Chapter 31
AVERY
Peyton
Just landed. Care for company?
I responded so fast, I was surprised I didn’t type a hole in my screen.
Definitely. We can order food or something.
The reply was a thumbs-up, and I’m not ashamed to admit that the relief was almost overwhelming.
The damn road trip had gone on for-fucking-ever.
I’d spent time with Rachel and the kids, and I’d skated with Marts, since he was trying to stay conditioned while he rehabbed his shoulder, but it just wasn’t enough.
I’d been missing Peyton so bad I was losing my damned mind.
And not a moment too soon, he pulled in my driveway.
As soon as I heard the engine outside, I whispered, “Oh, thank fuck,” into the stillness of my empty house.
The impulse to fling open the door and greet him like a boyfriend caught me off guard.
Fortunately, I managed to tamp it down before I opened the door, and by the time I was face to face with Peyton, I was no longer in danger of grabbing him and kissing him.
That wasn’t who we were. I wished it was, but it wasn’t, and it never would be. I’d already fucked that up—including with a badly timed drunken kiss that I was still mortified about—so I didn’t need to make it worse.
That wasn’t to say it was easy to keep my hands to myself. It never was, but today he was wearing that gray-blue suit he must’ve worn on the plane. He always looked amazing in suits, and seeing him in one now was like seeing a glass of ice water in the middle of the desert. Want.
Somehow clinging to my dignity and self-control, I said, “Coffee?”
His smile—fuuuck. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
After he’d left his shoes by the door, I led him into the kitchen.
While I got the coffee going, he said, “You’re in a good mood.”
Of course I am, I damn near said. You’re here.
“I am,” I answered instead. “Getting a little stir crazy and missing hockey, but… I’m doing pretty good.”
“That’s great.” He leaned against the counter. “I take it therapy and all that has been going good?”
We hadn’t talked much about that while he was gone. Too depressing. Too many other things to focus on that were so much more pleasant. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s…” I exhaled, rolling my shoulders. “I swear this is the closest I’ve felt to myself since…” I hesitated, then quietly finished, “Since Leif died.”
The words still hurt. On some level, I knew they always would. But it felt more like putting weight on an old, cranky injury than trying to walk on a broken ankle.
Peyton’s smile made the whole world brighter. “That’s great! I’m glad to hear it’s been helping. You look…” He swallowed. “You look more like yourself, too. Not that I knew you before, but…” He actually blushed, which was too damn adorable. “You know what I mean.”
I laughed softly. “Yeah, I follow. I’m just glad I wasn’t too far gone when I got help. I can’t imagine digging myself out of a deeper hole than this.” I held his gaze. “So… thanks for that.”
“You’ve done the work,” he whispered. “Not me.”
“No, but you gave me the swift kick in the ass that I needed.” I swallowed. “To be honest, I think you saved my life. You definitely saved my sanity.”
He swallowed hard, but then he smiled. “Glad I could help. I know it was rough there in the beginning, but… I’m glad it’s helping.”
“It is. I just…” I bit my lip. No, there was no way to say that without sounding like I was fishing for sympathy or something.
Peyton tilted his head. “What?”
“I…” I dropped my gaze. Then I laughed because, eh, what the hell? I doubted I could do much to look more pathetic to this man. “I can’t lie—I’m still kicking myself for fucking things up with you.”
“For fuck—what? You didn’t fuck anything up with me.”
I met his eyes with a skeptical look of my own.
“Come on. Let’s not kid ourselves. I’m grateful and I always will be, but nothing I’ve said or done over the past few months has been, shall we say, attractive?
” Shaking my head, I turned away to get our coffee cups.
“I don’t blame you at all. I’m just fucking pissed at myself for—”
His hand materialized on the back of my neck, the touch gentle but firm, and before I knew what was happening, he’d rotated me to face him.
And then his mouth was against mine.
For a second, I froze, but as he snaked his other arm around me and dragged his lower lip across mine, my brain and body caught up. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, and that little hum against my lips almost dropped my knees out from under me.
Peyton nudged me back a step so I was leaning against the counter, and he carded his fingers through my hair as he kissed the breath out of me.
When he finally came up for air, he was trembling almost as much as I was. Looking right in my eyes, he panted, “I’ve been… wanting to do that forever.”
I stared at him, my heart thundering as my knees shook beneath us.
He licked his lips. “The last few months have been a lot of things,” he said, still breathless. “Enough to make me stop being attracted to you?” He shook his head, and as he drew me back in, he growled, “Not a fucking chance.”
Then he had my mouth again, and my spine turned to liquid.
Oh my God. This man’s touch. His kiss.
There wasn’t a damn thing I could do except hold on and just melt in his embrace.
No one had ever kissed me like this. No one.
Absolutely no one. If I didn’t believe his words, I believed the unmistakable desire in the way he parted my lips with his tongue and explored my mouth.
In the way he held me so damn tight—not so that I couldn’t pull away, but rather like he was silently begging me not to.
I was the one to break the kiss this time, breathing hard and fast into the space between our lips. “You still… Even after…” I didn’t even know why I was asking. He’d made it absolutely clear he wanted me.
Maybe I just couldn’t quite get my head around why. How. After everything I’d said and done. After everything he’d seen. How in the world was he—
“I wanted you long before I ever came to Pittsburgh,” he murmured. “Now that I know you?” He finished that thought with an even hotter kiss, sliding his fingers up into my hair and grinding his rock-hard cock against mine through our clothes.
I just whimpered and kissed him right back. It didn’t make sense, him still being into me after all this, but his kiss didn’t lie. The way he held on to me, fingers twitching against my scalp as soft moans vibrated against my lips—none of that lied either.
Holy fuck. Peyton Hall wants me.
And what could I do besides grab on and give as good as I got?
“God, I want you so bad,” I mumbled against his lips.
That soft moan almost had me coming in my damn pants.
“Good thing we’ve got all day, huh?” he whispered.
Oh, hell. We did, didn’t we? Nowhere to go except the bedroom.
“Think we’d be moving too fast if we jumped into bed?” I asked.
“Depends. Are we getting naked?”
“No clothes allowed in my bed.”
He groaned softly. “Definitely not too fast.”
“Didn’t think so. C’mon.” I nudged him back a step and took his hand. “Upstairs.”
Peyton didn’t object.
As soon as we’d stepped into my bedroom, he pressed me up against the door and claimed my mouth again.
Fuck, I could not get enough of the way he kissed—I’d heard of needing someone like air, but I’d never imagined what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of that need.
To have someone kissing me so greedily. So hungrily.
And oh, hell, I hadn’t realized until this moment how touch-starved I’d been recently, and now my whole body—every damn cell and nerve ending—tingled with the need for more.
“I’m game for anything,” he murmured. “Just so we’re clear. I’ll fuck you if that’s what you want. You can fuck me. We can sixty-nine all damn day. I just…” He paused to nip my lower lip. “I just want you.”
“Ungh, me too.”
He swept his tongue across his lips. “Why do we still have all these clothes on?”
I glanced down, honestly surprised our clothes hadn’t just gone up in flames. Meeting his gaze again, I shook my head. “No idea. Let’s get them out of the way.”
The grin that lit up his face also lit up parts of me that I didn’t know existed. I’d had plenty of sex in my life, including with a handful of boyfriends, but I couldn’t remember anyone ever gazing at me like he wanted to devour me whole. Oh my God.
We separated and made short work of our clothes. It didn’t take much for me—all I’d had on was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
Peyton still had on his suit, so he had a few more steps. Fine by me—that just gave me a chance to lie back in the bed and touch myself while I watched him strip down.
I’d seen him naked plenty of times, but ever since my earliest years as the queer kid in the locker room, I’d been in the habit of pointedly not observing my teammates. Especially what they were packing.
So color me seriously—and pleasantly—surprised to find that Peyton was hung.
Not so big he’d be painful to take, but definitely thick enough to give my jaw a run for its money, not to mention my ass.
I’d fantasized plenty of times about sex with him, and now I was on fire with need to feel everything he could do with that impressive dick.
Once he was finally, gloriously naked, he joined me in bed. I reached for him, ready to drag him own into a kiss, but he—
“Oh, fuck!” I cried when he ran the tip of his tongue up the length of my dick. “Holy…”
He glanced up at me, grinning. “I’ve been wanting to do this forever.”
Before I could tell him to be my guest, he had his lips around the head and his hand around the shaft, and… oh, God. He didn’t hold back at all—licking, stroking, moaning as if he were the one getting his brains sucked out his cock.