Chapter 4
NIKKI
Am I crazy?
I don’t even know this man.
And yet… I feel like I do.
After last night and all the talking we did and then those toe-curling kisses, I do feel like I know him.
I thought maybe he’d have hard feelings about me leaving last night, but he’s been sweet as ever.
I’ve turned down men who then get all pissy and insulting, but not Marek.
He’s been a little awkward but that’s endearing.
I caught glimpses of him watching me perform tonight, and the look on his face made me feel like Aphrodite rising from the sea.
I performed for him.
“We can just talk for a while,” he says, melting my heart even more.
My parents had a long talk with me and my brother after that incident, making sure that Grayson understood consent, along with power dynamics, peer pressure and bystander effect.
He knew if he ever thought he could use his status as a hockey player to abuse women they’d whip his ass.
(Not literally, they’ve never hit us.) Also, they’d drummed it into my head that men can be a danger, especially after that tragedy with Harlow and the hockey players.
I understand that and appreciate that they wanted me to always be safe.
I’ve made mistakes and trusted the wrong people because sometimes I make decisions with my heart instead of my head.
And when you start living in the spotlight, those mistakes can become huge disasters.
I don’t want this to be a huge disaster.
I’m attracted to this man. I’m having fun with him.
I like him. And I think he likes me, too.
The way he looks at me, listens to me, teases me, makes eye contact with me…
I feel like a Greek goddess even when not on the stage.
His easy charm, captivating smile, and a genuine…
decency have lured me in. And the physical attraction—his longish, tousled hair with glints of chestnut, his neatly trimmed beard and mustache that outline the angular shape of his jaw and showcase sexy, full lips, those glinting brown eyes, and yes, his body, with strong shoulders, flat abs, and thick thighs—is panty-meltingly hot.
No regrets.
“Okay,” I reply.
His smile is slow, enchanting, and tinged with relief. “I need to clean up.” He glances at his groin and grimaces.
“Oh. Yeah.” My pussy squeezes. He came in his pants. So did I. We were both so horny we just… did that. It was hot.
“Be right back. Make yourself comfortable, diva. Raid the mini bar.”
I grin. “I am hungry.”
He shoots me a look. “Of course you are.”
He strides across the room to the closet where we, uh, dry humped to mutual orgasms. He grabs a couple of things and disappears into the bathroom.
I sit on the side of the bed and take off my boots, then pad over to the window.
He has a view of the Strip, too, the mountains in the distance a sharp black line against the cobalt blue sky.
I’m still standing there when he returns, now wearing a pair of navy sweatpants and a gray T-shirt that softly hugs his muscles.
I swallow a sigh of lust.
“What do you want to eat?” he asks, surveying the options.
I move over beside him. “Oh! Those Sour Patch Kids.”
“Nope. Those are mine.”
My head whips around. “What?”
He gives me a slow, sexy smirk. “Those are my favorite.”
My spine straightens. “They’re my favorite, too.”
“Really?” He plucks the bag out. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have chocolate? Look, this is really good chocolate.”
I frown and reluctantly take the bar from him. “I don’t mind chocolate, but I really love sour candy.”
“Something we have in common. Okay, fine. I’ll share.” His faux grudging generosity makes me laugh. “How about a drink?” He opens the small fridge. “There’s whiskey but I don’t think I can make you a whiskey sour.”
“You don’t have to make me anything.”
“Do you want a whiskey sour, though?” He moves to the phone on the desk.
“No! That’s okay. Look, prosecco! I love that.”
“Okay, have that, sure.” But then he picks up the phone and calls room service anyway. “Yeah, could we get a few more bags of Sour Patch candies up here? And a whiskey sour, please. Thanks.”
“Oh my God.” I shake my head.
I haven’t opened the prosecco so I replace it in the fridge and return to the bed.
“This little bag isn’t going to last long.” He tosses the bag of candy on the bed and joins me, both of us sitting with our backs to the headboard. “We need more.”
He smells really good.
I rip open the bag and pluck a couple of the little gummy candies, popping one into my mouth. I love the puckery sour taste. “Which color is your favorite?”
“Orange,” he says without hesitation, peering into the bag. He pulls out an orange candy.
“Do you eat the orange ones first?”
He grins. “Nah. I eat ’em all. When I was a kid, I ate so many sour candies my tongue peeled.”
My mouth falls open. “Yikes!”
“Yeah. What’s your favorite?”
“Red. But I eat them all, too.”
“These aren’t the best sour candies, though. My favorite is really Sour Blasters.”
“Ooooh, yes, those are so good. I also like the sour Skittles. I love how chewy they are.”
“So it’s not just the taste?” He takes a drink of the beer he pulled out of the fridge. “It’s also texture?”
“Well, primarily taste. But yes, texture adds something to the experience.”
“How about size? Does size matter?”
I open my mouth, then snap it closed and shoot him an amused glance. “Sometimes.”
I felt that erection earlier and he definitely has some size. My gaze drops involuntarily to his lap. Oh… the soft fabric of his sweatpants outlines a firm bulge.
I swallow and shove a candy into my mouth, then choke.
“You okay?”
I glance at his face, and his knowing smirk. My cheeks flame. Coughing, I search for a change in topic. “Do you have a bucket list?”
“Sure.”
I wait.
“Win the Stanley Cup.”
“Of course. And I want to win a Grammy. How about something not career-related?”
He chews a candy thoughtfully. “I want to golf at the Old Course at St. Andrews. In Scotland.”
I tilt my head. “Huh. You golf?”
“Yeah. In the off season.”
“I used to like to golf. My parents took Grayson and me for lessons. But I haven’t played for a long time.”
“You can come to Scotland with me.”
That sounds… lovely. But improbable.
“What’s on your bucket list?” He absently sets his hand on my bare thigh.
Well, that’s distracting. “I want to hold a koala.”
“Okay. Yeah, that’s cool. Have you been to Australia?”
“No! I want to go there. And hold a koala. And see kangaroos.”
His smile is fond. “Yeah.” Now his fingers move on my leg. Tingles radiate from deep inside me.
“I’ve been traveling a lot in the States the last few years, playing in smaller venues, and it’s been cool seeing so much of the country. But I’d love to travel and perform outside the country. Australia. Europe. Japan.” I sigh and shoot him a quick wistful smile.
A knock on the door makes me jump.
“Room service.” Marek swings his legs off the bed. “I’ll get it.”
He deals with that and returns with several bags of candy that he tosses on the bed and a whiskey sour on a tray.
I have to laugh. “I can’t believe you ordered Sour Patch candies from room service.”
He shrugs. “Why not? I stay in a lot of hotels and one thing I’ve learned is you can ask them for almost anything and they’ll do it.”
“Oooh. That’s interesting. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve asked for?”
He sets the drink on the table beside me. “Hmmm. One time I asked them to bring two luggage carts up.” He pauses to round the bed and sit again. “We wanted to race them up and down the hall.”
I crack up picturing it.
“Other than that, it’s usually basic stuff like deodorant or a toothbrush… oh! One time I forgot socks to wear with my suit so I asked them to get me a pair of black socks.”
“And they did it.”
“Yep.” He flashes a wicked grin and resumes caressing my bare leg.
“You travel a lot, too.”
“Yeah. Not the fun kind of travel, though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, traveling with the guys is fun.
When we have the odd day off somewhere, we hang out and do stuff, but most of the time it’s hotel to arena, back to the hotel to nap, back to the arena and then outta there. So you don’t see much.”
“What’s your favorite city to play in?”
“Besides Hoboken?”
I grin. “Why would you want to play anywhere else?”
“Are you trolling my town?”
“No! I’m teasing.”
“We have amazing fans, a beautiful new arena, and great leadership. I like it there.”
“That’s good.”
“But for fun, I like going to Los Angeles.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I love the ocean.”
“There’s ocean in New Jersey.”
“True. But in January, it’s nicer in California.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Any time I get a chance, I head to the beach. Just to walk or sit and stare at the water. There’s something soothing about it.”
“I think science has shown that looking at the ocean can lower your heart-rate and your blood pressure and increase feelings of relaxation.” I bump my shoulder against his upper arm. “It’s healthy.”
“Exactly.”
“I love working, but a vacation to a beach with nothing to do for a week but look at the ocean would be heaven.”
“You’ve never done that?”
“Yeah, once I went to Mexico with some friends. It was more of a party scene though. I’m over that.”
“You don’t like to have fun?”
I know he’s teasing. “No. I’m too old for fun.”
He snorts. “Right.”
“I do like to have fun,” I say slowly. “But…” I pause, not sure what to say. “As a kid, I was a little scattered. Kind of impulsive. Easily distractible.”
“Sounds like a normal kid.”
One corner of my mouth lifts. “Maybe, yeah. But I was very musical and when my parents realized that I had talent, they drilled me that I had to be more disciplined. I had to practice piano and voice for hours every day.”
His eyebrows pull together. “You didn’t like it?”
“No, I did. I loved it. But… I was a kid. I wanted to skip school, go to the mall. Play hockey.”
His frown remains. “You didn’t get to do those things?”
“Not much, no.”
“Shit, Nikki.”
“It takes time to master an instrument. To train your voice. Studying, practicing, performing. It’s not something that happens overnight. Nothing of value comes quickly. You have to work at it.”
He frowns.
Why am I telling him this? I don’t complain about my parents to anyone.
I’m grateful for all they’ve done for me and my music career.
“It’s okay. My music is really important to me.
It’s better if I keep my life structured as much as I can, so I stay focused.
Anyway. As for having fun, I spend most of my time working now.
Writing. Recording. Dance lessons. Working out.
” I roll my eyes. “When I’m on tour, that takes up all my time.
When I’m not, there’s a lot of… administrative work, I guess you’d call it.
I’m running a business, basically. I always have emails and business shit to deal with and social media. Like, I actually have office hours.”
“Wow.”
“Then there’s money stuff. Fucking spreadsheets. I’d rather eat my own liver than enter numbers—expenses, income, blah blah.”
“Don’t you have an accountant?”
“I do now. For a while I did it all myself. I couldn’t stand how all that boring stuff took me away from doing what I actually love—making music. But…” I shrug. “That’s part of the deal. The job’s not just making music but handling the business of making music.”
He nods, gaze fastened on my face as he listens. “I see why time for fun is limited.”
“Is your life crazy like that?”
He tilts his head. “During the season, yeah, it can be intense. But we find time for fun.” He lifts a hand and touches my cheek so gently. “Like right now.”
My heart bumps. Our eyes meet. There’s a feeling of accord between us. I talk to my mom about this stuff, and sometimes Grayson, but I feel like Marek really gets it.
I want him.
“Talking isn’t working,” I say.
His eyebrows tug together again. “What do you mean?”
“I still… want you.”
“Ah.” His face clears and a subtle smirk tugs at one side of his mouth. “My plan worked then.”
I giggle. “Oh, that was your plan all along? To seduce me with harmless conversation?”
“Okay, no. I was just hoping.”
I’m buzzing with nerves and need. I want him to touch me. Kiss me. Get me naked.
Throwing caution out the floor-to-ceiling window, I hike my skirt up and throw one leg over him to straddle him. My skirt is still tight, so I wriggle it higher, up to my hips, and his gaze slides down to where I know he can see my panties.
He groans and stares at me there. His eyes are feverishly hot, his cheekbones flushed. Hot desire pools between my legs and pulses with the same beat of my heart.
I lean down, slowly, my eyes fastened on his, my lips parting, and I touch my mouth to his.
My eyes fall closed as his mouth moves against mine and the moment stretches full and hot.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth and tangles with mine.
He sucks and pulls on my bottom lip with erotic pressure until we’re both breathing hard and making needy noises, mine soft and thin, his low and rumbly.
He glides his hands up under my T-shirt and when he touches my skin my whole body shivers.
A heavy ache has developed low in my core.
He strokes up and down my back, then my sides, over my ribs, to my waist and back up, over and over, and then lets his thumbs brush the sides of my breasts.
I want to feel his skin, too, so I do the same, skating my palms over smooth, hot satin, enjoying the bulges of muscles and bumps of ribs and shoulder blades.
Our hands roam over each other as we kiss, our heads turning for better angles, tongues tangling, lips sliding.
I take the measure of his shoulders and glide my palms over his chest, then push my hands into his hair.
I can twist my fingers in it and it’s cool and silky against my skin.
A low groan rumbles in his chest and his jaw goes loose. As our mouths separate, he says in a gravelly tone, “I don’t think it’s me doing the seducing.”
I lift my head and smile, our faces only inches apart. “How am I doing?”