15. Ash
The Knights won, and the attitude in the hotel bar was contagious as Coach bought a round of drinks and handed them out to the team. “Just one. The weekend’s not over yet,” he said gruffly.
Dante winked when he handed one to Olivia, which I did not like, and then he followed us to a small grouping of seats in a partially secluded corner away from the large open seating area.
After a brief moment of hesitation, Olivia sank slowly onto a love seat just large enough for the two of us, and Dante sat in a chair diagonal to us.
“So, Liv.” Dante’s perfect teeth glinted blindingly white as he grinned. “What do you do?” I kept my grumbling to a minimum; I wanted her to myself. But I loved hearing her talk, so I kept my mouth shut. For the time being.
Taking a sip of beer to help swallow her retort before answering, she said with a glance in my direction, “Science.” As she launched into an explanation with a whole lot of technical sounding words, I watched Dante’s eyes glaze over.
“Right. This time, explain that like you’re talking to someone who’s taken a few hits to the helmet. Because I have.” Dante grinned and raised his drink, encouraging her.
She laughed at the response, talking about her job researching and developing industrial lubricants, much to Dante’s delight. They both giggled about the penetrometer until my patience ran out. “Leave,” I told him.
His grin grew impossibly wider. “Have fun, kids. Try not to get in too much trouble.” Dante sauntered off to find a new group of teammates gathered at a nearby table.
Olivia scoffed. “I never get in trouble,” she said to Dante’s back.
The smirk I gave her conveyed exactly how much I expected that statement, and she rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
The blue in her eyes shifted darker as she traced the rim of her glass with her finger.
“I’d get in trouble with you.” The sparkle of the hotel chandelier reflected in her eyes as she sipped from her drink.
From the way she drained it, I wondered if she meant to say those words.
But maybe she did. Something about her seemed different tonight; she glowed, and it wasn’t only from the golden chandelier dripping with crystals casting its light on us.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Barnes.”
“Hmm.” Olivia leaned forward, her shoulder pushing against mine. “Don’t you want to have a good time?”
What. What . My heart slammed against my ribs, because yes, I fucking did, but I needed to play it cool and not show her how desperately I wanted her. “Always.” It came out much less sexy than I intended, more plea than anything else.
I hadn’t touched anyone since meeting Olivia, longer even than that, and how starved I was for her crashed into me harder than a pissed off winger after I made a joke about his mom.
Suddenly Olivia occupied my space, her face so close to mine only our breaths separated us. “You know, you haven’t kissed me since we’ve been here.” Her blue eyes lowered to my mouth as she tugged her lower lip between her teeth.
“We should definitely change that,” I began, but she interrupted me, sliding her hands into my hair, pulling my face to hers and slanting her lips to mine, beating me to it.
The hot slide of her mouth made it impossible to think about anything other than the way she relaxed against me when I cradled the back of her head to deepen the kiss.
Adrenaline hummed in my veins at the sound she made when my teeth pressed lightly into her lower lip.
Everywhere we touched ached , and I longed to give her more than this, to show her how good I could make her feel, how good we’d be together.
Our back and forth, that push and pull we always had would be explosive if we ever stopped getting out of our own way.
Maybe that moment was now.
I kissed her harder, pulling her closer until we tangled so closely together, I wondered if there’d be any hope of unknotting what we’d become. Not that I ever wanted to let her go.
A few more minutes wrapped up in Olivia, and I was ready to push her back on the loveseat or throw her over my shoulder and carry her upstairs.
The way she folded herself around me felt like a claiming, her limbs pulling closer until she was half on top of me.
We got so lost that when I eased my thigh between hers, and she gasped, pressing scorching heat against what I suddenly realized was a raging erection.
At the same moment, a loud cheer cut through the burning haze smoking over us.
“Barnes, we have to stop.” I said it against her skin, trying to disguise the groan.
Because she was the most infuriating woman I’d ever met, she ignored me completely, pressing even closer. Her mouth skimmed my jaw, the heat of her breath ghosting against my neck.
“Olivia. We’re going to have a problem if you don’t stop.” My self-control was slipping.
“Do you not like?—”
A little push of my hips, and I had to swallow another groan. Holy fuck, I was a grown ass man about to lose it. In public .
Who am I and what have I done with Ash Wilder?
“Oh. Oh. ” Her hands eased away from where they’d fisted in my shirt, slowly sliding over tense muscles and my pounding heart. “I should tease you right now.” Wicked delight lit her blue eyes, and fuck , her talking about teasing me in public shouldn’t be so hot.
“Please don’t. I’d never live it down with those assholes.”
“I dunno, I think you might enjoy it.”
“Any other time, yes. Absolutely. Please tease me.” It might kill me, but if she was the one doing it, I didn’t care. I took another sip of my drink to shut my stupid mouth.
“So, you like being teased? Public displays? Both?”
It was dangerous ground she walked on, and it would not end well for her. Or maybe it would end too well.
With another groan, I leaned forward to rest my head on her shoulder, muffling my answer. “I generally prefer to be the one doing the teasing, but if it were you, I suppose I could endure it.”
She snorted. “Endure?”
“Barnes, I’d do anything you wanted.” Did she still not realize how much she affected me? Especially right now, going out of my mind wanting her.
“Sure.”
“What do you mean?” I leaned back to look at her, curious, but concerned. Her words carried a heavier weight I didn’t like.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Besides, you’re stuck here,” I bounced her a little, trying to ignore the ache of having her so close yet unable to do anything about it, “for a while. So, tell me. Please.”
Scrunching her nose and squeezing her eyes shut to avoid looking at me, she answered, “People make promises and say things they don’t mean.”
“Everything I’ve said to you, I’ve meant. When I say I want you, I mean it. So, when I say I want to bury my face between your legs and make you come three times before I fuck you senseless, believe it.”
The furrow of her brow was involuntary, as was the little laugh of disbelief. “Right.”
I straightened, laser focus zeroing in on her face until she turned away. “Olivia. Tell me you believe me.”
“I’m sure you think you mean it. But it takes so long and it’s easier to… get it over with. If… if I don’t.”
“If you don’t what?” There’s no way in hell I interpreted that correctly.
The blush on her cheeks burned so red I felt the heat as her body temperature skyrocketed.
I guess that was my answer. “You mean you’ve never come first?” There’s a double meaning in that question, because clearly whoever she’d been with before never put her first either in the bedroom or out of it, if the way she spoke about herself was any indication.
“Sure, I have. If I’m the one to do it.” Her face went so red it was beyond scarlet, verging into maroon, and I wished it was for any other reason. Wished I put it there by kissing her senseless, not by bringing up painful subjects.
This conversation was getting out of hand, and I didn’t know what to say.
When I didn’t immediately respond, she went on as if in a daze.
“It, umm, takes a long time? Sometimes?” Olivia suddenly found the ends of her hair incredibly interesting, twisting them through her fingers tight enough to whiten the skin.
“So, I usually handle things myself first. I started doing it to make things easier for my ex and… yeah.” A little tilt of her shoulders made her curl inward.
Jazzy lounge music permeated the bar. Loud trumpets merrily sang their song, jarring and painfully bright where it cut through the spaces in our words.
“Jesus, Liv.” I drew my hands away from where I rested them on her back and covered hers instead, my fingers squeezing tight enough to draw her eyes up to meet mine.
“Let me erase all those bad experiences from your memory.” Don’t think about what she said.
“But let’s go back to you getting yourself off. ” Too late .
“Let’s not.”
“Barnes, it’s all I can think about. Did you at least let him watch while you got yourself off?” Seeing her touch herself, sliding her fingers into the soft, wet heat between her thighs… no, I definitely wouldn’t mind watching.
Olivia’s hands clenched into fists between mine as she mumbled her answer. “He didn’t know.” Pulling her hands away, she reached for a glass.
I wanted to fucking kill the guy. “He never noticed that he never got you off?”
She squeezed her eyes closed so tightly the blue veins on her lids stood out against the paleness of her skin. “It took too long when he tried. He didn’t like to wait.” For a moment she swirled the remnants of her drink before swallowing the rest of it.
“I would make it so good for you, Barnes. I don’t care how you get off with me, as long as you do.
” Which was probably the last fucking thing I should’ve said to a woman who looked like she was debating running like a rabbit or smashing her glass on the ground.
A hundred emotions flickered over her face in the dim golden light cast by the chandelier.
Before I figured it out, a shadow blocked out the rest of the party.
“Wilder.” Coach Olsen didn’t raise his voice. He was calm, and his intonation on my name had me snapping to attention in my seat with Olivia sprawled over my lap. Her face went bloodless. “In your room in ten, lights out in thirty.”
A dozen responses flooded my mind, all of them worse than the last. We were finally making progress.
Olivia opened up to me, and now my goddamn coach was telling me to go to bed like a fucking teenager.
I met his gaze, about to spit out a retort that would’ve earned an hour of skating lines when I noted the firm, yet kind set to his mouth.
Blowing out a breath, I deflated, releasing the anger and tension that wasn’t directed at him. “Yes, sir.”
With an awkward little pat on Olivia’s shoulder, he nodded at me and walked away.
Olivia collapsed, and as Coach’s shadow retreated, I saw her eyes were too bright. “Olivia?—”
“Good night, Ash.”
Well, shit.