On the Surface (In the Zone) (14 page)

He lifted his head and said, “You sure?” He’d wanted to go down on her. He wasn’t half-bad in the oral sex department and wanted to get her off at least once before getting to the nitty-gritty, but she seemed to have other ideas.

“I’m sure.”

He cocked his head. “I was planning on a couple more hours of foreplay.”

“No.” She shoved at his shoulders, laughing and frowning at the same time. “You can do that later.”

He reached for the nightstand drawer. “But it won’t be foreplay if I do it later.”

Chuckling, he rolled on the protection and tossed the wrapper aside. She welcomed him back eagerly, opening her legs for him. Tense with anticipation, he positioned himself at her entrance.

He caught her gaze and held it as he eased inside. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was so tight and wet. He went slowly, relishing the sweet sensation of her body accepting his. He never failed to marvel at how much a woman must have to trust a man to let him into her body. No one invaded his body unless they had an ironclad medical reason.

“Tim, that feels so good,” she murmured, her eyes closed.

Her hands ran down his sides as he pulled out almost all the way, then went back inside, still slowly even though every cell in his body told him to go at her hard and fast. She rocked up to meet his hips and they said nothing, just enjoying the raw connection of their bodies. He kept his strokes long and slow to wring every bit of pleasure he could out of each one.

He couldn’t actually say he was disappointed that he hadn’t gone down on her now that he was sliding in and out of her tight pussy. Nope. He couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be because Erin was special. This wasn’t just a fuck. When he fucked a woman, wanting to make her come was a matter of pride. With Erin, his heart was somehow involved. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized it had been that way from the very beginning when he first saw her shove that scammer fan and then get pushed to the ground. Something had taken hold of him that day, something that hadn’t let go since. Was it love? Maybe. That would explain why he felt such a strong need to impress her and make her happy.

She shifted beneath him and pushed his shoulders, rolling them both until he was on his back. She hardly weighed anything, but he lay there and let her call the shots. She kept the slow tempo, and he enjoyed how she ground herself against his groin at the end of each down stroke. He slid his hands up and down her thighs and divided his attention between her face and her beautiful breasts. He loved the sight of her naked body so much he wondered if she’d abide by an all-naked-all-the-time rule in his house.

Probably not.

Needing to take control again, he put his hands on her hips, held her in place above him and started thrusting. Right off the bat, she started letting out these soft, short gasps of pleasure. She may not have been vocal during that phone-sex session, but she was far from silent now. He wasn’t going to last long if she kept that up, not without a huge effort on his part. He got off on the sounds women made. Not the fake shit in pornos. The real stuff. He thrust harder and faster for a few moments just to hear the difference in Erin’s exhalations.

That was a mistake. He was nowhere near tired, but holding back an orgasm that had been raring to go since they left the ice rink was no stroll in the park. Lucky for him he was a stubborn son of a bitch.

He kept at it, altering the speed and the power, trying to figure out what she needed to go over the edge, but she didn’t come. She did, however, reach down and press a hand to her mound.
That’s it
,
sweetheart.
Rub the shit out of that thing.
Do whatever it takes.

Closing his eyes, he clenched his jaw and tried to ignore how hot and wet she was. How tightly she gripped his cock, the buildup of friction and speed and the noises their bodies made as they came together again and again. But no matter what he did, the orgasm had gained too much momentum.

“Erin, I can’t—”

At that moment, her breath hitched. Her body went rigid and he could see her stomach muscles contract. He hoped to God she was coming, because he sure as hell was. He came so hard, it was a miracle his heart didn’t go out.
Fuck
,
fuck
,
fuck
. He didn’t stop moving, though. As her head fell back, a series of rhythmic throaty cries escaped her lips. She planted her hand on his chest and ground her pussy against him, panting so hard it ruffled his chest hair.

Eventually, she slumped forward, limp. They lay still for a long while, allowing their hearts and breathing to slow. He could have stayed like that forever with her sated and drowsy on top of him.

Chapter Twenty

A week later, ensconced in one of Vic’s limos, Erin and Claire traveled in style to the Barracudas preseason game versus the Kings at the Staples Center in L.A. Neither had ever attended a hockey game before. Tim had requested they arrive early so they could watch the players warm up.

Somewhere along the way, Erin got the feeling that Claire had decided Tim would make an ideal brother-in-law. Perhaps because she said, “You need to marry this man,” before they’d even pulled away from the curb.

That directive preceded a twenty-minute oral dissertation on what made Tim a great guy, peppered with anecdotes from the time he and Claire spent together decorating his place. He had exquisite taste. He was rich. He was kind and considerate, honest and appreciative—all qualities Erin had already seen. Then Claire started in with the questions.

“How long have you been dating?”

“What do you think of him?”

“Are you exclusive yet?”

“Does he want kids?”

And all those questions came rapid-fire as if Claire were a matchmaking interrogator.

“Claire, seriously. Give me a break. Are you on drugs?”

“No, I’m not on drugs. I just don’t want you to let this one get away. He’s the whole package. I haven’t seen him naked, but he’s an athlete.” She tucked her leg underneath her. “And I have a good imagination.”

Erin frowned. She didn’t think Claire knew they’d slept together already, but there was no way she was going to tell her that now. She probably already had a list of wedding planners lined up. If she knew they’d been to bed together, she’d be on the phone ordering invitations.

“First of all,” Erin said, “I find it highly disturbing that you’ve imagined Tim naked.”

“I only pictured him from the waist up,” Claire protested. At Erin’s skeptical expression, she added, “I swear!”

“And—” Erin went on without much of a pause, “—I don’t really want or need you to push me down the bridal path. I do want to get married. I do want to find a good husband, and whether or not that’s Tim remains to be seen.”

“That’s fine,” Claire said, “but you need to be realistic. There are hundreds of women out there who would love to trade places with you and can probably talk shop with him. You can’t. I think going to this game is a step in the right direction, but I still got you this.”

Claire pulled a book out from her giant purse.

“
Hockey for Dummies
.” Erin made a face. “Gee, thanks.”

“You should read it. I’m serious.”

“I know. I’m serious too. I will read it, but you need to back off. Do not under any circumstances utter the words ‘wedding,’ ‘marriage,’ ‘proposal,’ or ‘nuptials’ in his presence. Do not even talk about how perfect the weather is in June.”

“I wouldn’t even say the word ‘nuptials’ out of his presence. Who says nuptials?”

Erin stared at her.

“Okay, okay. I get the message. I’ll be good.”

They spent the rest of the car ride perusing the book, familiarizing themselves with the rules of the game. Surprisingly, Erin found the book very enlightening. By the time they arrived at the Staples Center she understood the fundamentals.

Tim had given them tickets to a private box. Claire had been to the Staples Center before with Vic, who liked the Lakers, but not often enough to know her way around. They made good use of the ushers and found their box without too much trouble.

The box was slick and sophisticated. Wood, brushed chrome, plush carpeting. It had a wet bar, a buffet that Tim had told them would be covered with a wide variety of food, and a TV, which Erin found to be superfluous. Who watched TV while at a live sporting event? There were plenty of places to sit: a soft leather couch and chairs inside and four rows of stadium seating, overlooking the ice rink.

They were just admiring the view of the ice and the players skating around, when James Atwater arrived.

“What do you think?” he asked after introductions had been made.

“It’s wonderful,” Erin said. “Claire and I really appreciate it.”

“This is for you too.” He held out a cardboard tube. “Tim said it was for Luke, the heart-transplant kid. Every player on the team signed it.”

The poster from Luke’s room. Erin hugged it to her chest. “This is going to mean the world to him.”

Claire looked at her with curiosity and after Erin’s explanation, she communicated her entire Marry Tim Now campaign platform with a tilt of the head and one raised eyebrow. Erin vowed at that moment not to let Tammy and Claire in the same room together.

“Did you want to go down to the ice and see Tim?” Atwater peered down and pointed to a large entrance to the ice on the other side of the arena. A cluster of people hung over the railing, waving items for Tim to autograph. He wore his silver-and-blue-on-white Barracuda jersey and she could only just make out his name across the shoulders. “That’s him there with some fans. He should be done by the time we get down there.”

“Oh, I see him!” Claire exclaimed and waved, as if she had a chance of getting his attention.

The arena was nowhere near full yet. Only the diehard fans came this early. Erin felt nerdy wearing
the
shirt, the one Tim sent her when she was in San Francisco, and not just because those in Kings garb outnumbered those with Barracuda colors. She had never been the type of person who got behind sports teams, let alone wore stuff that advertised the fact. Claire, on the other hand, even though she’d barely heard of the Barracudas before, had made a special trip to the Mesa Arena and bought herself a V-neck baby-blue Barracuda shirt studded with crystals, a smart little backpack purse with the ferocious fishy logo, and yoga pants that said “Beware of Barracuda” on the ass. Erin decided that her shirt ranked much lower on the nerdy scale than her sister’s outfit.

As they drew close to the ice (where the Zamboni machine entered and exited, she found out from Atwater), Erin got more and more excited. He looked up from the small group of people crowding him and his expression softened. Oh God. Her heart spun around, teetered and fell over with a giddy smile. The autograph seekers turned to see what had caught his attention. Most of the fans were men and boys. One woman was dressed in head-to-toe Barracuda clothing and had even painted her face with the team colors.

By then Claire was nudging Erin toward him none too gently.

“Go on,” she whispered.

People gave way as Erin walked forward, and Tim had eyes only for her.

“Come here, you,” he said.

She went down the last few stairs to the railing. He looked...perfect. Decked out in his pristine dark blue-and-silver uniform with the Barracuda logo, he looked every inch the professional athlete. Although she’d known it all along, somehow the sight of him, battle ready, hit home. With all the protective pads and the extra few inches in height his skates gave him, he looked like a giant. He looked both intimidating and humble. And happy. Maybe even as happy as she was.

“Hi,” she said, feeling shy. She usually didn’t mind public displays of affection in the form of a hello kiss, but this would be a public display of affection with an honest-to-God public figure, something entirely new to her. Maybe she should have already thought about it, but she hadn’t.

“You made it,” he said.

“We did. Say hi to Claire.”

“Hi, Claire,” he said, waving but keeping his eyes locked on hers. “Did Atwater do right by you?”

“Yes, we got a beautiful box up there.” Erin turned and pointed in the general direction of their seats.

“I have a favor to ask you,” he said in a low voice. “I was wondering if you could kiss my stick.”

Oh, the innuendo in that statement. She suppressed her smile, not quite succeeding. Claire snickered behind her.

“This stick.” He held up his hockey stick. “It’s for luck. I used to kiss it myself, but I’m throwing out all my old routines.”

“I would love to kiss your stick.” She puckered up and kissed the stick. Some of those fans snapped pictures of it.

“And here’s something for you.” He pulled something out from under his jersey, a Barracuda hat.

“I already have a team hat,” she said.

“That was a white one. This is a blue one, for home games.” More fans held up their phones and snapped pictures as Tim put the hat on her head. It was still warm from being so close to his body.

“Now,” he said, “if a anyone gets a hat trick—”

“That’s three goals by one player,” she interjected.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’re exactly right. If anyone scores three times tonight and people start throwing their hats on the ice, don’t join in. I wrote something special on that hat.”

She heard some oohs and ahs from the onlookers. “Okay. I won’t.”

As he signed a few last autographs, she took the hat off and examined it. He’d signed it on the underside of the brim,
To Erin
,
my dream girl
,
then
,
now and always.

She blushed as she remembered waking up with his hand on her ass and him telling her she was messing up his dream. That confirmed it. He’d been dreaming about her that morning. Her eyes immediately sought his, which were dancing with amusement. He put his gloves back on and skated away backward, smiling and saluting her with his stick.

* * *

Tim returned to the dressing room, fired up and ready to rock. Every molecule in his body felt electrified. New season. New team. New gear. New everything. Anything was possible, even a third Cup win. And with absolutely no rituals to follow, he felt freer than he had in a long, long time. He had a virtually clean slate and he fucking loved that feeling.

But really, all that fell by the wayside because what really mattered to him tonight, what had him raring to go was the fact that his woman was here to watch him. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted to be able to talk to her later about what had happened and how he’d done. He wanted most of all for her to fall in love with the game of hockey. He had always thought he’d be okay with a woman who wasn’t that interested in his profession. He’d reasoned that surely there were lawyers and accountants, bricklayers and electricians whose wives didn’t give a shit about what they did at work. But the truth was, having hockey in common meant a lot. Hockey was in his DNA, and even when he retired as a player any year now, hockey would be a big part of his life. He hoped to continue with the NHL in some capacity, coaching, scouting, managing...whatever. Something.

If Erin decided she hated hockey, he’d have a difficult decision to make because he had fallen hard for her, so hard, he might never get back up. He actually suspected he might be down for the count. Not that he minded.

“Listen up, guys.” Jason stood in front of his stall.

Conversation died down. Someone turned off the music.

Jason launched into a pep talk that was one part advice, one part encouragement, one part drill sergeant. As pre-game speeches went, Tim deemed it pretty good. The team seemed to respect their new captain. Jason hadn’t held back anything during training camp. He understood if he expected his team to give everything they had and then some, he had to step up to the plate himself. And yet, Tim missed the Jason he used to know. The guy who didn’t walk around like he had a stick up his ass, the guy who smiled easily and joked around, the guy who had fun on the ice, even during the play-offs. If Jason didn’t loosen up and get comfortable with his leadership role, he was going to blow and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

* * *

Erin had the absolute best time of her life, from the minute the Barracudas took the ice until the horn blew at the end. She’d never been so excited at a sporting event. She’d been to the odd baseball game with her dad and thought it was the most boring sport ever invented. All those warm-ups, the waiting for the pitcher to decide to throw the ball... It seemed to her that the majority of the exercise the players got was jogging to and from the dugout between innings. The rest of the time they were sitting, standing around, scratching or spitting.

Football was equally yawn-worthy. It was exciting when someone took off with the ball and managed to elude all his pursuers to make it all the way to the end zone, but again that was only once in a while. Most of the time, they were waiting for the players to form up in those lines or decide what they were going to do, and when they fell all over each other in a giant pile, like the ball was a land mine and they had to save the spectators from certain death, she thought it was plain stupid.

But hockey was different. Thanks to Claire’s book, she had a general idea of how the game worked. Boiled down, a puck in the opponent’s net was a point. There were no field goals, no safeties. The only boring part was between the three periods when the giant Zamboni truck came out to smooth the ice. Other than that, the game was nonstop action, especially during power plays when a player was put into the penalty box and his team played one man short for a little while.

But the best part was seeing Tim score.

He shot that puck into the net in the first period. She and Claire leaped up and screamed as the horn blew and that crazy red light flashed above the opponents’ net. The players nearby congratulated him with helmet or fist bumps. He didn’t even have both skates on the ice when he did it. Erin felt so proud of him she thought she might burst.

Then a few minutes later, he did it again. She and Claire screamed even louder.

The Barracudas held that lead until the second period. Then a Kings forward got one past the Barracuda goalie and it was L.A.’s turn to go wild. A Barracuda got thrown in the penalty box and during the power play, the Kings got another one to tie the score. During the break before the last period in the game, Claire and Erin discussed the situation.

“So, what happens if no one scores in the third period? Is it a tie?”

They had to look it up in the book.

“No, it’s sudden-death overtime,” Claire read.

“Sounds serious.”

They giggled.

“Sudden death is five minutes long. Whoever scores first wins.”

“What if no one scores?”