Chapter 21
Captain’s Hall, Freedom
Robyn
“Arnica cream for your bruises.” I wave the small tube at Shay. Then I raise my other hand. “And a cold bottle of beer.”
I lean in the doorway to Captain Hall’s bathroom.
The steam has misted the mirrored back wall. It’s hot. Sweat drips down my neck into the collar of my cream shirt. I wish that I was wearing a skirt, instead of trousers.
Morning light streams into the room through the open window over the gleaming marble surfaces, blue walls, and free standing claw bath that’s in the middle of the room.
I normally take showers in the spacious, walk-in shower in the corner of the room.
Where else am I meant to have fun singing?
Shay didn’t come down for breakfast. He hasn’t spoken to anyone since the Bay Rebels lost their game 0 — 1 to the Chicago Blackhawks
The game was a disaster.
It was agonizing to watch from the side of the rink.
It must have been even more painful for Eden to watch on the television.
I know that Shay blames himself.
Plus, Dad chewed him out for an hour. He kept him back by himself in his room after the game.
Shay was pale and shaky after that.
He went to his own bedroom to sleep as soon as we arrived back at Captain’s Hall. It’d ached that he wanted to be alone.
I don’t know what happened on the ice with that asshole defenseman but I’m sure that this has still got to do with Melanie’s photograph.
He’s rattled.
Wrecked.
“Cheers, love.” Shay holds his hand out for the beer. I saunter closer and pass it to him, kneeling next to the bath on the cold floor. “If you’d only had a third hand and brought the new “Kaiser Chief” album, then that would officially make you the best girlfriend of all time.”
I mock pout. “I’m not already? And three hands…think what fun we could have with an extra hand. Sometimes, it feels like we need it in bed.”
He laughs, but it’s strained.
I study the dark bruise on his shoulder from where he was slammed into the boards last night, as well as the blossoming purple along his sharp jawline.
Before I can stop myself, I lean forward to kiss his sore jaw, and he draws in a breath.
I glance up, and our gazes meet.
“Does it hurt?” I whisper against his skin.
“Only when you kiss it.” Shay’s eyes flutter closed. “Don’t stop kissing it.”
I brush my lips as softly as I can across his jaw again like I can somehow erase the pain that he’s in that way, but then, I draw back. “But how can you drink your beer, if I’m kissing you?”
“Priorities, huh?”
I smirk.
He takes a deep swig.
“So, I’m not doing as good a job as my brother does at hiding how much I need a drink then?” Shay takes another drink, studying me over the top of the bottle.
I shake my head. “D’Angelo is worried about you. He was all set to come in here with his typical overbearing brand of care that would probably involve demanding that you deal with whatever happened yesterday on the ice. Your brother has been anxiety baking since dawn. There’s a whole basket of pastries downstairs waiting for you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I fix him with a stern stare.
Shay’s lips curl up at the sides. “I’ll come down after I’m finished here and try to eat some of them. You can help me with the chocolate muffins. I just needed some time alone.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Not alone from you.”
I smile, squirting some of the arnica cream onto my fingers, before dropping the tube to the floor. “Are you okay, if I rub this in now?”
He nods, and I lean over him.
I gently massage the cream first into his jaw and then his shoulder.
I know that players will get injuries every game. I’ve grown up around hockey players. I’m used to this.
Yet it’s different this time because the fight looked deliberate.
My heart had been in my mouth watching it, especially after Shay was punched and his head was knocked into the boards as well.
He looked fucking out of it, and shit, I’d been shouting for Cody and the medics, even before Shay had his freak out on the ice.
What if Shay had the same problem with concussion as his twin?
Eden is surviving life after hockey, but would Shay?
I’d seen Noah for the first time in the arena then, recognizing his shock of blond hair. He’d been the first one of the staff to come running at my frantic calls for medics.
It was Dad who’d waved Cody and him back, assessing that Shay didn’t need them.
I’d been shaking with anger and fear.
What if he was wrong?
I shoot Shay a careful look. “What happened out there?”
“Maddan.” Shay pushes his wet hair out of his eyes. “The fucker was trying to get me to lose my temper. So, it’s my own fault. I’m the one with the anger issues. They’re simply using my reputation against me.”
I frown. “He fought you. I’m proud that you didn’t react.”
“But I did.” He looks away. “He triggered a fucking flashback. I mean, he wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t just seen that photograph or I’d had some time to process it. All those memories of Blythe…I’d pushed them down. Who could I even tell about them? Look at me. I’m this strong guy. Who would believe that this small woman was able to…?”
“Don’t.” My heart is beating fast, and my eyes burn with tears. “I believe you. We all do. It’s not about gender. The moment that you said your safeword, she no longer had your consent.” Emotions overwhelm me, and I deliberately turn my back to grab a sponge and give myself the opportunity to wipe away a tear. I came in here to cheer Shay up with beer and kisses. If he sees me crying — knowing Shay — he’ll end up smiling and pretending that he’s fine, simply to cheer me up. “What did Maddan do to trigger you?”
“More like what he said.” Shay reaches up to grip my chin and turns me back to face him. He brushes my cheek with his wet finger. “I’m not into most degradation play as you know from my contract, love. Jude has a way of mixing some in that I do like with praise and then that makes me melt. Well, that fucker on the ice called me a bitch like Blythe would, right after he’d told me that he was going to fuck me up like my brother.”
“Now I wish that you had hit him.”
Shay’s eyes widen. “Shit, love, the official PR line really has changed.”
“Don’t tell D’Angelo. It can be our little secret.”
Immediately, Shay’s expression becomes troubled again. “I’m not that keen on secrets right now.”
“Me neither.”
He hesitates for a moment.
Then he adds, “My brother saved me, you know.”
“What?”
“On that night, the one in the picture. He won’t say anything because he never sees himself as the heroic sort but he is. He’s always protected and looked out for me. He did that night as well. We had this code and lots of check ins, when either of us were out. Only, he never went out.”
“I remember from the first night that we met. When you decided to come back to my room at the inn, you sent him a coded text.”
“Smirking face emoji. Short and simple. Easy to send in any circumstance.” Shay’s gaze becomes hard. “And that’s why Dee was suspicious, when I didn’t send anything that night.”
“You said that he didn’t like Blythe. How didn’t he realize that she was hurting you?”
I don’t mean to ask, but Eden’s observant.
Shay looks uncomfortable. “Because I didn’t realize. People like her…abusers…are smart with how they reel you in. Eden tried to warn me about her, but I thought that he was jealous of the time that I was spending with her.”
“Your brother would never be jealous, as long as you’re happy.”
“I know that now.” Shay takes a long drink. “She left me alone tied up like that for hours, while she got ready to go out and meet her real friends. I think that she’d have left me there all night. So bloody dangerous. Eden knocked on the door, however, and I know how hard that must have been for him, when I wasn’t answering my phone. She didn’t care that she’d been caught, just laughed and said: I’m going out, if you want him, take him. And she let my own twin find me like that on the bed…”
“Shit,” I breathe.
Shay pushes himself out of the bath for a moment, sloshing the water against the sides, and captures my lips in a kiss, which is hard and demanding.
He looks dangerous.
I forget sometimes that he and his brother are.
When he drops back into the bath, he looks more confident. “Eden became braver that night than he ever had but he never trusted anyone in college after that point. And I made sure that the world better watch out for the Prince Twins because I was never going to let myself be powerless again…”
I dip the sponge into the water and then lightly brush it over Shay’s hard chest. “I know what it is to feel powerless, after being trapped in a marriage with a narcissist. This journalist is pulling at the threads of all our lives to try and unravel us. But we’re not going to allow her to.”
“We still lost the game, and it’s my fault.”
“No one thinks that.”
“Coach does.”
“Dad’s a grumpy dick. The rest of the team doesn’t. Even the press don’t. You were punched in the fucking face. Most of the reports think that Maddan should have been sent to the sin bin.”
“D’Angelo’s disappointed in me.”
“D’Angelo loves you. He knows the game well enough that sometimes other players can get in your head.”
I caress the sponge in circles across Shay’s chest again.
Shay relaxes back in the bath, bracing his arms on the sides and holding the bottle loosely. “Hmm, that’s nice, love.”
I run the sponge over his peaked nipples and deliberately ignore the way that his eyes become half-hooded.
Then I dip it lower over his abs.
A wet, naked Shay is a gorgeous Shay.
He stretches, caught between relaxed and turned on, which is exactly what I was going for.
Eden can cheer Shay up with muffins. I have other delicious methods.
I tease the sponge under the water and along Shay’s thighs, skirting where I know he wants me to touch.
“Don’t tease, love.” Shay’s hips hump out of the water.
His dick is already at half-mast and standing proud out of the water.
But I can do better than that.
“Hmm?” I say like I have no idea what he wants. I can be a mean woman. “With all your bruises, I’m trying to help you get clean. I’m being a good nurse. Now, lie back and let me take care of you.”
I stroke the sponge down one of his muscled thighs and then back up the other. I circle in to his inner thigh, deliberately caressing across his balls like it’s an accident.
He groans, dropping his head back. “Fuck, if nurses take care of their patients like this, then I’m going to be injured more often.”
I tweak his nipple in retribution, and he yelps. “If you do that, then I’ll only give you cold bed baths, and I don’t think that you’ll appreciate them as much.”
“I’ll like anything that means you have your little hands on my strong body, love.”
Dangerous.
“What about if it’s not my hands…?”
“What do you…?”
I smirk at Shay.
Then I lower my head and kiss the tip of his cock.
“Oh, fuck,” Shay mutters.
I give his by now fully hard dick a single lick, before I drop the sponge and hold my hair out of the way. Then I lower my mouth over his shaft.
He hisses out a shocked breath.
I slide up and down Shay’s cock, swirling my tongue along the head. My mouth is watering at the taste of his cock. It’s silky and wet, so large that my jaw will ache later.
But I want more of it.
Much more.
I push down further, until my nose is just above the water.
“Fuck, Robyn…” Shay drops his beer, and I wince at the crack of the glass against marble.
I pull off his cock to shoot him an unimpressed look, as the beer puddles, staining my trousers.
He looks entirely unapologetic. “If you will look so sexy with your lips wrapped around my dick…and your mouth feels wet, warm, and perfect…you can’t blame a guy for dropping his beer.”
I laugh, playfully flicking water at his face.
“Hey, this is war.” Shay sprays me with water back, giving a sunny smile. “And I have a weapon for you to polish.”
“That was bad.”
“It’s your fault. You’ve turned my brain to mush. I need to cum.” He wraps his hand around my hair and pulls me back toward his throbbing cock. “Tap three times on the side of the bath to safeword.”
I come more than willingly, however, licking my lips.
I allow Shay to lower me back onto his dick, licking at the head and along the sensitive undershaft.
Then he fucks my face, slow and deep.
I take careful breaths out of my nose, as he increases the speed.
Shay’s breathing is ragged, matching my own.
The water sloshes over the side of the bath.
I’m feeling lightheaded with the steam and the way that Shay’s cock is knocking the back of my throat.
But I love this.
It’s wild and spontaneous.
It feels like it’s anchoring Shay back with me in the present.
“I’m going to — love — come soon,” Shay groans.
I lift my hand to entangle with Shay’s, where he’s holding my hair. He’s trying to loosen his hold and pull me off his cock. But I want to taste and swallow him.
He appears to understand by the way that I firmly hold his hand where it is.
Shay’s hips stutter. Then he’s coming.
“Robyn, f-f-fuck.” Shay strokes over my hair.
When I remove my hand from Shay’s, he finally pulls me gently off his oversensitive cock.
I haven’t reached to touch myself.
My core is throbbing, but Shay brings me pleasure so many times that for once, this has been solely about him.
When I raise my eyes to meet Shay’s, he’s smiling widely. I find myself smiling back.
“I won the war,” I declare.
“You did with your amazing mouth. I’m not even sad about it. I surrender, love. Long live the Queen.”
“Well, well, look what happens in bathrooms, when I’m not here,” D’Angelo drawls from the open doorway. I startle and swing round on my knees to look at him. “And I thought that it was only the singing of cringe inducing Justin Timberlake songs.”
I raise my eyebrow, trying to look superior, before I realize that I still have sperm on my lip and hurriedly lick it off, flushing.
“Missed a bit,” Shay mutters helpfully, leaning over to wipe at my lip.
I redden further. “Nope, also sexcapades. Come back at lunch for an orgy.”
“I’ll mark it in my diary,” D’Angelo says, dryly. “Except, I won’t. Because while you were up here having some clean but dirty fun, coach phoned and summoned us to his house for lunch. We all know that translates to us being fucked…and not in the sperm on the lips way.”