Game On

chapter 32


“THAT RILEY?” LUC ASKED, HIS voice giving her a start.

He spoke. Thank you God, he spoke. “Yes, yes, it’s Riley. He’ll come and take you out of here,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster. “We’ll go back to the hotel and have a nice cup of tea and you’ll feel loads better.”

Luc grabbed the phone from her. “Ry,” he scowled. “How could you leave me here without food?”

Clara didn’t hear Riley’s exact response, but she did hear what sounded like a lot of cussing. In two languages.

“Mange de la merde, to you, too.” More unintelligible words from Riley’s end, but this time, she heard a chuckle.

“So, uh… are you alright?” she said tentatively, reaching for her phone.

“I will be when you get on my lap and make me forget where I am.”

Clara threw herself into his arms. Shaking with relief, she searched his face for some clue to his state of mind. She expected his mouth to be tight or scowling, his eyes to be liquid or fiery. There was nothing but weariness. “You’re not horribly angry with me, are you?”

“I don’t know if angry is the right word. Blindsided, maybe.”

“But you’re alright now? Now that you’ve acclimated?”

“Still a bit off balance.”

Clara swallowed the disappointment rising in her throat. “I just tried…I just thought…I just wanted you…I spoke to some doctors, did research on post-traumatic stress disorders, I even called some therapists, off the record, of course, and they suggested a method called behaviour modif—”

He kissed her. Right in the middle of her explanation. He kissed her, and she stopped talking and kissed him back.

“I know what you were trying to do, ma belle.” He cupped her face, kissed her nose, her cheeks, her chin. “And I appreciate it.”

“So you’re all better then?” she asked, taming his mussed hair.

He closed his eyes and gave his head a shake. “No, love,” he said sadly. “Not now. Maybe not ever. I’m sorry.”

Clara’s heart thumped to the bottom of her gut. She’d failed, let him down. “No, don’t be sorry. I thought I could fix you,” she whispered and rested her forehead against his. “But you don’t need to be fixed, do you? You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, I guess, but this is progress. I liked this, liked hearing the practice. But I can’t be here. This isn’t my place anymore.”

She nodded against him.

“One thing I can’t figure out,” he whispered. “How did the trench coat play into this scheme?”

“Oh, never mind,” she said with a sigh of defeat. “That was just me trying too hard.”

“How do you mean?”

“Behaviour modification.” Clara got off his knee and unknotted the belt, feeling ridiculous but resigned to confess all. “It was to make you forget your negative feelings about hockey arenas.” She pulled the jacket open, revealing her wardrobe beneath: a lacy red thong, a matching corset with demi-cups that pushed her assets to unnatural heights, and black thigh-high boots. “And replace them with positive ones.”

“Mon dieu! You should have opened with that.”

Clara shrugged and started to close her coat.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Luc said, yanking it back open. “And to think I’d avoided therapy all these years.” He pulled her down on top of him. Clara straddled his lap and nuzzled his neck while he slid his hands under her coat, touched her, explored every inch of bare skin with deft fingers.

He showered hungry kisses down the side of her face, her neck, and ran his tongue along the blade of her collarbone, then buried his face in her cleavage. “You taste like kettle corn,” he murmured. “Do you remember what that tastes like? A little sweet, a little salty, buttery smooth, and leaves you wanting more.”

Emotionally on edge, Clara’s mind and body reacted instantly. She reached down and sought the heat between his legs, felt an urgency to connect with him, to make the un-comfortableness of the past couple hours disappear. “Seems we have a high-sticking situation, Monsieur Bisquet.” She flicked the snap on his jeans and slid the zipper down with teasing deliberation, his erection swelling under her touch.

“Do I get a penalty?”

“I might send you to the box,” she purred suggestively. Who knew hockey terms could be so deliciously dirty?

“Oh f*ck, yeah,” he groaned.

“Riley’s coming in a few minutes.”

“I only need a few minutes.”

“Then let’s get this game on,” she said, sliding off his knee.

Clara stood and slid her thumbs along the waistband of her thong. She played, pulling one side down to reveal a naked hip, then the other, before sliding them off, slowly, over her long black boots.

“Are you trying to kill me?” There it was, that low, gravelly sex voice that made her insides melt and her p-ssy fill with cream.

“Just make you suffer a bit.” Hell, in for a pence, in for a pound, she decided and propped one stiletto-heeled foot on the chair back, next to his head. “Penalty time. Two minutes for high sticking.”

Luc groaned and looked heavenward before sliding forward so the back of her thigh was propped on his shoulder.

“Call Riley,” he said, “Tell him I need another ten minutes.”

Clara could barely punch the numbers into her phone while Luc teased her, toyed with the soft lips of her labia, before spreading her open with his thumbs and delving into the hot wetness.

Riley’s “Yo, I’m in the elevator, hold your horses!” came at the exact moment Luc’s tongue grazed the tight bundle of nerves at her apex. She couldn’t have held in the gasp even if she’d been prepared.

“Clara?” Riley sounded alarmed. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

“Need ten more minutes,” she managed to say.

“More.” Luc’s voice was muffled, but his intentions were clear.

“We’ll meet you in the coffee shop in a half hour,” Clara blurted before another moan could escape.

The hard tip of Luc’s tongue circled her *oris. Perhaps this wasn’t a great idea to do whilst standing. She gripped his shoulders for balance.

Luc inserted a finger into her channel, sending another jolt of pure electric heat from her scalp to her toes. He added another, filling her, pushing deeper, while his tongue found a rhythm. He stroked harder, faster, until her body trembled for release.

Swirls of color swam in Clara’s tightly shut eyes. She’d never…not in a public place…and the taboo of it had heightened her senses, made the very act feel more urgent.

“In me, in me, in me,” she said, “I want you in me.”

“No condoms,” he mumbled.

Clara reached into the pocket of her trench coat and pulled out a string of foil packets. She tore one off while he wiggled his jeans lower, and sheathed him before mounting. She hadn’t yet settled her weight on him when he grabbed her by the waist and thrust his hips up, impaling her with a force she felt all the way up her spine.

“Oh yes,” she moaned, tossing her head back. She wanted to scream, to shout, to yell, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she was concerned with the acoustics in a twenty-thousand-seat arena.

He drove into her without mercy, taking as much as she could give. Unlike their soul-connecting passion a handful of nights ago, this was f*cking. This was a pure animalistic coupling. Hot monkey sex. He gripped her hair and forced her to look into his eyes as he took her. He grunted, low and dangerous, with every thrust, claiming her with a primal fierceness that scared her, thrilled her, made her feel wanton and reckless.

For the first time since they’d been together, Luc came before her. For the first time, Clara got to witness his release with unclouded vision. His brow furrowed, his lids slammed shut, the cords of his neck bulged, strained, the muscles of his shoulders and arms bunched under her fingers as his body released a massive force of energy.

She made that happen.

It was powerful, momentous, and damn, it felt good to hear the one singular word he muttered when it was done.

“Clara.”