Because dear God, Joey Taylor could kiss and the heat of it reverberated through my limbs, more powerful than the rumble of the bus along the pavement.
He tilted my head, slid his tongue against my lips, seeking entrance and I opened for him, got lost in him, and felt the tension from holding himself back in his grip on my jaw and my hip, pressing me to him while we lost ourselves in the crowd’s demands and our own desires.
“I might have just come,” Alix said right as he bumped into Joey’s shoulder.
The jolt and his words broke the spell and Joey pulled back, glaring at Alix before glancing back at me. His gaze swept over my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m great.”
“Good.” He kissed me again quickly and then slung his arm over Alix’s shoulder. The three of us stood at the edge of the bus, Alex holding a drink high in his hand as Joey shouted, “Champions!”
The crowd went wild with cheers.
It was insane. Absolute madness, and yet sharing this with Joey was one of the best experiences. The city adored their hockey, something that surprised me given the natural climate, but the desert dwellers were just as riotous as Chicago would have been. Or Minnesota or Detroit, where I was certain the love of hockey was embedded into every infant’s DNA.
Paige and Lizzie tugged on my shirt, pulling me out of Joey’s hold.
“This is wild!” Lizzie shouted, because we all had to shout over the echoing noise. “And I’m so damn hot.”
She had a water bottle in one hand, a wet towel in her other that I’d seen her use frequently at the back of her neck. She was absolutely adorable with her swollen belly but she had to be miserable.
Paige, now wearing Ilsa in a carrier, appeared equally miserable.
I was sweating too, the afternoon sun beating down on us. So much for the dry heat not being as bad as humidity. I was practically boiling, and like Lizzie said earlier, there was sweat dripping down my body in places sweat never belonged.
“I hear that,” I told her and reached into the nearby cooler a team staff member had been keeping stocked. I grabbed three icy cold bottles and handed them out, grabbing a fourth for Sophie coming at us as she pushed through the players at the rear of the bus.
“Thank you.” She twisted it open and took a huge gulp. “Man, I’ve always wondered what these parades are like but I had no idea it was this insane.”
We murmured our agreements, turned a corner, and apparently the crowd calling for kissing must have traveled down the line because as soon as the bus made the turn, Joey was once again pulling me from the small group of women and into his arms.
“Again,” he said, right before he pressed his lips to mine.
14
Joey
We fell into the house, tripping over shoes and whatever else we kicked off.
I couldn’t get enough of her. Hours. It’d been hours of the parade, Gabby next to me, the frequent calls for the newlyweds to kiss and we’d done it. Every single time someone shouted kiss at us, I’d taken her, laughing. I took her deeply, gave her pecks on the cheek, quick nips at her bottom lip.
The entire time, we’d laughed. We’d smiled. We’d hugged teammates and we’d held the Cup above our heads and shouted for the masses there to celebrate with us while we stood on the second level of buses meant for city tours.
Gabby had been whisked away at points by Lizzie, laughed with other wives and teammates she’d already met earlier. But we’d always found our way back to each other.
Now I needed her. Based on the way she clung to me, tried ripping my jersey off over my head and almost tripping over my ankle, she felt the exact same.
And damn if I didn’t want to give my wife everything she asked for.
The doorbell rang, and Gabby froze. My jersey was gone but the undershirt beneath remained, wrinkled from her fisting it and yanking it from the waistband of my jeans.
Her makeup was smeared, eyes glassy and both of us cursed.
“Who in the hell could be here?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Let’s ignore it.”
And I would have, until I heard the beeping of the door being unlocked and a spike of surprise hit the back of my neck.
“You have to be kidding me.”
“What?” Gabby asked, but I was already on the move. No way. No fucking way she was here.
And more—why was she here?
“Lenora,” I said, and next to me, all the lust and desire that’d been turning her cheeks pink vanished in a blink. “Don’t. Don’t worry about this for a minute.”
“Why?” she asked but I couldn’t answer because Lenora was turning the knob and walking into our—my— home like she still lived here. Like she hadn’t left her key the day I kicked her ass out, like she hadn’t spent hours getting ready trying to look good for me.
My ex-wife was gorgeous. That couldn’t be argued. She had to keep her body toned and tight and in one hundred percent condition at all times. Add in the weight she had to carry from all of her costumes and there wasn’t a single ounce of fat on Lenora’s frame. Tall, nearing six feet, her legs were well over half of her height and dressed down, in cutoff shorts, a top that could have passed for a sports bra, and her hair and makeup done like she was headed to a rehearsal, she was absolutely beautiful.
And fake.
Because I knew of the Botox and the lip fillers and the augmentation she’d had done two years ago to make her already large breasts fuller and larger, because she’d spent a month whining about how much they were already beginning to sag. Her skin was always tan from a spray, not the sun, and she spent more on extensions and her hairstyle than I’d ever spent on anything for myself, hockey skates and sticks included—and that shit was expensive.
Now, I saw the woman who didn’t love me enough, the woman who couldn’t be bothered to be honest, and the woman who’d never shown a genuine interest in my life or my passions.
Hell, in a drunken, barely remembered conversation, Gabby had shown more understanding and knowledge about my life than Lenora ever had.
“What are you doing here?” I glared at the phone in her hand, the app she had pulled up that allowed keyless entry with our—my—security system. I’d never wanted to rip a phone out of someone’s hand and smash it until then.
How dare she enter my home.
Next to me, Gabby had frozen. Her white shorts were unbuttoned, the Vipers jersey I gave to her before the parade was a pile on the floor next to mine and her tank top beneath was wrinkled where I’d fisted it. Barely coming up to my shoulder, she was petite in contrast to the woman who closed the door to my home like she still had a right to it.
I slid my arm behind Gabby’s back and dragged her against me until my hand was at her hip and my thumb could slowly rub against her.
She tightened against me, straight and cold as steel.
She had absolutely nothing to worry about.
“You haven’t returned my calls,” Lenora said, dropping her phone into her purse. “Or my texts.”
Icy blue eyes met mine, the color of the ocean—fake due to her contacts because her true eyes were what she’d always called a muddy brown.
She glanced at Gabby then, her first acknowledgment of her, scanned her face, took in the disheveled hair, undone buttons and squinted. “Am I interrupting something?”