Chapter 43
Aaron
The fire is doing its job. The living room has gone from cold house to warm in the time it took to get it lit, and the fieldstone is radiating heat across the dark floors, and Sasha is lying on the couch with his head on the armrest watching me like I’m the most interesting thing in the room.
I’m crouching by the hearth adjusting a log that doesn’t need adjusting. Buying time. Not because I’m nervous — because the way he’s looking at me is making it hard to concentrate on anything else.
“You know what I kept thinking about during your game?” he says.
“My backhand pass.”
“No.” He shifts on the couch. His face in the firelight.
That jaw. Those eyes. “I kept thinking about how good you look when you’re in control of the ice.
The way you move. The way you call plays.
You had the whole arena doing what you wanted tonight, and it made me so hard I had to cross my legs in section 114. ”
My hand stills on the fireplace poker. Heat climbs the back of my neck — and it’s not from the fire.
“You’re terrible,” I say.
“I’m honest.” He stretches one arm behind his head. His shirt rides up. A strip of stomach, the cut of his hip, the trail of golden hair disappearing below his waistband. He’s not doing it on purpose.
He’s absolutely doing it on purpose.
“Come here,” he says.
I put the poker down. Cross the room. He reaches for me when I’m close enough and I let him pull me down onto the couch, his hands on my waist, my knees landing on either side of his hips.
His mouth finds mine immediately — warm, open, tasting like the cold air from outside and something underneath that’s just him.
I kiss him back. Take my time with it. There’s no clock running. No checkout. No locked door with someone else’s key. Just his mouth and my hands on his chest and the fire popping behind us and nowhere we need to be.
His hips push up against mine and I feel him — hard already, straining against his jeans. His hands slide under my shirt, fingers spread wide on my ribs, pulling me down against him. The friction makes us both groan.
“Upstairs,” I say against his mouth.
“Upstairs,” he agrees.
I climb off him and pull him up by both hands. He grabs me at the bottom of the staircase and presses me against the wall and kisses me again — deep, his thigh pushing between mine, his hand in my hair — and I have to push him off to get us moving.
“Bed,” I tell him.
“Bossy tonight.”
“You bought me a house. I’m feeling generous.”
He laughs and follows me up the stairs.
The loft is warm. Heat rises, and the whole top floor has been catching it since I lit the fire.
The skylight is a dark rectangle above the bed, and through it I can see snow falling against the stars — flakes drifting toward the glass, lit from below by the faint glow coming up from the living room.
Sasha stops at the top of the stairs. Looks at the bed. Looks at me.
“New sheets,” he says.
“You mentioned.”
“I’m very proud of the sheets. I picked them myself. They’re expensive.”
“Then let’s mess them up.”
His expression changes. The playfulness is still there but underneath it — heat. Want. The same look he’s been giving me since the first time I caught him watching me at Ashford, except now there’s nothing between it and me.
I put both hands on his chest and push him backward onto the bed. He goes — lets me push him, which is not nothing from a man who never lets anyone push him anywhere. He lands on his back on the white sheets, hair fanning out. His chest is rising fast. His cock is tenting his jeans.
I pull his shirt over his head. He lifts his arms to help and I toss it somewhere behind me. His chest in the dim light — the defined lines of muscle, the way his stomach tightens when I run my fingers down the center of it.
“My turn,” he says, reaching for my shirt.
“Not yet.” I push his hands back down. Hold them against the mattress. “I’m not done.”
His eyes go wide. Then dark. His wrists flex under my grip but he doesn’t fight it.
I work his belt open. The buckle clinks loud in the quiet — no traffic, no city noise, just the creak of the house and the faint pop of the fire downstairs. I unzip him slow, watching his face the whole time. His lips part. His hips lift before I even touch him.
I pull his jeans and his boxers down together and his cock springs free — thick, hard, the head already flushed and wet. I wrap my hand around the base and his whole body jerks.
“Aaron —”
“I’ve got you.” I lower my head and drag my tongue all the way down the shaft, base to tip, slow enough to feel every ridge and vein. He tastes like salt and skin and the moan he lets out fills the whole room. No neighbors. No thin walls. Just the two of us and this house and the mountains outside.
I take him into my mouth. Slow. Sealing my lips tight and working him with my tongue, pressing against the spot just under the head that makes his hips buck.
His hand flies to my hair — fingers raking through it, gripping, not pushing.
I take him deeper. Let him feel the wet heat, the pressure, the deliberate rhythm I’m setting.
“Fuck — Aaron — you’re so good —”
I work him steady, one hand stroking what my mouth doesn’t reach, the other pressed flat on his hip to hold him down.
He’s trying to thrust and I won’t let him.
My pace. My control. His thighs are trembling on either side of my head and his sounds are getting louder — open, raw, the kind of sounds he used to swallow in hotel rooms because the walls were too thin.
Not here. Here I want to hear every one.
I feel him getting close — his cock swelling against my tongue, his balls drawing up, his fingers digging into my scalp. His breathing goes ragged and his abs are clenching and he’s right there —
I pull off.
“What —” He lifts his head. His cock bobs between us, flushed and straining, wet from my mouth. “Aaron. What are you doing.”
“Taking my time.” I press a kiss to his hip. Then his stomach. His cock twitches against my cheek and he makes a sound that’s half groan, half frustration. “We’re not in a hurry.”
“I was very much in a hurry.”
“I know.” I wrap my hand around him and stroke once, slow and firm, and watch his head drop back against the pillow. “That’s why I stopped.”
“This is revenge. For every time I edged you.”
“This is appreciation.” I stroke him again. His hips roll into my grip. “Different thing.”
“Feels like revenge.”
I take him back into my mouth and he swears in Russian — one sharp word that I don’t know but understand perfectly. I work him harder this time, faster, my hand and my mouth together, and within a minute his thighs are shaking again, his hand gripping my hair, his moans climbing —
I pull off again.
“Aaron Kelly.” Sasha is gasping. He’s propped on his elbows, staring down at me, chest heaving, his cock dark and aching and dripping onto his stomach. “I swear to god —”
“You swear to god what?” I rest my chin on his thigh. Look up at him. I can feel myself smiling — not the polished Aaron Kelly smile. The one that only shows up when I’m the reason Sasha Vorontsovsky is losing his composure.
“You’re enjoying this,” he says.
“I really am.”
“You’ve never been this cruel.”
“I’ve been learning from the best.”
He groans. Drops back against the pillow. His cock is pulsing, twitching against his stomach, and I can see the frustration in every line of his body. He’s used to being in charge. He’s used to being the one who controls the pace and decides when I come and makes me beg for it.
Not tonight.
I lower my head one more time. Take him deep, work him with everything I have, and this time I let the build happen — let him get close, let him tip right to the edge where his whole body goes rigid and his hand in my hair goes white-knuckled —
And I stop.
“No —” The word rips out of him. His hips jerk. His cock throbs in the air between us, a bead of wetness rolling down the shaft. “Aaron — please —”
“I want you to fuck me.”
The words come out steady. Clear. No hesitation, no heat climbing my neck, no part of me that needs to rehearse the sentence before I say it. I know what I want. I’ve known since I walked into this house.
Sasha stares at me. His chest is heaving. His eyes are blown so dark I can barely see the blue.
“Say it again,” he says.
“I want you inside me.” I climb up his body, one knee on each side of his hips. His cock presses against my ass through my jeans and we both inhale. “In our bed. In our house. And I don’t want you to rush.”
He’s up before I finish the sentence. His hands on my shirt, pulling it over my head, his mouth on my neck, my collarbone, the center of my chest. He strips my jeans off with the efficiency of someone who’s done this enough times to know every button and zipper by feel.
“Lube,” I say. “Left pocket of my duffle.”
He freezes. Looks at me. “You packed lube.”
“You told me to pack a bag for the weekend.”
“Aaron Kelly. You packed lube before you knew where we were going.”
“I packed lube because I was going somewhere with you. That’s all the information I needed.”
The grin that splits his face is pure Sasha — smug, delighted, a little feral.
He’s off the bed and across the loft in three strides.
I hear the zipper of my duffle, the sound of him finding what he’s looking for.
He comes back with the bottle and a condom and climbs over me, and the weight of him pressing me into the mattress is exactly what I want.
He kisses me. Slower now. The urgency from downstairs has settled into something steadier — still hot, still charged, but unhurried.
His tongue slides against mine and his hand trails down my stomach, over my hip, between my thighs.
His fingers find me, slick and warm, pressing where I’m sensitive and tight.
“Relax,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I’m relaxed.”
“You’re clenching.”
“I’m excited. There’s a difference.”