She laughs, a carefree sound that assures me she’s more than happy we started out this way. “And you didn’t even have to dirty your kitchen to get some.”
My head pops up. “Come again?”
She glances over her shoulder. “Well… I mean, that was great, right? It’s what we wanted. No need to cook me dinner, you know.”
I frown. “You’re a completely odd woman.”
Willow snorts. “Oh, come on, Dominik. We have great sex together. It’s why you pursued me. It’s why I gave in. But we scratched the itch, and now you can take me home. In fact, I’ll just take an Uber to meet you next time. No sense in—”
I flip Willow onto her back and surge up, caging her in by placing a hand on either side of her ribs so I can loom over her. “Fuck if you’re leaving. I am going to make us some carbonara because I’m starved after that workout. We’re going to eat, then we’re coming right back to this bed where we’re going to stay all evening. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“But—”
My mouth hits hers for a bruising kiss that’s meant to tame her. When I lift up, I repeat. “All night. I’ll take you home after breakfast.”
“But this is just sex. That’s all. There’s—”
“Willow,” I growl, and her mouth snaps shut. “I’m starting to get you have some sort of issue with intimacy or something. If you want to call this merely great sex, that’s fine. But I’m greedy, which means I want a lot of this ‘sex only’ thing, so you’re staying in my bed all night tonight and that’s all there is to it.”
She wants to argue. I can see I’m impinging on some deeply held belief she has. I don’t know what the basis of her issues are and frankly, at this point, I don’t care. I’m not looking for a deep relationship either.
This can work out between us for the short term because I think we both essentially want the same thing.
Except… I need to be in charge. That’s all there is to it.
“Look,” I say in a more reasonable tone. “We’re both going to be in the same proximity for the foreseeable future while the Vengeance is in the playoffs. We’re both very, very compatible in bed. Neither of us is looking for anything more than sex. So let’s just roll with it, okay? And don’t freak out if I want you to stay all night. It’s certainly not a marriage proposal or anything.”
“Good,” she huffs, sounding very affronted by the word “marriage”. “Because I don’t want anything deep.”
“Fine,” I agree, grinning at her fierce expression. “Neither do I. But there’s one thing we do need to make sure we’re in alignment on.”
“What’s that?” she asks suspiciously.
I place my fingertip at the hollow of her throat before dragging it down the center of her chest. “This body is mine and mine alone. You share it with no one else while sleeping with me.”
Willow narrows her eyes, baring her teeth. “Fine. It’s a good thing you do a passable job of wringing an orgasm out of me. You’ll suffice.”
I laugh at the totally underwhelming report of what we’ve got going on together. Good thing my ego is large enough to take it.
When I drop my gaze to hers, I shake my head in a chastising manner. “You’re cute when you try to be all independent and act like you don’t need me.”
“I don’t—”
My hand slides down her stomach, right in between her legs, and I give her a firm squeeze. Willow gasps and arches into me, her eyes fluttering closed and her teeth digging into her lip.
Oh, yeah.
She may not want to let her heart get involved, which again… totally fine. But her body is already locked down tight and firmly in my possession. It’s mine to do with as I wish and I’ve already got a million ideas on how to exploit that.
CHAPTER 7
Willow
The atmosphere in the Vengeance arena is so electrified, the hair on my arms rises. The team is out on the ice for pre-game warmups, and Metallica is blaring to pump up the crowd. Even my dad is banging his head a little from where he sits at the end of the row. He and my mother flew in this morning to attend the first playoff game that is historically monumental for this expansion team.
My mom is next to him, but she’s not fazed by the rock music. Instead, she’s standing, her arms crossed over her stomach as she watches her son—my brother Dax—perform warmup drills with the team. She was always the one who was super vigilant over Dax’s hockey while my dad was the fun cheerleader type.
Regan and I sit beside her. Dax got us special seats outside of his normal season tickets for the playoff games. Regan and I will be attending them together, but my parents were not about to miss the first one and any others they can make.
I turn my attention to the ice. I can’t even begin to count or remember all the games I’ve seen my brother play in, which have included playoff games with other teams—including a disappointing conference finals loss when he was with Toronto. But there’s something about this team that transcends Dax’s prior league experience.
I wasn’t bullshitting Dominik last night when he asked my opinions on the playoffs. He has built something utterly magical with this team, and I can even see it in the way they skate their warmups. Every guy out there is focused and determined, yet… they all have an easygoing grace in their attitudes. It’s as if they’ve accepted the highly pressurized situation they are in, and they’ve decided to channel it into the most brilliant positive energy I’ve ever seen.
There’s no doubt… part of that comes from Tacker finally settling back into the first line. The man has been through so much and while much of it was beyond his control, it had to have had a negative impact on the energy of the team. But—and I’ve heard most of this from Regan—he seems to have found a true love of life again after falling for his therapist, Nora. That has, in turn, brought them all closer together.
Proof is in the fact the first line helped Dominik decide to allow Rafe Simmons—our talented leader of the second line—to go to Raleigh to join the Carolina Cold Fury in an unprecedented deal. No one has ever effectuated such a trade of players on the eve of the playoffs, particularly between the top-ranked teams in both conferences. All the sports news networks exploded this morning with the story, although Dominik had told me all about it over carbonara last night.
And then… true to his word, we went back to bed where we did not leave until this morning.
I normally don’t do sleepovers since they tend to signify “something” more than just sex. I have to give Dominik credit, though.
We did extraordinarily little sleeping.
“So,” Regan whispers as she leans into me, nudging her shoulder against mine. “Are you going to tell me how it went last night?”
We haven’t seen each other today. By the time I’d gotten home from Dominik’s, Regan was gone for a shift at her contract job as a pediatric nurse. Thank God Dax was gone, too. That way, I didn’t have to suffer his condescending disappointment about me sleeping with his boss.