Delayed Penalty: A Pilots Hockey Novel (26 page)

“Easy,” he said in Russian, his voice so husky I could barely translate the word. He flipped me onto my back and pushed into me slowly. I squeezed his rib cage, clenching my teeth as he pulled out a little before pushing in again. “Easy,” he repeated.

Aleksandr held himself up on his forearms, situated on either side of my shoulders. His hands tangled in my hair, his fingers clenching and pulling lightly. He was so gentle and controlled. Sex was much different than I expected. I never thought he’d hurt me, but based on our frantic make-out sessions, I thought the first time would be fast and painful and miserable no matter how much I loved him. He buried his face into my neck, his quick breath hot against my skin. Every time I felt a rush of warm air, his fingers squeezed my hair, and I tensed up.

He lifted his head and brushed his lips on mine. “Relax, Audushka. I love you.”

Normally, when someone tells me to relax, I tense even more. But I felt comfortable with Aleksandr and I knew from countless stories I’d heard or read about people losing their virginity, that he was doing a damn good job of making it easy for me. Once I loosened up, the discomfort subsided, and I focused on the sublime sensations his movements created. When he rolled his hips, it felt fantastic, rather than painful. Or maybe pain feels good when it’s that kind of pain? I didn’t have any experience, so I wasn’t sure.

“Is this okay, Audushka?” Aleksandr asked. He lifted his face to meet my eyes without stopping his slow rolls and soft thrusts into me.

I nodded.

“Does it feel good for you?” he asked, his breath hitched and he squeezed my hair on the last word.

I nodded again. “What about you?”

His lips perked up, and a gust of air left his nose. “It feels amazing for me.”

“You can move more if you want. I think I’m fine.” I told him. And I thought I was. The current slow pulling up and thrusting in that he had going on had me worked up but wasn’t necessarily getting me anywhere. Now, I’m not a complete idiot. I didn’t think I would orgasm my first time having sex. I know that’s the stuff of romance novels and porn movies, but I’d hoped to get some kind of sensation like when he used his tongue. I knew the man had talent.

Aleksandr adjusted his arms and hands so that he was holding my face. “You’re sure?” he asked, without taking his gaze away from mine.

I loved him. I loved him for being so kind, and so slow and so understanding.

“Da.”
I held on to his sides and took a deep breath.

“Don’t tense up. I’m not gonna go hard on you,” Aleksandr said. I caught the smile on his lips and gleam in his eye and relaxed. It’s hard to relax when you’re simultaneously freaked out, excited, and anticipating what’s next, but I did my best because I trusted him.

He pulled himself up on his forearms again and continued his movements, with a little more vigor. He kept his pace for a few minutes before he held my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, laying his full body weight on me while staying completely still. I matched his deep breaths, not because I was exhausted, but because it helps when a two-hundred-pound man decides to lay on top of you.

“That’s some way to wake a man up, Audushka.” Aleksandr rolled off me, easing himself out slowly.

I laughed.

“Did I miss something?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn’t. It was awesome,” I said, still trying to slow my breath. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to. Just looking at him made my pulse race again.

“Did I hurt you?” He held my eyes with his. I shook my head. “I didn’t know you—”

“I knew what I was doing,” I said, then laughed again. “Well, not really, but I knew I wanted to do it—with you, that is. It’s only ever been you. Obviously.”

Aleksandr stroked my cheek with his palm and lowered his mouth onto mine, cutting off my nervous rambling.

“How did you know there was a condom in my wallet?”

“I took a stereotypical guess.” I rubbed the buzzed sides of his head with my hands. Though it had grown out since I’d seen him last, it still had a soft peach-fuzz feeling.

“What am I going to do with you?” Aleksandr smiled, shaking his head.

“Anything you want,” I told him, closing my eyes, taken over by drowsiness again. Aleksandr got up, removed the condom, and pulled on his jeans. He disappeared from my sight for a moment. Then I felt him slide one arm under my knees and the other under my neck, and he carried me back to the bed. He set me down and pulled the duvet over me.

“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. Although I meant it in the context of the present situation, I wanted it to fit the future as well.

“Never, my love,” he whispered, kissing my head. He climbed in bed and pressed his chest against my back, his thighs and knees against the back of my thighs and knees, perfectly interlocking.

I slowed my breathing to match his, so our chests rose and fell together. I’d never felt as safe as I did wrapped in his strong arms.

Aleksandr kissed the back of my head, whispering something in Russian against my hair. I could have misconstrued the translation in my sleepy haze, but I thought he said, “You are my destiny, my sun. There is no happiness without you.”

As I drifted to sleep, sheltered underneath the warmth and strength of Aleksandr’s body, I realized tonight was the first time I ever let myself lose control.

If that’s what it took to love and trust someone completely, I was all in.

Chapter 24

A knock on the door woke me for the third time that morning. This time I was in my own bed. Aleksandr had called a cab at the crack of dawn to drop me off at my apartment and take him to get his car. He had to be on the road early to make it to the airport in time for his game. I hadn’t planned on jumping into bed when I got home, but I was exhausted from the little sleep I’d gotten in Aleksandr’s hotel room.

Inspecting my ensemble as I shuffled to the door, I decided the T-shirt and boxer shorts I had on covered more than enough to be decent.

While stifling a yawn, I grabbed the handle and opened the door to find Greg standing outside. I rubbed my fingers across my eyes and took a quick look behind him.

“Hey, Greg?” I asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize for last night.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“Oh, well, thanks.”
Was a personal visit necessary?

“I’m sorry I tried to kiss you. I was confused. I mean, I read this poem again and I just thought,” Greg began, holding up a piece of paper. His shoulders dropped as he lowered it. “Shit. I thought it was about me.”

I didn’t need to look at the paper to know which poem he had. I’d given him a dozen to use for lyrics, but only one could’ve caused any confusion, because I’d written only one about a guy. The poem I’d written after I first met Aleksandr. My creative way of purging the original feelings I’d had for him. A stupid reminder to not let myself get in too deep.

“Why would you ever think that was about you?” I asked. Before Greg could answer, I saw a figure rushing toward him.

Crap. Not a good time for Aleksandr, who was supposed to be on his way out of town, to show up.

“What’s going on?” Aleksandr demanded. His face was stoic, but I could tell there was a storm rolling in his eyes. The next Cold War could be brewing on the doorstep of my apartment.

Greg turned to look over his shoulder. Instead of a view of Aleksandr’s face, he got an eyeful of his fist.

Literally. Aleksandr punched him. The paper Greg had been holding fell to the ground.

“That’s for hitting on my girlfriend,” Aleksandr said as he bent over Greg, arm cocked and loaded.

Lunging at Aleksandr, I grabbed his arm so he couldn’t swing again. “Stop, Sasha! Stop!”

“What the fuck?” Greg was doubled over, one hand on his knee, the other holding his eye. He cleared his throat and spat. I was thankful there was no blood.

“Don’t ‘What the fuck?’ when you’re the one at my girlfriend’s door at eight in the morning.” Aleksandr’s breath was erratic, his body tense and ready to pounce. Again.

“Calm down.” I held him against my chest, and locked my arms around him.

“Why?” He wiggled out of my hold and spun around to face me. “What’s going on here, Audushka?”

“Greg came over to apologize for being a jerk last night.”

“Apologizing for being a jerk? Or for trying to kiss you?” Aleksandr asked. He stooped down to pick up the paper on the ground. At first, he scanned the words quickly, his eyes darting across the page.

But when his eyelids drooped and his brows inched closer, I realized which poem Greg had brought. Though I’d written it in frustration months ago after I’d met Aleksandr, I still remembered every wicked word by heart.

Come inside

You can sit or lay

Just don’t wait

for me to say

I love you

because I won’t lie

and I know you

won’t say goodbye

I’m the one thing

you’ll never have

a chance with

so as you take my hand

remember

I could never stand the thought of you

on your knees

begging

for a way to please me

that you wouldn’t find

not because

I wasn’t kind

but because

I couldn’t handle

your eyes burning into me

like a candle

a flame rising from the hell

you’re walking on the edge of

and if you fell

I’d catch you

but I’ll never say

I love you

“Is this about him?” Aleksandr asked, thrusting the page toward Greg. His eyes swirled, an ocean before a storm.

“No. I wrote it awhile ago.”

“About who?”

Shit.

“You.” I dropped my eyes. “But I wrote it right after I met you. When I didn’t know you.”

Aleksandr stared at the page, nodding as he reread the words. The swirl of anger drained from his eyes. And that’s what scared me the most. Give me anger. Give me sorrow. But don’t give me indifference.

“Yeah, well, thanks for last night, Auden. It’s good to know where I really stand.” He whirled around and bolted down the hallway.

“Sasha! Sasha, it’s not like that. It was—” I stopped explaining because he didn’t stop walking.

I slumped against the door frame, listening to his heavy footsteps morph to a shuffle the farther down the hall he got.

Abandoned again, only this time it was all my fault.

Chapter 25

“Call him from my phone,” Kristen offered. She grabbed her phone off the end table next to the couch and held it out to me.

“I can’t do that. It’s sneaky,” I said as if I had any shame left. I’d been calling Aleksandr tirelessly from the landline in our apartment for the last week.

“You need to talk to him so you can scrape your pathetic self off the couch and get on with your life. Have you even showered?”

“Yes.” I threw a pillow at her. “I have.” Once.

After a week of calling Aleksandr and leaving messages on his phone with no response, I was only slightly against using Kristen’s phone to call him. I wanted to apologize for the poem and explain that I had written it after we’d first met. Back when I thought he was a douche bag, which was one hundred eighty degrees from who he was as a person.

I gave him time to cool off. He needed to pick up the phone and talk to me.

“Fine.” I grabbed Kristen’s phone from her outstretched hand, pressing the digits on the screen.

“Allo?”
An unfamiliar male voice answered Aleksandr’s phone. He had a Russian accent, but it wasn’t the Russian accent I knew and loved.

“Who is this?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear and checking the screen to make sure I dialed the right number.

“Pasha.”

“Oh, hey, Pavel.” I wanted to puke. I didn’t know Pavel Gribov enough to call him Pasha, nor did I want to know him. I missed Landon. Why couldn’t Landon have gotten called up to Charlotte with Aleksandr rather than slimy Gribov?

“I need to speak with Aleksandr. Can you put him on?”

“He’s unclothed.” Pavel laughed. “Or indisposed, I get these English words confused. But you understand this, yes?”

“Auden?” Aleksandr called out in the background.

“It’s Angie, but whatever,” a woman’s voice responded.

“So sorry you had to hear that,” Pavel said. I wanted to crawl through the phone and kick his patronizing ass. “Actually, I’m not. You know, he thinks you are a selfish, cheating whore, yes?”

“What?” My voice shook on the verge of a meltdown.

“The only girl he’s ever loved writes a horrible poem about him. You use him to cry about your mother, yet you don’t even think about what losing his parents did to him? You are selfish. And you wonder why he hasn’t called you back.”

“Who the fuck is that, Pasha?” Aleksandr demanded. I heard scraping in the earpiece, then Aleksandr’s voice again, clear as ice. “Hold on, Angel.”

“It’s Angie,” I whispered, pulling the phone away from my ear and staring at the screen.

Symbolically, a large red box with the word
End
lit up on the phone screen, waiting for my touch to seal the deal. When I pressed it, the phone slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.