Chapter 10 #2
His hands don’t move from my waist, but his mouth does. Down my jaw, slow and deliberate, the way he moved us across the ice. I gasp against his cheek and my fingers find the back of his neck and curl into the short hair there.
“Russo-”
“Yeah?” He says it against my throat, and then his tongue traces the tendon there and I make a sound I’ve never heard myself make before. My head falls back against the boards. He takes the invitation.
His mouth is hot. Everything about him is solid and there, anchoring me while my own body starts to feel like it’s coming apart at the seams. He kisses up to the soft place beneath my ear and I feel it behind my ribs, between my legs, everywhere.
I scrape my nails lightly over his shoulders and he makes a low sound, says ‘fuck’, and his hands finally move - sliding from my waist down to my hips, then lower, thumbs pressing into the hollow where my thighs meet my body.
He drops to his knees on the ice.
I stare down at him. “What are you-”
He doesn’t answer. His hands find the waistband of my leggings, the thin layer of thermals underneath. His expression makes my stomach flip. Questioning. Waiting.
“This is stupid,” I whisper.
His fingers pause. “Do you want me to stop?”
I should say yes. We’re in a rink. The door isn’t locked. Anyone could walk in. Any number of things could go wrong.
“No.”
He exhales, and then he’s pulling the fabric down - not far, just enough - and the cold air hits me but his mouth follows so fast I don’t have time to feel it.
“Oh my God-” My hand slams back against the boards. The other one stays twisted in his hair, not pulling him away, holding him there.
He works his mouth like he skates. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s in no hurry to be done with it. My skates slip against the ice - there’s no grip, nothing to brace against, just him and the cold and the impossible heat of his tongue.
“Russo, I can’t - I’m going to fall-”
His hands catch my hips, hold me steady, pull me closer. He doesn’t stop. Instead, he doubles down. Something is winding tight in my belly, tighter than it’s ever been, and my thighs are shaking and my skates are still sliding out from under me and he’s the only thing keeping me upright.
I’m so close. I can feel it cresting, breaking over me-
A door slams somewhere in the building.
We both freeze.
“What was that?” His voice is rough, muffled against me.
Footsteps. Somewhere down the concourse. Distant but coming closer.
I shove at his shoulders and scramble to pull my clothes back up, my fingers clumsy and useless.
He’s already on his feet, positioned in front of me like he can hide what just happened.
Like his face isn’t flushed and his jersey isn’t crooked, and I’m not standing here trembling with a near-orgasm that was two seconds away that I didn’t get.
The rink door bangs open.
Tara’s voice, bright and carrying. “Elida? Calloway said you were still - oh.”
Silence.
I step out from behind Russo, which achieves nothing because Tara has already seen everything she needs to see, and I attempt to look like a person who has been doing nothing except standing against the boards having a normal conversation.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” Tara says carefully.
She takes in the situation - the flushed faces, the crooked jersey, the fact that we’re standing three inches apart at the boards in an empty rink - and she pulls her clipboard to her chest and says, “I came to grab my - I’ll just-” She gestures vaguely at nothing. “I’ll come back.”
The door closes behind her.
I close my eyes.
“Elida.” Russo’s voice. Low.
“Don’t.” I open my eyes and look at the ice and not at him. “Please don’t.”
I can feel him beside me. I’ve been so aware of his presence ever since the first morning.
I step away from the boards.
“Saturday,” I say, which is the most professional thing I can locate right now. “Scouts. Focus on that.”
“That’s really what you want to say right now.”
“It’s what I’m saying.”
I can hear him exhale. Not frustrated - something more complicated than frustrated.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay.”
I push past him, nearly wipe out on the ice, catch myself on the boards. My legs are still shaking. I can feel the heat in my cheeks, my throat, the place between my thighs that’s still pulsing with almost.
I’m not angry at the interruption. I’m not even angry at Russo.
I’m angry at myself for wanting it so much. For saying no when I should have kept saying yes. For letting him see me like that - needy and wrecked and so close to coming on his tongue in a public fucking rink.
MATEO
I stand at the boards for a moment after she goes.
The rink is empty again. The ice is still marked from the session, every edge and stop visible in the surface.
My mouth on her.
Her hands in my hair.
I sit down on the bench and put my head back and stare at the rafters.
The banners look the same as they always do.
I’ve wanted things before - the draft, the scouts, the season to go right, Zane to still be here - and I know what that wanting feels like. This is different.
I know what this is.
I think I’ve known for a while.
I head for the locker room.
In the corridor I pass Tara going the other way. Her expression is half concern and half something I can’t read. She keeps walking.
ELIDA
I lock my apartment door and lean against it with my eyes closed.
My legs are still shaking. My heart is still being ridiculous. And between my thighs, I’m still wet and aching and furious about all of it.
I push off from the door and walk to the bathroom. I turn the shower on as hot as it goes and I stand under the spray.
I think about his mouth.
I press my forehead against the cold tile and let the water beat down on my back.
This is exactly what you said you wouldn’t do.
I told myself I wasn’t going to be that person again. The one who let the lines blur, who let wanting someone become more important than protecting herself. I told myself I was done with that version of me.
And then he dropped to his knees on the ice and I forgot every single promise I made.
I turn the water off.
I stand in the steam and wrap a towel around myself and look at my reflection in the fogged mirror. My cheeks are still flushed. My lips are still swollen.
You look like someone who just got kissed within an inch of her life, I think. Because you are.
I dry off and put on pajamas and get into bed. But when I close my eyes, I still feel his hands on my waist.