23. A Post-Victory Celebration
A POST-VICTORY CELEbrATION
LAKE
Sutton Whittaker is the biggest idiot on the planet.
But he’s my idiot.
I irrigate the bloody lacerations on his knuckles with a saline solution—thank you, stocked locker room bathroom—and a growl ripples through his throat at the initial burn.
If I wasn’t adamant about treating his wounds, he’d probably avoid getting them checked out until infection began to germinate. I feel like I’m plucking out a tiny thorn from a giant lion’s paw—a mere inconvenience for the grizzled powerhouse sitting before me.
Sutton is one of those people who don’t like to be a bother. It doesn’t matter if he’s actively bleeding out. He’s considerate in that way. Funny, seeing as his height and overall demeanor screams “intimidating.” He certainly didn’t disprove people’s expectations of him tonight.
I’d never admit this out loud, but a part of me was giddy when I saw Buford go down for the count.
Call me a vengeful bitch, but he deserved what was coming to him.
Maybe he’ll think twice about fucking people over.
Buford was never a looker in the first place, but he’ll certainly be blacklisted by every sorority after resembling a putrefied pear.
Speaking of, before everyone exited the rink, I saw him talking to some dude. I have no idea who he was, but I kept close track of all of Buford’s “friends” when we were together. And this man seemed way over the typical age limit of his affiliates.
Not that I care who he hangs out with. It just seemed odd.
“You were reckless tonight,” I tell Sutton, dabbing the gouges in his skin with sterile gauze.
“I did what I had to,” he grumbles, refusing to meet my eyes, tension swimming in the air and intercut with the occasional sawed breath. This whole conversation is a no-fly zone for him.
“During the regional finals?”
His arm twitches when I accidentally abrade the wound edge, yet he refuses to acknowledge the pain. My patience is draining into a reservoir by the second, and I take his silence as an unofficial answer, squirting a dollop of petroleum jelly into my palm so I can keep the gashes moist.
I’m not mad at him, not really. I’m just…I can’t stand the thought of me potentially jeopardizing his hockey career. Sutton has improved my life in ways I didn’t think were remotely possible, and all I’ve done is bring a fuckload of trouble into his.
“This was an important game for you and your team.”
Sutton snorts. “We still won. The guys know what they’re doing. If anything, Buford was a liability.”
My ribs flutter with a latent sigh and, cautiously, I hook my index finger under Sutton’s chin, turning his head so he finally faces me. His pupils are blown wide, and the tips of his ears are red from embarrassment. His lower lip is jutted out in an irresistible pout.
“I’m not worth this much trouble,” I whisper, fanning my thumb over his chin.
My stupid hormones need to take a number and fucking sit down because I’m suddenly reminded of how soft his face felt between my thighs while he split me open with his tongue.
He leans into my touch. I’ve always been a sucker for sad eyes, but Sutton’s are haunting. So many contradictory emotions froth in my belly—guilt, relief, gratification. If he ruined his hockey career because of me, I’d never forgive myself.
“Hey, don’t say that. You are. It’s not even…fuck, Lake, it’s not even trouble. I want to be your protector. And I know you’re fully capable of handling yourself, but you deserve someone who will fight for you.”
I’m used to fighting my own battles, and I definitely don’t choose them wisely. Sutton has single-handedly shattered the brEAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY glass surrounding my heart. Now I’m about as vulnerable as the lesions scarring his knuckles.
Everyone has left the locker room. It’s just the two of us in here, and the intimacy of our conversation is starting to plant some lecherous ideas in my head—ideas that have no business materializing past nine p.m.
I drop my hand from his jaw, instead employing it to unravel a strip of sterile dressing. The action is painfully mechanical, and despite basking in the heat that emanates off his body, I’ve never felt colder.
I bandage Sutton’s hand without saying a word. Tears begin to bludgeon the backs of my eyes, and I pray that they’re dry enough not to reflect the state-of-the-art lighting overhead.
Once, twice, I wrap around the affected area, tearing the gauze off to complete my sloppy wound management.
Sutton crooks his neck to press his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You could never scare me. I just…none of this would’ve happened if I didn’t break into Buford’s house that night and capsize your entire life.”
“You didn’t capsize my entire life,” he insists.
My guilt is propulsive, and I get a sour taste on the palate of my tongue. “It feels like it.”
“Kiss me. Please,” he begs out of nowhere, brushing his nose against mine, the smell of his breath surprisingly minty as it warms the bottom of my face.
“What?”
“Kiss me, Trouble. I’m in pain, and you’re my only salvation. Let me show you how much better you’ve made my life.”
Sutton has a habit of rendering me speechless, but this is…almost unbelievable. Not in the sense that I don’t doubt he could ever feel this strongly for me, but in the sense that he’s choosing now to bare his heart to me.
Before him, I was in a permanent purgatory where nothing mattered except taking care of Max. Not my academics, not my social life. It was like I was sinking into a cold, bottomless lake, and every time I tried to surface, I wasn’t able to break through the ice.
But then, one day, I saw the first sliver of sunlight penetrate the sheet of frost above my head, and there he was—the unidentifiable silhouette of the person who was going to save me from myself.
Full-throttle, I kiss him before he implores me again. I kiss him because I can’t breathe without him. I kiss him because it’s the only thing that silences the voices in my head.
When I marry our lips together, I don’t bother with taking things slow before I’m swinging my leg over and straddling his lap. My makeshift first aid kit clatters to the floor. He anchors his injured hand into my hair to pull me even closer.
The kiss is fucking transcendent. He exacts just the right amount of pressure to draw my tongue out from its hiding place, and he initiates a rhythm that pulls me deeper into his orbit with every modest nudge of his mouth.
The tug on my head becomes incessant but not painful, and I’m doing a terrible job at measuring my breath through each elongated French kiss that compels a shudder to stampede through my body.
Sutton and I are both teeming with adrenaline tonight, and the gentleness that he usually reserves for me is absent.
Finally pulling away for air, I feel him grin against my mouth, pulling my plump bottom lip between his front teeth and letting it go with a pop.
It’s a pinnacle of pleasure-pain that takes a string of spit as compensation—that awakens a hidden pulse in my cunt intent on ruining the state of my gusset.
“Fuuuck,” Sutton groans, licking my residual saliva off his lips, his bulge bursting through his hockey pants. He’s as hard as a goddamn rock from a tepid kiss alone, and pride runs counterpoint to the unconcealed desire itching under my skin.
Maybe it’s the fact that my thoughts are cobbled together by runts of testosterone and the badgering reminder that it’s been years since I had wall-banging sex—looking at you, Micro Penis Montgomery—but my sanity is on hiatus, and dearly missed debauchery is now its new stand-in.
“What if someone catches us?” I breathe, grinding my crotch over Sutton’s impressive hard-on, producing a friction so delicious that more arousal spurts against the material of my panties, pooling against the swollen lips of my neglected pussy.
He nuzzles into my neck, nipping at the thin skin of my jugular with a surprising amount of restraint.
His tone hovers between deference and arrogance, as if two halves of the same whole are fighting for dominance. “Then let them watch,” he growls, the sound so jarringly deep that it ricochets off the moisture-resistant walls and sinks into my belly.
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. I’ve never seen this side of him before. Chivalry really is dead, and I couldn’t be happier.
Voyeurism is something I’ve dabbled in, but never to this extreme.
Sutton’s thick, ten-inch dick splitting open my cunt in the confines of our rendezvous point, bumping against my cervix with a sensitive, half-gloved head, stretching out the skin of my stomach where his monstrous cock leaves a stark impression.
I scoff, but it’s good-natured. “Let them watch?”
“Yeah, baby. Let them watch how I touch you…here,” he drawls, slipping his hand underneath my long-sleeve shirt to reach up and fondle my bare breast. I ditched the bra tonight because it was uncomfortable. Not because I thought I’d be celebrating with Sutton in the guys’ locker room.
“I know I was bad tonight, but I promise to be a good boy from here on out.”
I rein in a moan as I grant him unobstructed access to my body, wrenching the hem of my shirt over my head and discarding it somewhere to the side.
He nearly comes on the spot, throwing his head back with a half-hearted curse that accentuates the strong arch of his throat.
His hands are so large they swamp my tits—which aren’t small by any means—and he drags his thumb over the erogenous zone of my nipple, watching with animalistic satisfaction at the way I buckle for a millisecond of stimulation.
“God, Trouble, you have no idea how many times I’ve fantasized about sliding my dick between those gorgeous tits of yours. So fucking big—so fucking perfect for my hands. Need to splatter my cum all over your breasts; need to watch it leak down every inch of your skin until my smell is inerasable.”
“I didn’t realize Soft-Spoken Sutton had a territorial side.”