21. CHAPTER 21
Locke
She’s cooking.
That’s the first thing that hits me when she opens the door… the heady scent of herbs and roasting meat in the oven.
She’s in a loose sweater the color of oatmeal and dark leggings with her hair down and her feet bare. She looks nothing like the woman who stood on green turf this morning and ran sleds with us.
I truly only know Livia in a professional setting. Composed, focused and precise.
Formidable.
But tonight, it seems as if a facade has been dropped. I’m not sure if it’s the warm smile she has for me when she welcomes me in, or the way she tells me about the new recipe for roast chicken she’s trying, or hell… maybe it’s that she’s barefoot and completely makeup-free that’s doing it for me.
The bottom line… it feels as if she’s dropped the professional layer she carries at work sitting over the top of everything.
I glance around her apartment as I follow her into the kitchen.
It suits her. Big windows, table lamps, books on shelves.
Deep-seated couches that look like once you sink into them, you’ll have a hard time getting back out.
Artwork on the walls but no knickknacks.
The living room flows right into the kitchen where Livia is drizzling olive oil into a hot pan.
“You’re cooking,” I say.
She offers me a quick glance over her shoulder. “You were coming over around dinnertime. I would have cooked for myself, so I made enough for two.”
I watch her for a moment. The easy way she moves in this kitchen.
Barefoot, unhurried, completely at home.
The line of her shoulders and the way her hair falls as she stands at the stove…
making dinner on an ordinary Tuesday, and she made enough for me to join her.
It does more damage to my equilibrium than anything that happened between us in a hotel room.
I cross the kitchen, reaching past her to turn off the burners and oven. No clue what’s in there, but I don’t want it to burn as I’m sure we’ll be starved later.
She turns around. “I wasn’t—”
I take her face in both hands, bringing her mouth to mine and she exhales against my lips, settling every question I had about whether I should continue to see Livia.
Her fingers curl around the front of my jacket.
My hands drop to her ass and I pick her up.
She locks her legs around my waist, and I walk her down the short hallway and through the door at the end of it without breaking the kiss.
Her bedroom is dark except for the city light edging through the curtains. Her bed is made and that doesn’t surprise me about her.
Her body slides down mine and then it’s a flurry of roaming hands, clothes peeling off and deep kisses in between.
We shed everything between us layer by layer, mouths finding each other in the spaces, until I have her before me, beautifully naked and fuckable.
“Get on the bed,” I order her and she does, reclining as if waiting for an artist to paint her.
I pause at that. Just one long look with the city light peeking through the blinds and falling across her collarbone. Livia is without modesty and lets me look, in turn, her eyes roam all over my body. I reach down, fist myself, and her breath catches audibly.
“I’ll give this to you later,” I say in a low rumble, before releasing my cock and moving to the edge of the bed.
I grab her ankles and spread her legs, pulling her toward me. I don’t make her wait, dropping to my knees and putting my mouth on her. She groans—low, deep and guttural—both hands driving into my hair where they tighten and pull.
I open my mouth against her and take my time.
Her hips jerk and roll, so I hold her down with a forearm across her belly.
My tongue and fingers find her swollen and slick.
I work her with slow, deliberate circles that start gentle and focused and build with intensity.
But when I sense her getting close, I ease it back down.
“Locke,” she gasps as I slide two fingers inside her and feel her clench immediately, her grip so tight. I press my thumb on her clit and she wrenches my hair hard enough to snap my head to the side. This only makes me chuckle against her flesh, and she curses me in return.
I lift my head and look up the length of her body. She’s fully spread out across the bed, legs wide, hips rolling to chase the friction. Her nipples are hard and her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s the most beautiful I’ve ever seen her.
I know now there’s no way I’ll walk away from this.
Livia’s breathing has gone completely shallow and there’s a low continuous mewling coming from her that makes my dick ache.
I close my mouth around her clit and suck hard.
Livia shatters, both thighs clamping around my head, her back arching completely off the mattress. She cries my name out and I feel it in my balls. I work her through every wave of it, fingers deep and thumb steady, until the shaking stops and her grip in my hair loosens.
I press my mouth once more to the inside of her thigh, giving her a gentle kiss, and push up from the floor.
I reach for the condom on the nightstand.
My hands are steadier than the rest of me, which requires some concentration given that I am so hard it borders on actual pain.
I get the rubber on while she watches me from under heavy eyelids, her fingers trailing playfully across her breasts and it’s not helping my concentration.
I crawl onto the bed, over her body.
She reaches down without hesitation, wraps her hand around me and squeezes, producing a groan that I can’t stop. She strokes once, slowly, and I drop my forehead to hers for a second and breathe.
“Livia.”
“Mmm.”
“You’re going to want to do that faster or stop entirely.”
She smiles and guides me to her entrance. I press forward and feel the tight heat of her envelop me.
So fucking tight.
I exhale slowly through my nose and work my way in by degrees, watching her face for any sign I should stop, but she gives me none. Her lower lip is caught between her teeth, her hands at my shoulders, and she tilts her hips to take more of me.
I slide in deeper and finally, my pelvis is pressed to hers.
Livia’s eyelashes flutter briefly but then she focuses on my face. The way she’s staring at me, as if this is the most perfect thing in the world, has me wondering about possibility.
“Good?” I ask, because she’s wound tight around me and I need the word.
“Very.” Then she smiles like the devil. “Don’t be careful, okay?”
That’s the last careful thing either of us does.
I pull back slowly, watching her face, and drive home hard. Her eyes go wide and her nails find my back and I do it again. I set a rhythm that has her head pressing into the pillow and her hips rising to meet every stroke.
The sounds she’s making are music to my ears and fuel to my cock.
I shift my weight and change the angle. Livia’s hands are at my ass, urging me to give her more.
I answer with a pace that causes the headboard to beat against the wall, and I’m sure the people in the next apartment are getting a percussion concert they didn’t sign up for.
I feel Livia tightening around me again, her nails dragging lines down my back.
She goes rigid and clenches around me and comes apart a second time with a hoarse cry of release.
It produces an immediate reaction and pleasure explodes within me.
I pound the orgasm into her, a sound tearing out of me that doesn’t sound human at all.
It goes on and on, waves of exquisite pleasure until I’m completely empty and boneless.
I spare her the weight of my body, immediately rolling off the bed to dispose of the condom. She’s silent as I walk into the main bath to do my thing and silent when I come back out.
She watches me from the bed, looking replete and well-fucked. I want to climb back in with her and ask her what’s going on in that head of hers right now, but I’m afraid I won’t like the answer, so I hold my tongue.
I wonder if I should get dressed and go, but Livia pats the mattress beside her. “Come get back in bed for a little bit.”
I cock an eyebrow at her.
“Come on,” she repeats, giving it another pat. “I’m not sure my legs will work right now, but I do intend at some point to finish dinner and feed you.”
Now that I could get on board with. I am starved, and where’s the harm in climbing into bed with a naked woman?
I slip in beside her and she comes to me naturally, settling her head on my chest. I pull the sheet up over us and let my fingers gently stroke the skin at her hip.
“I liked seeing you out there today,” she says.
I keep my hand moving slowly, gliding it up her back. “Out where?”
“The turf. The circuit. The sleds. Ring a bell?”
I don’t say anything, because I know she doesn’t want to reminisce about the competition but rather the camaraderie.
“You were actually in it,” she continues. “With them. Not just going through the motions. I’m proud of you.”
I look at the ceiling and the patterns of light that shift when cars go by.
“They’re good men,” she says, and I know she’s testing out my mood with her words.
“They’re all right,” I admit.
“They’re not looking to take anything from you. They just—” She stops, clearly searching for the right words. “They want to know you… that’s all.”
“Livia,” I say in warning.
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re getting close to something we agreed you wouldn’t get close to.”
She shifts against my chest, and I can feel her thinking. “We’re not in a session.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“We’re in my bed. After mind-blowing orgasms. I thought the circumstances might be conducive to a different kind of conversation.”
I can’t help but snort. “What made you think that?”
“Orgasms are relaxing. Men tend to be more cuddly and vulnerable after they get off.”
I look down at the top of her head. “I can assure you I don’t have a vulnerable bone in my body, no matter how fucking good that orgasm was.”
I feel her smile against me. “It really was good, right?”
“Better than good,” I assure her and hope this lighthearted banter signifies the end of her nosiness.
I can’t be that lucky though.
“The incidents on the ice,” she says, and I sigh in partial frustration. Part of me respects her tenacity. “The disciplinary record, the anger flags, the pattern of escalation with officials and opposing players… That doesn’t come from nowhere.”
“What’s your point?” I ask. She’s doing nothing more than reciting my record.
“You’ve been better,” she says carefully. “Not a single incident outside normal, run-of-the-mill penalties in three weeks.”
“There you go,” I say, giving her a squeeze. “That’s progress. Therefore, we probably don’t even need that last session.”
“Nice try,” she says with a laugh, but then she sobers, snuggling into me. “My guess is you’re aware that your job has conditions attached to it now and you’re white-knuckling it. Managing the symptoms because the consequences got real.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve been working hard not to explode, but that doesn’t mean the rage isn’t still there, trying to get out.
Livia’s voice drops low. “That works until it doesn’t, Locke. Whatever’s underneath it is still there and it doesn’t go away because you’ve got more incentive to keep the lid on.”
I stare at the ceiling.
The woman has a talent for being not wrong when I’d most prefer she were.
“So, your professional opinion,” I say glibly, “delivered from your bed, is that I’m a pressure cooker.”
“My professional opinion is that you’re a man who has been managing alone for a long time and that management strategy has a ceiling.” She lifts her head to look at me. “And my personal opinion, delivered from my bed, is that you don’t have to.”
“Don’t have to what?”
“Manage it alone.”
She stares at me, and I know she’s saying that she’s the one who won’t let me be alone with this. But I have no clue if she’s talking about her professional or personal capacity.
It doesn’t matter, because I’ve heard enough. I roll toward her and find her mouth in the dim light. Livia makes a sharp gasp of surprise, but I deepen the kiss with enough intention that whatever she was going to say next doesn’t make it past her lips.
She pulls back a half inch. “That’s not an answer.”
“No,” I agree and put my mouth to hers.
She lets me.
For now.
We both know she’ll get revisit it eventually. That’s the thing about Livia… she’ll put a subject down and let it sit, then return to it when the conditions are right.
I won’t see it coming until it’s already hit me.
I’m aware of all of this and the danger she presents, yet I kiss her anyway.