Page 107 of Offside

She was studying my face, not expectantly, just asking it. Fuck. I loved her. She was it for me and probably always had been, and fuck, I need to tell her soon.

I reached for her hand. Brought it up and pressed my mouth to her palm. “Are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded, and pulled me closer, flush against her, to kiss me. “I want this. I’m sure.” Her eyes sparkled, and she whispered, “Fuck me, Ryan. Fuck me like you missed me for nine god damn days. Show me.”

I got out of my boxer briefs and pressed my hips between her thighs and she wrapped around me, her ankles crossing at my back. Bringing my finger through her folds, I spread her wetness around the tip of my cock, then I pushed inside her slowly, until I was all the way in. The breath left my body. The heat of her, the relief of being inside her, a sound low in my chest that wasn’t quite a word coming out. I stilled for a moment, fully inside her, recognizing the weight of the moment. Her warmth enveloping around my cock was almost more than I could handle.

“Gud,” I said again, against her throat. “Jesus Christ, Maren. You feel so fucking good.” I had to grit out the words. If I didn’t exercise some restraint this would be over far too soon.

“Ryan.” Her hands flew into my hair and she grabbed the strands. “Fuck.” Her hips were bucking slightly, trying to get the friction we both wanted, and I took in a deep breath.

No condom, nothing between us, just her, gripping me—I had to press my forehead to hers and take a moment before I completely lost control and fucked her into the mattress with every bit of pent-up sexual energy I’d felt for her since the day we met. I’d never done this before, and I hadn’t understood until this exact second what it meant for us. Joining completely, bare, raw, was incredible, and I had to stop myself from saying everything I was feeling.

I moved.

I set a rhythm slower than the urgency of the hallway, deliberate, my weight on my forearms so I could see her face. She was watching me with her lips parted and her eyes dark and her hair spread across the pillow and I said her name because I couldn’t help it, and she said mine back the same way.

I dropped my mouth to her ear, ready to talk to her the way I knew she loved. My girl loved when I said filthy things to her in bed. When I let her fantasy come true, telling her how good her pussy felt. It was not fucking hardship, that’s for damn sure.

“You have no idea,” I said, low, “how many times I thought about fucking you like this. Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver. Every game, every hotel room, every time I picked up my phone.” I pulled back and drove forward hard and deep, and she gasped. “I thought about your beautiful mouth.” Thrust. “How wet your pussy is, and how it grips me perfectly.” Thrust. “I thought about these perfect nipples and how I couldn’t wait to suck on them.” Thrust. Then I took one into my mouth, circling my tongue around the peak. She moaned, and I could feel her pussy clench me tighter. Fuck. I wasn’t going to last. “I thought about how you sound when you’re close.” Another thrust and her breath caught. “I thought about exactly this. You underneath me, making those sounds, taking everything I give you.”

“Ryan—” My name came out wrecked and I knew she was close.

“Yeah.” I fucked into her deeper but kept the steady rhythm. “That’s it. You are perfect, solsken. You feel like—Gud—I can’t—” The Swedish came up without warning, three words I wasn’t saying yet in English, said against her throat in the one language I didn’t have to think in. I pressed my forehead to hers and kept moving. “You were made for me. You’re mine,” I said. “Tell me.”

“I’m yours, Ryan.” No hesitation. “I’ve been yours since September, you have no idea⁠—”

“Ja.” I pressed my thumb to her clit and she exploded around me. “Come for me.”

She came apart with her face turned into my shoulder and my name in her mouth and her whole body pulling me deeper, and I followed her over it. My forehead pressed to hers, my breath gone, endearments in Swedish and then in English and then just her name, over and over until I was coming so hard inside her I saw stars.

“Jesus Christ, Maren,” I huffed into her hair.

“Did it feel good for you too?” she asked.

Uh, how could she even ask? Whoever gave her this insecurity was a real piece of shit.

“Baby. I’ve never come so hard in my life. You are incredible,” I said before dropping my lips to hers. “Everything you fucking do is amazing.”

I got us both cleaned up, then pulled her close to me.

The ceiling fan turned. Outside, the desert held the deep stillness of two in the morning.

I rolled to my side and she came with me, her head finding my chest, my hand settling in her hair. The lamp was still on low. The jersey hung on the hanger in the open closet, number 17, my name across the shoulders. The bracelet on her wrist caught the light.

She traced the scar through my left eyebrow. She always did that.

The first time I’d had this problem in Swedish she’d been eighteen and standing at the edge of a frozen pond in the dark and I’d said, “nothing appropriate” and she’d given it back to me like she knew exactly what I meant. She had. We’d both held the line that night. I’d been holding it for nine years in various forms. Lying here with her hand on my chest in the low light, I wondered how much longer I could hold it in English.

“You need to come in first thing tomorrow morning,” she said. “That shoulder isn’t going to fix itself.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious, Ryan.”

“I know, solsken.”

A beat. Then her fingers found the scar again, gentler this time.