True Love and Other Disasters (14 page)

“Some of you guys come out a bit,” the photographer said. “That’s good.”

Pavel was on a kick about Ty meeting Valerie, but Ty had no interest in meeting his father’s latest. Especially when chances were good that he’d have a different girlfriend in a month or two. Especially if it meant hanging out with the woman across the ice who was having a great old time laughing and giggling and turning a bunch of hockey players into slobbering idiots.

He’d rather be fed his lunch by a 250-pound enforcer with something to prove. He might walk away from that encounter bruised and bloody, but a few cuts and a black eye was a hell of a lot better than another set of painful blue balls.

“Oysters are a natural aphrodisiac of the gods.” Valerie reached for an oyster from the iced plate in the middle of the table and slurped it down. “You should have at least one, Faith. It wouldn’t hurt. Might even help.”

“No thanks, Mom. More bread?” She picked up the white plate and held it across the table. Could her mother be any more embarrassing? Sadly, the answer was yes.

“No, thank you.”

“Pavel?” Within the booth of the Brooklyn Seafood Steak and Oyster House in downtown Seattle, Faith’s stomach rolled as she held the small plate for her mother’s boyfriend.

“No. Thank you,” he answered as he held a rough shell to his mouth. He tipped it up and an oyster slid into his mouth and down his throat.

Faith turned her face away and swallowed hard.

“More than your eyes look a little green,” Ty said next to her ear.

She set the plate on the table, which was covered in white linen. “I hate oysters.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because my mother wanted to come.” It had been Valerie’s big idea that they should all go out to dinner together, and Faith had reluctantly agreed. If she’d known she’d have to watch her mother and Pavel slurp down oysters, she would have stayed at home with her feet up. Even if it meant spending time with the evil Pebbles.

“I notice you’re not eating any,” she pointed out to Ty.

“I don’t eat anything that looks like that.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an actual smile. He lowered his voice and said next to her ear, “At least not in public.”

“Was that some sort of inappropriate sexist comment?”

His eyes met hers. “That depends. Were you offended?”

“I probably should be.”

He let his gaze slowly lower from her face, down her bare throat to the top button of her pink shirtdress. “But you’re not—eh?”

“No. You seem to bring out inappropriate behavior in me.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “We should stick to safe subjects.”

“Too late.” He raised his gaze to hers. “I’m having some inappropriate thoughts.”

“You are?”

“Oh yeah.”

“What?”

“Kissing your mouth like I did a few weeks ago and working my way south.”

He was thinking all that? She squeezed her legs together against the tight ache pooling between her thighs.

“What are you talking about?” her mother wanted to know.

“The weather.” Faith looked across the table as the waiter cleared the oyster plate. “I just asked Ty how he likes Seattle.”

He reached for his glass of wine, and the sleeve of his dark-blue dress shirt brushed her bare arm. “It’s not that much different from Vancouver.” He took a drink, then set the glass back on the table. “Scheduling a round of golf is dicey.”

“I don’t play golf, but the summer is much drier,” she answered, trying like hell to ignore the flush of lust warming up her skin. “Jules told me that there’s a Chinooks celebrity golf tournament some time this summer. The money goes to help injured players, like Mark Bressler.”

“That was tragic.” Pavel shook his head. “Such a loss to the team. Losing a captain is like cutting out the heart of the team.”

Ty’s jaw tightened. “Captains are traded all the time, Dad. It’s not like when you played.”

An almost imperceptible tension settled over the booth. “That’s true,” Pavel conceded. “Now there is no loyalty.”

The salad course arrived and Faith waited until fresh pepper was ground on everyone’s salad before she said, “Well, I know that everyone in the Chinooks organization is thrilled to have Ty. If that upsets our neighbors to the North…” She shrugged and tried to take her mind off the man sitting next to her. “They’ll get over it. I mean, they got over the defection of Jim Carrey.” She reached for her linen napkin on her lap. “Although Canada should probably give us a big, fat thanks for taking Jim off their hands. Did you see
The Cable Guy
?” She speared a bite of her roasted beet and butter lettuce. She looked across her shoulder at Ty, who was almost smiling. “What?”

“
Cable Guy
?”

“It sucked.”

He shook his head. “No more than
Me, Myself and Irene
.”

“It might be a toss-up.”

“I like Jim Carrey,” her mother confessed. “He was on that
In Living Color
show with J.Lo.”

“I used to love
The Rockford Files
,” Pavel added.

“Oh,
The Rockford Files
,” Valerie cooed. “I loved Jim Rockford’s Firebird. My third husband had a Firebird. Do you remember Merlyn, Faith?”

“He drove too fast.”

“You’ve been married three times?” Ty asked as he spread his napkin across the lap of his dark wool pants. The back of his hand brushed Faith’s hip and she would have scooted over if there’d been room.

Valerie paused with a bite of salad halfway to her lips. She looked at Faith and then at her boyfriend. “Five times, but only because I was young and vulnerable.”

It had been seven times, but who was counting. Obviously, not Valerie. “Are you going to join us in the skybox tomorrow night for the game against Detroit?” Faith asked to change the subject.

“I would love to. Thank you, Faith.” Pavel ate a few bites and said, “The Chinooks are going in as underdogs, but sometimes that is the best position to be in. If our guys can get them to draw penalties, I think there’s a very good chance we’ll
advance to the final round. Which I predict will be against Pittsburgh.”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Ty grabbed his fork and planted his free hand on the seat beside Faith’s thigh. “Pittsburgh’s playing without two of their power forwards.”

Father and son talked and argued about everything from power plays to penalty killers. Well into the main course, they talked about the best games ever played and Pavel’s glory days. Several times during their conversations, Ty’s hand accidentally brushed her hip. His touch spread fuzzy tingles to the back of her knee and tightened the hot, liquid knot in the pit of her stomach.

“Once I fired that puck into traffic, I lost sight of it,” Pavel said as he cut into his steak. “I didn’t know I’d scored until I heard it hit the back pipe.”

“I wish I could have seen you play. I bet you were something,” Valerie gushed and took a bite of chicken.

“My mom used to love to watch my dad play.” Ty raised his wine to his lips and his free hand slid to the top of Faith’s thigh. “She used to buy me a hot dog, and we’d sit in the middle row behind the goal because she thought those were the best seats. The old Montreal Forum had the best hot dogs.”

Faith’s eyes widened and she gasped at the heat of his palm spread across her lap. This time
his touch was no accident. “I hate hot dogs,” she said.

He looked at her and his grasp tightened a bit. “How could you hate hot dogs? You’re American.”

“I ate too many of them growing up.”

“Faith was crazy for hot dogs back then.”

Faith’s breath caught in her chest and she couldn’t respond. She took a bite of salmon but had a hard time swallowing. Especially when his thumb brushed across her leg back and forth. She gave up trying to eat and reached for her wine.

“Is something wrong with your food?” he asked her.

“No.” She looked into his eyes, at the fiery blue lust and need staring back at her, and she wanted more. More of the hot flush and warmth pooling in her belly. She wanted to fall headfirst into more. Into him. She was a thirty-year-old woman who hadn’t felt the irresistible tangle of lust and need pulling her under in a very long time and she wanted to go. She wanted him to take her there, and she slipped her hand beneath the table. She ran her fingers down his forearm, over his rolled-up sleeve until her palm rested on the back of his hand. His grasp tightened, but instead of removing it, she licked her dry lips and slid his hand between her thighs.

“I think we should all go dancing after dinner,”
her mother suggested. “Faith was always a good dancer.”

Through the linen of her dress, Ty squeezed and she closed her legs around his warm hand. “I have an early morning,” he said.

“I’m tired.” Faith looked at her mother and yawned. “But you two can go ahead. I can take a taxi home.”

“I’ll take you.”

She looked at Ty and said, just above a whisper, “That might be inappropriate.”

“The things I’m going to do to you are very inappropriate.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “You should probably be afraid.”

“Are you planning anything illegal?”

“Not the first two or three times.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure
aboat
the rest.”

I
t’s kind of empty,” Faith said as she stood in the center of the darkened solarium. Overhead, stars crammed the clear night sky, and she felt like she was floating twenty-eight stories above Seattle. “Virgil and I didn’t stay in the city very often, so I never got around to doing anything up here. I always pictured lots of plants and cane furniture. Maybe a tiger, like in
Who’s That Girl
, with Madonna. Hated that movie, but I loved that big garden and the tiger.”

“Are you nervous?”

The heels of her hot-pink Chanel pumps tapped across the tile floor as she moved to the edge and looked out. “Can you tell?”

“You talk a lot more when you’re nervous.”

She put her hands against the glass and gazed at the Space Needle, all lit up like a giant flying saucer. On the way home from the restaurant, they’d stopped at a pharmacy and he’d run in and bought condoms. Magnums. “You make me nervous.”

He moved close behind her. “Why?”

Several reasons. Starting with, “Were those magnums necessary?”

“I like ’em snug.”

Oh God. And ending with, “It’s been a long time for me.”

He bent his head and asked close to her ear, “A long time since…?”

“I was with anyone.”

He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her back against his chest, nestling her behind against his erection. “Anyone but Virgil?”

She looked into the shadowy outline of his watery reflection. So tall and powerful and ready. “Virgil was good to me and I loved him, but we never…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t betray him even though he was gone. “Our marriage wasn’t about that.”

His hands touching her hips and stomach stilled. “You never had sex?”

She didn’t answer.

His barely visible gaze met hers in the glass. “Not even with someone who could?”

“Of course not.”

“How long were you married?” He sounded incredulous.

She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder into the variegating light touching his face. “Five years.”

He was silent for several heartbeats. “You haven’t had sex in five years? A woman who looks like you?”

“Why’s that hard to believe?” Quiet laughter escaped her lips and whispered across his chin. “You said I was ugly.”

“I think I said unattractive.”

“That’s right. You don’t go ugly just to get laid.” She lifted her face and kissed his jaw. “Should I stop?”

“No. Tonight I’ll take one for the team.” He slid his palm up her stomach and he said next to her ear, “Sometimes being the captain is a burden.” His hands slipped up the slopes of her breasts and he cupped her through the pink linen dress and her white lace balconnet bra. “I’ve had a hard-on for you since that night of the photo shoot.”

Her nipples tightened beneath the brush of his fingers. “That night you made me feel things too.” She arched her back and pressed her bottom into him. “Things I haven’t felt in several years.”

“Then it’s past time to do those things,” he said as his mouth came down and opened against hers.
Against her behind he was hard as a club. He fed her hot kisses as he rocked his hips and slowly thrust against her. She didn’t think she’d ever wanted anything in her life like she wanted this. This warm, inviting flush tightening her chest and flooding the apex of her thighs with aching need. He softly squeezed and kneaded her breasts. She opened her mouth and devoured his kiss. Everything about her life was chaotic, but this wild, forbidden moment felt right. Like something she needed and wanted and desperately had to have. She stood on top of the world surrounded by stars and light and thin air, and Ty was the only thing that felt solid.

She raised one hand behind his head and held his mouth to hers, and the heat of his kiss spread outward, across her shoulder, and down her chest. Her heart pounded and swelled, and she leaned back into the solid, warm comfort of his embrace. Breathing the scent of him into her lungs as his fingers worked the buttons closing the front of her dress until it lay open to her waist.

He raised his head; his heavy lids were lowered to half-mast, and even in the darkness, there was no mistaking the desire burning in his eyes. No mistaking the long, hard length of it pressed into her behind. He slipped his big hands inside the collar of her dress, his fingers slid across her shoulders, and he pushed it down.

She lowered her hand from the back of his head, and her dress slid down her sensitive skin and fell to her waist, and she stood in front of him in her white bra, matching thong, and her pink pumps. His fingers brushed across her stomach and she placed her hands on top of his and moved them back to her breasts. “Touch me,” she whispered and pressed her smooth behind into the rougher texture of his wool pants and his huge erection.

“Here.” Through the stretch lace of her bra, his thumbs brushed across her nipples until they got tighter, harder, more painfully sweet. “You like it when I touch you here?”

She moaned, “Yes.”

“I’ve thought a lot about touching you here.” His right hand slid down her stomach to the top of her panties. “And here. Do you want me to touch you here?”

She nodded. “All over.”

His fingers slipped beneath the lace underwear. “You still shave.”

“Does that bother you?”

He shook his head and lowered his mouth to the side of her throat. “It’s all I think about.” His fingers slid lower and parted her flesh, touching her where she craved it the most.

Her knees buckled and he tightened his hold to keep her from falling to his feet. The heavy ache
between her thighs became razor sharp and his touch was the only thing that satisfied it.

“You’re wet for me.”

“Does that bother you?”

He shook his head and brushed his lips across her shoulder. “I love that I make you this wet.” He shoved his erection into her.

She felt hot and itching and it would be so easy to orgasm while he played with her, but she wanted more. She wanted something she hadn’t had in more than five years. She wanted all of him.

Faith turned to face Ty, and his wet fingers trailed across her pelvis to her behind. She raised her mouth to his and unbuttoned his shirt. She pulled it from his pants and pushed until it fell to the floor. Then she was on him. Pressing her breasts into his warm, hard chest and running her hands over as much of his tight skin as she could. She wanted to devour him for as long as possible, and at the same time, her body throbbed and ached for immediate release. The hair on his chest brushed the tops of her breasts and his happy trail tickled her belly. She kissed him like he was her last meal, and her skin felt hot and tight. His hands caressed her bare butt as her hand slid to the front of his pants and she pressed her palm to his erection. She felt the heat of him through the wool. She wanted every long, hard inch of his penis, and she squeezed.

Ty lifted his head and stared down at her, his breathing rough and choppy. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Yes,” she managed through her labored breath. Lust, hot and liquid, rushed through her veins, burning away everything but the need for him.

He stepped out of his shoes and reached for his wallet as she unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down his muscular thighs. His boxer briefs went next, and she reached for him and ran her palm up the long heated shaft. A drop of moisture rested in the cleft of the plump, succulent head and she spread it with her thumb. “You’re a beautiful man, Mr. Savage. Don’t finish before the race is over.”

“I’m a professional.” He sucked in a breath and pushed her hands away. “I don’t pull the trigger early.” He unrolled the condom down to the base of his penis. “Slide those panties down. Unless you want them ripped off.” He looked up. “Keep the shoes on.”

She pushed the thong down her legs and kicked it aside. Then he reached for her and ran his hands down her bottom to the backs of her thighs. He lifted and she automatically wrapped her legs around his waist. He pinned her back against the cool glass.

Faith ran her hands through his hair and kissed his mouth as he lowered her onto his erection. A
stitch of pain brought her head up as he entered her. She sucked in her breath and held it, the big head of his penis slid up into her, stretching her tight flesh.

“Ty.”

“It’s okay. I’ll make it good for you. Just stay with me, Faith. Don’t stop me now.” And then he was buried to the hilt and he was true to his word, he made it good for her. Her bare stomach stuck to his as he ground his pelvis into hers. He pulled out, then plunged deep inside, touching her cervix and all the hot, tingling places inside.

“Mmmm, yes,” she whispered. “That feels good.” He moved again. “Like that. Right there. Don’t stop. You make it good, Ty.” In and out he thrust, and her breathing grew choppy, her skin tight as he pushed her faster and harder toward release.

“How good?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

“It’s so hot. So good. Don’t stop. Faster. Yes.” She sucked in a deep breath as he thrust into her harder and harder. His powerful muscles tightened, flexed, with each drive of his hips.

Her whole world narrowed and centered on Ty and where his body joined hers, stroking her inside and teasing her G-spot. Liquid fire poured through her body and burned her up from the inside out. Hot tingles spread across her flesh and she couldn’t remember sex ever being this good.
This intense. Maybe it had, but she didn’t think she’d ever been so absolutely consumed with the intense pleasure, wanting it so much that nothing else mattered. She opened her mouth to tell him not to stop. Before she managed to get the words from her throat, the first wave of orgasm hit. She moaned or screamed or something as it pulled her down and the scalding flames licked her body. Her heart pounded in her ears as Ty pounded into her body, untamed and unleashed in a hot sexual storm of hands and mouths and Ty’s enormous hard-on. Beautiful and intense and painfully sweet. Over and over, and it seemed to last forever and not nearly long enough. Her legs tightened around his waist as she rode out the last throbbing pulsations.

“Faith.” His breathing was heavy and strained. “You’re beautiful. Tight. Jesus.” Then he gave one long groan as if he’d pushed a boulder up a hill and heaved it over the other side.

When it was over and the night air began to cool her skin, Ty kissed the crook of her neck and she said, “Thank you. That was wonderful.”

He lifted his head and looked into her face. “This isn’t over,” he said.

She smiled. “No?”

“I’m sure we’ll probably regret this in the morning.” He lifted her off his still hard penis and set her on her feet. “We have a box of condoms and
about six hours of really inappropriate sex to get busy on before sunup.” He pushed a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth. “If we’re going to regret it, let’s do something to really be ashamed
aboat
.”

Several hours later, Faith stood on the small putting green in Ty’s media room, wearing nothing but his blue dress shirt and red toenail polish. Her blonde hair fell down her back and she looked stunning and beautiful, especially for a woman who’d already made love three times that night. The last in his spa tub while little bubbles of air brushed their skin in interesting places.

“I remember now why I hate golf.” She held his club in her hands and gave an irritated shrug of her shoulders as his dress shirt rode up her thighs.

She was every fantasy that he’d ever had of her. Only much more, because she was softer and hotter and better in bed. It had been hard enough to keep his hands to himself before he’d made love to her. In a few hours he was going to give her up, and he didn’t fool himself that it would be easy. Perhaps if he just saw her as Playmate. As great tits and ass, but he didn’t. Somehow in the past few weeks, he’d grown to like her. Quite a lot.

“My boobs get in the way.”

Ty stepped behind her. “Let me help you with
that.” He slid his hand beneath her arms and cupped her breasts. The back of his dress shirt brushed his bare chest. “Now try.”

She laughed as she swung and the ball flew toward the net. The radar registered twenty-five. “That’s worse than last time. There’s no help. My boobs are too big.”

“You’re not too big.” Round and white with tight pink nipples that fit perfectly into his mouth. “You’re perfect.” He wore a pair of old Levi’s and she nestled her behind into him. Like she had at the solarium, when he’d had incredible sex with her against the glass, a million stars about her head and the Seattle skyline around her body. It was the wildest lay he’d ever had, and he’d had a lot of wild lays in his thirty-five years. “You just need a man with big hands.”

She chuckled and lined up another ball. “Okay, but no distractions.”

“I’ll behave.”

“I saw
Caddy Shack
. There’s no talking in golf.”

She swung back and he whispered next to her ear, “I want to eat your bald peach.” The club flew out of her hands and landed across the room.

She turned and looked up at him. “I thought you were going to behave.”

“I am.”

“There’s no talking while someone is swinging.”

“I was whispering. That’s allowed on some
courses.” He pointed at the ground. “My putting green. My rules.”

“You didn’t mention any rules.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked up at him through her sparkling green eyes. “What are your other rules?”

“Women have to play naked.”

She tilted her head to one side and tried not to smile up at him. “How many women have played on your stupid little putting green?”

“I’m going to let the ‘stupid’ comment slide ’cause I like you.”

“How many women have had to get naked, Savage?”

“Just you.” He grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled her close. “You’re special.”

She slid her fingers up his arms to his shoulders and the diamonds on her wedding ring sparkled in the light. “What time is it?”

He wished she’d take the damn thing off. It sort of made him feel like he was doing a married woman. “Around three.”

“I better go. You have a practice and a hockey game to win tonight.”

“The practice isn’t for twelve hours.” He dropped his hands to her hips and he pulled the shirt up. “I have plenty of time to sleep and only about an hour left to have sex.” He patted her bare behind. “You need to get busy.”