Boldly by Elise Faber

Chapter Eight

Hazel

He was leaning in.

His mouth brushed hers.

He tasted…wonderful. She leaned in, shifting to not squish Noah, but then that was the last conscious thought she had because his hands slid into her hair, he murmured, “These fucking curls,” against her lips, and then he kissed her.

The world stopped spinning.

Gravity ceased being a thing.

She was floating and drifting through a cloud of desire.

The doorbell rang

And she plummeted toward the ground.

Oh shit. Oh. Shit.

She was kissing Oliver James. Her client. She was kissing her client. Oh, fucking hell. She was a psychologist and kissing a client and—

“I lost her,” Oliver murmured, pulling back slightly, enough that she could see the humor in his eyes. “I guess I’ll just have to try harder.” He leaned back in.

“O—”

The doorbell rang again.

A sigh. From him? Her? She didn’t know. But he didn’t seem particularly upset, so she figured it was from her and the weird push-pull in her gut rather than Oliver, especially when he smiled gently and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll get the door. You try not to freak out.”

Yeah.

Like that was going to happen.

But before the sound of disbelief made it up her throat and out through her lips, he was striding into the hallway and she heard him open the door, the crinkle of him accepting a bag—their dinner, she supposed—and his footsteps returning.

Then he was back, smiling, calm, and assured, as though he hadn’t kissed her in a way that changed everything…and she’d only gotten a marginal amount of tongue.

As in, it had been in her mouth, stroking along hers, coaxing hers out to play, and giving her the best kiss of her life—and that included those given to her by Trevor, the freaking man she was supposed to have married, kisses that she’d thought were fucking fantastic considering Trevor could use his lips and tongue in a way that was hot, not sloppy, and didn’t leave her wiping her mouth on the back of her hand after they’d finished.

So yeah, she still had more trauma from her high school days, and that didn’t end with her mom calling her Banana Bread Sweetums in front of the entire teenage populace.

First boyfriend.

First kiss.

First time she’d been slobbered on.

That made her shudder.

And fingers found her cheek again, that light brush of Oliver’s knuckles over her skin, causing her to shudder again, though this time for a completely different reason than the previous one. Namely, that every time he’d done that—did that—it made her imagine him doing that on different parts of her body.

Naked.

And by different parts, she meant everywhere.

“Cold?” he murmured, setting the bag on the table.

“No.”

It was a whisper. One that drew his focus.

“Freaking out?”

“No.”

Still a whisper.

“Then why are you trembling like you’re in the rink in a bikini?”

That had her mouth twitching and her tongue—unfortunately in her own mouth and not being coaxed out to play by his supremely more talented one—loosening. “First, it was a shudder because I was thinking about our kiss and how it was good, better than even Trevor’s, and that got me thinking about the bad, and how my first kiss had warranted a rub-off afterward.”

His brows rose, something like displeasure flitted across his face.

Defensiveness crept into her tone. “What?”

“Rub-off?”

She paused, brows drawn together for a long moment, then gasp. “Not that kind of rub-off. I meant having to rub the spit off my lips because he tried to Hoover my mouth.”

“Ah.”

A glare. “That’s all you have to say?” she demanded.

“Well, in fairness, I didn’t know what kind of rub-off you were referring to.”

The fucker’s eyes were twinkling, as though he had tiny stars glittering in his irises.

“I wouldn’t jerk off a boy in high school after one kiss. Hell, I wouldn’t do that now. That’s third date stuff or fifth or—”

“Babe.”

“Sixtieth date stuff and—”

“Babe.”

“What?” she snapped.

“I wasn’t talking about you jerking him off. I was talking about you rubbing one out.”

“And it’s up to me if I grab a cock or not and when I want—” She continued to snap at him, for no reason except because he was being presumptuous, and she wasn’t going to allow him to be presumptuous, not on her time—“so long as the man whose cock I’m grabbing wants that, too, because consent is a thing and—” Then his words processed. “Rub. One. Out?” Her mouth gaped open, and she stared up at him.

The sparkling stars were still in his pale blue eyes.

But now they’d been joined by heat and—holy hell—was that some heat. Christ. The man was threatening to set her on fire.

“Yeah, babe,” he said, like he was completely unaffected. “I’m assuming you touch yourself?”

She nodded.

“But I’m also guessing, based on your reaction and the aforementioned Hoovering, that it wasn’t in relation to that kiss.”

She nodded again.

Knuckles on her cheek. “When do you do it?”

A silken question, one that almost had her telling him.

But then she remembered herself, remembered where she was and who she was with, and was she seriously discussing her masturbating habits with Oliver James, who was still a client, in her boss’s house, while holding her boss’s baby.

Seriously.

What. The. Fuck. Was. Wrong. With. Her?

She was holding a baby.

She resisted the urge to earmuff his tiny little head so he wouldn’t hear, even though the damage would have already been done to his developing brain at this point if he’d been able to understand a word of what they were talking about with their discussion of rubbing.

Fuck.

Okay, she was starting to save up for his therapy fund now, and she’d start gathering referrals immediately.

“I’ve lost her again,” Oliver murmured.

Hazel narrowed her eyes.

“Second?”

She blinked.

“You said first.” He was close again, those knuckles on her skin, sliding down over her jaw and along her throat. “So, what’s second? Why else were you trembling earlier?”

The man had magical powers.

That was it.

He’d wielded his imaginary wand and put some charm on her that made everything running through her mind slid right off her tongue.

Okay.

It wasn’t him.

At work she often had to bite her tongue, though not as much as if she’d been a therapist who counseled people on their lives instead of hockey players who needed to get their head in the game and who most of the time preferred that she give it to them straight instead of going easy (though some of them definitely did need easy, especially if they’d been on the snide—not scoring—for a while). But outside of her work, she tended to fly free and loose. Her mom was…herself and never met a tongue she liked to bite. Her dad was chill and laidback but didn’t have any qualms about being honest either—whether that was when her mom made something new for dinner (or he did because they took turns cooking, though his experiments often ended in the trash and then her parents ended up with takeout) or if he thought Hazel was dating someone he didn’t like.

For the record, Trevor had been almost at the top of that list while they were dating and engaged and had moved to that absolute top spot after their engagement had broken off in the way it had.

Which was the only reason she could think of later for why she told Oliver what she did.

“Second,” she blurted, “I was trembling because the kiss was good. Really good, and it was so good that I wish we hadn’t done it because I can’t pursue this because you’re a client—”

“I thought you were cutting me loose as a client.”

“—and now,” she said, ignoring him and giving him the rest of it because that was her, and fuck if Hazel was going to be anything but herself, even with gorgeous Oliver James and his pale blue eyes and hair she wanted to grab tight while he rubbed one out on her was standing six inches from her, “I’m going to be thinking of that kiss every time I have to work with you—”

“Which you just said was never, babe,” he pointed out.

Annoyingly.

“And,” she went on with more ignoring because she was on a roll, “I liked kissing you because your tongue has some serious fucking skill, and I can’t help but imagine what that might feel like stroking over my clit.”

He stiffened. “Babe.”

She inhaled, let it out slowly. “Right. It might have been a mistake to tell you that.”

“Not a mistake.” His voice was a rasp, and then she dropped her gaze…to his pelvis. Okay, not his pelvis. That was her pretending she didn’t see what she saw. Which was lower.

And harder.

Oliver’s cock was hard and pressing against the zipper of his jeans.

Lovingly cupped by his already tight jeans because even though he was less bulky than before his injury, his ass was still a hockey player’s ass, and that meant there wasn’t a whole lot of space in that denim. As thus, his erection was emphasized by that material, and…

She wanted to touch.

Clearing her throat, she shifted away from him. “I’ll put Noah down, check on Luc and Lexi.” She didn’t want to give up her shield—which probably said horrible things about her being willing to use a baby as a human shield so she didn’t touch Oliver’s lovingly cupped cock—but she’d corrupted Noah enough already.

And it was really hard to earmuff with only one free hand.

Plus, sometime during this dangerous conversation, Noah had gone out. Not just dozing. But out. Way out. So she’d put him into his crib and hoped that he slept long enough that his parents emerged from the other side of their naps semi-human again.

“Babe?”

It probably also said something bad about her that she shivered when Oliver called her babe in that slightly raspy voice. And that she stopped and turned back to face him without hesitation, without commenting on the endearment.

Letting it go when she should be telling him to stop.

Instead, all she said was, “Yeah?”

“It wasn’t a mistake to tell me that.”

Shivers and shudders and trembling.

She had them the entire way to Noah’s room, while trying to put him down (super not conducive to keeping the infant asleep while she did so, though she managed), and while peeking into the master bedroom and then the den, finding Lexi and Luc, respectively, both still asleep, both snoring quietly, their faces slack, their bodies relaxed.

She still had those shivers when she forced herself to walk back into the kitchen—both because she wasn’t a coward and because Oliver was in there and she couldn’t make herself walk out the front door.

Expecting a confrontation or at least some conversation that would have necessitated earmuffs for Noah, had he been in her arms still, she was surprised to find two containers of udon set out on the table, utensils at their sides, Lexi’s candle lit and set in the middle of the table, soft music playing from…somewhere (his phone she realized on closer examination). The bag was gone, Lexi and Luc’s food hopefully stowed in the fridge, and Oliver was standing there studying her—

While she studied the space.

His face was unfathomable.

Then he smiled, and it made her heart skip a beat.

“Hungry?”

She was.

But it wasn’t for udon.