Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Lauren
Thump. Th-thunk.
“Oh yeah, baby! Right there!”
Cranky as all get out, I turned over and crushed my pillow to my head, anything to block out the sound of someone having a much better time than me.
It didn’t make sense that any sound should be coming from the other side of my bedroom wall.
My roommate Macca was supposed to be out of town this weekend, so that room should have been as quiet as a church.
Instead, it was as noisy as a whorehouse while someone worshipped at the altar of a sex god.
Definitely not Macca. The guy made a great French toast, left the toilet seat down seventy-five percent of the time, and was very dedicated to his girlfriend, but I would never have figured him for a deity in the sheets.
Thankfully, he spent most of his time at Jeanie’s place, so I had no clue what he sounded like when a woman told him, “You are such a big boy!”
Thump. Th-thunk. Thump. Moan.
Jesus Crosby Christ, what the hell?
I considered texting Jason, who was on the other side of the apartment.
This seemed like a problem that should be dealt with man to man, and I was almost one hundred percent positive that this was one of his teammates, but Isner was known to snore through anything.
God forbid his beauty sleep be disturbed.
This dirty job needed to be handled by a woman.
Sixty seconds later, I stood outside Macca’s bedroom door with my hand raised and my ear cocked. Silence. Had she finished or had he fizzled?
“Oh, soooo good! Oh yeah. Like that. Exactly like that!”
So he had stamina and patience to beat the band. I was almost … envious.
But I was mostly tired. I needed to hit the practice rink by six a.m. and that was less than three hours away.
I knocked on the door. The moans ceased. Whispering ensued. Maybe this would be enough …
… the moans started up once more.
Fuck.
I knocked again, more forcefully this time. Blessed silence, then the sound of shuffling.
The door opened and I was confronted—rather aggressively, I thought—with chest. Perfect, smooth, muscled chest. I dragged my gaze away from the muscles and lifted it to the face for a more thorough inventory.
I knew it well. Alexei Nazarov was the topic of conversation for the last month as soon as everyone heard he was transferring in because he had a hard-on for Coach Starkey.
Now, if I was any other hetero-girl at the University of Michigan, I would probably be screaming my head off now. Or simpering like a bunny.
But I was not any other girl. I was a tired, needs-her-sleep, what-the-fuck-time-do-you-think-this-is girl, and I was not here for it.
And by “it” I meant eyes as cool as a Siberian winter, finger-raked dark blond locks, and a pair of far-too-thin sweatpants barely covering the evidence of what was happening before I knocked.
I had a million questions starting with, “why are you in Macca’s room?” and ending with, “are you really that good?” Because the way that girl was moaning, this guy was delivering a performance worthy of Olympic gold.
“Hello,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m not even going to ask why you’re here because I assume Isner is to blame, and I will be taking it up with him later. But for now, I need you to make that girl come, then shut the fuck up and let this girl sleep.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. Boo. “You are sleeping here?” He looked over my shoulder as if expecting someone else.
“The point is I’m not sleeping. You’re making too much noise.”
“Not me. But …” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. “It is out of my hands.”
“I think it’s very much within your hands. As in, use them wisely and let’s all catch some Z’s.”
“Alexei, come back to bed.”
Nazarov’s lips twitched. “She is greedy, yes? Perhaps, it would go quicker if we had a third person.”
Hockey bros, the absolute worst.
“You’re on your own, dude. Just keep it down, ’kay?”
At which point he cast a glance down to the crotch area of his sweatpants, the contents of which had been “resting” before but were now displaying signs of a resurgence.
“I will try but …”
“Blah blah, dick joke. I’ve heard them all, Russian.” I turned to leave, realizing now that I would not be comfortable waiting on the other side of the wall for that happy ending. A cup of Chamomile tea and a crime podcast would be the better option right now.
I didn’t look over my shoulder as I moved away in my bunny slippers. But I could feel the heat of his gaze on my back—and I suspected sleep would be a long time coming.
About ten minutes later, the door of the apartment closed. Finally. I placed my cup in the sink and turned at the soft pad of footsteps.
Nazarov stood in bare feet at the door to the kitchen, his chest covered with a T-shirt that said “I like hockey and three other people.” My brother-in-law Gunnar had one, and it had once amused me to no end.
“I thought you’d left.”
“Just my guest. She is in a cab.”
I was going to kill Jason. “Well, technically, she’s my guest because you don’t live here.”
“This is true. Thank you for hosting me and …” He lifted one massive shoulder in the tiniest of shrugs.
“Respect through the roof, I see. Her name was probably ‘baby.’” I raised a hand before he could comment. “Actually, that was your name.”
He ignored my observation. “May I have a glass of water?”
“That I can do.” Must replenish those bodily fluids. I stretched up to the cupboard to get a glass. When I turned, he was staring at my legs. “Water filter’s in the fridge if you like it cold.”
“I am getting enough of the chill in this room.”
I placed the glass on the counter with a touch more force than I should have. “You woke me, then kept me awake. I have to be up in two hours.”
He picked up the glass and walked to the sink to flip the faucet and fill it. I hesitated over my next move. Wait for him to finish? Usher him out the door? Continue with my judgment fest?
“Does Macca know you’re using his bed?” Judgment fest it is.
“I merely took what was offered. Isner said I could stay over.”
“Your place not good enough?”
“It is not yet suitable for visitors. I arrived in town only yesterday.”
Yes, we all knew. It was an unusual situation, a transfer in during your final year, but there’d been talk of him suffering some sort of breakdown after his mother died in Russia.
“You must really love Ringo.” That was what everyone called Coach Starkey.
“He has been good to me.”
The words emerged a little melancholic, in that way Russians often had. They managed to make everything sound like a tragedy of epic proportions.
He knocked the water back and I turned away, because watching him was weirdly intimate. Or maybe it was the fact we were standing in my kitchen, me in sleep shorts and my Eat, Sleep, Hockey, Repeat tee. Him having just made that girl very, very happy.
He placed the glass in the sink, then turned and leaned against it.
“We have not been properly introduced,” he said.
“Ah, but the great Alexei Nazarov needs no introduction.”
“Perhaps, but silver-eyed skater girls do. Isner did not tell me his girlfriend’s name.”
Silver-eyed skater girl? And he thought … “Isner doesn’t have a girlfriend. At least not right now.”
“So you and he are …”
“Not in a million years. That’s a friends-only deal, a line that will never be crossed.
” I might have gone through a brief phase at fourteen when I imagined what it might be like to be kissed by Jason.
Thankfully it passed and no feelings of such ick had resurfaced.
“What makes you think I’m with Jason? Did he say something? ”
He considered that for a moment. “He is a big fan of yours. And you and he seemed to … speak with the mind.”
“You mean telepathic? We’ve known each other a while, that’s all. But believe me, I won’t ever date a hockey player.”
The slightest muscle tic started in his jaw. It was fascinating to watch.
“You prefer the sensitive boys. The American football players.”
“Yeah, those sensitive American football players with their short seasons and fashionable shoulder pads. Jocks aren’t my jam. They tend to go for the adoring girls, the ones who scream ‘baby’ and ‘you’re such a big boy!’”
“But I am. It is the truth.”
My cue to gaze upon his penis, perhaps?
Nope. “Well, truth or not, I have to get to sleep.”
“I apologize for waking you. Isner did not say you lived here. Next time—”
“There won’t be a next time, Russian. Please keep your extracurriculars to your own living space.”
He remained as still as a statue while I attempted to bypass him.
“You still have not told me your name.”
“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“Then I will have to come up with another for you. Silver Eyes, great skater, light sleeper.”
I rolled my silver eyes.
He smiled. And whoa—that changed things. I wasn’t sure what exactly, but a whole new world suddenly came online.
“Could I …?” I gestured to some point behind him.
He stood back. Barely an inch separated us as I walked by.
“Sleep well, Silver Eyes.”
I was glad he couldn’t see my smile. A boy that arrogant needed no encouragement from me.