Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
GUNNER
I stare into Penny’s pleading eyes. “No,” I repeat, my voice firm.
Penny has either been in my T-shirt or naked for the past day and a half, and at this moment, she is neither. Instead, she’s wearing some clothes from Alice, and while they look comfortable, I want them off her. They’re definitely something Alice would wear, but I’m not a fan.
“Come on. It will be fun,” Penny says for the tenth time.
“I’m not a card game person,” I state once more.
While our entertainment choices are limited, playing a goofy game of cards is the last thing I feel like doing. I’d rather stare at a wall than see how many cards I can collect in the same suit. The process sounds horrid. Penny insists that we should take a break from all the sexual activity today, and quite frankly, I think that sounds like an incredibly stupid idea.
In fact, the thought of not ripping that sweatshirt off Penny has me feeling on edge—inexplicably angry even. Surely, the roads will be cleared by tomorrow. Canada has to be used to snow. It’s not as if three feet of snow was dumped on Florida or Texas. We’re in the north, where people can handle snow and ice. Getting things back to normal around here shouldn’t take more than two days. Deep down, I’m very aware that this time with Penny is coming to a close, and that thought fills me with rage.
The amount of unease I feel is unsettling. I should be ecstatic that we get to go home soon, and I can’t figure out why I’m not. Yes, sex with Penny is good. Hell, it’s fucking great. But I’ve had plenty of great sex in my life. That can’t be it. Routine has always been my safe space. The thought of getting back to my place, the team, lifting, practice, and games should bring me a sense of calm. Yet it’s doing the opposite.
Add in the fact that playing nice with Penelope Stellars takes a lot of energy. Small talk and pleasantries are not my thing, either. However, the two of us agreed to be different people while we’re here—ones who don’t hate each other. Surprisingly, I’m doing just that. I should be thrilled that soon enough, I can be myself. Yet once again… I’m not.
It makes no sense.
I’m in need of some major stress relief, which would explain why I want to tear Penny’s clothes from her body. But no. The cool girl who was down for fucking all day long yesterday has been replaced with the rummy card game pusher.
“Fine.” She sighs. “What do you want to do?” I open my mouth to speak, and she cuts me off, holding a finger up. “That’s not sexual in nature.”
Seriously, where is yesterday’s Penny?
“I don’t know,” I grumble.
She taps her thumbs across her phone. “No flights yet but they’re thinking tomorrow. I can’t wait to get home.”
“Same,” I lie.
I sit against the headboard, and Penny sits cross-legged, facing me. “Well, if you don’t want to play rummy, which I think is a bad call, I guess we can talk. Seeing that we’re still here in this fake friendship, I guess we could get to know each other. I mean, all I know about you is that you’re huge, a great goalie, and kind of an ass.”
I lift my shoulders. “That sums me up.”
“Back at Frank and Alice’s, you said you didn’t have any family in Michigan, but?—”
I cut her off. “No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“I mean, we’re not doing that,” I scoff. “We’re not having any heart-to-hearts or whatever. I don’t do that shit.”
“What shit? Talking about yourself? Your family?”
“Exactly.”
“What about with your friends and the team? You don’t ever share with them?” she questions.
I shake my head. “No, first of all, my only friends are the team. Second, sharing isn’t my thing.”
She blows out a breath. “Okay, well, where do your parents live if not Michigan?”
“No.”
“Are they alive?”
“I said no,” I state more firmly.
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, so…we can’t talk about ourselves. You won’t play a card game with me. What do you want to do, then?”
“You know what I want to do.”
Her brows furrow as a scowl finds her face. She drops the deck of cards onto the bed and stands. Hands on her hips, she paces back and forth over the narrow pathway between the bed and the bathroom. “I don’t want to do that anymore,” she says finally.
“Why?” The question comes out loudly.
She turns her palms toward the ceiling in an annoyed gesture. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”
“You seemed to enjoy it the night we got here and all day yesterday. I thought our arrangement was working. What changed?”
“It just started to feel like…”
“Like what?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you won’t say?” I hold her stare in mine.
“I don’t know,” she says quietly.
“Fine,” I huff out. “Get over here. I’ll play your stupid card game.”
I don’t believe her for one second. She’s not telling me something, but I can’t fault her for it. I’m not telling her anything. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s wanting to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself. So I’ll give her that.
Sitting here all day, stuck in this room, doing nothing more than twiddling our thumbs, will make me go insane. If my only option is playing cards, then so be it.
“Really?” She looks at me with a raise of her brow.
“Yeah.” My barely audible response mirrors my lack of enthusiasm.
She reclaims her position across from me on the bed and starts shuffling the cards. After dealing us each five cards, she places the rest of the stack, which is apparently now the draw pile, between us and goes over the rules. The game isn’t rocket science. We collect groups of cards for points, either same suit cards or runs like three, four, five or jack, queen, king. At the end of each hand, we add up our points and play again.
I’ve never been into games. It’s just not my thing. This one, in particular, presents no real challenge. A child could play it. I don’t see the draw of spending time in this way. Yet I keep my opinions to myself. Spending the rest of the time we’re stuck here fighting isn’t the desired outcome.
“We used to always play until someone reached five hundred points, but we can play to any number, really.” Penny lays down three aces in front of her.
I draw a card from the stack and put the single ace in my hand into the discard pile.
“Rummy!” Penny slaps the pile and picks up the discarded ace. “Remember, if you have something in your hand that you can play off one of my cards, you can place it down in front of you and earn the points on that.”
“Got it.”
Penny draws a card and bites her lip as she stares at the cards in her hands. I can almost see the wheels in her head turning, trying to figure out her next move. At this moment, she looks young and precious—a far cry from her badass, tough-as-nails businesswoman persona she normally wears. The red ringlets that fall in front of her shoulders and her perfect, makeup-free skin add to the illusion of innocence. Truthfully, it’s hard to believe the woman I know is the same one sitting across from me.
“I never pictured you as a card game type of person,” I say.
She shrugs. “I haven’t played in probably ten years. I used to play all the time with someone when I was young. He loved card games.” She grins.
“An old boyfriend?”
“We were friends first, but then, yeah, we dated.”
“And you broke up?” This room must be enchanted because not only do I barely recognize Penny, I don’t recognize myself. Who is this man asking questions about an old boyfriend?
She pins me with a stare. “No, we’re still together. I should probably remind him of that since he just proposed to someone else.”
“Very funny,” I deadpan. “Well, it sounds like you’re still friends, then.”
She shakes her head. “No, not really. I mean, I’m forced to attend his wedding this summer. I went to a small high school and my entire graduating class will be there. Considering how close Tucker and I were, people would notice if I wasn’t there.”
“Do you want to go to the wedding?”
“No.”
“Because you still have feelings for him?”
She scoffs. “No because I don’t care about any of those people anymore. That part of my life is in the past.”
“Then don’t go.”
“Easier said than done.”
I shrug. “Not really. It’s really easy not to do something you don’t want to do.”
She pulls her eyes from her cards and holds my stare. “Why do you care? In fact, why are you asking all these questions? Aren’t you the one who doesn’t want to talk about anything?”
“I don’t care.” I lean back against the headboard, the features of my face, unmoving.
“Well, if you keep asking me questions, expect the same. Tit for tat. It’s only fair,” she says.
“I’ll save you the trouble. No, I never played rummy with an ex-boyfriend, and no, I won’t be attending any weddings this summer.”
“I get to pick the questions.”
“I don’t think so.”
She drops the pile of cards in her hand onto the discard pile. “This sucks. Doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I follow suit and toss the cards in my hand atop hers. “It does.”
“Can you put those away?” She nods to the playing cards. “I’m going to make some calls.”
Grabbing her phone, she heads into the bathroom and closes the door.
Mascots are weird , I think as I put away the teal and royal blue cards. Who chooses a weird-looking whale in the shape of the letter C as their mascot? Then again, we have a frail Sandhill Crane, a bird that wouldn’t win in a fight against a squirrel, as ours.
I toss the package of stupid cards, and they land atop a big box of toilet paper before sliding to the floor. Blowing a breath, I position my arms behind my neck and lie back on the bed. Penny chatters away in the bathroom as I stare at the ceiling. I’m so antsy and ready to get out of this room and back home. It was fine for the first day and a half when it consisted of loads of hot sex. But now, I’m officially over it.
Penny takes forever, talking on the phone in the bathroom. Unable to stare at the ceiling any longer, I make my way to the bathroom and open the door just as Penny places her phone on the countertop.
“Any news?” I ask.
“Yeah, we’re out of here tomorrow morning.” She grins and releases a sigh of relief. “It’s costing the Cranes a significant amount of money to charter a plane for us, but there is nothing commercial for several days. Every flight is booked with an extensive standby list from all the passengers with canceled flights over the past two days. But”—she looks at me with a smile—“our bosses want the Beast back before we play Florida, and they’re willing to pay.”
“Good,” I huff. “I’m starting to go a little crazy.”
“Weren’t you already crazy?” she teases, and once again, I have to remind myself who this woman is. All the different sides of her I’ve seen over the past two days are making me dizzy.
“Funny,” I say without emotion. “All right…we just have to get through one more night of being stuck in this room.”
She nods. “Yeah.” The single word comes out hesitant. She pulls in a breath before abruptly huffing out, “Fine.”
My brows furrow. “Fine, what?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Do it?”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s our last night here. Instead of sitting in silence and staring at cardboard, let’s do it. Because tomorrow…”
“Everything goes back to the way it was.” I finish her sentence.
“Exactly.”
“Are you sure? We don’t have to. We can play your stupid card game again.”
She crosses her arms in front of her and tugs at the hem of the sweatshirt, pulling it up and over her head. Braless, she stands before me naked from the waist up. My body tenses, and burning-hot lust courses through me, leaving me hard with desire.
“There are some additional rules this time,” she says as she shimmies out of the leggings. “Nothing sweet or romantic. I don’t want you to tell me how perfect my body is or anything like that. In fact, let’s keep the talk to a minimum. And no oral. Just sex. I just want hard, rough sex. I want to feel good, come, and then go to bed so tomorrow we can leave this place. Deal?”
Is she kidding with this? She just gave me a free pass to fuck her. No response needed. She knows exactly where I stand. My clothes find the floor in record time. I grab Penny’s waist and turn her away from me so she’s facing the bathroom mirror. The palm of my hand splays against the skin of her back, and I push her toward the bathroom counter.
She steps to the side, widens her stance, and leans her forearms against the counter. Her heated stare finds mine in the mirror, and we both moan in unison as I slide into her from behind.
My fingers dig into her hips as I pull her ass against me and enter her hard and rough. Her breasts bounce against the counter as I thrust into her over and over again.
The sounds of our skin slapping and our pleasure-laced moans fill the space. The sight of Penny in the mirror and the skin of her chest a flush of red as I take her from behind is pure fucking heaven. She feels so good. I hook my forearms under her thighs and lift her legs so I can go deeper. Tightening my leg muscles, I use them to pound into her hard, and she screams.
“Like that?” I groan.
Her mouth hangs agape as she releases soft moans. Her eyes are hooded, and her face is heavy with pleasure. She nods, closing her eyes, and I thrust into her again and again, giving her everything I have until her body is shaking and she’s crying out.
With a final thrust, my chest falls against her back as my own orgasm hits, and I empty inside her.
I gave her exactly what she wanted. It was hard, rough, and I know I made her feel good. Only this is where the plan deviates. I’m not tired, and we’re not sleeping just yet. She’ll find slumber when she’s so sated and boneless that she can’t keep her eyes open any longer.