Chapter 30
NOW
Paloma
I’m wearing a hole in the ugly patterned carpet, pacing back and forth in front of the hotel room door.
I took notes for Harris during the game, seated in the stands near the glass with Lily. I was already annoyed by the sieve chants at this particular arena, and then terrified when the player took out Bennett, knocking the net backward alongside the heap of their bodies.
My hand has risen and almost knocked several times, but I haven’t quite managed it yet.
I really shouldn’t be here right now. But the image of Bennett splayed on the ice, Rhys shouting his name in panic, and the sight of his head ducked as Rhys and an athletic trainer helped him skate off are stuck in my head like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
What if he—
I cut off the train of thought before it can even leave the station, shaking my head.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I mutter to myself, turning to face the door straight on and knock—
—only before I can, it opens, and Bennett Reiner fills the doorway.
My throat catches at the sight of him shirtless and damp, curls dark against his forehead. He leans against the entryway with one hand braced nearly on the ceiling, the other heavy against the wall, holding himself up.
God, he’s so beautiful.
“Paloma?” he asks, attempting to straighten at the sight of me but wincing and relaxing back into his bracing hold. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I huff, crossing my arms tightly over the block letters of our university emblazoned across my half-zip. “You got hurt—I was so fucking worried about you. I just needed—”
“Hey,” he coos, cutting me off and stepping closer. “I’m all right.”
Closing my eyes, I take in a settling breath because I’m sliding into panic.
“I’m okay,” he says, eyes still watching me too intensely. Like he can see everything I’ve hidden written beneath my skin.
“Okay.” I nod, then shake my head. “All right, good. Then, I should—”
He grasps my bicep in his hand, warm and firm. A solid hold, like he’s always had on me.
“Stay.”
Blue eyes almost swallow me whole, devouring my anxiety and desperation to get away almost instantly. It’s impossible for me not to feel settled in the grip of Bennett Reiner.
I shake my head. “No. I can’t—”
“Please, P,” he whispers, pulling me closer—so close I can almost feel the fiery heat of his bare chest on my skin. “Please. Let me—”
“Hey, Ben? I—” A voice interrupts, abruptly cutting him off. “Oh—sorry.”
Rhys Koteskiy is barely a foot away from us, dousing the heated moment with icy water, clearing the almost rosy haze from my eyes.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s fine—” I try to say, but Bennett slowly pulls me farther into his arms.
“Freddy’s got an extra bed,” Bennett says, his voice raspy and deep. “Mind staying with him?”
Rhys’s eyes widen slightly, but he nods. “Yep. I’ll just . . . I’ll see you tomorrow, Ben.”
And then he’s gone. There’s not a second for me to think before Bennett pulls me into his hotel room and shuts the door.
Alone in a hotel with Bennett feels dangerous. My entire body reacts to his proximity, heart racing and skin flushing. A pang of need sinks into my belly as his muscles bunch and move beneath the softer layer of his skin.
“I’m okay,” he says again, sitting on the corner of his bed, legs spread wide and arms crossing over his bare chest as he looks at me again. “Just a groin sprain.”
It’s embarrassing how quickly I feel my entire body heat.
“Oh.” I nod, feeling like a bobblehead as I manage to come up with nothing else to say. “And you’re . . . that’s all?”
He grins unexpectedly. “Hurts like hell, P. I think that’s plenty.”
“No.” I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed. “Sorry—”
“I’m just messing with you.” He absentmindedly runs his hand down the inside of his thigh, and the reddened area moves beneath the pressure. “I just need to stretch it and rest. I already iced it for a while after I got pulled.”
“You didn’t get pulled.” I roll my eyes, my shoulders relaxing as I step farther into the room. “You got injured. There’s a difference.”
He’s still massaging the area, face grimacing every now and then, the muscles in his arm trembling slightly. And maybe it’s that. Or the hypnotizing flecks of gray in his ocean blue eyes. Maybe the reminder of the last time we were in a hotel room together this close.
Or maybe it’s just the desperation I always feel like a constant tug at my heart to be nearer to him that possesses me to offer, “Let me do it.”
His mouth opens before closing slowly again, like he knows he should deny me—what have I done other than cause him pain and suffering over and over? Why should I deserve to touch him so vulnerably?
He nods.
I step forward slowly and he scoots back to sit more fully on the bed, arms behind him to hold him up. My body sinks next to his on the soft mattress, and I curl to my knees just left of his spread thighs. The position is almost too intimate.
“Can I . . .”
The question fades off into nothing,
“You can do whatever you want to me, P.”
I have to stifle the sound that attempts to climb from my throat, working up the bravery to place my hands along the solid muscle of his thigh. I push down, focusing my eyes away from the swell between his legs visible through the athletic shorts he’s wearing.
He grimaces, and I pull my hands back with apologies spilling from my lips.
“You’re fine,” he says with a lazy grin. “I don’t mind a little pain if it’s from your hands.”
It’s my turn to grimace with the weight of it. The sentiment would be flirty, but it feels deeper.
Still, he takes my hands in his again, spreading his legs farther until his injured thigh is flush with mine.
He sets our joined hands on his upper thigh, moving his shorts up almost obscenely to continue.
It’s quiet, only the lull of a familiar playlist off his phone—Ben Howard and Bon Iver, the strum of guitars romantic and painful all at once.
A groan leaves his throat as he sinks farther into the mattress. My cheeks flush, but I follow him, using more of my body to work his upper thigh.
As breaths saw out of both of us, I realize I’m halfway on top of him, hovering, my messy ponytail nearly fully loose and hair hanging everywhere as I look at him.
He’s watching me, too, his hand reaching up to tuck a few stray hairs back around my ear—lingering there.
I know he wants to touch it again, the slight obsession he’s always had with my hair.
I should move away. I should take my hands off his body and excuse myself to a cold shower and restless sleep.
Instead, I rest my hand on his chest instead of the bed, drawing my other arm up. My hand bumps against the hardness of him we’re both ignoring between us.
“P,” he breathes out, eyes half-lidded and voice soft. “Please.”
My heart is thundering, racing off to a place I know I can’t go, no matter how deeply I want to.
Before I can second guess it, my hand grasps the length of him over the fabric of his shorts. Breath saws out of him faster, his stomach clenching and eyes closing tight.
“Is this . . . okay?” I whisper, afraid to break the moment. He nods, his face half pressed into the side of my neck as I curl closer and closer to his body.
My hand slowly rolls beneath his athletic shorts, no underwear impeding me from grasping the thick, heavy weight of him in my fingers.
His skin is soft and warm, but hard as steel as I grip tighter, paying attention to his every breath—though arguably I know his body better than my own. I always have.
His hands roam my waist, curling around me like a protective shield.
“I want you,” he breathes, breath shuddering against my skin. A faint kiss just beneath my ear, a longer moan. “Please, please let me have you.”
“You do,” I reply, almost a whimper as I squeeze my thighs together, shifting slightly like it might relieve the ache. He pulls his pants down, stretching them across the massive span of his thighs. I can see the reddened skin where he iced and I massaged.
He licks his hand before wrapping it half around himself, half around me—moving both our palms up and over the wettened veiny skin. My thigh slides over his hip and I rock slightly into his body, eyes rolling back.
“Are you aching, love?” he whispers. “Tell me you need me again, P.”
The heady mix of vulnerability and dominance is too much, and my forehead slants against his temple as I nod. “Please.”
“Come here,” he coos, pulling me all the way atop him to straddle his left thigh as he continues to touch himself with both of our hands. “Use me, Paloma.”
The command is easy, because he’s said it before, in this exact way, letting my body move like it does in water, rocking and swaying delightfully against the solid muscle of his thigh.
I’m on a hair trigger when it comes to Bennett Reiner; I’m close before I can even breathe in a full gulp of his warm, woodsy, showered scent.
My face lulls into his neck as I release a clenched cry. A near growl comes from his throat, his legs becoming more restless, jerking my body even more with their movement.
“Watch,” Bennett grinds out, a hand reaching up and wrapping into my ponytail. He grips it so that it doesn’t pull on my hair, only tightens, and holds that feeling of control over me.
My eyes lock onto the apex of his thighs, moaning as the sight and sounds of his orgasm trigger mine, both of us crying out almost too loudly.
In the aftermath, I feel the embarrassing sting of tears as I return back to reality. My body heaves. I try to hold it in, but it’s impossible when Bennett tucks my body somehow closer, one of his hands combing through my hair as he quietly soothes me.
“Shhh, it’s all right, Paloma. I’ve got you.”
Tears leave my eyes easily, but I manage to keep back the sobs lodged in my throat, fingers straining as I hold him tighter.
Bennett carries me to the shower, washing my hair and brushing it like he’s done a thousand times before. My tears never seem to stop, but he doesn’t say anything, and I can hardly bear to look at him.
He gives me a well-worn sweatshirt to slip into, the sleeve chewed up by my mouth, I know. It swallows me whole, and it smells like him.
And then we lay back atop the sheets of his hotel bed.
He kisses my fingers, whispering, “Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands,” into my palm.
His arms tuck around me, pulling me to lay on his chest as he recites his favorite verses—E.
E. Cummings, Pablo Neruda—into my flushed skin. “Your mouth, your voice, your hair.”
My chest aches as I watch him silently.
“You should stay,” he says, hands winding through my damp hair. “Just for tonight. You can go back in the morning.”
“Bennett . . .” I start, my voice hesitant and somehow too loud in the quiet room.
A chuff of laughter, and then, “It’s all right, P. This doesn’t change anything, I know.”
I wait until he’s sleeping to leave and feel more rotten than usual at the quiet abandonment.