Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Kardok
I spent forty-eight hours satisfying Lila, and it was the best forty-eight hours of my life.
We didn’t leave the bed until noon on Saturday, and then we only went as far as the kitchen, where I made her bacon and French toast, and then—unable to help myself—laid her down on the table and ate her out.
She’d finally stopped blushing when I went down on her, thank fuck, but my princess still tasted better than anything I’d ever put in my mouth. And I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of the way her pussy squeezed me, or the soft little noises she made as she came.
At no point did either of us consider her going back to her apartment, which might sound strange.
I mean, it wasn’t like she needed a change of clothing, not when we both preferred to be naked.
Saturday night, she did put on one of my hockey jerseys while we ate the takeout pizza, but it was so big on her it was comical.
And let’s be honest; I more or less chewed it off her right after dinner, anyhow.
Yeah, that weekend was…bliss. I was fucking obsessed with making Lila Fairbanks come, and I wasn’t apologetic about where it happened. The kitchen counter? Check. Up against the front door? Check. On the living room couch? Check—twice. The shower?
Gods below, the shower.
Seeing my princess all wet and rosy and slick? I’d intended to just wash her hair, to massage some of the worries from her muscles, but damn, she’d just been so…touchable.
I’ll admit though, my favorite way to make Lila come was to spread her out on the bed, with me standing over her, watching as my cock entered that slick, sweet pussy.
I’d slide into her, inch by inch, as she writhed beneath me, knowing what was coming.
And as soon as my cock was fully seated, she’d climax, her back arching, her fingers plucking at her nipples as she moaned and spasmed.
And I’d watched, enthralled, my mouth watering.
Once her orgasm passed, sometimes I’d pull my cock out entirely and slide it in again, just so I could repeat the whole experience. I think my record was five times, before Lila begged me to fuck her properly, and I gave into my princess’s demands.
Yeah, it was a fuck of a weekend.
Sunday night we slept like the dead, and who could blame us? I woke her with my tongue on Monday morning, but as she came down from her pleasure and realized what time it was, Lila sat up with a gasp, and I realized our weekend retreat was over.
“I’m supposed to be in the office in an hour!” She began scrambling for the clothing she’d worn Friday night. “I have to get home and get changed.”
I caught her hands in mine. “I’m sorry I made you anxious, dkaar.” The endearment—something I remember my brother Korrad calling his Mate—slipped out. “Can I drive you?”
She blushed, then stretched up on her toes to kiss me. “It’s not your fault. And yes, please. I’ll call the office on the way—I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I’m a little late.”
I kissed her again before she got out of my car, and to my surprise, I didn’t feel sad. This didn’t feel like a goodbye, or the end of an incredible weekend.
No, it felt like a beginning.
Which is maybe why I was feeling so light when I made it to the ice complex to work out.
Rex Fairbanks was striding to his car, talking into his phone, with his assistant hurrying beside him.
I remembered the first time I’d seen Lila with her father, and I waved to him before I’d thought better of it.
To my surprise, Fairbanks ended his phone call and veered toward me. “You doing okay, Kardok?”
My brows were up, and I paused in the act of swinging my bag over my shoulder. “Sure.” I was more than okay, but I wasn’t going to tell Fairbanks I was wearing this grin because I’d licked his daughter’s pussy two hours ago. “How are you?”
When the older man laughed, I saw Lila in his features, and remembered her description of how he’d spoiled her.
“Another day, another dollar. I have an acquisition meeting in a half hour.” He nodded to me meaningfully.
“But Maddie’s been keeping me updated on how your routine with Lila is going.
She says the donors at the gala are going to be wowed. ”
“Oh. Um.” There’d been a moment there, when he’d said routine with Lila, that my Kteer had rumbled, thinking he suspected what I’d been doing all weekend. “Yeah. This week we’re going to start on final choreography. She says she understands enough now to know how it’ll look.”
“Good!” He was already backing away, toward where his assistant waited by the large SUV. “We’re all excited to see it, and it’s going to be great for the youth league. It’s good to have you back, son!”
So yeah, I was in a thoughtful frame of mind as I made my way to the gym.
Good to have you back.
Was Fairbanks aware how much I’d pulled back from the team after that last disastrous game? How hard it had been for me to join them again during the summer training? How ashamed I was, and how much I’d do to atone?
“Hey, Kardok, get your ass over here and spot me,” Torrk called out as soon as I entered, and I remembered what Lila had told me on Friday night: that what I’d done during that game had been normal, expected. None of the guys had seemed to blame me for it, even if I blamed myself.
Huh.
I dropped my bag and went to do as Torrk had asked. He was doing something with a resistance band that I was fairly certain wasn’t its intended use, looped around both ankles and one wrist, hopping in a pattern only he understood.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Goalie agility,” he said, without breaking rhythm.
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s absolutely a thing. I invented it.” He hopped sideways, nearly took out a weight rack, and didn’t seem to notice. “It’s called the Torrk Method. I’m going to write a book.”
“No one will read it.”
“Everyone will read it.” He pointed at me with his free hand while continuing to hop. “You look weird.”
I grabbed the bar above Torrk’s head and settled my hands. “I look normal.”
“No, you look—” He stopped hopping and squinted at me. “Happy. That’s what it is. That’s the weird thing.”
From the bench press, Dakvaar looked up briefly, assessed me, looked back down, quirked a brow, and resumed his set without comment. That look had meant that he most definitely had a thought, but wasn’t going to share it in front of everyone.
Jord came through the door at that point, still pulling his shirt on, hair going in four directions. “Sorry, sorry—” He stopped when he saw me. His face split into a grin wide enough to be dangerous. “Oh shit. Kardok got laid.”
“Get on the treadmill,” I said.
“You absolutely got laid. All weekend, looks like.” He dropped onto a bench and stared at me with the focused delight of someone who had found his entertainment for the morning. “Was it—?” He glanced around as if checking for coaches. “Was it the—?”
“Get on the treadmill, Jord.”
“It was the figure skater.” He said it with the reverence of a male announcing the answer to a very important question. “It was absolutely the figure skater.”
Dakvaar completed his set, sat up, and wiped his face with a towel. “Obviously,” he said, expression neutral. “Have you seen his eyes?”
Jord pointed at Dakvaar. “See, even he knows.”
“I’m not discussing this,” I said.
“You don’t have to discuss it,” Torrk said cheerfully, resuming his incomprehensible hopping. “Your face is discussing it. Your face is giving a whole lecture on the subject.”
Bardon came in from the hallway then, coffee in hand, and took in the scene with the expression of a captain who had been managing idiots for years and had made his peace with it. He looked at me once, looked at Jord’s grin, looked at Dakvaar, who was silently lifting again, and sat down.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Bardon said.
“You were thinking it.”
“I’m always thinking something.” He sipped his coffee. “Spot me when Torrk is done destroying himself.”
Torrk executed something that might have been a jump, might have been his version of a ninja kick, and landed in a squat. “I’m never done—that’s the secret of the Torrk Method. You have to be constantly training, ready to jump in front of flying objects at any given moment.”
“Flying pucks,” Dakvaar noted dryly, and Jord snorted in response.
“No one would give a flying puck about Torrk.”
“Better than flying ducks,” the goalie quipped.
Bardon rolled his eyes. “You all aren’t doing nearly enough sweating. Get your asses in gear.”
Torrk saluted from his squat. “Sir, yessir!”
We settled into the rhythm of it after that—the comfortable noise of the gym, weights and breathing and the occasional grunt, Torrk narrating his own exercises to no one in particular.
It was good. It was normal, and I’d missed normal more than I’d been willing to admit.
It was Jord who brought up the game, which I should have expected. The kid had no instinct for self-preservation.
“So the Crushers are on our schedule third week of the season,” he said, from the treadmill he’d only climbed on after Bardon had instructed. “First game back against them since—” He caught himself, glanced at me. “Since the playoffs.”
The gym went slightly quieter. Not silent—Dakvaar was still lifting—but quieter.
“Good,” I said.
Jord blinked. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I meant it. I’d been thinking about that game for months, turning it over, carrying it. I was ready to play them again. “We’re better this season.”
“We were good last season,” Bardon said, from the bench. His voice had that careful flatness of someone choosing their words. “One penalty in one game doesn’t change a season.”
“It changed that game.”
“It changed one shift in that game.” Bardon sat up and looked at me directly, which he didn’t do often without reason. “You know how many shifts we played that got us to the second round? You want to count them?”
I didn’t answer.