands stay in my hair, tugging just enough to sting.
At the bedroom door, Cole reaches around us and opens it.
The lamp is already on. She must have turned it on before we left for the game.
She knew, I think. She knew exactly how this would end.
I set her on the bed. She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me down with her.
My mouth finds hers, and the kiss is different from the living room, deeper, slower, my hand spreading wide against the small of her back.
The frantic energy from before settles into something thicker, more intentional.
The championship high is still there, but it’s morphing into a different kind of hunger—one that needs to be felt, not just won.
“Off,” she says, pulling at my shirt. “I want to see what I won tonight.”
“You didn’t win anything. I won. You watched,” I say.
“I watched from the best seat in the house.” She drags the shirt over my head. Her hands land on my chest, then slide down. Her fingers trace the tattoos she has memorized, the ink and scars and muscle. Her touch is a map she knows by heart. “And I want my trophy.”
“I’m a trophy now.”
“You’re a trophy with too many clothes on.”
She sits up against me. Cole kneels behind her, pulls her shirt over her head, and unclasps her bra.
His hands settle on her shoulders. Mine stay on her waist. She is between us, my grip at her waist and Cole’s hands on her shoulders, and for a moment we just hold her there, a shared possession.
The air in the room shifts, charged and silent.
Cole moves first, shifting out from behind her and settling beside her on the mattress.
“Lie back,” I tell her.
“Make me.”
I press her shoulders into the mattress.
She goes, letting me push her down, her eyes holding mine the whole way, chin lifted even as her shoulders meet the mattress.
The defiance in her gaze hits low in my stomach.
Cole’s hand slides down her stomach. She lifts her hips, and he strips her jeans and underwear in one pull.
The fabric whispers away, and then she’s bare between us.
I stay above her and look down.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“I’m appreciating,” I say.
“Appreciate faster,” she says.
“No.” I trace my finger from her collarbone to her navel. Slow. Her stomach contracts, a flutter of muscle under smooth skin. “I just won a championship. I’m taking my time.”
“Dante—”
“You said get over here. I’m here.” My finger traces lower, over her hip, down her thigh, past where she wants it. Her breath hitches. “You said come get me. I’m getting you.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me,” I say.
“Both. Simultaneously. It’s exhausting,” she says.
Cole shifts beside her, his mouth finding her breast. She arches, a sharp, beautiful curve of her spine. My hand slides between her thighs, finally, and her breath catches, her eyes fluttering shut. She’s already wet, hot, and my own pulse kicks hard against my ribs.
“Cole,” I say.
He lifts his head and looks at me. His eyes meet mine, dark and knowing.
“Your turn.”
His eyes darken further. He shifts down her body and kisses her stomach, her hip, the inside of her thigh. She opens for him, and his mouth settles between her legs, and her hand flies to his hair, and the sound she makes is raw, unfiltered, a punch of air that makes my cock ache.
I watch.
Cole’s hands spread her thighs wider. His mouth finds the rhythm that makes her fingers twist in the sheets. He changes pressure, changes angle. Her back arches off the mattress, hips rolling as the sounds sharpen, climb higher, break into gasps.
I’m hard. Aching. The game is still under my skin, and Cole’s head is between her legs, Maya’s face open, her mouth parted, her body lifting into the mouth that knows it best. I watch the flush spread across her chest, watch her teeth sink into her lower lip, watch the moment her control starts to fray.
It’s a beautiful, brutal thing to witness—Cole wrecking her, and her letting him.
I shift beside her, my lips at her ear. “How does he feel?”
Her eyes open. Glazed. “What?”
“Cole. His mouth on you. Right now. Tell me what it feels like.”
“You want a play-by-play? Right now?” Maya asks, her voice strained.
“I want to hear you say it.” My hand closes over her breast and rolls the nipple. She gasps. “While he’s doing it.”
“That’s, fuck, that’s cruel, Dante,” she says.
“Kindness was never the point.”
“He’s, god, his tongue is—” She breaks off. Her hand yanks Cole’s hair. Her hips lift against his mouth. “I can’t talk, and he’s doing the thing where he—”
Cole does something that makes her whole body jolt. Her sentence dies. Her head presses back into the pillow, and the sound that comes out of her is sharp, high, and wordless.
“Fuck you,” she says, breathless.
“Soon,” I say.
She comes hard, thighs clamping around Cole’s head, hand gripping my arm, body bowing off the mattress.
Cole keeps her there through it, mouth on her, hands on her hips, without rushing.
I feel every tremor that runs through her, watch her face as it fractures into pure, unraveled pleasure.
It’s a victory as potent as any on the ice.
Afterward, she sinks back into the sheets, breathing ragged.
Cole lifts his head, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and looks at me. His lips are slick, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“She’s all yours,” he says.
“I was always all both of yours,” Maya says, eyes still closed. “Don’t pretend there’s a handoff.”
Her eyes open. She looks at me, then at Cole. Back to me.
“Both of you,” she says. “Different this time.”
Cole goes still.
My attention cuts to him.
Maya sees it. Her mouth curves, soft and dangerous. “I want him inside me,” she says, looking at Cole. Then her eyes come to mine. “And I want you inside him.”
Cole’s breath punches out of him.
His hand tightens in the sheet.
The words hang in the air, a live wire. My own body reacts before my mind can catch up—a sharp, visceral heat that pools low in my stomach. I look at Cole, at the wide, dark eyes, the parted lips. The trust there is absolute, and it steals my breath.
“Cole?” I ask.
His eyes are on mine now, dark and wide and already answering. Still, he nods once. “Yes.”