Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4) (28 page)

“No!”
The scream is unanimous and so loud I hope my new neighbors don’t file a complaint, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.

The captain of the San Francisco Thunder, Levi Casco, glides toward his bench, away from Chooch, who is on his knees, his helmeted head hanging down in defeat, and Casco raises his arms in victory. His teammates swarm him, spilling onto the ice from the bench and jumping on top of him.

As the camera pulls back, I scan the dejected Winterhawks players as they skate away from the celebration, toward their bench. I see Sebastian, head hung low, resting his forehead against his stick as he sits on the bench.

I move my eyes from the screen to my guests. Jessie is sitting at the other end of my couch, leaning forward. Her green eyes are glued to the screen and her elbows rest on her knees with her hands covering her mouth. Stephanie is sitting in my Papasan chair in the corner, not looking at the Winterhawks’ defeat. She’s got her head tipped back and her eyes closed with a frown on her face.

“Fuck,” Stephanie whispers to the universe.

“Yeah.” Jessie groans the word more than says it.

I watch the Winterhawks skate off the bench and start a haphazard line for the obligatory sportsman handshake. The Thunder are still peeling themselves off the ice where they jumped on top of Casco.

The Winterhawks’ season is over. They lost in the first round of the playoffs, which, according to my father, is worse than not making them at all. His team lost twice in the first round that I remember, the last time being when I was sixteen. Even though it was a home game and we lived twenty minutes from the arena, he didn’t come home until four in the morning. He was drunk. I remember being woken up by his angry, slurred words. I guess Trey had either waited up for him or woken up and gone downstairs to share his sympathies, but my father didn’t think that was endearing. I woke up to him tearing a piece out of my poor fourteen-year-old brother who idolized him. According to dear old Dad, Trey was a loser for saying “you’ll get ’em next year,” because all that mattered was this year. Winning next time doesn’t change the fact that they failed this time. Failure is not acceptable—ever—and if Trey would get that through his skull, maybe he’d try harder on his own team, which had lost a few nights prior.

I had gotten out of bed and gone downstairs to grab Trey and drag him back to his room before he cried in front of Dad and made the whole thing worse. I remember smelling whiskey and perfume—not my mother’s—emanating from Dad.

But Sebastian is not my father. He’s his own type of hockey player. He’s his own type of man, as he’s proven to me over and over.

Deep breaths, Shayne. Don’t start letting past trauma ruin your life.

“Steph, what’s he like after something like this?” I ask softly. “Should I stay away tonight or text him or…?”

Stephanie opens her eyes and turns her head to look at me. She gives me a small, warm smile. “He’s depressed, but he’s not usually bitchy or anything. He’s quiet, though. He doesn’t like to talk about it—or really talk at all—for a day or two. But he doesn’t like to be alone either, so if you had plans to meet him when the plane lands tonight, keep ’em.”

I nod and give her a thankful smile. Jessie sags back into the couch. “Jordan is going to be bitchy. And Devin is going to call and rub it in, because he and Luc are still in it. Ridiculous brotherly love.”

She laughs at her own words and shakes her head. “Honestly, they show they love each other by pushing each other’s buttons. With a sledgehammer.”

I smile at that. I have a feeling it would have been awesome to grow up in Jessie’s small town with Jordan and his brothers. Wild and crazy but amazing. And I’m dying to meet her sisters too. Seb’s already mentioned he wants me to go to Jordan and Jessie’s wedding with him this summer so I’ll get the chance. I realize that taking a chance on Sebastian has brought more than just him into my life, and I’m grateful. So grateful.

Stephanie’s phone beeps and she grabs it off the coffee table. After glancing at the screen and typing back a message she says, “The plane is supposed to land at midnight.”

“Seb text you?”

Stephanie shakes her head. “No, it was…Chooch. I guess because I’m staying at Seb’s while they’re on the road. He doesn’t want to startle me if I’m sleeping.”

She stands up and stretches. “I’m going to get going and vacate their guest room before they get back. Seb and Chooch will need their space. But not from you. He doesn’t need space from you. Remember that!”

She’s pointing at me like a lecturing schoolteacher. It makes me smile guiltily and raise my hands. “Okay! Okay!”

Jessie stands too, and when I do, she reaches over and hugs me. “Good luck with your sad panda.”

“Good luck with yours too.”

“Thanks for having us over. I love your new place,” Steph says as we stand. I glance around the space, which is slightly smaller than my previous one but it has its own balcony and a dishwasher, and I can walk outside with much less chance of being mugged.

I hug them both and then close the door behind them. Damn, I wish the Winterhawks had won the game. I walk over to my phone on the coffee table and pull up his number and send him a simple text with my new address and the words
I’m here if you need me
.

Slightly after midnight my front door buzzes. I was dozing on the couch so it startles me. I walk over to the intercom, press the button and say, “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

The sound of his voice sends butterflies fluttering around my abdomen, and without a word I buzz him in. When he opens my apartment door he’s wearing his Winterhawks workout gear—track pants, a kangaroo hoodie and sneakers—and dragging his travel bags with him. The hood is up over his head, and as he glances at me while he toes out of his shoes, I’m struck by how tired he looks and how piercing his blue eyes are against the dark shelter of the hoodie.

I’m standing in the archway that divides the front entry from the living-dining room wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of underwear. He walks to me, leaving his bags in the front hall, and I try not to freak out. I don’t know what to expect and I can’t draw on previous experience, but honestly, I wouldn’t blame him if he was angry right now.

He stops directly in front of me and puts his hands on my hips. Then he drops his head onto my shoulder. It’s like an act of defeat. Of surrender. And it’s heavy with sadness and cloaked in the weight of his now broken dreams of another Cup. I cradle the back of his hooded head and whisper against the fabric next to my cheek, “I’m sorry.”

“
Moi aussi
,” he whispers back hoarsely. I don’t know much French but I know that means “me too.” He lifts his head and those crystal blue eyes land on mine again.

I want to make this better for him, but I can’t. So instead of taking away the pain of the loss I decide to try to give him a new emotion. I push up on my toes and kiss him. He responds immediately and with a passion I wasn’t expecting in his current mood. As our tongues meet I reach up and push the hood off his head so I can run my hands through his thick hair.

Without hesitation I grab the bottom of his hoodie and start to pull it up over his body. He lifts his arm and helps me remove it, and then his big, warm hands are under my T-shirt and seconds later, it’s gone too. He’s needy and I am suddenly too and it’s creating a frenetic urgency to everything. We can’t get naked fast enough.

When all our clothes are lying on the wood floor, he cups my ass and lifts me up, carrying me to my bedroom, which is still full of boxes. The only thing I have really set up in there is the bed. He turns and sits on the edge of it. My knees are on either side of him and he’s holding my ass, so I’m hovering above his dick, which is rock hard and pointing up at me. His eyes fly around the room for a second and then he asks, “Condom?”

“I’m on birth control,” I admit. “Have been the entire time.”

He tips his head up to look at me. I nod as if he needs more confirmation. But that’s not what he wants to know. “Are you my girlfriend?”

I run a hand over his head, through his hair and down to cup his cheek before I say with one hundred percent certainty, “I’m your girlfriend.”

His hands on my ass move to my hips and he pushes me down onto his dick. We stay perfectly still except for our lips and tongues as we absorb the moment.

His hands are warm and solid against my skin, one splayed across my lower back and the other around the nape of my neck. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck, arch my back and moan. I can feel his dick twitch with need inside me. This will be our only gentle moment, I can tell. He wants to work out all his frustration and loss on me—and I want to let him, desperately. With his hands on my hips he lifts me slightly and he pushes his cock deep inside me with one strong, hard thrust.

It’s too much and not enough at the very same time. Being with her, no barriers for the first time, feeling her wet warmth wrapped around me is amazing, and I want this feeling—the love I feel, the trust I can see in her eyes and the pleasure of it, to last forever. But the undeniable delicious friction as she rides me, setting a teasing rhythm, controlling every wave of pleasure—it’s too much. I want the control tonight. I
need
it.

Holding her against my body, I stand and turn and place her back against the mattress, her legs hanging over the side as I bend my knees to be lower and stay inside her. I need to control her—control
this
—tonight. I lost control of the series, the game, had no control over how our season ended, but her pleasure and mine, I still own that and I am not giving that over. Not tonight. I put my hands behind her knees and watch our joined bodies as I push into her.

My rhythm is fast and unyielding. I grab one of her legs and hike it up so her ankle rests against my shoulder. A few more hard, steady, pleasurable thrusts and just as many gratifying moans from her beautiful mouth and I kiss her ankle and lean over her. My torso is almost flat on top of her and her calf is basically against her head, which means my dick is so deep inside her I’m seeing stars. God, I love her flexibility. Long live yoga.

“Sebastian…oh God…so close…” Her eyelashes are fluttering wildly and her head is thrashing from side to side and her hands are reaching above her head, grasping at some kind of imaginary anchor to keep her on the edge where pleasure and euphoria dance. But there is no anchor and I’m intent on throwing her into the abyss.

I grab her hands together and pull them toward me. She loops them around my neck and lets them wind a path down to my ass where she grabs it so hard I know there’ll be marks.

“Seb…” She whispers my name before she begs, “Harder. Fuck me harder.”

I drive my dick as deep as it can go. Oh God, I want to come.

“I’m going to…” Her sentence morphs into a moan.

“Look at me, baby. Look at me when you come,” I insist and her eyes, barely open, focus on mine.

“Seb.” I feel her walls clench and her back arches violently and she whimpers loudly.

I can’t hold on. I explode inside her. I swear I almost lose consciousness, and when I float back to reality, I’m still on top of her. She’s stroking my back with her fingertips, and the heavy feeling of the loss comes back to me as well. I sigh.

“There’ll be more chances,” she says intuitively. “You’ve got a young, strong team.”

“Yeah, but I wanted it so bad this year,” I confess and slowly, gently pull out of her. We both move to the top of the bed and pull the covers down. “The minute we make the playoffs I just want it so bad. I have to lift the Cup again. I don’t want to have won it just once.”

“You’ll win it all again,” she promises, and even though I know it’s her wish and not any kind of promise, it still comforts me. “You’re the best defenseman in the league. You’ll make it happen.”

I pull the sheets up around us and she curls into my side. This feels right. This feels good. She yawns against my chest and I kiss the top of her head. “Tired?”

“Not really,” she replies. “You?”

“No,” I reply and try not to frown. “I have all the time in the world for sleeping now.”

We just lie there tangled up together in peaceful silence for a few moments. She finally says, “Tell me about your life. How did you find hockey? When did you fall in love with it?”

“The minute I put on skates,” I tell her easily. I remember it like it was yesterday. “It was love at first sight. Have you ever felt that before?”

She tilts her head and looks up at me with the softest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen in my entire life. “I think I have.” She kisses me softly and says, “Tell me more.”

We spend the night doing what we’ve avoided or forgotten to do since the moment we met: talk. I tell her about my childhood, my parents’ divorce, Stephanie’s slip into addiction and her climb back out. She tells me about her childhood and Trey’s problems. She talks about college, and this asshole Dustin who I thank God didn’t make the NHL, because if he had I would try to kill him every game I played against him. I tell her about making the league and my mom marrying my old coach.

The sun is rising when we finally drift off, and the pain of the loss, the end of our playoff run, is dulled, replaced by amazing new feelings filling every part of me—contentment, hope and most of all love. I love this woman and I think she loves me too. So I might not have another Cup, but I’ve definitely won.

The phone feels like it’s louder than a fire alarm as it cuts through the dark room at four in the morning. Sebastian jumps beside me and almost falls off the bed. I bolt to a sitting position and grab it off the night table without even looking at the number on the call display.

“What the fuck?!” I spew out angrily.

“I’m at the hospital!”

All my annoyance evaporates, and I jump out of bed and flip on the light. Seb groans and covers his eyes with his forearm. “I’ll be right there!”

“Okay, hurry! Her contraction are coming fast and furious,” Trey says, and he sounds like a nervous wreck.

“Well, get off the phone and go be with her,” I reply and hang up on him.

I run around his bedroom, hunting down my clothes. He watches me curiously. “Baby time?”

I nod. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it! I’m going to be an aunt!”

He laughs at my excitement as I find my underwear and pull it on, almost toppling over, because although my mind is wide awake, my body feels like it’s still asleep. He sits up, the sheets dropping to reveal his perfect naked torso. My God, he’s delicious. I grab the maxi dress I wore to his house, but before I tug it over my head I reach down and grab the T-shirt he had on yesterday and toss it at him. He looks at me curiously and I nervously ask, “Will you come with me? Even though it probably means spending time with my parents?”

He grins. “Of course, baby. I would follow you into hell.”

We get to the hospital twenty minutes later and run up to Labor and Delivery. Trey is in the waiting room talking to my mom. I can tell by the way his whole face is glowing brighter than a spotlight that he’s a dad.

He sees us over her shoulder and his grin gets bigger, prouder. “Six pounds, eleven ounces.”

“Yay!” I walk over to him and high-five him before hugging him. “How’s Sasha?”

“Amazing,” he confesses. “Well, I mean she was amazing. I can’t believe what you women go through. Holy shit. But she’s fine. She’s resting. If you want to see her, baby Beckford will be in the nursery in a few minutes.”

I hug him again. Sebastian reaches out and shakes Trey’s hand. “Congratulations. Do we have a name?”

Trey pauses and glances at me. “Daisy.”

I burst out laughing and hug him again. “It’s perfect!”

“Of course you think so.” My mom smiles. “But it is lovely. I can’t wait to meet her.”

My brother excuses himself to go back to Sasha, and as we walk with my mom to the nursery, I lace my fingers with Seb. My mom looks over and gives him a small smile. “Nice to see you again. Sebastian, isn’t it? I remember you from the ceremony last year.”

Sebastian nods and gives her a friendly smile. “Congrats on being a grandmother, Mrs. Beckford.”

“Thank you.” She pauses before adding, “You must be the reason my daughter is so happy.”

“He is,” I respond before he can, and he squeezes my hand. “Do I need to ask why Dad isn’t here with you?”

“He told me he was going on a fishing weekend with the boys,” my mother explains and sighs. “Which means he’s in Cabo with a woman.”

Seb looks at me tentatively. I lean down and kiss my mom’s cheek but don’t say anything because there is nothing to say. She’s choosing this life, and I will support her because the alternative, I’ve learned, is punishing her, and even if I don’t agree with her choices, she doesn’t deserve to be punished.

When we reach the nursery, Sebastian is the first to notice her. She’s in the front row at the end wrapped in all pink. Her face is red but she’s not crying. She’s sleeping peacefully.

“She looks exactly like Trey did,” my mom whispers, and she wipes a tear. I hug her before letting go and walking closer to the glass. Sebastian comes up behind me as I stare at my sleeping niece and he circles my waist.

“Your family makes cute babies,” he whispers against the shell of my ear. “That’s good to know.”

My stomach and my heart seem to switch places at that—in a good way. And I know I need to tell him what I’ve been feeling for a while now. I’ve been feeling it since probably almost the minute we met, but I let myself ignore it. Since we officially put a label on this after his playoff loss six weeks ago, there’s been no denying the feeling.

So after taking a hundred pictures of Daisy through the glass and visiting Sasha and Trey in her room one more time, I decide as we walk back to the car in the parking lot I need to tell him how I feel. Before I can he asks, “So what’s with the name Daisy? You guys all acted like there was something to it? Is it a family name?”

I shake my head as we approach the Aston Martin and reach for his hand again. “Not really. But when I was a kid I wanted to change my name to Daisy. And I bullied Trey into calling me that for about a week, until my dad came home from a road trip and told me I was being stupid. I asked him if I could use it as a new middle name instead, and he said no, even though my middle name is worse than my first.”

“Ah, the mysterious middle name.” Sebastian laughs. “I keep forgetting to steal your driver’s license.”

I ignore that. “Glenn said no, of course. My name was my name and there was no changing it.”

He grins at me. “I guess he would hate me calling you Shay, then.”

“Probably,” I reply and wink. “So please make sure to do it in front of him a lot.”

He laughs, and as we reach the car I stop and pull him toward me. I kiss him hard on the mouth and he likes it, grabbing my waist and pulling me closer. “Let’s get home so I can peel you out of these clothes and fuck you into next week.”

I flush at his bluntness, which is so fucking hot. Then I look around the parking lot, which is filled with cars but devoid of people. “Or we could just do it in the Aston Martin. Doesn’t James Bond drive this? I bet he would approve.”

He steps backward, pushing me into the side of the car. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I dare you,” I whisper against his mouth, knowing full well he won’t do it, but he’ll want to because he’s the most competitive person I know besides myself, and he hates passing up challenges.

He groans and attacks my mouth with a blazing hot kiss. When he pulls away, I struggle to catch my breath as he whispers, “Shay, baby. God, I love you.”

He beat me to it. That’s what I was going to tell him. I open my eyes and stare into his. He looks so sure and confident about what he just said—about his feelings for me—and it makes me happier than I have ever been in my entire life.

“Augusta,” I whisper.

His heavy eyebrows pinch and he stares at me with a curious blink. “Augusta?”

“My middle name,” I confess sheepishly. “He named me after his favorite golf course.”

“Oh my God, you’re right. It’s worse than Shayne.” He starts to smile and then laugh.

“And I would never admit that unless I loved you too.” I kiss him and laugh into it. “Now take me home and make good on that fucking me into next week promise.”

“Anything you say, Shayne Augusta Beckford.” He opens my door and I climb in. He leans into the open door and whispers, “I love you and your ridiculous name.”

“I love you and your ridiculously long-winded name,” I call back as he closes my door and walks around the car. I close my eyes, rest my head against the leather headrest and smile to myself.

I am so lucky I got out of my own way and let myself fall in love with this man. He is everything I never knew I wanted and then some.