Chapter 25
Jacks
Skyler Shaw stood naked in front of me, spent and flushed and looking at me like I’d rearranged the constellations.
I was still clothed, still tasting him on my lips. My knees ached from the angle, and there was Thai sauce on my elbow from where I’d braced against the coffee table, but none of that mattered.
What mattered was the look on his face.
It wasn’t merely satisfaction, though there was plenty of that. Written across his features in a way that made me fiercely proud was something deeper, something raw and wondering, like a man seeing color for the first time after a lifetime of gray.
He blinked down at me. His breathing was still labored, his hand resting on my shoulder like he needed the contact to stay upright.
“Jacks.”
“Sky.”
“That was . . .”
“I know.”
“No, I mean, that was really . . .” He shook his head, searching for words that weren’t coming. “Women have done that. To me. Before. And it was fine. Good, even. But that was so different.”
I waited, not sure I would like where this was headed. “Different” could mean so many things.
“It was like . . . a different planet or solar system or a different fucking dimension.” He ran a hand through his hair, still dazed. “Is it always like that? With guys?”
I smiled up at him and shrugged. “I guess that depends on the guy.”
Something shifted behind his eyes at that. He stared at me for a long moment, and I could almost hear thought forming, something important crystallizing.
Then he shook it off, and his expression returned to uncertainty.
“Should I . . . Do you want me to . . .” He gestured toward my lap with the awkward energy of a man trying to offer directions in a country whose language he didn’t speak. “I mean, you didn’t . . . I should take care of you, right? That’s how this works? I mean, isn’t it?”
His innocent earnestness nearly killed me.
“Sky.” I reached up and took his hand. “This was about you, your first time. I’m happy it was with me.”
“But that’s not fair—”
“Trust me, nothing about the last twenty minutes was unfair to me.” I squeezed his hand. “There’s no scoreboard. This isn’t hockey or football.”
“Everything is hockey.”
“Not this.” I let my lips curl but was careful to remain serious. He needed to know I meant what I said, that none of this was a joke.
He looked like he wanted to argue, but I tugged him down and kissed him softly, enough to short-circuit whatever protest was forming. When I pulled back, the tension in his shoulders had eased.
“Okay,” he said. “But next time—”
“Next time you can do whatever you want.”
The words hung between us like a promise.
He smiled in his boyish way.
I couldn’t bite back my own.
And then we both became aware that he was still very much naked and standing in a living room that looked like a Thai food crime scene.
“We should probably deal with . . .” I gestured at the devastation surrounding us. Takeout containers, scattered plates, the pad Thai smeared across the floor, and Skyler’s sauce-soaked clothes in a heap nearby.
“Right. Yeah. Clothes.” He looked down at himself as though just remembering his situation. “I should, uh . . . laundry.”
“Laundry,” I agreed.
He gathered his clothes at arm’s length, sauce dripping onto the hardwood in a trail that would’ve made a forensic investigator weep, and padded down a short hallway to a small laundry room tucked between the bathroom and bedroom, his bare feet slapping against the wood.
Watching a naked NHL captain load a washing machine was not something I’d ever seen on my bingo card, and yet there I was, leaning against the doorframe, committing every detail to memory: the way his back muscles shifted as he bent to shove clothes into the drum, the tan line across his hips, the unselfconscious way he moved, like he’d forgotten he was naked—or maybe didn’t care anymore.
The sight of his round, firm ass with that dimple on the side nearly had me reaching for him, but he straightened before my lusty thought could form into action.
“Enjoying the show?” he asked without turning around.
“Best show ever. Should win an Oscar or Tony or whatever they give naked man shows.”
He laughed and disappeared into the bedroom, returning thirty seconds later in a pair of silky black shorts and a fitted white T-shirt that clung to every line of his torso.
Fuck me, this was even worse than watching him naked.
Or maybe it was better.
Yeah, definitely better.
The shorts sat low on his hips, the silky fabric draping in ways that left very little to the imagination.
And his T-shirt—God, I wanted to be that T-shirt—was thin and soft and probably cost all of four dollars.
It hugged his chest and arms like it had been tailored by someone who understood the precise geometry of Skyler Shaw’s shoulders and how best to make everyone around him drool.
“What?” he said, catching my expression.
“Nothing. Just . . . that outfit really, um, fits. Like really, really well.”
“It’s a T-shirt and shorts, Jacks.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re looking at me like I’m wearing a tuxedo.”
“I’m looking at you like I can see every muscle you own through that shirt, which is significantly better than any tuxedo ever worn by any man . . . ever . . . in the history of tuxes.”
He flushed, glancing down at himself as though the outfit had betrayed him. “These are my sleep clothes.”
“Then I’m a big fan of bedtime.”
He rolled his eyes, but his blush deepened, creeping down his neck in a way that made me want to trace its path with my mouth. So I did. Stepping forward, I slid my hand around the back of his neck and pressed my lips to the warm skin below his jaw.
He made a moaning sound—soft, involuntary—and his hands found my waist.
We kissed in his cramped laundry room for more minutes than I could count.
Time didn’t matter.
And it wasn’t the desperate, hungry kissing from earlier. It was something slower and deeper, the kind of kissing that wasn’t trying to go anywhere. It existed entirely for its own sake.
His hands roamed my back over my shirt while mine settled on his hips, my thumbs tracing the edges of those silky shorts.
The washing machine hummed beside us, filling the small room with white noise.
It should’ve been unromantic beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting with a basket of dirty towels in the corner and the faint smell of detergent, but with Skyler’s arms around me and his mouth warm against mine, it felt like the most intimate place on earth.
He pulled back, pressing our foreheads together.
“I could do this forever,” he murmured.
“That’s a lot of laundry.”
He shook his head, causing both our heads to turn through his laughter.
“Idiot. I meant the kissing.”
“I know.” I winked, then kissed the tip of his nose, which made him scrunch his face in a way that should have been illegal for a grown man built like a statue.
Then he yawned.
And not a petite, polite thing.
This was a massive, jaw-cracking, full-body yawn that he tried to smother against my shoulder and failed spectacularly, like in funny cat videos on TikTok.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m not bored. I swear. You’re the opposite of boring. It’s—”
“You flew across the country, played eight games in two weeks, and had a significant life experience on your living room couch.” I stepped back, keeping hold of his hands. “You need sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re yawning into my clavicle.”
“That’s a sign of affection in some cultures.”
“Name one.”
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
I laughed again and squeezed his hands. “I should go, let you rest.”
I started to pull away, but his grip tightened. He didn’t squeeze hard, only enough to stop me.
“Stay.”
One word.
Quiet but certain.
“Sky, you need to sleep, and I have a—”
“Stay.” He said it again, softer this time, his thumbs running across my knuckles. “Not for . . . I don’t want you to leave yet. Please.”
The please undid me.
It always would.
How could I refuse this man when he looked so earnest and adorable and completely pitiful?
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay? Really?”
I nodded, and he kissed me again, a simple, pure joy flowing through his lips.
His bedroom was simple and clean—a king bed with navy sheets, a nightstand stacked with hockey biographies, and blackout curtains drawn against the city lights. It smelled like him, that mix of manly athletic soap and something warm underneath that I’d started associating with a feeling of home.
He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, then looked at me with an expression that was half invitation, half uncertainty.
“Do you want to . . . I mean, are you comfortable sleeping in your clothes, or—”
“I sleep naked, but if—”
“Naked’s good,” he said faster than I could finish. Before I could slip my shirt over my head, his silk and cotton flew past me in a blur.
“Can’t let you go naked without me. That’d be rude.”
I shook my head and chuckled. This man was going to kill me.
“Can’t have you being rude, Mr. Gentleman Hockey Star.”
I stripped down to my boxers and tossed my button-down on a chair by the window. When I turned back, Skyler was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite name.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just . . .” He shook his head. “Those need to go, too.”
I looked down at my simple boxers and shrugged. I’d never been shy about getting naked. In one smooth motion, cotton hit the floor.
Skyler smiled as his eyes sparkled with mischief.
But before he could say a word, I slid under the covers.
For a moment, we lay on our backs, side by side, staring at the ceiling like two kids at a sleepover who didn’t know the rules, then Skyler shifted onto his side and reached for me.
“Come over here.”
He pulled me toward him, my back against his chest, his arm wrapping around my waist. His legs tangled with mine, his chin resting on the top of my head, and suddenly I was enveloped in two hundred and ten pounds of warm, solid Skyler Shaw.
I was the small spoon.
He’d made me the small spoon.