29. A Thank You Gift
29
A THANK YOU GIFT
Leighton
I should turn down this opportunity to stay at Miles’s house when he’s on the road, but I can’t find a single compelling reason to. Especially since we won’t be there at the same time—no temptations, no complications. We’ll be ships passing in the night. Exactly what I need and what he needs too.
“You get a break from your roommates and make some extra money watching the dogs,” my father says, resting a hand on my shoulder here in the corridor by the locker room. “And Miles gets the help he needs, plus someone to take excellent pictures for his mom. In fact, he’s willing to pay a bonus for photos.”
Funny thing—the bonus happens to cover exactly half the rent my dad’s been trying to get me to agree to if we split a place for a month. He’s too clever for his own good.
I can’t poke holes in his logic, no matter how hard I try. But does Miles really want this? I’m weighing how to pull him aside and ask if he’s truly okay with me staying there when Dad cuts through my overthinking with a simple, “You’d be helping so much.”
It’s said earnestly, with a hint of pleading in his voice I’ve never heard before. So I say yes.
Two days later, I’m bouncing in my seat as the bus trundles along Marina Green, the bay sparkling under the bright October sun. My pink duffel bag rests beside me along with my trusty camera bag. A buzz zips through me. The idea of wrangling four small, wild dogs has me grinning—far more fun than managing the relationship antics of Indigo and Ezra.
When the bus groans to a stop three blocks from Miles’s place in the Marina, I leap up, grabbing my bags like I’m stepping off a bus in some old Hollywood movie, ready to take on the world. I hit the sidewalk and collide—literally—with a wall of man.
A familiar wall of man.
Broad chest, unruly dark hair, and a tattooed forearm topped off with that vegan leather bracelet I didn’t let him trade in more than a year ago at the lockbox. The best part, though? Miles is standing in front of me wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Not only do I get to stare at his ropey arms, but I also get to admire the denim. No one in the world looks as good in jeans as Miles Falcon. They hug his thighs, snuggle against his firm ass, and love his legs like they were tailor-made for him. Which, knowing how hockey does unholy things to men’s asses, they probably were.
Before I can say anything, he grabs my bags. “Let me get those,” he says, already slinging the duffel over his shoulder.
I don’t even bother protesting. “I told you I’d be here at eleven,” I say, tilting my head at him. “How’d you know exactly when the bus would arrive?”
He shoots me a crooked grin. “I checked the schedule and waited. I wanted to carry your things for you.”
My chest flutters. It’s such a small gesture, but it feels so...him. Thoughtful. Quietly intentional. Like showing up when I needed to move a few weeks ago, or finding me after work to offer a ride home.
I try not to overthink it, but there’s a dangerous warmth spreading through me. “Well, I get it. As a dog-sitter for four wild Chihuahuas, I’m a rare breed.”
“You must be protected at all costs,” he says, flashing me a playful smile as we start walking toward his house.
The warm fall air carries the faint scent of saltwater as I glance toward the sparkling bay, glimmering by the Golden Gate Bridge. “God, I’m not going to mind this view for the next week or so,” I say, taking in the shimmering water.
“The balcony on the second floor is perfect for a cup of tea in the morning,” he says. “You’ll love it.”
“Oh! Great idea. I need to pick up some green tea—I didn’t bring any.”
“You don’t need to,” he says, his grin widening. “I already stocked up on your favorite.”
I blink at him, caught off guard. “How did you know my favorite tea?”
“I asked Birdie what you always get.”
The pride in his voice is obvious, and honestly, he deserves it. My heart does a little flip as I look at him. “That’s...really thoughtful. Thank you. ”
“Of course,” he says, like it’s no big deal. But it feels like a big deal. A small part of me wonders if this is just a thank you for taking care of his mom’s dogs. Another part knows better when he says, “I want you to have everything you want.”
My heart stutters. It feels like this isn’t just for me as the dog-sitter. It feels like it’s for me as me. I clear my throat. “Thank you, Miles.”
His eyes swing toward me as we walk, a spark flickering in them. “And since you’re such a rare breed…there’s pasta in the fridge—sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, all the good stuff. I made it for you this morning. So it should be pretty fresh. Just heat it up when you’re hungry.”
“You made pasta?” I stop in my tracks, turning to face him, because it’s more than just pasta—it’s the meal that never happened.
“You never got to try it over a year ago,” he says, holding my gaze for a long beat. Heat thrums through me. “Trust me, I’m a phenomenal chef.”
The warmth in my chest turns into a full-on blaze. “I can’t wait.”
A minute later, we’re walking through his front door, and my mind is spinning. The tea, the pasta, the way he showed up at the bus stop—it’s like he’s orchestrated this little world where everything is easy for me while I stay at his home to help him.
As much as I want to say I can do it all myself—I can buy my own tea, make my own dinner, carry my own bags—I don’t. Because for once, I don’t feel the intense, driving need to prove my independence. Before he opens the door, I impulsively reach for his forearm.
His jaw tightens when I touch him, like he’s at war inside .
“Miles,” I say, and his name comes out warm, breathy even.
“Yes?” His voice is strung tight with desire, but I don’t let go of his arm.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“No, thank you. You’re helping me.”
I curl my hand tighter, my thumb sliding softly across the hair on his forearm, tracing the arrow tattoo on his fair skin. “We both know you’re the one helping me.”
He dips his head, swallows roughly, then raises his face, blowing out a soldiering breath. “Come inside.”
When he opens the door, it feels like I’m stepping into something entirely new between us. But the moment evaporates as four small, barking hurricanes barrel toward us, and they have a lot of opinions.
An hour later, Miles is upstairs changing into his travel suit, getting ready to head to the team jet. He’s already given me the lay of the land and a litany of instructions for my charges—all of which I plan to follow religiously. He showed me their heated dog beds—he calls them their hot tubs—then sent me all the details on their food, on Boppity’s meds, and the code for the front door, as well as the location of the security camera. It’s in the living room, and he turns it on when he leaves in case he ever needs to check the interior of the home while he’s away. “I’ll make sure I don’t walk naked past it,” I said when he showed it to me.
“Or make sure you do,” he replied.
But that’d be trouble, so I won’t. Besides, I don’t generally parade around anywhere naked, so it’ll be easy to keep my clothes on.
He showed me his scotch collection, telling me to feel free to have some. I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Things that will never happen,” I said. “I’m convinced scotch is espresso’s cousin. Meaning it is also vile.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m going to pretend you never said that.”
“It won’t work. The truth of scotch and espresso will forever haunt you.”
“You might try to ruin my two favorite drinks, but I’m made of tougher stuff than that.”
“Is that a challenge?”
He laughed. “No, because you’d smile at me and win.”
“Good. Because I have excellent taste in beverages. I’m a white wine girlie till the day I die.”
“I’ll remember that.”
No doubt he will. He remembers everything.
He even installed the app on my phone for the dogs’ GPS trackers, assuring me they’d never escaped but his mom likes to have them wear them just in case. Makes sense—it’s always good to be cautious. My sister has an AirTag on her water bottle, so I sure as hell understand putting a GPS tracker on a precious pet.
With all this intel filed away in my brain and my phone, I focus on making Miles’s mom happy. I snap pics of the pack as they burrow into the blanket forts I built for them on the couch. I’m going to be the best dog-sitter ever. I’m going to take the best pictures ever. I’m going to ace this job.
“Smile for the camera,” I say to the dogs, making a clicking sound to get their attention.
Four little heads tilt toward me in perfect unison .
Yes! The money shot.
I snap the picture with my phone, already imagining how much Miles’s mom is going to love this one.
“Oh, I can see you’re already settling in.” Miles’s voice drifts behind me as he enters the room.
I lower my phone and turn around…
And my jaw falls open.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen Miles in a suit—I’ve photographed him and the other guys on game days enough to know he cleans up well. Those shots always blow up online, and for good reason.
But this is different.
He’s standing in front of me in a tan suit that looks like it was made to worship his body. The crisp fabric stretches just right over his broad shoulders, and his tie hangs undone at the collar, leaving him looking effortlessly sexy. His travel bag is slung over one shoulder, and the jacket rests casually on his elbow.
My throat goes dry, and my skin hums, every nerve ending sparking like a live wire.
“Hi,” I manage to say, though it comes out soft and breathy—so not me.
His lips quirk, and he gives me a look that’s warm and just a little too knowing. “Hey.” His tone is lower than usual, like he’s reading the shift in the air between us and leaning into it. Or maybe causing it. Intentionally. The man does everything with so much intention.
I stand, brushing invisible wrinkles from my jeans, as if that’ll make me less underdressed next to him. My black zip-up hoodie is covered in dog hair, and he looks like he’s arrived for a photo shoot for a luxury watch ad. As I tuck my phone into my back pocket, my gaze sails to the gold watch on his wrist. I don’t even know why wristwatches are so sexy, but there’s something about them. So strong and masculine. But it’s also…personal. I haven’t seen him wear it yet this season.
“You have on your watch,” I say, pointing to it, like it holds the key to this charge between us.
“You noticed,” he says, amused, maybe touched, definitely calling back my comment from the night at Sticks and Stones.
The tip of my tongue darts out, wetting my lips as I weigh my response. “It’s a nice watch. Once upon a time you left it behind at the studio,” I say softly.
A faint noise seems to rumble from his chest. “You remember.”
“I do,” I say, a smile teasing at my lips as we dance around our memories of the day we spent together.
He looks down at the gold band, runs his thumb across it. “It’s a reminder…of that day.”
A whimper threatens to escape my lips. But I swallow it down, instead gesturing toward him—the whole ensemble. “You look…” I start, but the words are lodged in my mind and don’t make it past my lips.
His dark gaze travels up and down me. “You always look…”
He can’t seem to finish either.
We’re both at a loss for words as my pulse thunders in my ears. The charged silence stretches, and I fight the urge to look away.
He shifts the bag higher on his shoulder, the casual movement breaking the spell just enough to let me breathe again. “I should get going, but I need to tell you—” he says.
“What about your tie? ”
He looks down like he’s just noticed it’s undone. “I guess I should do something about that.”
“Let me,” I say. The command—or is it a plea?—comes out unbidden and full of unchecked desire. A desire that’s stronger than my restraint and all my reasons to resist him.
“Do it,” he says, his voice both raspy and urgent.
I close the distance between us, checking behind me to make sure the dogs don’t need anything, but they seem transfixed too, staring at us like they’ve stumbled onto a show they can’t stop watching. I can’t stop either.
Miles sets down his bag.
I reach for his tie—it’s blue, a deep, dark shade like the color of a lake under a clear morning sky. The silky fabric is soft against my fingers as I run them up to his collar. “Nice tie. I like the color,” I say. “It looks good on you.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He parts his lips but doesn’t say anything at first. His arms hang at his sides, but his fists are clenched. I fiddle with the fabric, but the scent of him—soap mixed with sandalwood—hits me with such force, I can’t, for the life of me, remember how to tie a Windsor knot.
I look up, and at last, he says, “Your eyes.”
I’m…lost. “What?” I’ve heard him, but I’m not sure what he’s saying.
“It’s the color of your eyes. The tie,” he says, reaching for one end of the fabric, showing it to me.
My chest rises and falls as the full meaning registers. “You got it because it?—”
“Reminds me of you.”
I’d like to say I’m strong enough to resist him. To walk away. To remember how utterly risky this is—for him, for others, and for me .
I’m only strong for a moment—a moment in which neither of us moves. My hand is on one end of the tie, his on the other. Then, in no time, our hands collide.
We clasp, and it’s like a match to kindling. We ignite in a fiery kiss. Holding on to his tie, I jerk him closer.
He ropes an arm around my waist, his other hand grabbing my jaw.
Our mouths explore, tongues skating, bodies pressing together. Need rockets through me. Then it shoots to the sky when his hand slides down my jaw, over my neck, and around my throat.
He doesn’t squeeze. It’s a gentle caress. I arch against his palm, a subtle way of asking for more.
His fingers curl a little tighter, but he still doesn’t squeeze. He just…holds me in place as he owns my mouth.
My hand climbs into his hair, sliding through that wild mess of locks, curling around his head. He groans, the sound raw and desperate, like he’s utterly lost to the sensation. Lost to the connection between us, crackling and snapping like twigs underfoot in a forest.
The sound drives me on. I tug on his hair harder, rougher.
“Fuuuuck,” he groans against my lips. But then he pulls back, letting go of my throat and my mouth too. He’s staring down at me, his eyes carnal, his mouth a hunter’s. “Leighton,” he says, his voice a warning.
I frown, my breath coming fast. “I know. You need to go.”
He shakes his head slowly, deliberately. “No. I need to touch you.” He lets go of my waist, tucking a finger under my chin and tilting my face toward his. His dark eyes hold mine, and his voice drops to a pleading rasp. “Let me. Before I go. Just fucking let me, baby. Please.”
It’s the please for me.
No, it’s the just let me.
Actually, it’s everything.
It’s the complete and utter despair in his voice over the thought of not having me. Pretty sure I didn’t have much resistance left in me, but any shred I might have had has vanished in his need. I need him too. More than I want to walk away.
I grab his wrist, checking the time on the watch. “You have eight minutes,” I say.
His lips curve into a wicked grin. “It. Is. On.”
Before I know it, he’s scooped me up and carried me to the side of the room where he sets me down, pressing my back to the wall.
In no time, he’s unzipping my jeans, pushing them down my hips and sliding a hand over my panties. He growls when he feels how ready I am. “You’re so fucking wet, Shutterbug,” he says, using that nickname so deliberately, as if saying he’s been thinking dirty thoughts every other time he’s said it.
Knowing that, deep in my dirty soul, makes me even wetter.
“That turned you on more, didn’t it? When I said Shutterbug ,” he rasps out, cupping me, flicking a finger against the damp—now damper—panel of my panties.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you noticed everything,” I say, by way of answering him.
“With you, I really fucking do.” He drags his fingers to the top of my panties.
I steal a glance at his watch. “You’d better get moving, Mister Cocky. You’re down to seven. ”
“You doubt me?” He sounds wickedly delighted.
“Let’s just say I’m the kind of girl who likes proof,” I tease, since this man seems to thrive on challenges.
His hand slips inside my panties, traveling down, then gliding over my wet pussy.
My breath hitches.
“Talk about proof, sweetheart. You’re so soft. You’re so fucking wet. Fuck, I’m dying to taste you,” he says, as he strokes and I shudder again.
Pleasure twists inside me, climbing higher in seconds, like a switch has been flipped. I wriggle against his fingers, then grab his face and haul his mouth close to mine. “Kiss me while you make me come,” I say, giving him an order.
With a hot groan, Miles seals his lips to mine and strokes faster. As his mouth claims me, his fingers draw dizzying circles around my clit that have me groaning and rocking against him.
Then, he slides two fingers along my clit and pinches me.
Breaking the kiss, I gasp, the sound quickly turning into a long, needy moan that thrums through my body.
His eyes darken with heat. “You like that?” he asks, wholly rhetorical. It’s clear I do.
“So much,” I say, bracing myself against the wall as he finger-fucks me.
He pulls his hand back, away from my pussy briefly. There’s not much room so it’s only about an inch, but then he gives a quick smack against my clit.
I jump in a good way as the sharp sting radiates blissfully through my cells. “I’ve never…no one has ever...” I can’t quite form sentences, but I don’t need to.
His lips twitch in satisfaction. “Good. Want another?”
I want it all. He sounds like he wants to give it all to me. “Yes,” I say, swallowing roughly past all this heat and longing, laying my desires bare.
His hand is still inside my panties, but he pulls his fingers back, pausing, making me wait for it before he slaps my clit again.
I cry out. My toes curl. My knees weaken. I reach for his collar, holding on. “Again,” I beg.
“Anything for you,” he rasps out, and it sounds like he means it in every single way.
Right now, though, I can only focus on this way. The physical. My gaze slides down our bodies, to his hand fucking me inside my panties, then to the way his arm looks in that crisp dress shirt.
Strong and so fucking sexy.
An idea takes hold of me, and as he strokes my wetness, I quickly undo the button on his right sleeve, fold the cuffs back and push up the sleeve, giving me a view of his arrow tattoo. “I like your arms,” I say quickly, like my action requires an explanation when it’s obvious I like them.
But his smile is pleased. “Then enjoy them, Leighton. Enjoy everything. I want to make you feel so damn good,” he says, his deep, sexy voice tinged with the desperation I feel too.
I arch into his touch, urging him to go faster. He reads my cues, picking up the pace as he kisses my jawline, saying, rather than whispering, “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I got to touch you like this.”
My heart flips a little harder from how he speaks so clearly as he finger-fucks me. “More than a year,” I say, just to tease him.
He pulls back, meets my eyes, and shoots me the most serious look. “It’s been a year, one month, and five days. ”
My knees go weak, and I ache from the bare admission. From the awareness that he’s been counting down the days. I grab his stubbly jaw and kiss him messily as he strokes and smacks, strokes and pinches, then slides two thick fingers inside me, filling me up and making me want his cock again.
“Fuck my hand. Do it now. Clock’s ticking,” he demands.
I grip his strong forearm and ride his hand, using him till I’m shaking, shuddering, and falling apart. An orgasm seizes my body, rocketing through me in hot neon waves, stars bursting behind my eyes, Miles’s sexy scent filling my head.
And his lips brush mine with tender, possessive kisses as he coaxes the last of my climax from me.
When I come down and we inch apart, he slowly eases out his fingers, then brings them to his mouth and reverently, carnally, licks each one. “Even better than I imagined when I fucked my fist to you,” he says.
That image sears into my brain, and even though I know we shouldn’t do this again I grip the hard outline of his cock through his dress pants and say, “I want to taste you coming.”
He groans, grabbing my palm, pressing it tighter against him. Letting me feel what I’ve done to him through his clothes. “You make me so fucking hard,” he says.
I squeeze his pulsing cock again as I glance at his watch. That took a little more than seven minutes. I sigh, frustrated we don’t have enough time. But I can’t risk him missing his flight, and knowing this man, he’d take the chance for me .
So I squeeze his cock one more time, then say, “You should go.”
He sighs heavily but nods. “I know.”
As he heads to the kitchen to wash his hands, I straighten up, zipping my jeans. On his return, he checks out the pack of pups, still silently staring at us.
“Weirdos,” he says, but it’s spoken with such affection as he strides over to them, petting each one on their little heads. The image is social gold.
Impulsively, I grab my phone. “Can I take a picture? For the team feed if they want it?”
He turns his gaze to me. “Sure.”
I tell him to sit on the couch, and he obeys. The dogs pile onto his lap, and the shot of him in his suit, covered in pups makes me swoon.
And I know I won’t be the only one. He rises and says, “I definitely should go now.”
“You should,” I say.
But once more he gives the middle finger to the ticking clock, coming right up to me in the living room, stroking my cheek and saying, “I know that broke the rules. I know we shouldn’t do that again, but right now I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” I say, urging him to keep going. This must be what he wanted to tell me earlier.
“I want you to sleep in my bed when I’m gone,” he says, and he already told me that when he showed me around.
He clearly really wants me to.
“I will,” I say.
“I want you to send me a picture of you in my bed. Can you do that?”
“Yes. ”
“And I want you to fuck yourself on my bed while I’m not there.”
I tremble from his filthy request. “I will.”
“Did you bring your toys?”
“No. That seemed presumptuous.”
His lips twitch in the hint of a grin. “Call me presumptuous then. Because I left one in the nightstand drawer for you. As a thank you gift.”
This man. This fucking man.
Then he hauls me in for a hot, passionate kiss that ends far too soon. When he breaks it, he says, “We shouldn’t do that again.”
But he doesn’t sound convinced one bit.
I’m not sure I am either.