Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULIAN
Cassidy’s mouth was soft and willing. She wasn’t what I expected, not that I’d had any real expectation.
She pulled her sweater over her head, the low light catching on sharp edges and delicate lines of her shoulders and breasts.
She looked almost breakable. The lean muscle stretched over her ribs shifted with each breath she took.
“Tell me what you want, Julian.” Her blonde hair fell loose around her shoulders.
My hands spanned her ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of her breast. I didn’t have to be anyone with her.
“I want to forget.” I didn’t want to be Julian Silver—the aging right wing with a career on the decline. A man with nothing to gain and everything to lose.
“Then let’s forget together.”
She took my hand, kissed my wrist, dragged her mouth along my thumb.
I cupped the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to mine.
Her fingers worked the buttons of my shirt.
A soft moan slipped from her lips as my hand moved down, cupping her bare breast, rolling her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.
It had been so long since I’d done something this careless.
“We should move this to the bedroom.” She stood, pulling me from the couch.
The bedroom was bathed in blue neon that shone in from the large floor-to-ceiling window. The entire room was on display. Cassidy stepped out of her skirt. She was long and lean and perfect. “Your turn.” She ran a finger up the buttons of my shirt.
She watched as I heeled off my shoes, then moved to my belt and the button of my pants. Her breath came out in a huff as I slipped out of my pants. “Fuck me.” Her eyes raked over me and landed back on my face. “Please.”
It was the way she said the word “please.” The soft desperation I felt every day I prayed to whatever god was listening that today would be a good day. That today I’d be better. On the ice. In my head. To my team. “That’s what I hope to do.” I moved closer to her.
She pressed her body closer to mine, pressing soft kisses on my jaw. Her hand slipped into my boxers. She smiled up at me. “I think you have a little more than hope,” she said, backing me to the bed. “In fact, more hope than I’ve seen in a long time.”
“You’re just saying that because I paid you.” I cupped her ass, grinding against her hip.
“No, Julian. You paid me to fuck you, not lie to you.” She rose up on her toes, and her breath was warm in my ear. “I hope you know how to use it,” she whispered before she pushed me down on the bed.
I sat on the bed, watching her step out of her thong.
I was going to fuck her. A woman I’d paid.
A stranger in a hotel. A woman who moved like she didn’t know all my failures.
The goals I had missed. The days I hated being me.
She stepped between my legs. I cupped her ass, pulled her closer, pressed my mouth to the flat plane of her stomach.
This wasn’t about the release sex would give me. It wasn’t even about her. I needed to feel like I could still take what I wanted. Like I was still good at something.
Like I was still me.
Her hands slid into my hair, tugging until I was looking up at her. “Condom at all times. Do you have any questions?” Her voice was low.
“How many times?”
“How many times for what?”
I rested my chin on her stomach. “If this all ends in, like, five, maybe seven minutes. What do we do for the rest of the three and a half hours?”
“We wait for you to get hard again.” A wicked little smile crossed that perfect mouth of hers. Her grip tightened in my hair.
“Not me.” I kissed her stomach before I stood, picking her up and setting her on the bed. I pressed a knee between her legs, kissing her stomach. She rose up on her elbows, watching me, her breath unsteady.
“You think this will end with me coming first?”
“I know you will.” My mouth followed the line of her hip, slow and deliberate, my tongue brushing bone and skin as I made my way to her breast. I drew one tight peak between my lips, savoring the way her breath hitched as she arched into me, her nails pressing into my biceps.
“Don’t believe me?”
“No.” Her lips were parted, her gaze steady. “But I’m willing to let you try to prove me wrong.” She reached for the dish of condoms on the nightstand and handed me a golden packet.
Before everything had happened with Emily, I had used sex as a way to unwind. A way to clear my head. I wanted that back. I tore open the gold package, not taking my eyes off of her as I rolled it down. “And if I do?”
“Then I guess you win.” Her voice was breathy. I could hear the need. A need only I could fulfill.
“Then I guess I do.” I eased her back onto the bed, pressing a kiss to her neck before dragging my nose along her skin.
Her scent clung to me—soft and clean. It grounded me.
For the first time in a long time, everything stilled.
No noise in my head. No failure. No fear.
Just the sound of her breath in my ear as I pressed deeper.
Her fingers cut into my arms with each thrust. I ran my thumb over her bottom lip, then along her jaw.
Her blue eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed.
“Fuck, Julian. I think you’re going to win this one.”
For once in a very long time, it felt like maybe everything would be okay.
Fuck Anders for being right.
* * *
I finished dressing as Cassidy held my tie. Her cheeks were still flushed from what we had done. It was an odd night. We fucked, then talked about stupid shit like growing up in a small town. Then we’d fuck some more. It was like stepping into the middle of a relationship with someone.
Except unlike a relationship, there were no expectations, and that felt like freedom. She didn’t care about hockey, or who my father had been, or how I’d fallen short. She wasn’t coy about what she wanted from me. I didn’t have to explain myself. I didn’t have to think. Just fuck.
“Well, that was fun,” she said, looping my tie around my neck.
“I bet you say that to all the boys.” I had no idea what would drive a woman as beautiful as Cassidy into this line of work.
“No, Julian. Only to the boy I had fun with.” She bit her bottom lip as her long fingers worked the silk into a knot.
“It was fun. Wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Very.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
She stepped closer to me, and I liked that. I also liked the way she looked at me. “If you want me to lie to you, that will be extra, and you need to put that on your form.” She winked. “It was a very enjoyable evening.”
“Enough so that you’d do it again?” The thought left my mouth before I could stop it.
Anders was on to something. I got sex without all the shit that came with it.
There were no emotions, and she couldn’t hurt me.
She couldn’t use anything against me. I didn’t have to spend time with her. We’d have sex, and then I’d go home.
She rose up on her toes, pressing her mouth to my jaw. “Absolutely.”
“Cassidy, you have three minutes. If he’s not out here, I’ll be in there,” Jackson called.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Jackson.” She smiled quickly. “I want to remind you, you signed an NDA, as did I. So…”
“So no walking into practice tomorrow and giving my entire team a play-by-play recount of what happened tonight?” I reached past her for my belt. “I’m sure they’d love to hear how you had to practically beg me to sit by you. Or to kiss you.”
Cassidy reached out and touched my arm. “It doesn’t matter how it starts. It’s about how it ends.”
Her eyes were soft. I noticed a small scar on the corner of her left eye. “And how will we end?” I hadn’t meant for that to be anything other than a play on words. But it sounded a bit needy and like I was weirdly planning our future together.
Jackson knocked on the door again. “With Jackson interrupting us. Yes, Jackson.”
“If I wanted to see you again? Do I call that number?”
“You can text. You pay your deposit, send your choice of days, and Margo will confirm.” She opened the bedroom door, where Jackson was standing. “All in one piece,” she said.
“About time. Let’s go, puck boy.” Jackson handed me my jacket.
I stopped in front of her. I could do this again. Maybe a couple agains. She was easy to be with. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I hope so.” She pressed a quick kiss on my mouth before stepping back into the bedroom.
Fucking Anders.