Page 39 of He Has Game (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
Chapter 10
Finn
Roses are a cheesy idea, I know. Something I never thought I’d stoop to, but I can’t get rid of the feeling that I owe her, that Vivvie is putting herself out there, literally putting her heart on the line for me with this role. Never mind that it’s her job, because it’s not the kind of thing anyone should have to put up with in a job. Mary called me to let me know what happened at the fashion show. That my mother showed up.
But in the category of wonders never ceasing, my mother wasn’t the biggest problem. Sherry Boylston had stirred things up. Worse yet, the Boylstons invited us all—including Vivvie’s parents—to dinner. Fucking shit. I should have bought her a whole rose bush.
“I missed you,” I say, only because it’s true, though I’m sure it’s mostly my forlorn dick that misses seeing her, that’s dying for her attention. Though that’s fucking never gonna happen.
She licks her lips and my heart thuds. My starving dick swells to that point of need and near recklessness and I struggle to control my breathing and just about everything else. Is that all it takes? Really? Then I remember, oh yeah, I haven’t had fucking sex in almost three fucking weeks. And I’m only a quarter of the way into my enforced period of celibacy.
“Come in.” She smiles but doesn’t show the same level of enthusiasm as she had when we first met. At least she doesn’t roll her eyes as she takes the roses. “These are gorgeous. And surprising. What’s the occasion?”
“Mary told me about the fashion show debacle.”
She takes the roses into her kitchenette and cuts them and arranges them in a vase. Then she slips by me to place it on her window sill. I’m watching her and growing more restless by the second.
“These look perfect here.” She turns to me, eyes full of longing, and bites her lower lip. Knowing she’s not trying to tease me does nothing to quell my dick’s response, or the tightening of every muscle in me, including my balls.
I look around her tiny apartment, my gaze landing on her couch because there’s not much else in the place. The sight makes me gulp, sends my dick into orbit, and I know we need to get out of here while I can still walk.
“Let’s go out for coffee,” she says. “I have a few hours off.”
It’s a sunny day, almost April, almost the end of the season. We walk to a corner coffee shop, different than our usual place because the last thing I need is pastry. There are two chairs out front so she sits and I get our coffees.
“I feel like you have something to tell me,” she says as I sit, setting the coffees on the small table.
“Maybe I do.” After I sip my coffee to give me a shot of nerve, I tell her about the dinner invitation.
“My parents?”
I nod. “It’ll be okay. You can tell them the whole story if you want, that the engagement isn’t real, if you think it’ll make things easier.”
“The thing is, I don’t think it will. They’d worry about me the whole time.” She does her deep breathing thing, slow breaths in and out. She doesn’t know I notice, that I notice every fucking little thing about her, including that she’s had her hands manicured and her nail polish is a pale pink that suits her, that she never wears scarves or necklaces or any jewelry except bracelets and her watch. And now the diamond I gave her. I take her hand, feeling how soft it is, not remembering other women having hands so soft.
“I’ll go along with however you want to handle it. I’m sorry this is turning out to be so difficult for you.”
“For me?” She squeezes my hand. “It’s you I’m worried about. It’s your dreams of the playoffs and going for the Stanley Cup on the line—not to mention a disruption of your life, the possible loss of your home and your friends.” Her green eyes go glassy, I see the meaning of her words reflected in them, see how deep they go, feel the vibration of her sincerity in the sound of those words.
“What am I going to do with you?” My voice is gravelly and raw, like I feel. It’s a rhetorical question, but Vivvie has a habit of answering rhetorical questions.
“Good question,” she says giving me an uncharacteristically flirtatious smile, accompanied by her trademark blush, soft and peachy-pink, a nervous quiver in her mouth. Her voice is soft, along with her eyes, her expression—and my soul. “Whatareyou going to do with me, Finn?”
“Are you daring me?” Because fuck, I think she is. Excitement flips my gut and my temperature goes through the roof as my pulse races, the blood flowing to the promised land where my dick is pressed hard against my zipper and my balls are tight with greed. A softened heart is no match for a hard dick.
She smiles. It would be a shy smile any other time or place in any other circumstances, but with those dilated pupils and longing in her eyes, I know better. I can only be tempted so far, turn down so many invitations. Third strike and all bets are off and she’s on.
Needing to get out of here, needing to take her with me, I use my free hand to arrange myself so I can stand. Then, with that firm grip now on her overheated wrist, pulse beating wildly, forcing me to bite back a groan, I pull her from her chair and into my arms, up against my body.
“Let’s get out of here then.” I growl the words into her ear, and her delicate lobe and the soft tendrils of hair tickle my jaw, sending a jolt through me. Sweeping her from the place, I almost don’t notice the man grab her as we hit the street.
“Hey.” She turns and I see the snicker on the douche’s face. Freezing in place, I pin the guy with my eyes before he turns away. His friend grabs the door.
“Let’s go,” Vivvie says. I don’t move.
The two guys meet my cold stare and I see recognition dawn as I push Vivvie behind me and step close to the one who touched her, blocking the sidewalk in spite of the pedestrian traffic, in spite of the crowd of people around.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand.
