She plants the butt of the stick on the floor between us, the sheer fabric of her dress slipping higher over her thighs with the shift. Then she starts to move to the low beat of the music again.
My gaze rakes over her, my mind at war with the urge to haul her onto the bed and end this.
She catches the way I tense and smiles.
“What is this?” I rasp, feeling the blood rush to my dick.
She tips her head, pretending to think. “Call it…” Her mouth curves. “…a stick tease.”
I chuckle, tilting my head. “Have at it, baby.”
The blade traces the line of her thigh, catching on the hem of thatuseless dress.
The stick plants on the floor between us with a quiet tap, the curve of the blade just inside my knee.
Then she really starts moving. She uses the stick like a guide, like a line she can draw her body along. Down, slow, until she’s almost crouched, the dress taut across her hips. Up again, unhurried, spine rolling, hair slipping over one shoulder.
The shaft glides along her side, her hands sliding over tape I wrapped myself in some locker room a lifetime ago.
If someone walked in right now, they’d see her in a cover-up holding a hockey stick, more or less decently. It’s all implication. Space. The promise between motions.
But my head fills in the rest too easily.
I’ve used sticks my whole life to carve open the ice, to push past people, to get somewhere no one wanted me to be.
Watching her use one to put me on the defensive feels wrong in a good way.
She turns, back to me now, the stick tilted so it runs along the curve of her spine. She looks over her shoulder,eyes lazy with heat, and slides the shaft down until the blade rests at the back of her thigh.
My fingers tighten helplessly on the armrests.
“What’s the matter?” she asks. “You look… tense.”
“I’m fine,” I lie with a smile.
She hums in fake sympathy, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, hips rolling slow as tide.
She takes a step closer, and the blade bumps my knee. She nudges it outward with a little twist of her wrist. My leg obeys before my brain does, spreading to give her room. She does the same to the other side and suddenly I’m sitting wider, open, and she’s standing between my legs with my first NHL stick in her hands and a smug little smile on her mouth.
“Sit up,” she says.
“I am sitting,” I say.
“Properly.”
She taps my chest with the butt end. It’s not hard, but it’s not gentle either. I straighten, shoulders lifting off the back of the chair, abs tightening automatically.
Her gaze flicks down for a second, appreciative, then she schools her face back to infuriating calm.
“Such a good boy,” she murmurs.
Heat sparks deep in my groin. Fuck.
She shifts the stick again, plants it on the floor just in front of me, and wraps one hand high around the shaft. The other goes lower, closer to the blade, and she leans into it, using it as balance as she starts to move in earnest.
It’s a performance. It’s all attitude. Hips sliding, body twisting around the line of carbon fiber, dress riding up and falling back in slow waves. Sometimes she faces me, dragging her hand up the stick as she arches. Sometimes she turns away, giving me the curve of her back, the sweep of her legs.
Every time she passes the point of no return, where she could topple forward, where gravity should have her, she catches herself with the stick.
