Chapter 15
ELIZABETH
Weeks later
The ride from the airport had been daunting, but this wasn’t my first time in Portland. And I knew it wouldn’t be my last. Hands shaking, I tightened my grip on my purse and suitcase as I made my way down the hall and knocked on the door.
It swung open quickly, and a shirtless Atlas stood there in gray sweatpants, with wet hair and a mile-wide grin.
“You’re here.” He took me in his arms and crushed my mouth to his before I could even take a breath.
There was a wolf whistle behind me, and we pulled away so Atlas could flip the guy off.
“Brodsky, really?” he said, and then turned me around. “You’ve met Lizzie, right?”
“Hey, Elizabeth,” the very large man with broad shoulders, blonde hair, and a deep Nova Scotian accent said as he gave me a two-fingered salute. “I’m glad that you’re finally here. Atlas has been annoying as hell. Sorry for the language.”
“Okay, back to your apartment. I’ll see you in the locker room.”
“Tomorrow it is. We win.” The Portland Gliders enforcer lifted his fist to the sky and then made his way into his own apartment. Before I could even say goodbye, Atlas pulled me into his condo, and I shook my head, wondering how the hell I had gotten into this.
Oh yes, because I loved him. And he was really sexy when he played hockey.
“Practice ran late. I’m glad that Roger could pick you up, though,” he said quickly as he nearly tore off my jacket and set it on the coatrack beside the door.
I took a quick look around the now familiar apartment and smiled.
This was Atlas’s home, the place where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t on the ice or down at the arena.
It was well-furnished with masculine pieces, but not one of those modern home types where you felt like you couldn’t sit on anything.
There were photos of the Carters and Ashford Creek as well as his team members all around, and I knew that he had brought part of his other home with him everywhere he went.
This was the part of Atlas that I had missed over the years, and these past few weeks had been soothing and healing as I got to know him even deeper.
“I’m so glad that you’re here,” Atlas said, and I turned in his arms before wrapping myself around his waist.
“You’re all wet and nearly naked. I’m glad I’m here too.” I winked, and he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine.
“I showered at the practice arena, but I still felt like I smelled. I wanted to be all nice and shiny for you.”
“Sparkly indeed.” It gave me solace that Atlas could so easily walk into either one of the team showers and feel safe, considering that’s where that man had attacked him. Same with the training room.
Talk of what the trainer had done had finally died down, and of course, my name had been spread all over the news since the notorious bachelor Atlas Carter was looking to finally settle down.
We did our best to ignore it, and being in Ashford Creek helped.
I had to deal with the ribbing from my students, friends, and the town busybodies, but that was worth it.
Just being here in Atlas’s arms was worth it.
“How’s Jacob doing?” I asked.
Atlas scowled. “I’m naked with a hard-on pressed against your belly, and you’re thinking about my teammate?”
“I just want to make sure he’s okay. I know he came with you to dinner the one time you could visit, but we still worry about him.”
“He’s good. I promise.”
No matter what headline was out there, everyone did their best to make sure that Jacob was not pulled into it. The man had been just as dumbfounded as we had been. He was now an unofficial Carter, just like Will was, and we weren’t going to let anybody else hurt him.
I knew the younger player had guilt on his shoulders, but that wasn’t his to bear. Just like it wasn’t on Atlas.
Of course, he’d had to deal with not only my scolding, but his family’s because he hadn’t mentioned the threatening texts.
Just like he hadn’t mentioned when he’d been hurt the first time.
The man was going to learn that keeping secrets only hurt him in the long run, and eventually, I hoped he would get it.
Before I could let my thoughts trail down any longer, though, Atlas was on his knees, tugging on my leggings.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, and then my head fell back as he pressed his face against my bare pussy, and I groaned. “Oh. That.”
“Spread your legs for me.”
I did as he ordered, and then he gently raised his knuckle against me.
“Right here? In front of your open windows?”
“I don’t think I can wait any longer.” And then his mouth was on me, and I had my hand in his hair, the other on the chair behind me so I wouldn’t fall.
He licked, and he sucked, spreading me with two fingers before I could even catch my breath.
When he curled those fingers over that small bundle of nerves, stars burst beneath my eyelids, and my knees went weak.
I kept steady, even as Atlas held me closer, fucking me with his tongue as I rode his face.
Then Atlas was standing, and I was tugging on his sweatpants.
They pooled at his feet, and he stepped out of them before he lifted me up into his arms. When he carried me to the couch, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.
He set me down, that smirk on his face even as his cock tapped against his belly with each movement.
“I’ve waited for this.” He quickly stripped me, taking his time to lick and suck every inch of me.
He continued to tease me with two fingers as he sucked on my nipples, twisting them slightly.
And when he pressed his face down between my legs again, he sucked on his jersey number right on my inner thigh, and I arched for him.
When I turned, I was on my hands and knees, Atlas positioned behind me before slowly sliding deep inside me.
We’d groaned in unison as he paused so I could stretch to accommodate him. It had been a couple of weeks, and no amount of phone sex or sexting would ever compete with the real thing.
We went slow at first, me taking every inch of him with each measure, and then it was hard and fast, both of us trying to breathe.
He positioned us again, so he was sitting, and I rode him, his hands on my breasts, and I bounced up and down, trying to keep my rhythm.
It was hard, fast, and I couldn’t think.
All that mattered was that I had Atlas, and I wasn’t letting him go.
No matter what random commenters thought.
He didn’t care, and I didn’t either.
And when I came again, my body shook, but I kept moving, needing him to follow. He finally came, filling me, and we both sat there, holding each other as we tried to catch our breaths.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“That’s one way to say hello,” I teased, kissing up and down his neck.
“I’m glad that I stretch before games, because we haven’t even started yet.”
I looked down at him, sweat slick and already a little tired from traveling.
“What?”
“What? Did you think that we were just one and done? We still haven’t had sex on every piece of furniture in this house. There’s that surface over there that hasn’t had your ass on it.”
I shuddered. “I realize you have a cleaning service, but they don’t need to know that.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
And then he was carrying me to the bedroom, and his mouth was on me, and I couldn’t think.
We’d had stolen moments, but this time we got to focus just on each other.
When he held me in his arms, and I came again, with him sliding deep inside me, I knew he was my home.
No matter where we ended up in the future.
* * *
I was only slightly nervous, okay, very nervous. This wasn’t my first game as the girlfriend of Atlas Carter, but it was still a little scary.
Atlas would be on the ice soon, and I stood in the family area with the rest of the wives, girlfriends, and family members of those on the ice and on the team staff.
“I’m so glad that you’re here,” Danielle said as she hugged me tightly. “Reynolds has been singing your praises, mostly because Atlas is on fire.”
“Seriously, whatever you’re doing to keep him happy, keep at it,” one of the other wives said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure Atlas could do this all on his own. But I am glad that I’m here. I love hockey.”
“I’m glad that you do, because you’ll be entrenched in it for a while now,” another woman said. I was still learning all of their names, but I would get it down. After all, I had countless students’ names to learn every year, so I would make this work.
This was Atlas’s life, Atlas’s family, and just like he had gone full tilt into my life in Ashford Creek, I would do the same for him. And if he didn’t retire, and he wanted to stay in Portland, this would be my home.
It wasn’t a sacrifice, not when I had my own life and authority. I wasn’t some young girl, following the dreams of someone else and not able to realize my own. I was no longer being left behind.
And no matter what others thought, this was exactly what we both needed.
“There’s more than a few reporters out there,” a blonde woman with sky-high heels and a perfectly done-up face said as she came forward and hugged me tightly. “We’ll make sure that they don’t get near you.”
“Thank you, Hannah. Seriously.”
“Don’t worry about it. They don’t get to come near the families. One of them tried to come near my kid once, and well, they’re just lucky that I have done my best to keep the Jersey out of me after all these years,” she said with a laugh. Others joined in, and I smiled.
“You’re the first woman that Atlas has ever brought around to us, and he always spoke of you. When he spoke of town, he spoke of his friends, and people that mattered, and you were it,” Danielle said with a shrug. “We protect our people. He protects you, and we make sure that our team is healthy.”
I looked around this group of women and felt a kindred spirit. Maybe my life would’ve been a little different if I had started out like this, and I’d had years with these people at my side, but that wasn’t how it was meant to be, and that was okay.
Because this was my present, and possibly my future. I spoke to them as warmups began, and learned about their kids, their jobs, their lives, and I fit in.
There was a reason why he had left, and a reason why I let him go.
But now, right alongside him, I would fight for our future.
Because he always had, even if neither of us realized it until it was almost too late.
We were each other’s homes, and in the end, that was the lesson we had finally learned.