Chapter 48
IS THAT A ZAMBONI ON YOUR BUCKET LIST OR IS IT JUST ME?
Hayes
I know it’s coming, and there’s no way to stop it. Dragging a hand across my trim beard, I groan when Bryan, the older of my granddads, launches into his favorite story while we’re seated at the diner in Petaluma on Friday evening.
“And this little guy,” Bryan says, ruffling my hair—that’s his thing, and always has been, “jumps over the boards with his stick, and his uniform, and his new skates, and he actually challenges the older guys to a skate-off. His words.”
I drop my face onto the Formica table.
“A skate-off?” Stefan asks, chuckling. “Is that a thing? Like a dance-off on ice?”
“Maybe we should all do that,” Ryan suggests from across the booth. “I’ve got a killer pair of purple skates.”
I raise my head and lift a critical brow, eyeing Ryan’s checked flannel shirt. Tucked in. “Dude, purple skates are not trendy. Just ask Ivy.”
Looking at his husband, Bryan smooths a hand down his sky-blue button-down—classy but stylish, unlike Ryan. “That’s what I told you, babe.”
At the affectionate nickname Ivy’s blue eyes sparkle and she nudges Stefan, then mouths so cute.
“I don’t know. My skates are pretty sweet,” Ryan adds with bravado.
“I can see where Hayes gets his confidence,” Ivy says to Ryan.
He nods proudly. “Yup. Now, do you want to see my purple skates?”
“I’d love to. But I also really want to hear the end of the story—what happened with Hayes’s dance-off, face-off, skate-off?”
Stefan chuckles and reaches for Ivy’s hand. “Yes, tell us everything about the ice-dancing finale.”
“Thanks for ganging up on me,” I say dryly.
“What are friends and family for?” Stefan asks.
Ivy freezes, like the word surprises her—family. Then she smiles as if she turned it over and found she liked it. I hope now that she’s met my family, she’ll feel as if they could be hers as well. Stefan and I want her to see what it’ll be like if she falls in love with us too.
“They exist to reveal all your embarrassing stories, it seems.” Ivy props her chin in her hand, looking from Ryan to Bryan. “Now, tell me. How did he do in the skate-off?”
Ryan dives into the tale of my brash, seven-year-old self challenging a bunch of thirteen-year-olds to a shootout, finishing with, “And one by one, he took them down.” He squeezes my shoulder proudly.
“At your rink?” Ivy asks.
“That’s the one.”
“And did you know then that he’d be a star?”
Bryan snorts, and if a snort could be proud that one is. “I knew it before. When he was four and skated like Gretzky.”
“Stop. Just stop,” I warn him. We’re veering dangerously close to the verbal equivalent of naked baby photos.
“Please don’t stop,” Stefan goads. “I want to hear more about this young Gretzky.”
“And I need to see this famous rink,” Ivy says.
Well, we’d planned on showing it to her anyway.
* * *
After they give us a tour of the local rink, which is booked up the wazoo—Bryan’s terms—Bryan and Ryan take off, leaving us alone.
“You kids can skate all you want. Just shut the door and lock it when you’re done,” Bryan says.
Ivy shoots me a curious look. “They don’t mind us using it?”
Stefan and I laugh. “We booked it tonight,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, then smiles so wide my heart beats a little harder for her.
We lace up, and the three of us skate for a good long time, all alone in the rink, under the lights, blasting rock music. When we’ve raced around the ice enough, I check in with Stefan. “Ready?”
“Absolutely.”
Skating backwards, I tug on Ivy’s hand. “Want to ride on a Zamboni?”
Her blue eyes pop. “Yes!”
* * *
We take off our skates, and after I show her the basics of driving the big blue beast, I let her take it for a spin while I ride shotgun and Stefan watches from the edge of the rink.
After a lap or two, she’s breathing hard and her cheeks are red—steering one of these is a workout.
She stops the machine in the middle of the ice and lets out a contented sigh.
Stefan walks over and stands at the open door. “New career path as a Zamboni driver?”
“Imagine how valuable I’d be to hockey teams then. From mascot to Zamboni driver in a single bound.” She pats the metal edge of the machine. “Seriously, this was so fun. Are you guys trying to be the best boyfriends ever?”
It’s a dead-serious question.
I catch Stefan’s gaze, grinning like she’s caught on to us. I like, too, that she calls us boyfriends. She’s not making distinctions in titles anymore. We’re both her boyfriends.
“Yes,” Stefan answers her. “Is it working?”
Ivy’s smile is coy. “Kind of, but I’m not convinced yet.”
“Woman, what’s it going to take?” Stefan teases.
Ivy climbs out of the driver’s seat and onto my lap, patting the other seat for Stefan, who hops up where she’s indicated.
There’s not much room for any one of us, but who needs room when my woman has dirty deeds flashing in her eyes?
She manages to straddle me, rocking subtly against my dick.
I’m not even hard, but that changes quickly, especially when she dips her face to my neck.
She kisses me there while reaching toward Stefan’s face, running her knuckles down his cheek and over his stubble as she rocks against me.
My dick salutes hello, and my mind hums with possibilities. Stefan’s thinking fast too. He blows on his hands, warming them up, then slides them under her sweatshirt, touching her belly, the curves of her breasts.
She gasps, then breaks the kiss to lock eyes with me then him.
“I like taking turns,” she says with slow, tempting thrusts against me while she turns and stretches to kiss him.
She’s kissing him while dry humping my cock as the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” plays on the ice rink’s sound system.
My mind pops. It whirs with lust and excitement. The chilly air feels supercharged. I never expected this when I accepted a trade to San Francisco. Never imagined a moment like this. And I don’t want to lose sight of what it means.
Fun, but intimacy. A risqué evening but trust, as well.
Our sex is wild, but it’s also soul deep, even in an ice rink.
All alone, in the cool air, we get to work taking care of Ivy’s needs.
As she kisses Stefan again, I warm my hands then fiddle with the waistband of her leggings, pushing them down to slide my fingers over her belly button and inside her panties so I can tease her clit.
With a shuddery gasp, she breaks the kiss, letting her head fall back. “Oh god, yes.”
“You dirty girl,” I rasp out. “You’re already turned on from humping my dick.”
“I am,” she says as I maneuver a hand down to where she’s slick and hot.
She trembles, then a longer moan escapes those lush lips. Stefan reaches for her mouth, offering her his fingers. She draws one, then two past her lips as she rocks against my hand.
“She likes that,” Stefan says, like he did the first night we all hooked up in a chapel in Vegas, when we talked about her as we played with her.
“She loves it when we fuck her in public,” I say, stroking her more.
“Let me check,” Stefan says, like he’s just casually curious.
I grab her hips and lift her up a few inches, giving him room. He drops his fingers from her mouth, slides them inside her panties, and strokes her. She’s gasping, panting, and curling her hands around my shoulders to hold on.
With a rumble, he smiles, then brings his finger to his lips, sucking off her taste. “She gets so fucking wet, doesn’t she?”
“I love it when she’s dripping for us,” I say. “You need to fuck, don’t you baby?”
“Yes. Now please,” she whimpers.
Stefan tucks a finger under her chin. “Let’s get these leggings off you. I want to watch you fuck your husband right here on a Zamboni.”
Ivy shudders, and it’s clear that even though we’re both her boyfriends, she still loves the idea of being a hot wife. Of her husband sharing her.
I do, too, and so does Stefan. Terms are terms, words are words. We both know we’re in this together, all of us. We know, too, that sex is one of the things she needs a certain way—an overload of sensations.
Handing off roles.
Everything between us shared.
As he helps her push down her leggings, I unzip my jeans and free my cock.
Ivy stares wantonly at my dick, at attention and ready for her. Wrapping a hand around my shaft, she strokes up, then down.
“Get on him now, sweetheart,” Stefan says, lifting her back over me, and with her panties pulled to the side, I offer her my dick. She looks heavenly as she sinks down onto me, and I shudder down to my bones.
Yes. Fucking yes. She’s so snug and warm. My arms come up to her face, and I hold her as Stefan leans back, parks his hands behind his head and just…watches.
“My favorite view,” he says, admiring her.
She locks eyes with him as she rides my dick. “You like it when I fuck him, don’t you?”
“Love it, sweetheart,” he says.
“Why?” Her voice catches, filled with a new vulnerability.
Reaching forward, he slides a hand down her cheek as she rises up and down on my cock. “Because of how your cheeks pinken. How your lips part. How your eyes glass over. It’s fucking breathtaking to watch you get turned on.”
“I like looking at you when I fuck him,” she says, and the temperature in me shoots to the sky.
“I can tell. I can see it in your eyes,” he says in a sensual voice that excites her so she fucks me faster, more recklessly.
She drags her teeth across her lip, gazing at him as she rises up on me. I’m burning. I’m a furnace as she fucks. “Hayes likes it too, Stef. I can feel his cock getting thicker in me.”
I groan like an animal. She’s taking a page from our playbook, talking about me to him. It’s so fucking erotic, so ridiculously sexy, I don’t know if I can last.
“He fucks me deeper when I look at you,” she adds.
Stefan drags a thumb across her lower lip now. “You like that, sweetheart?”
“Love it,” she gasps, her voice breaking. I can hear the emotions and the heat, twining around each other. I want to wrap myself in them.
I grip her hips as she owns my cock and my whole damn heart. Lust slams into me, obliterating my thoughts. I can barely speak. I’m so fucking turned on. “Baby, I need to come. Let me get you there,” I warn and beg at the same time.
She looks to me, her eyes wide and filled with passion and something brand new: a new openness, like she’s letting us in further. “Don’t hold back. Stefan will finish me.”
This woman has me by the goddamned balls. I shudder and come inside her, the world going black and mind-numbingly good.
After I empty myself, she eases off me. Stefan’s ready, cock out, and then she’s taking him inside her then using his dick for her release.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, watching her reach new heights as she comes on my friend on a Zamboni.
* * *
Later, after we’ve cleaned up everything—rink, Zamboni, and ourselves—and headed for the exit, she stops at the door, looking back with affection and maybe even the start of nostalgia. “That was a bucket list item for sure.” She turns from me to him. “Or a dream come true.”
As she makes for the car, I hang back with Stefan, giving him a look that says Operation Win Her Over is working.
It’s also making me fall even more in love with her.
* * *
The next day, I invite my dad and Cora to my hockey game. Then I take them out after it for a late dinner. When she goes to the ladies’ room, he checks to make sure the coast is clear. “I’m asking her this weekend.”
“That’s great, Dad.”
I mean it this time.
I might not connect with him the way I do with my granddads. I might not love hanging out with him. I might have put up walls when I saw him hurting when I was younger. But my mom left, and he didn’t, and that has to count for something.
Mostly, though, I think I finally understand him a little more. Sometimes you’ll just risk your whole damn heart for a woman.