Chapter 7 #2
I’m not sorry. Not when it means I’m so fucking close that all I’d have to do is dip my head just a bit and I’d be kissing Nessa again. I really fucking want to kiss her again.
I shouldn’t even be back here in this hallway. I should be out there with my teammates—with her brother . I shouldn’t be thinking about how easy it would be to slip my hand up her shirt or how fast I could make her come. I shouldn’t be thinking about that at all.
Then I feel it.
It’s soft and subtle, but it’s there. Nessa rocks her hips against me. Slow and short movements. So damn minuscule I wouldn’t even know she was doing it if I weren’t so close to her. If my thigh wasn’t pressed so tightly between hers. If her eyes weren’t fluttering closed with each gentle pass.
Fuck, I want to grab her hips and help her. I want to slide her over me again and again until she’s making those sounds I love so much, but I can’t. I don’t. I keep my palms pressed against the wall, my hands decidedly to myself, even though it’s killing me as she continues moving.
Intentionally or not, she breaks down my walls with each glide, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep them from completely crumbling. I’m slipping, and I’m slipping fast . Maybe if I could just touch her a little or taste her. Something. Anything to take the edge off.
I press closer and she gasps lightly, our position changing just enough to make a difference, and the sound unravels me.
I drag my nose along her cheek, the scent of fresh flowers overwhelming me in the best way possible.
Then the lavender kicks in, and I wonder if that’s the lotion she wears or maybe even her body soap.
I don’t know. I just know it drives me wild and makes me do unimaginable things, like press my lips to that spot below her ear.
She whines, and I grin against her. It’s the first time I’ve felt like smiling in a week, maybe even longer.
I’m not sure, but it certainly doesn’t make me want to let this feeling go.
I kiss her again, this time moving toward her lips, which is where I really want to be.
With each kiss, she grinds against me again.
Kiss. Grind.
Kiss. Grind.
Kiss. Grind.
I’m there, just at the corner of her lips.
So fucking close I swear I can already taste the cherry lip gloss I know she loves so much.
If I just move a millimeter…maybe two…I’d have my lips on hers again, and I’ll know for sure if that one night was just a fluke, if all the thoughts of her I can’t seem to let go of are just me holding on to a fantasy.
I’ll know if I have any chance of staying away from her.
Then I hear it—footsteps. A cleared throat.
I freeze, and Nessa does the same beneath me.
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
Slowly, I turn. Relief washes over me when I realize it’s not Hutch, but it’s gone just as quickly as I take in my teammate standing there with a wicked grin on his face and heavily tattooed arms crossed over his chest.
“Whitlocke,” he says quietly. Pointedly .
I swallow. “Keller.”
His lips twitch when he moves his gaze to the woman pinned against the wall. “Stepsister.”
If possible, she stiffens even more under me. She doesn’t like that. She doesn’t like that we know things about her, that Hutch has brought her up to us before. She shoves at me lightly, and I reluctantly pull away, putting a respectable amount of distance between us.
“It’s Vanessa,” she tells him, running her hand down her wrinkled shirt. “I…”
But she doesn’t finish her sentence. She bolts, pushing past Keller and back into the bar.
I wish I could be surprised by her fleeing, but given our history, I’m not.
I watch her go, not moving an inch, even though I want to run after her so damn badly.
I can’t for a multitude of reasons, one being the hulking man taking up the hallway.
We stand there like we’re in some old Western film, and I can’t decide which of us is going to pull a gun and fire first.
“Well, can’t say I had you pegged as a sister-fucker.”
“Jesus, Keller,” I mutter as I squeeze the back of my neck, trying to release the tension sitting there.
“What? Is that not what I just walked in on?”
“We weren’t…” I grit my teeth. “Nothing was happening.”
“Really? Because it looked like she was humping your leg and you were seconds away from kissing her.” He arches a challenging brow. “You telling me I need to get my vision checked by Doc?”
I sigh, then sigh again. Because no, he doesn’t need Doc to check him out.
That’s exactly what he saw. How stupid could I be?
Pressing Nessa against the wall like that.
Nearly kissing her. Letting her ride my leg.
What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking.
Or maybe I was. I don’t know. All I know is it can’t happen again. It won’t happen again.
“Fuck,” I say, running my hand through my hair.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Keller huffs out something as close to a laugh as he gets, which, to be fair, isn’t close at all. “You want to talk about it?”
“I…” I don’t want to talk about it, not really. But I should. I exhale heavily. “It was an accident.”
“You accidentally almost fucked her?”
The look on my face must say it all.
“Oh, shit,” he says, eyes wide. “You actually did fuck her?”
“Stop saying it like that!” I snarl. “That’s not how it was.”
“Then how was it? And when the hell did it even happen? We just met her last week at the party.”
I wince. “Not all of us. I, uh, I met her a while ago.” Five months and nineteen days ago, to be precise, but who’s counting? “In New York.”
“New York? But we haven’t played them since…”
“April third.”
I can see it all click into place.
“That was the night you disappeared on us. We had no idea where you went. I guess now I know. You were with the stepsister.”
“ Vanessa ,” I correct, more heat in my tone than necessary, and Keller’s brows rise at my reaction.
But she’s not just “the stepsister” or “the sister,” and she especially isn’t the fucking “evil stepsister.” She’s Vanessa. My Nessa.
No.
Not mine. Not really. She’s just a girl I knew for one night. That’s all.
“I take it you had no idea who she was,” Keller says.
“Do you really think I would have slept with her if I had? Siblings are off-limits. Everyone knows that.”
It’s an unspoken rule for all teammates in every sport, not just hockey.
Sure, there might be a few exceptions, like Cameron Lowell and Collin Wright on the Carolina Comets.
They’re brothers-in-law now after an accidental pregnancy.
So, it can work out, and that’s great for them, but I highly doubt Hutch would be okay if he found out about me and Nessa.
Fuck. I didn’t even think to make sure she’s okay.
She ran out of here so fast, I couldn’t even gauge where she was after…
well, whatever that was. Is she mad? Is she embarrassed about being caught?
Is she okay? I want to ask her, want to leave Keller and his judgmental face right in this hallway and go find her.
But I don’t. I stare my teammate down, waiting for his next question that I know is coming.
“Are you going to tell Hutchinson?”
Am I going to tell my fucking captain I had the best night of my life with his sister? Tell him I not only know what she looks like naked but also how she sounds when she comes? Am I going to tell him that even though I had no idea who she was, it doesn’t make me feel any less damn guilty?
No. No, I am not telling Hutch a damn thing.
“It was nothing. Just a night of fun. It didn’t mean anything. He doesn’t need to know about it.”
But every word feels wrong. They taste wrong. Bitter. Stale. It wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t just a night of fun. And it damn sure meant something.
I just wish it hadn’t. It would make this situation a hell of a lot easier.
Keller studies me, and for a minute, I think he’s about to call me on my bullshit. He doesn’t though. He nods, then hitches his thumb over his shoulder.
“You’d better get back out there before Lawson comes looking for you. That guy can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
“Can you?”
This time, Keller does smile—and it’s creepy as hell.
“Oh, Locke. I’ve got secrets you couldn’t even dream up.”
I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but I take it anyway.
“Thanks,” I say, brushing past him.
I’m nearly to the end of the hallway when I hear my name.
“Locke?”
I turn. “Yeah?”
“It’s okay if it wasn’t nothing. It’s okay if it wasn’t just fun.
And it’s okay if you want it to stay between us for now, but Hutch should know eventually.
While I don’t begrudge anyone keeping shit to themselves, this could be something that tears the team apart, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a fucking Cup to win, you feel? ”
He’s right. I know he is. I’ve barely held it together this last week, and that was without seeing Hutch every day.
How the hell can I be on the ice with him and keep this shit to myself?
Have this hanging between us? I can’t. It’ll eat me alive.
I’m not that kind of guy. I can’t keep a secret like that from one of my best friends.
I nod. “I feel.”
“Good.” Keller gestures toward the bar. “Go before they send in the good boy, or worse, the golden retriever.”
I can’t even laugh at his nicknames for Fox and Lawson. I’m too busy trying to school my features and to convince myself to absolutely not look over at the bar, no matter how badly I want to. Keller disappears into the bathroom, and I suck in a deep breath, then exhale.
In. Out. Step.
In. Out. Step.
In. Out. Step.
I slide into the booth beside Hutch, who is in the middle of a story about his time with his former team, the rest of the guys hanging on to every word.
I only look for Nessa twice.