Page 30 of Blueline Baby

“Okay,” she says softly. “Keep going.”

I ease the rest of the way in. I have to drop my head against her neck and just breathe, because she feels unreal and I’m a hundred kinds of not going to last. I lean in to kiss her and accidentally bump her nose with mine, and we both crack up, entirely breathless.

Then she wraps her legs around me. Her heels dig into my ass, pulling me deeper, and she finds the rhythm with me.

Within moments she’s panting, gasping my name against my jaw. She’s so tight around me there’s nothing left of whatever control I walked in here with. I can feel it building and building, and I know I’m done.

She turns her head and catches my mouth with hers. “Please,” she whispers. “Please, come.”

I’ve never been begged for anything in my life. Not once. Every smooth thing I’ve ever known how to do just completely leaves my head. There’s no move, no angle, no line. There’s just her, me, and how much I don’t want this to stop.

And that’s what does it. Her, asking me for it, like I’m something she actually needs.

I bury my face in her neck and let go. It goes through me so hard my arms physically shake where they’re braced over her. I groan her name into her shoulder like it’s the only word I’ve got left. For a few seconds there’s absolutely nothing but my own heartbeat and her hands moving softly across my back, holding me through it.

When I finally lift my head, she’s watching me with a smug little look on her face. I drop my forehead to hers and huff out a laugh. Because I don’t know what the hell that just was. Except it was probably the best, most intensely physical thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

Afterward, I get rid of the condom and come back to find her sprawled in the middle of my bed exactly where I left her. I drop down next to her, pulling her into me. She rests her cheek flat on my chest, one leg thrown over mine. For a while we just lie there. I have never in my life felt anything like the quiet I feel right now.

“So,” she says, speaking into my chest.

“So.”

“That was—” She stops, and I feel her smile against my skin. “I’m going to give you a complex if I finish that sentence.”

“Too late. I heard the tone. That was a rave review.”

“It was fine.”

“'Stop stalling and get inside me, Jack,'” I quote back at her, in a genuinely unflattering impression.

She groans, hits me in the chest, and hides her face. I catch her hand and hold it over my heart, laughing.

She’s almost asleep, I can feel her breathing slowing down and I lie there wide awake with my hand still over hers, terrified and certain in exactly equal measure. Nothing I’ve ever done has ever felt like this. I bury my nose in her hair and don’t say the thing I’m thinking. Not yet. But I think it loud enough that it scares me a little.

Then I close my eyes. For the first time in longer than I can remember, there’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be.

16

CHLOE

USE ME CHLOE

I’m incredibly grateful that I wake up before he does. If I had spent our entire first night together sleeping with my mouth open, or drooling on his pillow, or doing literally anything else I can’t control while unconscious, at least now I have time to destroy the evidence before he sees it.

He’s asleep on his stomach with one heavy arm is thrown across my side of the bed. I watch him just long enough to be absolutely sure he’s out, and then I carefully peel the covers back and slide out of bed.

I shut the bathroom door as softly as I can before fixing what I can actually fix. Finger-comb my hair. Finger-brush my teeth. Wipe as much of the smeared mascara away from under my eyes as possible. I stand there staring at the mirror for a second, trying to feel as normal as a person can possibly feel after sleeping with a professional hockey player.

I fail entirely.

When I come back into the bedroom, he’s awake, propped up on one elbow, watching me.

“You talk in your sleep,” he says.

“I do not.”

“You do. You asked to see my Stanley Cup.”