Chapter 10
Maeve
Waking up next to Kai Volkov was a masterclass in sensory overload.
The first thing I registered was the heat.
He radiated it like a furnace, a steady, oppressive warmth that had seeped into my bones during the night.
The second thing was the weight. His arm was thrown over my waist, heavy and anchoring, pinning me to the mattress as if he expected me to make a run for it in my sleep.
The third thing was the pain.
It wasn't a sharp pain. It was a dull, throbbing ache between my legs, a tenderness in my inner thighs, and a stiffness in my lower back.
It was the best pain I had ever felt.
I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against the harsh morning light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The events of the previous night came rushing back in a fragmented, technicolor montage.
The game. The blood on his face. The shower.
The steam. The way I had screamed his name against the wet tiles.
I had done it.
The "Virgin Princess," the "Ice Queen," the girl terrified of intimacy... she was gone. Washed down the drain of the master bathroom.
I shifted slightly, trying to alleviate the pressure on my hip.
Kai stirred instantly. His reflexes, even in sleep, were terrifying. His arm tightened around me, pulling me flush against his chest. I could feel the slow, powerful thud of his heart against my back.
"Stop moving," he rumbled, his voice thick with sleep and gravel. "It's too early."
"It's ten o'clock," I whispered, glancing at the digital clock on the nightstand.
"Too early," he repeated, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. His stubble grazed my skin, sending a shiver of awareness through me.
I lay there for a moment, just breathing him in. He smelled of soap and sleep and man. It was intoxicating.
But reality was creeping in at the edges of the duvet. We weren't just two people in a bed. We were Kai Volkov and Maeve Sterling. We were a scholarship athlete on probation and the Dean's daughter. We were a secret that could destroy careers.
And there was something else. A secret I hadn't told him.
I tried to slide out from under his arm.
"Bathroom," I murmured as an excuse.
Kai groaned, a sound of pure protest, but he lifted his arm.
I sat up. The sheet fell away, exposing my naked back to the cool air of the room. I felt exposed. Vulnerable in a way I hadn't expected. Last night, in the dark and the steam, I had been brave. In the daylight, with my bruises and my messy hair, I felt... small.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.
My legs wobbled.
"Whoa," I breathed, reaching for the nightstand to steady myself.
Kai sat up. He was instantly alert, the sleep vanishing from his eyes. He looked at me, his gaze traveling down my spine, over the curve of my hips.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," I lied. "Just... stiff."
I walked toward the bathroom. I tried to walk normally, but I couldn't help the slight hitch in my stride. The soreness was real.
Kai’s eyes narrowed. He watched me walk. He was calculating. Assessing.
I made it to the bathroom door.
"Maeve."
His voice stopped me. It wasn't the sleepy rumble anymore. It was sharp. Commanding.
I turned around, clutching the doorframe. "Yeah?"
Kai threw the covers off and stood up. He was naked. Gloriously, unapologetically naked. In the daylight, the bruises on his ribs from the game looked violent—purple and black blooms against his skin. But it was the expression on his face that scared me.
He walked toward me. He looked at the floor near the bed. Then he looked at the bathroom, where our discarded towels from last night lay in a heap.
He walked past me into the bathroom. He picked up the white towel I had used to dry off.
There was a smear of dried blood on it. Not from his nose.
Kai went still. Statue still.
The silence in the room became a vacuum, sucking all the oxygen out.
He turned slowly to face me. His grey eyes were dark, swirling with a storm of emotions I couldn't parse. Shock. Guilt. Anger.
"Maeve," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Why is there blood on this towel?"
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to cover myself. "I... I don't know. Maybe your nose started bleeding again."
"My nose stopped bleeding in the locker room," he said. He took a step toward me. "And this isn't from a nosebleed."
He dropped the towel. He stepped into my space, looming over me.
"Tell me," he demanded.
I looked down at his feet. "It's not a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" He reached out, gripping my chin gently but firmly, forcing me to look at him. "You were a virgin?"
The word hung in the air between us.
I bit my lip. "Yes."
Kai closed his eyes. He let out a breath that sounded like a curse. His hand dropped from my chin to run through his hair, tugging at the strands.
"Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck."
He turned away from me, pacing the small space of the bathroom. He looked furious.
"You didn't tell me," he accused, spinning back around. "In the shower. Against the wall. I took you... god, Maeve, I was rough. I didn't hold back. I thought you were experienced. I thought you knew what you were handling."
"I wanted you to be rough!" I argued, stepping forward. "That's why I didn't tell you."
"You should have told me!" he roared. It was the first time he had raised his voice at me. "I would have been gentle. I would have made it... good. I wouldn't have bent you over a cold tile wall and treated you like a..."
He stopped, unable to say the word.
"Like a what?" I challenged. "Like a puck bunny? Like a conquest?"
"Like something I own," he finished darkly.
"I liked it," I whispered.
Kai froze. He looked at me, his chest heaving.
"What?"
"I liked it," I repeated, my voice shaking but defiant. "I didn't want gentle, Kai. I didn't want candles and roses and awkward fumbling. I wanted you to take over. I wanted you to make me forget that I was scared."
I took a step closer to him, placing my hand on his bruised chest, right over his heart.
"I wanted the King," I said softly. "And I got him."
Kai stared down at me. The anger in his eyes slowly morphed into something else. Something possessive. Something hungry. But laced with a deep, profound regret.
"You were bleeding," he murmured, covering my hand with his. "You're sore. I see the way you're walking."
"I'll survive."
"I hurt you."
"You claimed me."
He shuddered. The words hit him hard. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. He buried his face in my hair, holding me so tight it almost hurt.
"You are a brat," he whispered into my scalp. "A reckless, impossible brat."
"And you're a brute," I replied, wrapping my arms around his waist.
We stood there for a long moment, naked in the morning light, holding onto each other. The dynamic had shifted. The secret was out. The barrier was gone.
Kai pulled back slightly. He looked down at me, his expression solemn.
"Go back to bed," he ordered.
"I'm up now. I was going to make coffee."
"No," he shook his head. "Go back to bed. Lie down."
"Kai..."
"I mean it, Maeve." His voice dropped into that instructional tone he used when we were studying, but deeper. "You gave me your first time. And I took it like a thief. I rushed it."
He swept me up into his arms. I gasped as my feet left the floor.
"Now," he said, carrying me back into the bedroom. "I am going to give you your second time. And this time? We do it my way."
He laid me down on the mattress. The sheets were still warm from our bodies.
He didn't climb on top of me immediately. He stood by the bed, looking down at me. His gaze was tactile. It felt like a physical caress, tracing every inch of my skin.
"Open your legs," he commanded softly.
I hesitated. The daylight was bright. I felt exposed.
"Maeve," he warned. "Don't hide from me. Not now."
I slowly separated my knees.
Kai’s eyes darkened. He knelt on the edge of the bed.
"You are beautiful," he said. It wasn't a compliment; it was a statement of fact. "And you are bruised."
He pointed to a mark on my hip where his thumb had pressed too hard last night.
"I did that," he said. He leaned forward and pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the purple mark. "I'm sorry."
He moved lower. He kissed my inner thigh. I twitched.
"Relax," he murmured, his hands sliding under my knees, lifting them, draping my legs over his shoulders.
"Kai," I breathed. "What are you doing?"
"Apologizing," he said.
And then he lowered his head.
When his tongue touched me, my hips bucked off the mattress involuntarily. It was electric. It was completely different from the shower. It wasn't fast. It was slow. Deliberate.
He was worshiping me.
He used his tongue like a weapon of mass destruction. He found the sensitive bundle of nerves at my center and teased it, circling, flicking, soothing. He tasted me like I was a five-course meal he wanted to savor.
"Good girl," he hummed against my skin when I moaned. "Open wider for me. Let me see everything."
I gripped the sheets, my head tossing back against the pillows.
"Kai," I gasped. "It's... it's too much."
"It's not enough," he countered, looking up at me. His face was wet. His eyes were glazed with lust. "I want to taste every part of you. I want to know exactly what makes you break."
He went back to work. He was relentless. He controlled the pace perfectly. Every time I got close to the edge, he backed off, soothing me, prolonging the torture until I was whimpering, begging, pleading with him to end it.
"Please," I sobbed. "Kai, please."
"Tell me what you want," he demanded, his thumbs pressing into my thighs.
"I want to come," I cried.
"For who?"
"For you. Only for you."
"Good girl."
He increased the pressure. He added his fingers, sliding two of them inside me. I was wet, ready, aching.
The orgasm hit me like a rogue wave. It started in my toes and rolled up through my body, crashing over my head. I screamed his name, my body bowing, trembling uncontrollably.
He drank every drop of it. He stayed there until the last tremor faded, until I was limp and gasping for air.
Then, and only then, did he move up my body.
He crawled over me, bracing his weight on his forearms so he didn't crush me. He looked down into my eyes.
"Better?" he asked, a smug, satisfied smirk playing on his lips.
"You're arrogant," I panted.
"I'm thorough."
He kissed me. It was slow, deep, and tasted of me.
"Can I come in?" he asked against my mouth. "Or are you too sore?"
"I want you," I whispered. "I need you to fill me, Kai. Please."
He nodded. He reached down, guiding himself.
This time, there was no thrusting. He entered me by inches. Slowly. Letting my body adjust. Letting me feel the stretch, the fullness of him.
It was intimate in a way that terrified me.
His eyes never left mine. He was watching me take him.
"Look at how perfect you are," he grumbled, his jaw tight with restraint. "You fit me like you were made for this. Made for me."
"I think I was," I confessed. The truth slipped out before I could stop it.
Kai froze for a second, his pupils blowing wide. Then he started to move.
It was a slow, rhythmic grind. He wasn't just having sex with me. He was making love to me. I hated the term—it sounded cheesy—but there was no other word for it.
He kissed my forehead. My eyelids. My nose. My mouth.
He murmured things in Russian that I didn't understand, but the tone was clear. It was devotion.
"You are mine, Kotyonok," he whispered. "No one else touches you. Ever."
"Only you," I promised, wrapping my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper.
The friction built. The heat in the room rose.
"Come with me," he ordered, his pace picking up. "Together this time."
I didn't think I could. I had just finished. But he knew my body better than I did. He hit a spot deep inside me, angling his hips just right, and the tension began to coil again. Tighter. Hotter.
"That's it," he encouraged, his voice ragged. "Let go, Maeve. I've got you. I've got you."
We broke together.
It wasn't violent this time. It was a shared shattering. A dissolution of boundaries. I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. We were just breath and sweat and heartbeats.
He collapsed on top of me, burying his face in my neck.
We lay there in the tangle of sheets, the morning sun bathing us in gold.
My heart was racing, but my mind was terrifyingly clear.
I looked at the ceiling. I listened to Kai's breathing slowing down.
I thought about the way he had apologized to my hip. I thought about the way he had defended me at the diner. I thought about the way he had just worshiped my body like it was a temple.
Oh no.
The realization hit me harder than the orgasm.
This wasn't just a hookup. This wasn't just a deal to pass Ethics or get back at my dad.
I was in love with him.
I was in love with Kai Volkov. The broody, damaged, possessive hockey captain who was leaving for the NHL in three months. The man my father essentially owned.
I felt a tear slide down my temple into my hair.
I was in love with him, and it was going to destroy me.
Because Kai didn't do emotions. He did contracts. He did control. He did winning.
And love? Love was a loss of control.
Kai lifted his head, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked down at me, tracing the track of the tear with his thumb.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked, panic flaring in his eyes instantly.
"No," I whispered, forcing a smile. "No, Kai. It was perfect."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Because," I lied, turning my face into his palm. "I'm just happy."
He studied me for a second, not buying it, but he didn't push. He just kissed my forehead again.
"Sleep," he said, pulling the duvet up over us. "We have the whole day. I'm not letting you out of this bed."
"Okay," I agreed.
I closed my eyes.
But I knew I wouldn't sleep. I was too busy trying to figure out how to protect my heart from the man who was currently holding it in his hands.