I tried to not let it bother me when he didn’t acknowledge me at the team’s Friends and Family night last fall. I pretended not to notice when he walked past me earlier tonight during the on-ice celebrations and shook everyone else’s hand. He’s never been mean about it, but it still stings.
I’ve been operating under the assumption Brody Saunders couldn’t care less about my existence this year.
I guess I was wrong.
“I don’t hate you. This season has made it painfully obvious I’m attracted to you,” he says. “And I can’t do anything about it no matter how badly I want to.”
“What?” This is too much information to process after a couple of drinks. After his gaze shifts and he stares at me with white-hot intensity. The temperature in the room swells to unbelievably warm, and I’m a little lightheaded. “You like me?”
“I shouldn’t have told you any of that.” Brody shakes his head. “I should go.”
“Or you could stay and tell me more about the ways you would fuck me,” I blurt, emboldened by the way his eyes rake down my thighs. Hungry, aching. “If that’s what you want, you should do it.”
“It is my birthday,” he murmurs. A justification for why he should give in. The reasoning behind his decision.
“It is.”
“And I’ve been so fucking good this year.”
“I bet you have.”
Time stops.
I’m no longer breathing.
One minute, neither of us are moving. The next, I’m on top of him, straddling his thighs. Brody meets me halfway, a hand on the plane between my shoulders, the other under my ass. His fingers fan out over my backside, twisting the fabric of my skirt and giving it a tug.
“Hannah,” he growls, mouth inches away from mine. His teeth nip at my bottom lip, and warmth overtakes me. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty fucking sure,” I breathe out, lowering myself onto his lap.
He pulls back and scans my face, searching for any sign of hesitancy. When I give him a small nod, I swear he growls.
“Fuck it,” he says, losing the war with himself. A battle I’m glad to win. “I don’t give a shit anymore,” he adds, and his lips crash against mine.
FOUR
HANNAH
Brody’s mouth is heavenly.
His lips make me dizzy. Sparks of color burst behind my eyes with every swipe of his tongue, and I have to wrap my arms around his neck to anchor myself to him.
I’ve kissed a lot of people in my life, but it’s never been like this: all-consuming. Rough and possessive.Desperate.
A moan rattles out of me when I feel the strain of his hard cock through the denim of his jeans, and I needmore.
“You’ve been taunting me all night with this goddamn skirt.” His palms slip under the leather and move up my legs. He runs his fingers over my thighs, pausing when he reaches my underwear. “I couldn’t look away from you.”
His hands move, pulling my—his—sweatshirt over my head and yanking down the front of my shirt, exposing my breasts. It’s the most determined I’ve ever seen someone to get my clothes off, and I feel wanted in a way I never have before.
“Is that why you were scowling at me?” I ask, a sigh stuck in my throat when he pinches my nipple. “You looked like you had a stick up your ass.”
Brody’s laugh is a rough exhale in the crook of my neck. “I was trying not to imagine what your cunt felt like, but I couldn’thelp it,” he says, pressing his lips to the line of my throat. He sucks on my skin, leaving behind a mark. When he pulls my hair free from its ponytail, he puts the ribbon holding it together somewhere I can’t see. “Would you be tight? Would I have to work for it? Or would you take me so well because you’re as desperate for me as I am for you?”
There’s not a rational thought left in my brain, and when he leans forward, biting the soft part of my breast, I swear I see stars.
“Take my skirt off and find out.”
