Page 51 of Body Check

Only, when I tap the screen awake, I find a text from her already waiting for me. I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t take off like a sprinter at the starting line.

Holly: You asked me if I ever wonder about us . . . Only every day since we signed the papers.

Holly: Sometimes I think you’ve ruined me for anyone else.

I run my thumb over the glass screen encasing her words, imagining them being whispered in my ear, her hot breath warming my skin. Opening the messaging app, I type back my response and lay it all out on the line:

Me: Tonight, I took my first breath of air in over a year. This thing between us . . . it’s not over, sweetheart. If you think I’ve ruined you for anyone else, just know that for me there’s been no one else. Full stop. Period. I’m ready to breathe again, Holls, and I only do that with you.

I set my alarm and leave my phone on the desk.

And when I climb under the covers and slip between the sheets, I do what I’ve done for months . . . I wrap my hand around my hard cock and jerk off to the vivid memories of my ex-wife. Only now, it’s not to memories gathered from our marriage, but of tonight when I finally had the chance to taste her again.

Sweet. Bold.Mine.

I’m an addict, hooked on the feeling of her body rubbing against mine. I imagine it’s her hand gripping me. Her hand twisting at the crown before slicking all the way down to the base. Her palm cupping my balls and gently squeezing.

My knees rise up, tenting the sheets, my closed fist moving faster and faster over my dick as I recall her half-shut lids as I rocked her over me. The way her hips rolled seductively. How her hands fluttered over my shoulders as she clung to me and rode my body with everything she had to give. My name was a prayer on her lips. A prayer of sin, maybe, but I’ve never been the most penitent of men.

Until now.

Sometimes I think you’ve ruined me for anyone else.

As hot ropes of cum jet onto my stomach, I pray that there will only be me in her future. That she’s as ruined as I am.

I’ve never been a religious man . . . but that’s never stopped me from kneeling at the altar of Holly.

17

Holly

Iswallow a delicious mouthful of pasta, then dash a napkin across my lips. “Thanks for letting us crash Sunday dinner,” I tell the Cain family, who are seated at the table around me.

Earlier in the day, Carmen, Adam, and I made the short drive south to Connecticut to visit Weston and his immediate family. We’d needed progress on his storyline for the show, something outside of therapy rooms and hotels, and Weston suggested family dinner at his parent’s place.

It’s the first family dinner I’ve been invited to in ages. In all the years that I’ve lived in New England, my grandmother visited only once. She was a creature of comfort, hated leaving her bubble of small-town Louisiana, and Lord knows her eyebrows might as well have been stitched to her hairline when we visited Sal’s and she discovered that the restaurant only offeredunsweet tea. Take away a Southern woman’s sweet tea and there will be hell to pay, I assure you.

As for Sam, my brother is firmly planted on the West Coast. If your name isn’t High Tech, then you simply aren’t on his radar. I love him, but he’s always been more interested in computer software than doing the whole sibling thing. Or, really, relationshipanythingwith anyone. Case in point: he’s never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a “friend” of any sort that involves him spending any amount of time away from his computers.

Jackson was my family in every way that mattered.

Jackson, who I humped rather shamelessly just last week in Chicago.Nothing like eradicating boundaries one dry-humping session at a time. If there was a competition for who could almost make oneself come just by grinding, I’d take first place.

At the kick to my ankle, my back shoots straight and I trade a quick glance with Carmen. “And,” I rush out, making eye contact with the very blonde Mrs. Cain, “thank you for letting us film it all forGetting Pucked.Not every family would agree to do this for us.”

The Cain matriarch’s eyes twinkle as she spoons another helping of mashed sweet potatoes onto her plate. “We’re not exactly like every family out there, Holly. Has Weston ever told you all about his very first hockey game?”

Weston, playing the part of embarrassed son, rolls his eyes and takes a long pull from his beer. “No, Ma, I didn’t because they don’t care about any of that.”

“Sure we do.” Adam mimics Weston and drinks from his beer bottle. “We’re pretty much here for all of Weston’s dirty secrets.”

If my sound mixer wasn’t seated across the table, I’d slap him upside the head. As it is, I grit out a smile and shoot metaphorical daggers at him with my eyes. “We’re totallynothere for the dirty secrets.” I glance over at one of the four cameras we positioned in every corner of the room upon first arriving earlier in the evening. “If anything, we’re interested in learning what it’s like for all of you to have an NHL player in the house. What are the pro’s, the con’s? All that comes with being related to someone famous and in the public eye.”

Until we’d arrived in Hartford, I’d had no idea that the Cain family was ridiculously wealthyorthat Weston was part of a dynamic-twin duo. Maybe I should have done more research or maybe it’s because the Blades defenseman is notoriously tight-lipped about his private life.

Tory, the not-so-infamous twin, leans forward to prop his arms on the table. His blond hair is cut like Weston’s, shorter on the sides and a little longer up front. If it weren’t for the difference in their noses—Weston’s has clearly been broken multiple times—I’d have no idea who is who.

Tory offers a slow, curling grin when he glances from his brother to me. “Pro,” he murmurs in a silky voice that’s cultured and refined, just like the slacks and pressed shirt he’s wearing, “Weston’s doing what he loves, even if it’s not what our parents would want from him.”

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