Page 7 of Puck of the Irish

I whisper in her ear, “Do you want me to bend you over this table and fuck you until you can’t take anymore, Natalie?” She inhales sharply but wiggles her ass against my cock in answer. “Say it,” I tell her. She turns her head slightly, wrapping one hand around the back of my head and kissing me deeply.

“I want you to bend me over this table andtryto last long enough to make me tap out,” she says against my lips andfuck meif that little challenge isn’t sexy. She smiles and pulls back enough to meet my gaze, quirking a brow as if to saybring it on.

“Oh, challenge accepted, baby. Challenge fucking accepted.”

Five

NAT

I may have bittenoff more than I could chew, but it’s the best mistake I’ve ever made. It might just be the best night of sex of my entire life. Ok, notmight. It is. Hands down, bar none, all other competitors in the fucking dust. Rizz did, in fact, last long enough to make me tap out, taking me hard from behind bent over that table. I’d come two more times before I’d nearly collapsed, the only thing holding me up his body pinning me to the edge of the table. After that he moved us to the couch, somehow still going strong, but bless him, he slowed it down and wrung one more orgasm out of me before he finally joined me over the edge.

I’ll give credit where credit is due: Anthony Rizzo just might be a sex god disguised as a hockey player.

We’re sprawled out on the living room floor now, recovering, though I’ve yet to come back down completely from the absolute high of this night. I can’t quite believe it, not just because of the mind-blowing sex, but because I’ve actually crossed that line with Rizzo.

And it felt so fucking right and addictive that it scares me.

I finally get the strength to sit up and Rizzo tugs a blanket from a stack beneath the coffee table and tosses it to me before grabbing a remote. He presses a button and the fireplace roars to life. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders but he’s content to remain completely uncovered on the thick rug. I’m not complaining one bit. If this is my one night with him, I’ll gladly take every second to admire that body of his, to commit every detail to memory to replay over and over in my head for the rest of eternity. I feel bad for whatever guy comes next, honestly, because I can’t promise that Rizzo won’t be the one I’m thinking of for a long, long time.

The thought spooks me a bit, so I get up and wander around the room to really look at the space for the first time. I spy an old hoodie lying on the back of the couch, so I snatch it up and pull it on. I inhale deeply and shiver—whatever cologne Rizzo wears smellsdamngood.

“Help yourself,” he says with a laugh and I smile at him over my shoulder.

The place is huge, fully open-concept with the kitchen, dining, and living room space all in one giant room, really, but each area is well defined. The ceilings are high with exposed metal beams and the back wall is made up entirely of glass doors that open out onto an impressive balcony and an absolutely stunning view of Seattle.

“Not too shabby, Thirst Trap,” I say, nodding to the lights outside. He hikes a shoulder, watching me from his spot on the floor.

“The view is killer, for sure, and it’s a nice place, but not really my style, honestly.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it came fully furnished and that was fine with me—I didn’t have the time or desire to have to worry about decoratingand shit, so it worked out great—but now that I’ve been here for a while, I realize how not-me it is.”

I look around again and agree that it doesn’t feel very Rizzo to me, there’s absolutely none of his personality anywhere. Everything is very…I don’t know what to call it. Industrial-modern? All sleek lines and dark metal. It’s gorgeous but a little cold, honestly, and there’s basically no personal touches at all, he’s right. No knickknacks or neon signs or movie posters—but I do spy one small area near the back of the room that has a cluster of framed photos on the wall.

“I’m actually moving soon,” he calls as I wander closer to get a better look at the pictures.

“Where to?” I ask over my shoulder as I take in the pics. They’re all of Rizzo and a woman who I’m assuming is his mom, with beautiful deep-red hair and the same blue eyes as her son. One in front of an old castle, one on a cliff side overlooking a gray ocean, another in front of a gorgeous church. Some of the backgrounds look vaguely familiar but I can’t quite place them—until I see the Guinness Storehouse sign.

“Are these all in Ireland?” I ask as he saunters up behind me. He places a quick kiss on my neck, almost as if out of habit and I can’t say that I hate it.

“To Shep’s neighborhood, actually,” he says, answering the first question. “I close in a few days and should be all moved in before Christmas. And, yeah, my mom and I go to Ireland every few years. It’s kind of our thing.”

I turn to look at him, glancing down at the pendant hanging from the chain around his neck that he always wears, and really look at it for the first time: St. Christopher but set atop what I realize now is a Celtic knot. I arch a brow.

“An Italian who’s obsessed with Ireland?”

He laughs and shakes his head, running his thumb almost absently over the pendant.

“Not a drop of Italian in me. Or, well, there’s probably some drops, let’s be real—I should probably do one of those ancestry DNA test things to find out—but my family is like ninety-five percent Irish, at least on the side that I care about.” He pulls his gaze away from the pictures to look at me, searching my eyes for…what, I don’t know, but then he lets out a long breath.

“Rizzo is actually my stepdad’s last name. He adopted me when I was thirteen and I love the man completely. He’s my dad in all the ways that matter, and I was all too happy to take his name and be his son, but, yeah, my mom is Irish. Like, born and raised in Cork until she was eleven and they moved to the U.S. My grandparents ended up moving back after my mom went to college and all the rest of the relatives on that side are still there.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yep. Why do you think St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday?” he asks with a smirk.

I roll my eyes. “Because they have green beer and the puck bunnies are even drunker than usual?”

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