Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills

29

Zack

The hockey games keep coming, and somehow I’m managing to keep my shit together. I had some close calls when we faced off with a tough Yale team on the road, but in the end the ornery athlete in me that loves a challenge somehow got me through. At one point, when we were down by one goal with two minutes left and the puck was under my stick, I got dizzy and clammy and that dread rolled through me. I had to score. I had to keep the winning streak going. You deserve hockey. You deserve happiness. You deserve this, I told myself, and it kept me centered. It pulled me through, and I slung the puck into the net.

And Sugar…

Since the day she told me about her dad, we’ve grown closer and we’re spending time together. During the week, we meet up for late lunches after my therapy, and we’ve skipped the Kappa parties to hang out at her place or go donut shop hopping.

It’s a few days after our last win when we order in pizza and watch Game of Thrones at Sugar’s. She’s constantly clapping her hand over her mouth to keep from telling me everyone’s backstory.

“Khal Drogo kind of reminds me of you with his big muscles and I’m all that attitude,” she muses as she munches on a piece of pizza. “I think for Halloween, you should dress up as him.”

I grin. “As long as you’re Dany. They have some pretty hot sex scenes.”

She arches an eyebrow. “I know.”

“Just let me know when you’re ready to resume sex.”

Yeah, she’s making sure sex isn’t all we have. I know it isn’t, but if she needs to know…

“But don’t you want to know if there’s more to life than just sex?”

“No.” I set down my plate of pizza on her desk and grin. “Plus, it’s possible I might die from blue balls.”

“You’ll die from me hitting you upside the head.”

“It was worth a shot.” I kiss her on the lips, quickly, because I know if I linger, I’m going to be jerking off in her bathroom later just so I can drive home.

Someone knocks on the door, and she jumps up to get it wearing a pair of booty shorts and a camisole. Her ass is firm and full, and the way her tits press against that shirt…

Of course her radiator is spitting out heat like crazy and that’s her excuse for being skimpy, but I’m wondering…

I hear her exclaim loudly then a female voice speaks, and I hop up from her bed and walk to the door.

I grin.

It took several phone calls to multiple places today to make this happen, and along with some help from my dad, I was able to find what I needed.

The girl who works the lobby is standing at the door. “I don’t know the guys you date, but if you could hook me up with one of their friends, that would be super cool.”

Sugar takes the donut box and the stuffed penguin from the girl then turns to face me.

The girl sees me, her gaze widening. “Zack Morgan?”

“Yep.” My mask slides into place and I prepare myself for fluttering eyes or a plea for an autograph, but she holds it together, her stare going from me to a blushing Sugar.

“What?” I say.

She squirms. “It’s not visiting hours. You’re not supposed to be in her room.”

“Oh.” I pause. “Any chance you can just forget you saw me here?”

She twists her lips as if thinking about it, and her eyes go back to Sugar, who’s currently standing between us, holding the gift I arranged for her.

Sugar lifts up her box of goodies. “Donut?”

The front desk girl shrugs. “Meh. Why not?” Then she hits us with a stern look as she takes one out of the box. “Just don’t keep the neighbors up and get me in trouble.” She gestures to the door across the hall.

“Rodeo girl?” Sugar says.

She nods. “Big complainer. Be safe, kids.” She gives us a final look and waltzes down the hall, humming as she chews on her sweet treat.

I move to stand next to Sugar as she unwraps the bow tied around the penguin.

“My, my, my, donuts and a stuffed animal.”

“I hope you like him.”

She takes the card attached to the little penguin’s neck and reads it aloud. “I used to live in Antarctica until Z found me. He says you hate flowers and he promises to never send them. Please keep me next to you every night.” A slow blush works up her face as she turns to look at me. “He’s adorable.”

I take her hand and we’re back on her side of the room. “I’ve never given a girl food or a stuffed penguin. I win.”

“How did you find him?”

I laugh. “I got online and found him at this specialty toy store in the city. I ran down there between classes and my dad paid your favorite donut guy a little extra to bring him with the sweets. Those are the Ding Dong donuts from your shop, right?”

She grins, nods, and falls back on the bed, holding the stuffed animal to her chest. Her hair is everywhere, splayed out over her creamy shoulders, and I kiss her.

Emotions cross over her face as we pull back and stare at each other. I read her features as they shift from uncertainty to concern until finally I can’t define her at all. I’m trying to figure her out, but she’s up and down, like me, afraid one moment then all in the next.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“You know, penguins are pretty special.”

“Really?” She’s soft against me, and I snuggle in closer, throwing my leg over her.

“Yeah. The emperor penguin, which is what yours is, mates for life, and when the female goes out to get food, the male stays behind and keeps the eggs warm. She might be gone for two months, but he won’t eat or move until she comes back to him.”

Her face softens. “That’s romantic.”

I smile. “I know. Penguin love—it’s pretty cool, right?”

“Hmmm.”

“They live in large groups too, so it’s easy to get separated, but the paired male and female always find each other, like a sixth sense for their mate.” I study her. I know this story is…stupid, but this is my way of telling her…shit, I don’t know.

She laces our hands together. “I get tingles when you walk in a room.”

“Me too.” I kiss her again. Softly. Easy. I want her so bad.

By the time eleven rolls around, she’s asleep in my arms, and the credits are rolling on yet another episode. Frankly, it’s been one of the best days I’ve had in a long time.

My arms tighten around her, and I lean down and whisper in her ear. “Just wrapped up the last episode in season one. Those dragons are kickass.”

She murmurs my name, still half asleep, and I grin, leaning down to kiss her. I can’t stop myself. She responds, her arms curling around my neck, her mouth pressing harder into mine.

“You need to go,” she murmurs after a few minutes of our lips clinging to each other.

My head rests against hers. “My cock is hard, like Super Dick. It would be a shame to waste all that potential for the orgasm of your dreams.”

“Super Dick? Stop.” She pokes me in the ribs, and I pop out a laugh then roll off her.

“Hey, that’s not fair. I’m ticklish.”

“Now I know your secrets,” she says, poking me again until I’m scrambling across the bed to get away from her.

“Help!” I’m gasping, and she’s laughing and straddling me, and fuck I can smell her skin. I bite back a moan and freeze, cupping her face.

“What?” she asks, her gaze searching mine, looking for something, but I don’t know how to do things like this.

I just want her.

“I want to fuck you forever,” I say without thinking.

“Romance at its best.” She huffs out a laugh and moves away to grab a pop.

I exhale and sit up. “I don’t know how to say shit.”

She gives me a smile, and I stand up and look at her wall of Post-it notes, moving over the colors. She put a shitload of thought into it, working through her breakup.

I think about Willow, and all the letters I’ve written her.

“I had a girlfriend once, you know. Willow. She died in a car wreck right after my mom passed away.” The words just come out, and I feel a profound sense of relief.

Sugar freezes, her pop halfway to her mouth. I can feel her rapt attention, the heavy silence.

I hold myself taut. “She left a party because she was angry with me.”

“God, Z, that’s terrible.”

Emotion clogs at my throat and I blink rapidly. “I blame myself.” I rub my chest, touching the ache that’s building. “She was my first…” I stop and my hands clench. I look around the room, purposely not looking at her. “I ruined her life and look how good mine is. Look at…everything I have.” My voice is weird, and I clear my throat to cover it up.

Sugar moves and is standing behind me, her arms around my middle. “Accidents happen, Z.”

I drag my hands briskly over my face. I don’t know where this is coming from, because I never talk to girls like this and tell them about Willow, but my insides feel like I’m ripping them out. I have to get this out—or at least part of it. “She was a year younger than me, and I wanted us to work, but I was going off to college. We were going through some relationship stuff, and that night I was late to the party because I was out running in the park, just working shit out in my head, trying to figure out how to tell her—tell her parents—” My voice breaks, my scalp tingling. “She…she was pregnant.” I’ve never told anyone that but my family and hers. A cold sweat breaks out and the room spins. The oxygen is gone and I can’t breathe.

I tear at my neck, ripping off my T-shirt and throwing it on the floor.

“Z?”

Her voice is far away and my heart pounds, heavy and loud like a sledgehammer, and I’m sitting on her bed, holding my head in my hands. I breathe slowly in and out, and she’s next to me, her hand on my arm, fingers tracing the outline of my dragon.

“I’m sorry.” I push the words out on a gasp.

Her eyes widen. “Don’t be. What’s going on?”

“Panic attack. Not a bad one.”

“What do I do?” She frowns. “Tell me.”

“Just keep touching me, please,” I say. “Don’t…stop.” I need her next to me and I don’t even know why, but if she were to get up and walk away from me right now, I might flip out.

She leans in and does as I asked, continuing to trace the shape of my tattoo, across my left shoulder and down my back. I close my lids.

In and out. In and out.

I think about teaching her to skate, about her in my arms and how good it was. I told her to not be afraid to fall…because I’m falling for her…so hard.

Several minutes pass and gradually, my heart slows to a pace that’s halfway normal.

“Do you want some water?”

I take her hand. “Don’t get up.”

“Want to tell me about these attacks?” She touches my face, tracing my jawline, so sweet and gentle.

I exhale and tell her about the episode when we played Minnesota-Duluth. I explain how I lied to the media. “I’m worried Nashville will figure it out and ditch me. Can you imagine how they’re going to feel when they find out their number one pick has mental issues?”

I hear her thinking. “Are these episodes because of Willow?”

I shake my head. “The truth is, I’ve always been wired tight—maybe it just comes from being the best—and things get to me pretty quick. In the past, I was able to just push it away, but now, I think, really, this might just be me forever.” I pause, watching her expression. “I’m seeing a therapist. That’s why I haven’t been in class.”

“I see.” She kisses my forehead. “I’m glad.”

“I think with the NHL looming, I’m losing my cool, but my guilt somehow makes it worse. If she’d lived, I’d be a dad right now.”

She grows still, and my breathing deepens, worried. She’s seeing it all, all the ugly, awful parts of me, but I can’t stop talking.

“Maybe I deserve the panic attacks. It’s like God saying, You can’t have the NHL because you ruined her life.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“That’s like telling the night not to be black.” My voice cracks.

She’s got her entire body wrapped around mine, her legs thrown over my thighs, and she alternates between rubbing my scalp and tracing the dragon on my skin. She toys with the medallion around my neck.

I turn to face her, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears.

“Don’t cry for me.”

She shakes her head. “Ignore me and just keep talking. Tell me about Willow.”

I freeze, and here it is—the opportunity. I swallow. “She was pretty and outgoing. She wanted to move to Hollywood and be an actress. Everyone loved her because she lit up a room when she walked into it.” My hands clench in my lap, trying to work up the nerve to finish.

Sugar holds my gaze, sincerity there. “I’m sorry.”

I close my eyes. Sugar has a way of saying the simplest things and they are just right. She doesn’t have to elaborate.

I ease down to lie back on her bed, and several minutes go by as we hold each other. My head—shit, my brain is urging me to tell her the one thing I’m holding back, the one thing that’s going to slay her when she finds out…

But maybe she’ll never know, I think as my hand rests on her stomach, flicking her belly ring.

“Z,” she whispers huskily as she squirms under my hands, her voice breathy. “I’m not sure if this is the right time, but…”

I flip over until she’s underneath me and I’m lying between her legs, my jeans already tight.

She’s pliant, her skin soft as silk as I remove her camisole and expose her breasts. Soft and round and creamy, they quiver as she breathes, her gaze daring me to take what I want.

I trace my fingers over the outline of her face and kiss her, my tongue dueling with hers, dancing and sparring until the past is gone, until all I see in my head is her. “Fucking you is everything.”

“Poetry, Z. Pure poetry.” She gives me a hot look and licks her upper lip, and I groan and take her mouth again as she says, “Fuck me. Please.”

“I love it when you talk like that. I’ll never get enough.” I suck on her tits, palming them. “I had a physical after my anxiety attack. I’m clean. Are you on something?”

“I’m on the pill, and I’m also disease-free.” She bites her lip. “I got tested after I broke up with Bennett.”

“Don’t say his name,” I growl and shove down my jeans and fight with them until they’re finally at my feet. I give them a good kick off to the floor.

Looking back at her with her blonde hair everywhere, my body quakes, throbbing with desire.

“Julia’s working,” she says as I slide my hand inside her shorts and find her pussy dripping wet.

“Too bad. That closet was hot,” I say, watching her squirm under my touch. She’s writhing, biting her lip, and her tits bounce as she moves her hips to keep up with my finger moving into her.

I can’t breathe for the thought of my bare dick inside her. Fuck, this intensity with her is scary, so new, and what if I do it wrong? What if I messed up already from the get-go with my lie of omission?

“What’s wrong?” she says, and I come back and kiss her.

“I don’t want to scare you, but I want you rough.” I bite my bottom lip on purpose and give her a heavy-lidded look. I know she likes it. “I want to hold you down so you can’t move. I want to make you come hard while I fuck you…”

Her eyes dilate.

I suck her nipples, moving from one to the other.

“I like it.” She moans as I bite down. “Do it. Do whatever you want, but I refuse to use coconuts as a safe word.”

My cock jerks and I laugh.

“Put your hands up around the headboard,” I say, and she does, excitement flashing across her face. Naked, I get up and dig around in her closet, find the scarf, and tie her wrists to the bed. Slowly, I pull her underwear off and suck in a deep breath as I take her in, her body open and ready. My hand drifts down her skin, from the curve of her beautiful face to the tips of her toes. She vibrates and groans when I stroke inside her.

“Z…”

“Shhh, don’t say anything. Don’t move. Just let me make you come.”

She blushes and nods, seeming to get that I need dark and rough and different and then…then…she will always be mine. I don’t know why I think that, it’s just that she’s so ready for anything I want. I don’t normally engage in sex like this, but I’ve always wanted to, and when it’s with her, it means trust. She trusts me and that means something to her.

I see the openness on her face, a transparency that makes me want to shout to the world. She knows about my anxiety and she doesn’t think any differently of me.

“Just tell me if you want me to stop,” I say as I get on the bed. I push her legs together and up to her chest, parting them just a little as I position her upper thighs until they rest against her torso. It’s a confining position, but she allows the awkwardness.

“Feel like a pretzel?”

She nods.

“I’ll make it feel good,” I growl.

“I know.”

Kneeling over her, I turn her hips so they’re pointed to the wall. I hold her prisoner with one forearm on top of her then crouch down, turn, and run my tongue over her sex, the folds pink and stretched and open to me. I lap at her, the taste perfect as I tongue her clit. She gasps and squirms against my mouth.

“I could spend all night in this one spot,” I say. “I’ve thought about you every day since the Kappa party. I sit in my classes dreaming of ways to fuck you, how to make you come, how to make sure you never want anyone but me.”

She moans.

“I think about how much I want to teach you everything you don’t know, and I want to erase every guy from your head.” The fingers of my free hand explore her sex, working her until she’s gasping. “You’re mine and I want…”

Her—so goddamn much that it terrifies me.

She arches her hips for more but can’t really move. Her tits are under her folded legs, but my insistent finger reaches up and finds her nipple, pinches it, tugging it down. She groans, her face reddening as I alternate between her breasts and tonguing her sex from top to bottom. My thumb traces the outline of her rosebud, tapping and using the wetness to dip inside. She’s hot and gasping, her head tossing on the pillow.

My eyes take in her every nuance, the little things I’ve come to expect when we’re together, the warm scent of her skin, the way her hair gets in her eyes and she blows it away, the way her body hitches when I touch her pussy. I lick her again and suck her clit into my mouth. Her name is a litany on my lips as I play with her, and I tell her how beautiful she is and how much I love how she tastes. She lets out a deep groan and comes, her body barely able to move as she spasms, clenching around my fingers.

I rise up and hover over her, my arm pressing her down on the bed. “Hang on.”

My cock pushes inside her and goes to the hilt, her sheath slick and sweet, earth-shatteringly tight with her legs pressed together. “So perfect.”

She pants, her body quivering.

I come back out and slide right back in, picking up the pace, my free hand kneading her hip and pinching her nipple as I fuck her, and it’s all me because she can’t move. I hold nothing back, pistoning in and out until the bed scoots on the floor, giving her everything I have left from the deluge of emotions we’ve built up in these past weeks.

My fingers dig into her skin, and the sounds of our sex and her pleading moans build and build, and I feel the tingles in my spine as my hips hit a deep, sweet spot that makes me tremble.

“Z,” she calls out as her body clenches around mine again, and my length hardens, expanding.

I don’t want to come. Not yet. I want to keep taking her, owning her. I love the control. I love that she’s looking at me like I’m her whole world.

I swivel my hips in, going deeper and her lashes flutter against her cheek.

“Z,” she moans, her hands gripping the bedpost.

I lean down and take her mouth and her tongue sucks mine and that’s all it takes. Sweat drips from my face as I roar my release and collapse on top of her then quickly roll away, not wanting to squash her. I reach up and untie her hands, and neither of us speaks, only a quiet hush in the room along with our bellowing breaths. I lean over and look at her outstretched legs, and her skin is tinged red from where my forearms pressed against her. I touch them softly and kiss the lines. I work my eyes over her body, seeing fingerprint marks on her hips and breasts. I lick her nipple.

“Will it bruise?” she asks.

I look up at her. “I don’t know.” I’ve never held a girl down before.

“I’m up for more,” she says, and I huff out a laugh, not knowing how to tell her that doing this with her is the most intimate experience I’ve had with a girl.

I kiss each mark and crawl back to where she’s lying on the pillows. I lie down and she rolls over, easing into my embrace as if she’s done it a hundred times. I rock us, I don’t know why, and I kiss her, exploring the warm recesses of her mouth as if she were a fine piece of china.

Finally it’s her who breaks the silence. “Z…is it…is it always like this with you?”

“Look at me.”

She does.

“Let me set this straight in case there’s any question about how many girls I’ve had or this whole girl-of-the-month thing that keeps popping up. It’s a rumor people like to perpetuate because of who I am. I date girls and we break up and I really don’t think about them much again. This isn’t that. You aren’t them. Never in a million years.”

She kisses me.

And shit, the world is golden.