Page 51 of The Rebound Plan

That doesn’t stop my back from arching off the bed, my shoulders and feet pressing down, my hips lifting against my fingers, that have found their way into my panties.

A crass, growly hockey player’s mouth licking against my fingers. Jockeying for position because he all he wants to do is kiss me until I scream.

I got turned on watching the show, sitting on that couch. Being painfully aware of his body, the warmth of him, going out of my skin with need. This fantasy is my subconscious dealing with those feelings, that’s all.

I need to come.

If I find a release, then this bombardment of thoughts will cease.

I give in. I don’t think his name, but I feel the size of his shoulders between my thighs, his big fingers wrapping around my legs. Hear the burr of his accent and?—

My clit spasms against my fingertips, and I’m tipped into an orgasm I didn’t see coming.

I gasp a little shocked sob.

No.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to come that quickly.

The fantasy fades, even as I try to hold on to the warm, dangerous feelings. I can’t do that again, but wow, did it feel good.

I roll onto my side and push my fingers into my mouth, licking my own arousal off them. Pretending it’s a Scottish tongue. Pretending I’m clinging to his broad shoulders as we kiss, as he tells me how good I taste.

Tears track down my cheeks as I silently sob. There’s no clarity after this release. Only confusion and loneliness and a terrifying black hole where my vision for what’s next should be.

CHAPTER 20

RUSS

I skip golf in the morning. I don’t stick around for the girls to wake up, either. Instead, I do the rookie workout with Foster in the garage, followed by an ice bath and some red light therapy, hoping the latter works on jealousy as well as it does whatever else it claims.

Then I tag along with them to the rink in town, where Thea and Foster have an extra clinic planned for them this morning before we return in the afternoon with the rest of the guys.

Foster gives me a look when he sees me carrying in my bag.

“What?”

“You don’t want to overdo it,” he says calmly.

“Then I won’t.”

“You’re not twenty anymore.”

“Fully aware, bud. Thanks.”

I take the warm up skate easy, then practice some angled shots off the boards at one end while Thea sets them up for some board battles. The mission this morning is to get them ready for the brute force of the NHL, and at first, they aren’t sure that Thea Brown—who is a foot shorter than most of them—is the right person to teach them how to use their size, but she quickly wins them over with her keen observations and suggestions.

“All right, you’re starting to get the idea of it. Mason, Zondi. Line up and let’s do that again.”

They take their mark ten feet from the boards, and on her whistle, they charge hard for the puck Foster shoots up along the boards.

Zondi’s bigger and faster, but Mason hunches down, making himself smaller—and more compact. A coiled ball of muscles that can explode once he’s got his skate between Malik’s.

Just in time, Zondi figures it out, twisting and using his weight to power away with the puck.

“You almost had me,” he says cheerfully, swinging back to high-five Mason.

I skate closer as Calhoun and Watanabe line up.

---