Rachel Gibson: True Love and Other Disasters

There was a knock on the door and she tossed the remote on the couch. She expected to see Jules, but wasn’t all that surprised that Ty stood on the other side.

“Who is it?” she called out as she stared at him through the peephole.

He raised a brow and folded his arms across his chest.

She was irritated with him. Maybe irrationally so, but she was still annoyed and didn’t feel like letting him in right away.

“I know you’re staring at me. You might as well open up,” he said.

“What?” she asked as she opened the door.

Instead of answering, he stepped inside and forced her to move backward.

“I’m tired and not-” His mouth on her stopped her flow of words as he brought his hands to the sides of her face. The door shut behind him with a soft click, and his thumbs brushed her cheeks. His lips slid over hers with the promise of passion rather than a full-out kiss.

“No skating with Sam,” he said against her lips. “I’ll teach you.”

She hadn’t been serious about learning to skate. “I don’t want to fall and hurt myself.”

“I won’t let that happen. And the next time you need a whole-body massage,” he said as he kissed the corner of her mouth, “call me.”

She almost smiled. “How? When you’re so good at pretending I don’t even exist.”

He brushed his lips across hers. “I should get an award for that.”

She put her hands on his chest and pushed. “You could at least say hello.”

“No, I couldn’t.” He dropped his hands and leaned his back against the door. “I can’t risk it.”

Faith moved across the room and turned off the television. “What does that mean?”

“It means that when I look at you, I’m afraid everyone within ten miles can see that I have sex with you.”

She tossed the remote on the table. “Oh.”

“And it means,” he continued as he moved toward her, “that I’m afraid everyone within ten miles can see that I’m remembering the last time I saw you naked. That I got a little rough with you and I wish I was truly sorry about that, but it was so good I’m not. Every time with you is good, and I’m afraid that anyone within ten miles will look at me and know I’m thinking about how to get you naked again.”

She bit the side of her lip. All he had to do was show up and she’d be more than willing to get naked. “You took a big risk in coming here.”

He reached for her hands and brushed his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. “Everyone is still in the restaurant. Besides, none of us are on this floor.” He pulled her toward him. “So you got the muffin.”

“You sent me the muffin?”

“Can’t have you wasting away on bran and Promise spread. I need you full of energy.”

She owned a penthouse in downtown Seattle and an elite hockey team. She had more money than she knew what to do with, yet she couldn’t help smiling like a fool over a two-dollar muffin. “Thank you.”

He reached for the frog buttons closing her dress. “I have an ulterior motive.”

Faith reached up and pulled the jade sticks from her hair. “Shocking.”

“Monday, I played some of the best hockey of my life. I’m not usually superstitious, but I gotta believe it had something to do with the night before.”

She tossed the sticks on the table and her hair fell down her back.

“You have to have lucky sex with me before each game or I could be jinxed.” He popped the buttons closing the dress over her breasts. “I know you want to do the right thing.”

“Take one for the team?” She pulled the tails of his shirt from his waistband.

“It’s your turn.”

“Yeah, but what if…” she raised one hand. “And I’m not saying this is going to happen, but what if we have sex and you lose? Then you’re not lucky.”

He looked up from the frog buttons as if he hadn’t thought of that. “Honey, having sex with you makes me one lucky son of a bitch.”

“Thank you. I think.”

He shrugged and continued with the buttons. “If we lose, it just means that someone else on the team fucked up. Not our fault. We did our part.”

She laughed. “And we have to do ‘our part’ before each game?”

He nodded. “At least once.” He pushed the dress down her arms and it pooled at her feet.

She pushed at his chest as she took a step back and kicked her dress aside. “Don’t go anywhere.” Wearing nothing but her black lace bra, matching thong, and red Valentino pumps, she left the room, only to return a moment later with an armless vanity chair. She set it in the middle of the room and said, “Sit down, Mr. Savage.”

“What are you planning?”

“My part to make sure the captain of my hockey team isn’t jinxed.” She walked to the sound system and tuned the radio to a hard rock station. A perennial favorite of every strip club across the country poured from the speakers. Faith had danced to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” more times than she could recall. This time, she didn’t have to slip into character. She wanted to please him and herself. She wanted to spin his head around and leaving him gasping for breath. Just as he’d done to her. She turned to look across the room at Ty, still standing by the chair, watching her.

“I told you to sit.” She ran one hand behind her neck and lifted her hair as she slid her other hand across her stomach. It had been years since she’d danced for a man, but she hadn’t forgotten. She moved toward him, step step pause…step step pause , touching her body as she looked him up and down, and letting her gaze turn all hot and sensual.

His gaze slid down her body, stopping at her hands before continuing to her feet. “I like the shoes.”

“Thank you.” Step step pause…step step pause. “I’m sure you are well aware of the rules.”

“There are no rules,” he said as he sat.

A sexy smile touched her lips. “No touching,” she informed him as her fingers slid upward and she cupped her breasts. “I can touch you. You can’t touch me.”

His brilliant blue eyes stared up at her. “Ah. Those rules.”

She grinned as she walked around him, trailing a hand across his shoulders. From behind, she leaned forward and ran her hands down his chest. “I’m hot. Sticky sweet,” she whispered along with the words of the song into his ear. “From my head, to my feet.” She continued around him, then straddled his lap, facing him.

He ran his hands up the backs of her legs to her bare behind and pressed his face into her cleavage.

“No touching,” she reminded him and removed his hands from her behind. She sat with the skimpy crotch of her G-string inches away from the zipper of his pants. She ran her hands over his chest, rocking her hips, coming close to touching the bulge in the front of his pants, but always pulling back.

He groaned deep in his chest and sucked in an agonizing breath. “Touch me, Faith.”

“I am.”

“Lower.”

Instead of doing as he asked, she stood and teased him with her hands and body. She took off his tie and shirt and rubbed against him, turning up the heat and turning them both on, her hard nipples grazing his chest through the thin lace of her bra.

He reached for her and she danced out of his grasp. “This is killing me,” he said, his voice a lusty gravel. “Come slide your little hand into my pants, and I’ll slide my hand into yours.”

“That’s real tempting, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules.” She turned with her back to him and sat, grinding her bare behind into him. His palms slipped up her back and he unhooked her bra.

“That’s definitely against the rules.”

“Fuck the rules.” He kissed her spine and slid his hand up her stomach to cover her naked breasts. “We don’t play by the rules.”