Lake
She smiles up at me, butterfly piercing in her nose twinkling from the lights overhead.
Steve’s body is a wriggly, furry mass in my arms.
“Hey,” she says. “How was practice?”
Shit.
Coach was in a fucking mood, not satisfied with anything we were doing, pissed off in general, and so he worked us hard.
Which meant our A to Z beforehand was dumb because Leo, Riggs, Knox, and I were slower than normal.
Did the rest of the team pick it up to compensate for that?
Nope.
They matched us—only it wasn’t because they were maxed out. It was because they are lazy as fuck.
Which meant we got our asses handed to us and then a dressing down afterward for our trouble.
Fun times as a pro hockey player.
But all of that tension disappears when I walk into my bedroom, when I see Nova in my bed.
When I see the tiny demon, get that kiss on my cheek.
Nova’s brows pull together as she tosses back the blankets, her laptop and the movie on the TV forgotten. Then she’s moving toward me, stepping close—albeit careful of squashing Steve between us. Her hand comes to my jaw, and she runs her fingers through the stubble on my cheeks. “Practice was that bad, huh?”
My heart does that thing—the squeezing, the pulsing, the perking up and paying attention to this woman. “It was fine,” I say, brushing it off, brushing off her concern. “It’s not all rainbows and puppy dogs—”
“Woof!”
I grin, and pat Steve on the head, then look back at her. “Sometimes it’s not rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes it sucks.”
Her face gentles. “I’m sorry today sucked.”
I didn’t say that—at least not explicitly. But she gets it anyway.
My heart.
Fuck, I like her.
Fear coils along my spine, but I push it down. I’m not a fucking coward. I strap blades to my feet and hit people for a living. I can take a chance with a beautiful woman who looks at me like that, who’s not like my mom, not like Olivia, not—
Enough.
Running my finger along her bottom lip, I say, “I know something that will make it better.”
Her mouth curves as her hand slides down between us. “Oh? What might that be?”
Exactly where her hand is heading.
I steal a kiss—make it hot and wet and short because then I’m turning for the bathroom, setting Steve inside. He huffs out a sigh and immediately goes to his bed, even before I reach for the doorknob, having been in this position enough times over the last days to know his place.
Good pooch.
I grin, turn back.
And immediately, my cock goes hard.
Nova has pushed down her pants, tugged off her loose sweatshirt, leaving her in a flimsy bra and barely-there panties.
Her breasts—fuck, they’re my favorite thing in the whole world.
Or maybe that’s her ass, I think as she turns around, scooping up her clothes.
Okay, fine. It’s all of her—tits to ass to thighs to hair cascading down her naked back.
Her eyes. Her lips. Her gentle expression when she apologized for my shit day.
The scorching look she gives me right now.
I take a step toward her—
My cell rings.
“Fuck,” I mutter, digging into my pocket, rejecting the call.
Taking another step toward her.
It immediately starts ringing again.
I yank it out, glance at the screen. My fucking mother—and I seriously don’t have patience for this shit. I reject it a second time.
Take one more step.
Ring!
Nova is watching me, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip. “Maybe you should take that?”
I reject it a third time.
Ring! Ring!
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Sorry, butterfly. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Take your time,” she whispers.
But I don’t miss the wide eyes, the concerned expression—concerned for me. Then I’m walking from the room, swiping at the screen, lifting my phone to my ear.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” my mother shrieks, practically loud enough to blow out my eardrums.
Jesus.
I pull my cell away. “Tell you what?”
“That you almost died!” she wails.
Did I miss something?
“What are you talking about?” I say. “I’m fine. I didn’t even play tonight.” No hits for her to worry about. No sticks or skates flying for my face.
“You were snowed in!”
My temples are throbbing, and I close my eyes, hang my head. She’s calling about Snowmaggedon…after Snowmaggedon is over. Why is that so fucking typical?
I inhale, shake my head, and let it out. “The roads are clear and we got dumped on, but it was just a little snow—”
“A little! I just saw a report on the news and they said you got a full season’s snowfall over a few days! That’s not a little! Oh my God, did your power go out?”
“No—”
“What if your power went out? You could have frozen to death. My baby boy, freezing to death in that empty house of his, all the way across the country from me.”
“I have a generator—”
“And what if your generator broke?” she moans. “Then you could have died!”
Fucking hell.
“I’m fine. I had practice today—”
“You drove on those roads?” Another wail that has me sighing, leaning back against the wall. “That’s so dangerous. My baby…”
I slowly sink down to the floor, head coming to my knees, and sigh as I let her ramble on about avalanches and dangerous tree limbs and downed powerlines and my well-being.
While not actually asking about my well-being.
Because that’s not her way.
She just keeps going and continues dropping the mantle of her emotions onto my shoulders, and I keep sitting there, accepting it, accepting the drama and hormones and her drawing on my emotional well until it’s empty.
Accepting that this is reality.
Knowing that what I told the guys about wanting to keep Nova was insanity. Or orgasms talking. Or gangrene from the tiny demon’s bite.
Yeah, I like Nova.
She’s a cool chick.
She’s a great lay.
But that’s all it’ll be.
That’s all it will ever be.