Chapter 15 #3
She holds my gaze, heat burning in that hungry look. I’m frozen in place until Stella points up and Petra looks at the jumbotron above the rink. I follow her gaze to see myself reflected there. Every person in the rink was just watching me watch her. Shit.
The impact to my body when Ottowan crashes into me in celebration would be enough to knock me on my ass while I’m this distracted, but Thompson is behind me, cheering and holding me up and mumbling “keep your head in the fucking game” as his eyes follow my gaze and land on Petra.
“No chick is worth getting this distracted.”
I shake my head to clear it. I need to be at the top of my game tonight, and he’s right that I can’t let her distract me. He’s wrong about her not being worth it, though.
We hold our one-point lead for the remaining three minutes of the final period, and when the buzzer sounds to end the game, my teammates on the ice pile together with our sticks in the air and the rest of the team hops over the boards and surrounds us.
It’s a sweet victory because now we lead this series by one game, only two more to clinch this round and move on.
I have to remember not to get ahead of myself.
The minute we’re back in the locker room, I text Petra to ask her to wait for me after the game, letting her know how to get to the hallway that leads to the players’ indoor parking area.
I check my phone after my shower, and again after I’m done with the invasive interviews the press insists on conducting in the locker rooms, but there’s no response.
I try not to let that bother me. She was probably rushing to get Stella home and in bed because she has school tomorrow morning and it’s already after 10:00 p.m. Or maybe she didn’t want to be seen waiting for me, didn’t want the attention that might bring.
Or maybe she didn’t even see the text. In my head, I run through a long list of reasons she might not have responded as I look at my text message and her lack of response while walking with a few teammates down to the parking garage.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I’m not sure why Thompson is elbowing me in the ribs until I hear Ramirez say “Damn, Ivanov” under his breath.
I glance up and Petra is leaning one shoulder against the cinderblock wall.
Stella is wrapped around Petra, her head resting on Petra’s shoulder, her arms hanging limply by her sides, and her legs dangling from each of Petra’s hips.
I focus on how supporting Stella’s dead weight like that must be killing her back, shoulders, and arms, rather than focusing on the way my heart seems to be twisting around itself at the sight of them together waiting for me after my game. It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted.
“Can I take her for you?” I ask as I approach them. Behind me, my teammates move on toward their cars.
“Please,” she groans.
Stella wakes up when I shift her to my arms. She looks up at me adoringly and says, “Dada,” before resting her head on my shoulder and closing her eyes. It’s only the second time I’ve heard her call me Dada instead of Dyadya, and it does funny things to my insides just like it did the first time.
She’s dead weight in my arms, and I can’t even imagine how Petra held her like this for any length of time. Petra bends to take my bag that I’d set down on the ground. “I can get that,” I tell her.
“Please, this is nothing compared to holding Stella for the last half hour.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” I say as we start walking. “I didn’t know you’d be waiting.”
“It’s fine. I was going to text you once we got down here, but Stella fell asleep in my arms right after security let us through, and I couldn’t get my phone out of my bag after that.”
“Thank you for waiting for me,” I say, glancing down at her as we move.
She tilts her head up toward mine, like she’s going to say something, but instead she just gives me a smile, then says, “Of course.”
“Your body must be killing you.” In my arms, Stella is like a fifty-pound sack of flour.
Petra just raises her eyebrows in response and gives me a tiny nod of her head.
I don’t know how she manages to make the movement so sexy.
It’s got to be the way her face changes when her features move.
Those big blue eyes under perfectly arched brows, the angular line of her cheekbones under her smooth skin, those full lips that are as sexy right now covered in lip balm as they are when they’re painted bright red.
And I love her curls, but there’s something incredibly sexy about her with straight hair.
And just like that, I’m flooded with memories of last night and the way she looked with her hair spread out on my pillow.
I want to know what that hair feels like wrapped around one of my hands, with the other on her hip as I enter her from behind, what it would feel like to own a piece of her, to know she was mine.
That got serious quickly. I don’t know why my thoughts keep going to this “forever” state. That’s not the path Petra and I are on. She might help me with Stella, but she’s not staying in New York, she’s made that very clear.
“Let me give you a massage when we get home,” I say quietly as we step into the garage.
She rolls her shoulders, stretching them out a little. “You’re the one who just played two hours of hockey. Shouldn’t I be offering up the massage?”
The thought of her small hands being able to massage my body in a productive way is comical. “I’m all set. I want my hands all over you now.”
“We’ll see,” she says with a small shrug.
I raise an eyebrow at her. Last night was not one and done, and we both know it.
Not only because we had sex four times before we finally fell asleep, but also because I woke up this morning to her climbing between my legs and waking me up with a blow job.
Then there was the sex we had in the kitchen after we ate breakfast, and the way I came up behind her while she was doing her makeup before we went to get Stella, my fingers dipping into her underwear and getting her off while we locked eyes in the mirror.
I’m trying to forget the way she sank to her knees after that and gave me my second blow job of the day, because the way she looks with her lips around my dick is something I will never get over.
When we get to the car, Daniel opens the door for me. I buckle Stella into her booster, and though she wakes for a minute again, she slumps toward the door as soon as it’s shut.
Daniel goes to the driver’s side and gets in as Petra and I go to the back of the car to drop my bag off. When the trunk is popped and blocking Daniel’s view of us, I slip the bag from her shoulder, letting my fingers graze a path down her arm and trail over her hand.
My mouth is mere inches from her face when I ask, “Is it wrong that all I can think of right now is getting you back into my bed, preferably in that jersey?” The thought of her in nothing but my sweater has my dick trying to escape through the waistband of my pants.
“It depends on what you plan to do to me while I’m there.
” She fucking winks at me, and it has a growl escaping the back of my throat.
I’m so turned on right now that I’m contemplating dragging her to the other side of one of the enormous pillars, where we might be out of view, and getting naked with her.
I’ve never had sex in public, but right now it feels like the reward might outweigh the risk.
She looks at me like she can read my mind, then says, “In the meantime, let’s get Stella home and in bed. ”
In the back seat, she snuggles up next to me and I throw my arm around her shoulder, pulling her even closer.
She trails her fingertips up my thigh and back down, and from her vantage point, I’m sure she can see how hard she’s got me.
But even though she drags those nails up and down my leg, getting closer and closer each time, she never actually touches me where I need her to.
I’m so keyed up when we get back to the apartment that I don’t even care if anyone else notices I’m sporting a huge boner while carrying my kid through the lobby toward the elevator.
Petra’s eyes never leave mine the entire ride up to the apartment, and the tension that’s building between us is exquisite.
We go together to Stella’s room to get her in bed.
Petra insists we take the jersey off her because it’s too loose to be safe to sleep in, but otherwise we leave her in her clothes as we tuck her into bed.
And the minute we are in the hall with Stella’s door closed behind us, Petra says “Meet me in my room in five minutes” and walks away without looking back.