Chapter 16
Shannon navigated from the passenger’s seat, her body in near constant motion.
Adjusting her feet. Playing with her hair.
Chewing on her lip. Checking on Leena. I couldn’t help but notice every little thing she did, enjoying the signs of adrenaline still in her system.
No matter what she said about the game, her body was telling a different story.
She hadn’t only watched me play, she’d lived it with me. And I felt the same way.
Every time I came off the ice, my gaze found hers like a magnet.
And every time, she was already looking at me too.
When I’d scored my first goal, she was the first face I looked for in the crowd, pushing aside Logan who practically climbed on my back, he was so excited.
But the second one, Shannon wasn’t only watching. She had Leena on her shoulders, and the girls were dancing around in the seats. As much as I liked winning, I loved this feeling more.
“Here.” Shannon pointed at a strip mall that was mostly dark except for Rocky Mountain Pizza.
Red and green lights glowed out over the otherwise quiet street.
But this place wasn’t quiet—it had a line wrapped around the building.
I pulled into the first parking spot I could find, and Shannon hopped out before the car was even at a full stop.
“Be right back.”
She jogged around the building, bypassing the line for the much shorter Call Ahead line I hadn’t seen until now.
Leena whined in the backseat, and I reached around to give her back the pacifier she’d lost. The moment it was back in her mouth, she settled with a heavy sigh.
I turned back toward the restaurant, watching Shannon. She peered around the crowd at the glass window displays full of pizzas, absentmindedly spinning her wedding band around her finger.
If Leena wasn’t asleep in the car, I would have gotten out with her, holding her hand to ease the post-game jitters, but watching her was its own sort of calm. All the nerves I’d felt going into today were gone, replaced by this giddy excitement with every passing moment I spent with my wife.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I wasn’t supposed to kiss her outside the locker room. Wasn’t supposed to imagine doing so much more.
But now that my mind was headed in that direction, it was hard to pull it back.
Shannon grabbed an overly large box from the attendant at the window, then rushed back to the car with a grin.
“Hope you’re hungry,” she said as she climbed into the car.
The scent of melted cheese and fresh crust wafted through the car, but I couldn’t pull my mind back from a different kind of hunger.
“What toppings did you get?”
“Cheese.” Shannon sounded slightly affronted. “The only option.”
I shook my head, then opened the box on her lap and took a piece. “That’s not even kind of true.”
“The only right option,” Shannon clarified.
I folded the slice in half and ate it in three bites, not even waiting for it to cool off, and let out a little groan at the taste. Pizza wasn’t anything special, but this pizza was one of the best I’d ever had.
Shannon gawked at me, mouth slightly parted, then shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just now realizing maybe a large pizza to split wasn’t enough.”
I reached for another piece, and she swatted my hand out of the way. “This is my celebration too. You wait your turn.”
I meant to rest my hand on the center console, but instead it landed on her thigh.
I stared at it.
She stared at it.
My fingers flexed, hand tightening.
Her hip moved, pushing into my grip.
Fuck, this was a problem.
“Want more?” she asked, her voice cracking enough that I looked up at her.
Those dark eyes were dilated, a little heavy-lidded, and I was positive mine were too. I nodded because, absolutely, I wanted more.
“Pizza,” Shannon said, almost as if reminding us what we were doing.
I pulled my hand away, then accepted the second slice she gave me.
“Cheers.” She tapped her piece against mine, then took a bite.
I did the same, but this time I could barely taste it, not when my mind was picturing what her body might taste like instead.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said on her next bite.
My dick twitched in my pants, everything sounding so sexual right now while we ate pizza in the front seat of my car. Nothing was sexy about this scenario, not in a dark parking lot with my daughter asleep in the back seat. But my mind was in the damn gutter.
I cleared my throat, then took a napkin and wiped my hands and face before putting the car in drive. “That was great. Good suggestion.”
“Pizza is the perfect food,” Shannon said around another bite. “We’ve got grains, veggies, and dairy all in one. Practically a health food.”
“Fruit.”
I pulled into traffic and headed home, feeling Shannon’s glare aimed my way. “Oh, you’re one of those people, huh?”
“If you mean a correct person, then yes. Tomato is a fruit.”
“Then why is it sold in the vegetable aisle, Mikko?”
“It’s in the produce section, Shannon. Both fruits and vegetables together.”
“I classify food groups by vibes, not scientific terms.”
I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in months. “And tomatoes have vegetable vibes?”
“Obviously.” She closed the box of pizza on her lap, then turned to look at me. “You want me to believe that it’s a fruit solely because it has seeds?”
“And grows from a flower.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nerd.”
“Says the girl with more books than clothes to her name.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
We pulled into the parking garage a few minutes later, still bickering over stupid things and far more playful than we’d been in the last two weeks.
Shannon brushed Leena’s hair from her forehead, her smile softening when she looked at my sleeping daughter in my arms. “She was wonderful today.”
“Good,” I said. “Think you can do it again in two days?”
“Yeah. I think we’ll manage.”
“And traveling for the game on Saturday?” I asked when we stepped out into the foyer.
“We’ll figure that out too, won’t we?” She leaned forward and kissed Leena’s forehead, then whispered, “Goodnight, baby. I love you.”
Shannon put the pizza in the fridge, then turned toward her room like this was any other night, and she hadn’t said something so monumental without even acknowledging it.
I stood there, partially in shock but mostly wondering how I could make tonight stretch on longer.
“Reading tonight?” I asked.
She looked up at me, surprise written in the arch of her brows. “I was going to, yeah.”
“Meet in the living room in ten minutes?”
Hopefully, it didn’t sound as desperate as I felt, because what I wanted to say was:
Spend time with me.
Keep making me feel this light.
Love me, too.
That last one was so jarring, I missed her response, practically running toward my room before I realized Leena was still in my arms. I couldn’t bring myself to look down the hall to see if Shannon witnessed my mistake before entering Leena’s dark nursery.
I pulled the jersey off her and changed her diaper in the dark, then gently laid her in the crib, mirroring Shannon’s words.
Luckily, Leena slept right through the whole thing, rolling over onto her belly, butt in the air. I stood there and watched my precious girl for another minute, then closed the door and went into my room.
Somehow, even more adrenaline than before was pumping through my system, but I changed into a pair of grey sweats and a tee, then grabbed a new mystery novel and went back out to the living room.
Shannon was already waiting for me, hood up over her head and a blanket over her legs as she wedged herself in the corner she’d claimed over the last two weeks.
I sat down on the other end, an entire body length between us, but everything in me was attuned to her. I heard every breath, felt every move of her feet over the woven upholstery, saw the way she tugged at her sleeve.
Usually reading helped me settle after a game, calming my nervous system with a fictional reality that had nothing to do with hockey or my real life. But tonight, I could hardly focus on the page, not when her hand snaked out of her sleeve and I saw she was still wearing her wedding ring.
She’d had it on all day, so more than likely, she hadn’t taken it off yet. But my brain clocked the fact that she rarely wore it around the house.
Tonight, she did, though.
It didn’t mean anything.
I knew it didn’t.
But I couldn’t stop fixating on the fact that my wife was funny, and smart, and kind, and so fucking gorgeous I couldn’t look away.
“Are you even reading?” she said when she looked over the top of her tablet at me.
I dropped my gaze back down to my book, but the words blurred on the page, all the blood rushing out of my head and to my groin instead while I conjured up ideas of everything else I’d rather be doing.
“Can’t focus tonight.”
“Does that happen a lot after games?”
The question was innocent, but I squirmed in my seat, trying to hide the growing erection I was battling over literally nothing.
There wasn’t an inch of her skin showing, aside from the tips of her fingers and her face.
Maybe that was making it worse, my imagination filling in every detail I couldn’t see.
“Mmhmm,” I answered, regretting wearing sweatpants. The outline of my dick was getting more visible by the second no matter what I did. “Sometimes.”
“What helps get it out of your system?”
A stuttered laugh came out of me, and I dropped my book to my lap before she saw how much harder I got at her words. Not when I imagined trying to work her out of my system.
Sweaty.
Passionate.
As fiery as she always was.
“Sleep.” I jumped to my feet, still holding my book in front of my crotch. “I need to go to bed.”
She frowned, confused by my about-face from only a few minutes ago when I’d asked her to read out here with me. When I turned to leave, she put her tablet to the side, then sat upright.
“Did I do something wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t have told Leena I love her—I know she’s not mine.”
“No.” I shook my head, still not capable of turning around to look at her. “You did nothing wrong.”
“Okay,” Shannon said, and dammit, I still heard the confusion in her voice.
How many times had I left a conversation unsure if whatever I’d said had been what caused someone to change on me? I hated she felt that way, hated that I was making her second-guess this dynamic we’d found tonight.
Before I could think better of it, I turned back toward her, my book at my side. “No lying, right?”
Shannon was still studying my face, but her eyes slowly dropped until she saw why I needed to go.
Her lips parted. For a second, neither of us moved. The air between us felt thick enough to choke while her attention lingered on the outline of my dick, hard and straining against the fabric. Then her gaze snapped back up to mine, dark and wide and unreadable.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. I turned on my heel before I could see whatever expression followed, fleeing down the hall.
My bedroom door shut harder than I meant it to. I leaned back against it, chest heaving like I’d finished a full-ice sprint.I should’ve gone straight to the shower.
Cold water.
Reality check.
But the second I closed my eyes, I saw her again—those heavy-lidded eyes in the car, her thigh pressed into my hand, the soft curve of her mouth when she laughed at my stupid tomato rant. The way she’d kissed Leena’s forehead like my little girl was already hers.
I was so screwed.
I crossed to the bed and sat on the edge, dragging a hand down my face while my heart hammered against my ribs. Shannon was down the hall. The penthouse wasn’t big enough for secrets like this. If I made a single sound…
I told myself I’d palm myself over the fabric. Get it under control. But my hand was already shoving the waistband down before I could talk myself out of it. My cock sprang free, heavy and aching, the head already slick. I wrapped my fist around it and gave one slow stroke, biting back a groan.
Quiet.
You have to be quiet.
The first real tug pulled a sharp breath through my teeth.
I pictured her on the couch, hood up, blanket over her legs, that wedding ring still on her finger. I imagined pushing her hoodie up. Finding out exactly how warm and soft she was underneath all those layers.
Another stroke. Harder. My hips jerked up into my fist.
Now the image changed to me pushing aside the blanket to find out if the adrenaline from the night had the same effect on her.
I kept the rhythm slow at first, trying to stay silent, but my mind wouldn’t let me.
I imagined her straddling me right here on this bed, hair down, moaning while she sank onto me.
On her knees in the kitchen, looking up at me with those dark eyes while she took me deep in her mouth.
Laughing, arguing, living with me like she belonged here. Like this was real.
A low, broken sound escaped me before I could catch it.
I froze, listening.
The penthouse was so quiet, she had to hear my bed creaking faintly with every thrust into my hand. Had to hear the wet sound of my fist moving faster now.
But I couldn’t stop.
I tightened my grip, imagining it was her hand. Her mouth. Her tight, wet pussy.
My free hand fisted the sheets as my strokes turned punishing. The pressure built fast, coiling at the base of my spine.
“Fuck, Shannon,” I whispered, but it still felt dangerous. Like saying her name out loud might summon her to the door.
My balls drew up, my abs clenched, and I came hard, clamping my mouth shut to keep from groaning loud enough for the whole building to hear. Thick ropes of cum spilled over my fist, pulse after pulse, while her name echoed in my head.
When it finally stopped, I sat there panting, sticky, and still half-hard because my brain wouldn’t let go of her.
I cleaned up with the tissues on my nightstand, ears straining for any sound from the hallway.
Nothing.
Maybe she’d gone to bed.
Maybe she was pretending she hadn’t heard anything.
I pulled my sweats back up and flopped onto my back. The post-game high, the pizza, the easy banter, the reading—it had all felt so good.
And then I’d jerked off like a teenager thinking about my wife who wasn’t mine, loud enough that she probably knew exactly what I’d done.
Guilt twisted in my chest, but it wasn’t stronger than the want.
Tonight, it was harder to ignore the part of me that wanted her to be mine for real. That I’d wanted her even before I got us into this mess.
Not just on paper.
Not just for Leena.
I wanted Shannon to look at me the way she looked at me tonight in the car—like she was starving too.