“Well I don’t think it was just me—” I said.
“Of course it was just you,” Todd interrupted. “You’ve brought him back and for that I will always be grateful.” He pressed his lips together. “I missed you, Raven, when you were so down. It’s hard to see someone you…care about in that state.”
“Yeah, well, you were always lurking around, Todd.”
“Raven,” I said, shocked.
He grinned. “And for that
I’m
grateful, because without the pair of you I wouldn’t be feeling like this today.”
“And how is that?” I asked, a delicious warmth spreading in my belly as he pulled me even closer.
“Happy, optimistic, looking forward to the future.” He touched the tip of his finger to my cheek. “And in love with a beautiful, talented, sexy woman that seems to actually love me right back.”
Chapter Thirteen
Six weeks later
“Raven, breakfast,” I called through the screen doors.
He was swimming lengths. He’d calculated how many he needed to do to complete a mile a day. So far his leg was the best it had been in a long time and his shoulder completely back to normal. He’d even done several gentle practices on the ice in preparation for getting back into it full-time.
He reached the end of the pool and flicked his head to shake hair from his face. “Yep, just finished.”
I paused, even though the eggs needed my attention, and watched every defined muscle in his back and arms tense as he burst upward out of the water and got to his feet.
He reached for a towel and I dashed back to the stove. Stirred the eggs and re-whisked the hollandaise sauce. My newfound domesticity in Orlando suited me very well, though I guess the sexy company and the lack of work pressures helped. But it couldn’t last forever.
I wasn’t an American and I had bills back in the UK to pay while I was here living it up as a hockey-star’s girl. Soon reality would have to be faced, as would an Atlantic plane journey. And if Raven couldn’t cope with the distance between New York and Orlando when it came to a romance, would he even try a US-UK relationship?
The coffee machine clicked in readiness and my heart dropped at the thought of not being in this kitchen, eating breakfast with Raven, lunch and dinner too. Then curling up in his bed every night, having him touch me, hold me, kiss me. Making me feel like the most special woman on the planet. What would that would be like? To be apart after all this time together.
It didn’t bear thinking about. I’d become entrenched in his life, it was like a long wonderful holiday. I even had friends now who were fun to hang out with. Carly, Dana and Brooke had readily accepted that I was with Raven. Carly had even gone so far as giving me a hug and saying that she was glad I’d be sticking around. What she meant was if I’d stuck with Todd he would have moved on by now and so would I.
And Todd
had
moved on. In his last call from New York, he said he was seeing someone—though he was rather cagey about details. But we were meeting up with him soon and he promised we would meet the new woman in his life then. If he was still with her that was.
“Mmm, looks good,” Raven said behind me.
I turned, holding the whisk in the air, and smiled.
Mmm, you look good.
He’d pulled his hair back and it shone with water. His skin was damp, a trickle left his jawline, traveled down his neck and onto his dark tattoo. He rubbed his towel over his chest, gathering up the sparkling drops of water, then rubbed down the tempting dark line of hair that led to the waistband of his swim shorts.
“What?” he asked, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes.
I grinned and flicked off the stove. Walked over to him, whisk still held aloft. “I was thinking how much I enjoyed being here, cooking, swimming, hanging out and then you walked in and I realized it’s not being
here
I like, it’s being with you.”
“Ah Pumpkin,” he smiled down at me, “you say the sweetest things.” Hooking the crook of his index finger beneath my chin, he tilted my head and kissed me gently but deeply.
At the slight taste of chlorine mixed with his unique, dark flavor, my body came to life. Despite the fact he was damp, heat radiated from him onto my bikini-clad skin.
In an instant the kiss grew hotter. It was when I leaned forward and my breasts skimmed his chest it happened. Suddenly his tongue was more insistent, the towel fell to the floor and his arms wrapped around me, tugging me close. Breakfast would have to wait—I was hungry for something else and it seemed he was too.
I sucked in a breath, his breath, and looped my arms behind his neck. Adoring the feel of his skin on my arms and his hair beneath my hands but being careful not to touch the sticky whisk to his head.
“Oh fuck, why is it I can’t seem to help myself when you’re around?” he asked, spreading kisses over my cheek and down my neck.
Fluttering butterflies of sensation washed over my scalp and my pussy gave a tremor of excitement. “It’s okay, because I can’t help myself either.” I reached down and deftly slipped my fingers beneath the waistband of his wet swim shorts. The hot tip of his cock was waiting. I brushed over the smooth head then grasped his shaft.
He groaned and found my mouth again. I treated him to a few firm push-pulls, which drew him to full hardness—blood racing to his cock in response to my touch. The contrast between hot, hard flesh and the cooling, damp shorts was divine.
One swift tug and I was in the air, forced to remove my hands from his shorts in order to grip him for balance. The whisk clattered messily to the floor, forgotten.
“You’re a bad influence on a poor, starving hockey player,” he murmured, stepping toward a chair and sitting down.
“Yeah, you’re positively wasting away.” I ran my hands over the impressive width of his back and balanced the tips of my toes on the floor. I was straddling his lap, my crotch pressing into his cock. “You better put me down and go eat.”
“Hell, if the best chef in the world walked into the room now and offered to prepare me a twelve-course breakfast I’d tell him to fuck right off. There’s something else I have to do first.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“This.” He suddenly tipped me backward, spread his hands over my shoulders and latched on to my breast through my bikini top.
I gasped as he gripped the top with his teeth and yanked it to the side. He captured my nipple, sucking it hard and deep. Lust raged through me; his mouth on any part of my body was like having an electric shock, but a good one, one that whizzed pleasure to my nerves and shot desire to my groin.
Pulling aside the material covering my other breast, I offered that nipple. He took it eagerly, swirling his tongue over the taut peak before pulling it in.
I tipped my head to the ceiling, shut my eyes and reveled in being adored by him. I had to take what I could while I could and was determined to remember every touch and every kiss and store them for when I was missing him. Which would be soon.
“You taste peachy today,” he whispered.
“New shower gel,” I managed, tugging his hair from its ponytail. I loved it hanging around his face and shoulders when we made love. It was so silky soft and never seemed to tangle. It was a curtain of luxury to lose myself in.
Cradling the back of my skull, he urged me to face him again. His moist lips were curled in a sinful grin. “Great choice of swimwear,” he said, running ran his hands down my body.
I was aware of a slight tug at my hips, glanced down and remembered these particular bikini bottoms were held in place with bows. He was pulling them, both at the same time. With no effort at all, the scrap of material became a loose bit of cloth.
“Perfect,” he said, sliding it from beneath me and dropping it to the floor.
The hardness beneath my crotch was increasing by the second as was my need to feel him filling me. I shifted my weight onto one foot and he tugged his cock from his shorts, shoving them down his legs and onto the floor.
“Sit on me, Pumpkin,” he said huskily, holding his cock upright. “Sit on me and ride me.”
Oh, what an invitation.
My pussy was already wet for him and, spreading my hands on his shoulders, I re-straddled him and watched as his glans disappeared between my legs.
A whimper escaped my lips as the first inch of him pressed in—partly pleasure, partly an erotic stitch of discomfort. I would miss this so damn much when I went back to Wales. Not having Raven inside me would be like losing a limb. I would never fill the emptiness or replace the sensation.
“Fuck, yeah, you hug my dick so tight,” he said, urging me lower.
My juices were flowing fast now, coating his heated shaft, easing his way. We had dispensed with condoms a week ago. A quick trip to the clinic had sorted out the necessaries, and now every time we made love the experience of flesh on flesh was wondrous and new all over again. It had been many years since I’d gone without a condom and it certainly hadn’t been as exquisite or beautiful as it was with Raven.
“That’s it, all the way,” he murmured onto my neck.
My pussy was trembling as I reached fullness, my breaths coming fast and irregular. But still he kept on forcing me down. I shut my eyes, I wanted it. I wanted it all.
“Oh, oh, that’s it,” I gasped, feeling my butt cheeks hit his thighs and my clit come into contact with his hard pubis. He was nudging my cervix, the experience of which always gave me a dense, right-up-to-my-throat feeling.
He dug his fingers into my butt cheeks and set me on a rocking, riding motion.
My clit was ground against him and a greedy, pressure-hungry sensation captured me, spreading its needy fingers throughout the rest of my pelvis, the rest of my body. My heart was jackhammering and I gripped his shoulders, needing his solidity to keep me in one piece.
“Why haven’t we done it like this before?” he asked, his hot, jagged breaths breezing over my cheek. “On a chair, it’s fucking awesome.”
“Yes, yes,” I managed, picking up the pace. I wanted to do it in every position, in every room, in every way with him before I had to leave—because goodness only knew when I’d want to have sex with anyone again who wasn’t him.
“You feel amazing,” he said, nipping at the taut tendons in my neck. “And you look it too, when you’re wild and full of me.” He pulled back and stared down at my jiggling breasts. “Go faster, make me come at the same time as you.”
My clit was getting ready to explode, the pressure within it reaching boiling point. I didn’t think he was too far off either. I’d learned that the very base of his shaft swelled just before his climax, and if he was buried deep within me this produced a sexy nipping sensation in the already taut, overstretched flesh at the opening of my pussy. I’d come to love that sensation, and now, as soon as I felt it, I wanted to come myself.
It was there, that erotic sting. His breaths were loud, a groan or hiss accompanying each one.
“Raven, Raven, I’m coming…”
“Thank fuck,” he said, holding my body tight against his and giving an almost violent upward surge of his hips.
I was over the edge, falling, spiraling through bliss. Every wild spasm of my pussy around his pulsating cock seemed to send me higher, pull me into new portals of sugar-coated heaven. The wet warmth spurting into me heated my soul.
A single tear squeezed from my eye.
I can’t live without this.
“Hey, Pumpkin,” he gasped, clutching my cheeks in his hands. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I managed, jerking my hips forward, drawing out every last drip of pleasure from my climax.
“There is. What is it?”
“I, I just am going to miss you, when I have to go back.”
His lips went into a tight line and he sucked in a breath.
I slowed my rocking and allowed him to tuck my head under his chin. His back was laced with sweat and his gorgeous, post-sex smell wrapped around me, filling my nostrils and my lungs.
“We need to have breakfast and get going,” he said, pushing my wild ringlets from my face and kissing the top of my head.
“Where? I thought we were staying in today.”
“Oh no, we’re going to the rink.”
“The rink?”
“Yeah, I’m going to teach you to skate.”
* * * * *
I stared at the zigzag pattern on my woolen gloves as I clung to the panel around the Vipers’ home rink. Who the hell had made ice so damn slippery?
My feet felt as though they were on glass. Hard, cold, moving glass. The blades on my boots were the most ridiculous things I’d ever stood on. My left foot seemed determined to go forward, my right intent on traveling backward. I shoved my butt in the air and attempted a slight sideways movement, all the time gripping desperately.
“Hey, come on. It’s not that difficult,” Raven said, effortlessly skimming from one side of me to the other. “Just relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said on a gulp. How the hell could anyone stand on this stuff, let alone move?
Suddenly big arms were around my waist, pulling me backward, away from the safety of the perimeter. “Hey, no, get off. This isn’t funny,” I shouted.
“Sure it is.”
My back hit his chest and, although my feet sped off in different directions, he held me tight and secure and thankfully upright.
I grasped his arms. “Raven, really, I can’t do this. I’ve never been any good at balancing. They threw me out of the school gymnastic team because I fell over just looking at the beam.”
He chuckled in my ear. “I’ve seen you balance perfectly well on top of me.”
Banging my fist on his arm, I said, “Seriously, take me over there, to the side.”
“Nope.”
He was still skating backward and taking me with him, faster and faster.
“Just go with the flow,” he said, effortlessly spinning me in his arms so I was facing him. I gripped the fleecy red Viper top he wore and whimpered in terror.