17. Goldie
SEVENTEEN
GOLDIE
The heat blasted in the lobby and the hallways of Ace’s downtown condo building, and it was a shocking temperature difference from the street. The extreme cold hadn’t impacted me though. With Ace nearby, and maybe the influence of his heavy vodka pours, heat pulsed through my body.
My mind raced as the elevator whisked me and Ace high into the sky. What was I thinking? All I wanted was to feel his skin pressed against mine, and stupid me told him we needed to keep our clothes on?
The booze that had been streaming through my veins had subsided a little, and part of me wished I had drunk more. Being tipsy had given me the courage to ask for what I wanted. Drunk me hated the fact that Ace was a gentleman, but I knew sober me would appreciate his chivalry. Still, if Ace had pulled his cock out of his pants in that alley, I would’ve unzipped mine.
It was so unlike me. I’d never had sex in a public place before, and it wasn’t the risk of getting caught that had left my cotton panties damp between my legs—it was Ace.
Ever since I saw him on the shore of the Polar Plunge, my body had wanted his. Now that I’d gotten to know him, I wanted him, all of him, and in every way possible. “Ace,” I whispered as we stepped into the hallway of the forty-fourth floor.
He pulled a set of keys from his inside pocket and we stepped into his loft. “Yeah?” he replied. The entryway was the size of my living room and kitchen combined. The ceilings soared at least twenty feet above our heads. I waited until he shut and locked the door. “I don’t want to take it slowly tonight.”
He froze for a moment and when he turned, he looked…different. His lips were narrowed into a line and his eyes looked tormented. My heart pounded; I couldn’t believe I had been so bold. Was he going to say no?
I rested my hand on his chest and closed my eyes. A gasp escaped my lips before I could stop it. With my eyes shut, I saw Ace and me in bed. A king-sized bed with turmeric-colored sheets. Ace’s abs rippled and tensed as he thrust into me. The v-cut that angled out of the top of his boxer shorts was working hard, flexing as the veins in his rock-hard cock rubbed inside me in the best way possible. His eyelashes fluttered as he gripped my hips.
My eyes snapped open as he spoke, interrupting the r-rated vision that had manifested itself physically in my body. The vision might have been in my imagination, but the thrum between my legs was very real. “I don’t want to take it slowly either, Goldie, but I want to do things right with you.”
When I pulled my hand from his chest, it felt like I’d held it over a candle for too long. Thoughts raced through my confused mind—what had I just seen and felt? Had I “seen” what Ace wanted, or had I seen the future?
Whatever it was, I didn’t care. I wanted it. Ace might want to do things right, but what was right and what was wrong? I was tired of being a good girl. Plus, how could this feel so right, and be wrong? “Ace.” I patted his chest. “Want to make a bet?”
He shifted and bit his lip. “What kind of a bet?”
“If I can guess the color of your sheets, I get the bed. If I’m wrong, I’ll sleep on the sofa.” It wouldn’t have been terrible; the sofa was as wide as my bed at home.
He smirked. He thought I would lose. “Deal.”
I took my hand from his chest and we shook on it. Closing my eyes, I let the hand hold linger. This time, all I could see were the pillows in front of me. It was a first-person point of view, like I was wearing virtual-reality glasses. I was up close and personal with Ace’s pillows, surging forward and backwards as though moving with ocean waves crashing on a beach. Looking down, I could see Ace’s hands holding onto my upper thighs. The sheets were the same color as in the scene I’d seen moments earlier—a burnt yellow.
When we stopped shaking hands, I opened my eyes and looked into Ace’s. His lids were heavy and seemed filled with desire. His words said he wanted to take it slowly and have a PG sleepover, but his body, including the way his button fly was bulging, betrayed his words.
I let go of his hands, balled mine into fists, and rested them on my hips. “Your sheets are turmeric,” I said with authority.
His smile faltered. “You’re wrong. Looks like you’re sleeping on the couch.”
I stumbled backwards a step. It had been the most vivid vision of my life, and it was wrong. Maybe I just had an overactive imagination. Maybe Ace wasn’t imagining fucking me hard in his yellow sheets. “Really?” My voice trembled. “I guess I’m on the couch then.”
“Go see for yourself.” He stepped aside and gestured like a butler to the door at the end of the living room. In a haze, I travelled through the stark space and opened the door to Ace’s bedroom. Like the rest of his loft, the room was white, all white, from the rug to the curtains, to the…duvet cover. It was the most industrial-looking room I’d ever seen.
“See?” He stepped around me and twirled with his arm extended. “No turmaranorank, or whatever you called it, sheets in here.”
I couldn’t stop the smile from creeping across my face. “It’s turmeric.” As disappointed as I was that I had gotten it wrong, I was also relieved that I couldn’t actually read his mind or see the future. I was nothing like my Looney Tunes mom.
“Yeah.” Ace grinned. “They’re not green.” He triumphantly flung back the duvet cover, revealing the exact shade of burnt yellow from my imagination session.
“Ace.” My voice trembled. I stepped next to his bed and ran my fingertips down the cotton sheets. “This is turmeric.”
“I thought turmeric was like baby-shit green.” His crooked smile, the one that made my heart hitch, filled his face. “This is orange.” He rested his hand on top of mine. “I got them when I was traded to the Tigers. It’s kind of a weird thing that I do; I get sheets that match the team’s colors, and the Tigers are orange and black.”
Hockey players are superstitious creatures. My dad came home with the craziest stories from the rink. I’d never heard of a player coordinating his bed linens with his hockey jerseys though. “When you played for the Chicago Royals, your sheets were—”
“Barney fucking purple.” He spread my fingers apart with his and then folded his huge hand around mine. “I wish you could’ve seen them.” His breath was hot on my ear.
My back tingled with the heat from Ace’s body being so close. He wasn’t touching me, but he might as well have been. I turned and he held my hand tightly until our intertwined fingers were resting between us. I’d never felt safer than I did in Ace’s embrace. I slid my arm around his waist as he wrapped his free arm around my back and held me tightly to him. His heart thumped under my ear that rested on his chest. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, Goldie.” His low voice vibrated in my cheek.
I tilted my head up to look at Ace. “Let’s do this.”
“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.” His hand slid down my back and rested on my lower back, his fingertips bunching the back pockets of my jeans.
“I don’t want to wait until after the study is done, but do you think we could keep this a secret until it’s done?”
“Are you asking a man who is head over heels for you to see you in secret? To sneak around? To lie when my buddies ask about my sex life?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “I suppose I am.”
He leaned down and his lips brushed my ear. “My buddies don’t ask.” He squeezed my butt hard and nipped at my lobe. “Now let’s get that fine ass into those turmeranzic sheets of mine.”
I squealed as he lifted me off my feet and I wrapped my legs around his waist. His lips were on mine, hungrier than earlier. He had been holding back. Now, his breaths were coming hard and heavy, his mouth hungry for mine. I rocked my hips to press my longing against his tented jeans. His hands squeezed my ass as he held me up like I weighed less than a hockey stick.
We tumbled onto his orange bedsheets. My hands fell onto his pillows, and his legs straddled mine as he threaded his fingers through mine above my head. I writhed beneath his body as we dry-humped like teenagers. His kisses vacillated between tender and hungry, but then he paused. “Are we too drunk to do this?”
Moaning into his mouth, I tugged my hands free and fumbled with the button on his jeans. “I’m not.” I was, but I didn’t care. His concern made me want him even more.
Ace nodded and pressed into a plank position. His body hovered above me, giving me the space to undo his pants. I was able to slide them over his ass and then tucked my feet into the waistband to pull them down to his ankles. He kicked them off and then undid my pants and ripped them down my body, tossing them onto the floor on top of his. He returned to his mounted position. This time, his cock was only behind a thin layer of fabric. “Silk boxers, Ace? I was expecting Homer Simpson.”
His breath hitched as I ran my hand down the front of his soft shorts. They didn’t do a very good job concealing the rock-hard cock behind them.
“Gotta give him room in there. The Homer Simpson briefs are for showing, not growing.” He slid the silky hardness against the dampness between my legs. “I knew yours would be cute like this.” He slipped his hand between my thighs, one of his fingers finding the groove between my legs.
The floral granny panties were definitely not sexy. “I hadn’t planned on doing this.” My voice was breathy.
“They’re fucking sexy, Goldie. Just like these.” He tapped the arm of my glasses.
“You’ve got a librarian fetish?” Self-deprecating humor was my go-to when I was embarrassed, and the coastal granny panties were definitely not sexy.
“Tell me about the Dewey Decimal System,” he growled into my ear. I gasped as he slid the panties aside and his finger stroked me lightly, teasing the most sensitive part of my body.
Ace wasn’t a serious guy. From what I knew of him, he was a joker who hadn’t taken school seriously. “There’s so much I don’t know about you,” I panted into his ear. I didn’t want to say that I was shocked that he pulled Dewey Decimal out of thin air. Most hockey players that I knew couldn’t point out the campus library on a map, let alone know the filing system.
“I want to know everything about you, Goldie.” He paused for a second and tucked my hair behind my ear, then took off my glasses. “Can you see without them?”
I nodded.
He set them on his nightstand. “We can put them back on when you go down on me.”
If it were anyone but Ace, I would’ve been turned off, but his comment sent me to the next level. I wanted to be Ace’s dirty porn star librarian.
Tucking my fingers into the side of my floral panties, I started to pull them down, but he stopped me. “I thought we were keeping our clothes on tonight.”
“Oh.” I deflated. “Right. I forgot about that.”
“Don’t worry, Goldie. I’ll make you cum right through these librarian panties.”
He did. Twice.
Luckily, there was a loophole in our agreement—the opening in his boxer shorts. And yes, I did wear my glasses while I took him deep in my throat. He had fisted his hands into my hair and moaned out my name as he came.
His body was still trembling when I collapsed, tucked in beside him, underneath those Toronto Tigers-inspired sheets. I rested my head on his chest, my eyes falling heavy to the sound of his athletic heartbeat.
“Goldie.” He stroked my hair. “Why are you called Goldie? Your hair is dark.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had questioned my name—most people thought it was a cutesy short form for “Goldilocks,” which I definitely did not have. “My mom’s favorite flowers are marigolds. She was a bit of a hippie.”
He kept stroking my hair and it felt incredible.
“Your real name is Marigold?”
As a kid, I’d been embarrassed by my old-lady name. Back when I was born, it was still in the category with Gladys and Ethel.
“It’s beautiful. I might not know what the hell turmeric is, but I’m pretty sure that marigold would be a better name for the color of these sheets.”
I rested my chin on his chest. “You’re right. These are marigold sheets.”
“They’re your sheets now.” His voice had a sleepy quality to it. He continued stroking my hair with his eyes shut. “This is now your bed.”
Smiling, I wondered how many puck bunnies had seen my sheets. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to get the thought out of my brain. Ace wasn’t like the other guys. I didn’t have any proof, but there was a deep knowing in my chest, a feeling. “If we’re talking about names, what about yours?”
He smiled with his eyes shut. “Take a guess. My dad was a huge hockey fan.”
“Of course.” I returned my cheek to his chest, to the comforting thump of his heart. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it until now.” A lump formed in my throat. A Black Ace in hockey started out as a pretty negative thing, but now was seen as a badge of honor. What iteration had Ace’s parents been thinking about when they chose his name? “Does it have something to do with a Black Ace?”
He squeezed me tightly. “I knew that you’d know what it meant.”
I sat up, leaned on my hand, and rested the other on Ace’s chest. “Hold on. A Black Ace started as a bad thing. I mean, now it’s an honor. I sure as hell hope your mom and dad didn’t have a bench warmer in mind when they chose your name.” Disgust churned in my stomach. If it was the worst-case scenario, it had a very ‘heir’ and ‘spare’ vibe.
Ace opened his eyes. “Goldie. What’s wrong?” He sat up. “You’re crying.”
Swiping the tear away, I cleared my throat. “I’m trying to understand what your dad was thinking.”
Ace smiled. “Goldie. It’s a good thing. Oh my God. My father isn’t an asshole.” He chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. “My dad’s. His favorite player was a Black Ace, and he hoped that one day I’d be called up to the NHL in the same way.”
“Oh.” I took a deep breath. “That makes sense. I was thinking about the earlier version of the term, the one that had to do with the dead man’s cards.” The term Black Ace had started with a team in the 1940s when a retired player bought a team. When he benched players, he called them Black Aces, referring to a bad luck poker hand consisting of two black aces, also called a dead man’s hand. Now, seventy years later, it’s seen as something honorable, a pat on the back for a player coming into the NHL.
Ace’s whole body shook as he chuckled. “That would be a real asshole move if that’s the reason he named me Ace.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “It’s so sexy that you know the history of the game. I can’t believe I found a woman like you. You’ve really done your homework if you’ve gone that far back in history.”
I shrugged. “I’m a researcher.” Telling Ace that I was his coach’s daughter had to happen, but I wasn’t ready to tell him just yet. If the other guys in the study found out, it could impact their responses to my surveys. If we were going to keep things secret, I didn’t see the need to tell him—yet. I wanted to ask Ace more questions about his dad, but that might lead to questions about mine.
“Tell me about your mom.”
Ace continued to stroke my hair. “She’s great. She puts up with my father.” There was something in his tone that told me that it wasn’t entirely a joke. I didn’t say anything, giving him the space to decide if he wanted to tell me more.
My mom had put up with my father for years, so I knew what it was like to grow up with tension in the home.
“She was like any other mom.” A smile spread across his face. “She stayed home when Gideon and I were kids, drove us to hockey practice at five o’clock in the morning, and volunteered at our school.”
She sounded like June Cleaver, the polar opposite from the mom I’d grown up with. “Did she bake bread from scratch too?”
He cracked open an eye. “She did, but… You’re joking, right?”
“I was, yeah.” I let out a chuckle. “It sounds like you and Gideon had a good childhood.”
“We did. I mean, there were a few years there when money was tight and Mom took a job at a donut shop in Marquette. We lived out in the country, and in the winter, I think she got stuck in snowbanks more than she was at work.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “You grew up in Michigan? I didn’t know that. Although…” I paused to kiss his bare chest. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about you—except your seven dwarfs dogs.” He smelled like cedar and tasted like salt. I licked my lips, savoring the taste of the sweat from his chest.
“You’ve got a good memory. I wish we’d chosen hockey player names like your family instead. That’s so much cooler.” He opened his eyes and shifted to a sitting position. “Is Morton a player?” He rubbed his chin. “I must be losing my mind. I can’t think of any players with that name.” He patted the sheet next to him. “Come sit beside me.”
I shimmied up next to him and pulled the sheet over my chest, tucking it into my underarms. “You’re not losing your mind. If there is a player named Morton, I haven’t heard of him. I got Morty from a shelter. He came with that name—and I didn’t change it.”
“It suits him.” Ace smiled. “Although, he does remind me of our malamute Dopey.”
“Ace.” I swatted at his arm. “How dare you insult the dog that flew off the ferry. If anything, he’s more of a Crazy.”
“Is there an eighth dwarf that I don’t know about?” He shifted to face me. “That would make you Snow White.” He cupped my jaw in his hand. “And you look like her too. Do chickadees land on your shoulders when you’re walking in the woods?”
His hand warmed my cheek and I fully relaxed into the support of it. I held his wrist and kissed the palm of his hand. “No, but when I was little, my mom left food out for the crows. There was one that would eat from her hand and leave presents for her next to the dish.”
“You’re shitting me. That’s not a thing.”
“It’s true, I swear. Girl Scout’s honor.” I held up my hand in the signal I’d learned as a Scout.
Ace did the Boy Scout’s hand signal in response. “All right, if you’re throwing those signs, I believe you. Your mom sounds like a cool lady.”
I raised my eyebrows. “ Cool is one word I could use to describe her.” The word flake was the other one that came to mind.
“Are you like her? Is she beautiful and smart and have hair like a Disney Princess?” He wrapped his fingers around my rumpled strands and rubbed his thumb on the tangled ends.
“No,” I blurted. “I’m nothing like her.”
He stopped fingering my hair. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” He smoothed my hair over my chest, resting his hand on top.
Squeezing his hand, I sighed. “That was harsh. I love my mom. She’s a wonderful person, but we are nothing alike. I’m analytical and scientific, and she…talks to crows.”
He nodded. “Well, maybe one day I will get to meet her and she can tell me all about her pet crows.”
“That would be nice.”
“Are your parents still together? Does your dad talk to woodland creatures too?”
“No.” I didn’t want to divulge too much about my father. “They split up because he couldn’t stop cheating on her.”
“Shit. Sorry. Here I was blabbing on about my family and I didn’t ask about yours.” He sounded genuinely remorseful.
“It’s ancient history.” I tried to make my voice sound as cheery as possible. “He started after a head injury.” I couldn’t believe I was sharing this information with Ace.
“That’s why you’ve devoted your life to studying brain injuries.”
It was a statement.
“I’m sure that’s part of it. I’m fascinated by the brain, and we are just scratching the surface about the impact, no pun intended, of injuries.
Distracted from the conversation, the sheet slipped off my breasts and pooled around my waist. I grabbed for it to cover myself.
Ace took it from my hands. “Leave it. Those are too magnificent to cover up.” He bent and took my nipple in his mouth, giving it a gentle bite. I moaned and writhed with the warmth from his mouth on my bare skin. He didn’t stay there long. He kissed my clavicle, then my jawbone, and then his lips met mine.
“Well, you’ve picked the right group of guys to study. I don’t know any players that haven’t cracked their noggin on the ice.” His eyes widened. “Wait, is that why you don’t date hockey players? Because of our broken brains?”
How had he connected those dots in a five-minute conversation when it had taken me years of therapy to figure it out? Of course, I blamed the concussion for the change in my dad’s character. “No, I don’t correlate head injuries with cheating.” I totally did, but there hadn’t been any studies to corroborate the theory. “Impulsivity, however, can be correlated.”
“Shit.” Ace moved to straddle me. “I can be impulsive.”
“I know. I saw you dive off a ferry to save a dog.”
He grinned and kissed me. “I have a confession to make.”
That goofy smile that warmed me from within stayed on his face, so I was pretty confident he wasn’t about to confess to any cold case murders.
“Do I look like a priest?”
“Not with those tits.” He pressed his cock into my belly and cupped my breast in his right hand. “I missed that first ferry on purpose. I was trying to get up the courage to ask you on a date.”
He’d felt the connection that day too.
“So you rescued my dog in order to ask me out?”
“Hell no.” His voice was strained and hitched as I wrapped my fingers around his cock. “I would’ve dove in to save any dog. You know, I’m impulsive like that.”
“Maybe impulsivity isn’t such a bad thing.” The man had me needing him inside me as sure as I needed oxygen to breathe. “Well, Mr. Bailey. On behalf of Morton the Crazy dwarf, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for missing the ferry that day.”
“That was one of the best days of my life. The day that I met a woman—a sexy woman—who knows hockey almost better than I do.”
“Almost?” I gave him a wry smile.
“If you can tell me how to get one past Miami’s goalie, I’ll give you…”
“Give me what?” I narrowed my eyes playfully.
“One of these.” He bit his lip and traveled down my body, pulling the sheet over his head. He slid my panties aside and my hips bucked when his breath tickled between my legs. I gripped the sheets so hard they came untucked, the elastic corners springing free to expose the mattress.
As quickly as he started, he stopped, emerging from beneath the sheets to kiss me on the lips. I’d never had a man do that before and I thought that I’d be grossed out at the taste of myself on his lips, but it was the opposite; I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life.
“Deal,” I said. “I’ll tell you what you need to do to win against Miami, but only if you take off those damn boxers.”
For a moment, I thought he was going to resist and we were going to go through another taking-it-slowly talk.
I was wrong. Ace was out of his boxers faster than a forward on a breakaway. As he bit open a condom, I wriggled out of my totally wet panties, kicking them down my legs with my heels. Then Ace Bailey grabbed my ankles, flipped me over, and as my face was buried in those yellow pillows, did exactly what I’d seen in my vision.