Learn Your Lesson: A Single Dad Hockey Romance (Kings of the Ice)

Chloe

The dinner table was alive with laughter that night.

Uncle Mitch and Chef Patel sat on one side, Ava and I sat on the other, and Will was at the head. Despite her ankle still being swollen and tender, Ava charmed us with her stories of the day, making a recovery day of watching movies sound like a safari adventure.

I didn’t miss the way Mitch watched Arushi when she spoke, didn’t miss the way she flushed when she realized he was watching her, either. When our eyes met across the table, I lifted a brow in question, but she just sucked her teeth and waved me off.

I’d cleaned up a bit when we’d arrived, making sure my face and hair didn’t show evidence of the hellish day. In all honesty, it felt like a lifetime ago already, like it was something I hadn’t lived at all.

All the pain had been erased, word by word, thanks to the man to my right.

He barely took his eyes off me throughout the dinner, and when I told the story of how Coconut came to join my little family, he hung on every word like it was gospel.

Then, as we all laughed together, he covered my hand on the table with his own.

My heart leapt into my throat when he did, soaring into the sky and sinking into my gut at once. It was the most incredible, powerful feeling, to be claimed by him like that, to feel the action behind every word he’d spoken earlier. And yet, it was new, unfamiliar, terrifying.

Chef and Mitch grew quiet when it happened, sharing a look over their wine glasses before they went back to eating with little smiles of victory on their lips. And when I chanced a glance at Ava, she was completely unbothered. She smiled at the gesture, and then proceeded to kick her feet under the table while she did her little happy dance she often did when mac and cheese was on the menu.

Will squeezed my hand in his, and I bit my lip, disbelief dancing with the most unbridled joy in my belly.

After dinner, Mitch helped Chef clean up, and then they were headed out the door. Will and I spent time with Ava, who was very sad her father wouldn’t play a game of paper towel hockey with her until she’d rested her ankle for at least a week. But she settled for a book and an imaginary cookie baking with her teddy bears, and then she let us tuck her in, already falling asleep before we could turn on her nightlight.

It was just the two of us, then.

Wordlessly, Will wrapped my hand in his, tugging me down the stairs and into the dark hallway that led to his bedroom. We’d no sooner made it through the door before he was shutting it behind me, pressing me into it, and kissing me senseless.

His lips warmed mine, and I sighed, melting into his touch like it was the first time. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, too, like he’d been waiting for this moment, for the second he could get me alone and touch me how he wanted to.

Like always, he was all-encompassing, his hands traveling the length of me before they were in my hair and cradling my skull. He had the power to make me feel so small and yet so cherished, protected and revered.

“I love you,” he whispered on a sigh, punctuating the declaration with a long, deep kiss.

“You just want to hear me say it back.”

He grinned against my kiss, spinning me and backing me up to the bed. “You caught me. Now give me what I want.”

“Say please.”

I fell back into the mattress, and he was immediately crawling over me, his lips marking every inch on the way up to my mouth.

“I’ll beg all night, if that’s what you want.”

I moaned when he hiked my thigh up and pressed his desire against me, his mouth claiming mine.

“Please, Chloe,” he growled, rolling his hips and sparking a wave of chills. “Say it.”

“Fuck me, Daddy,” I whimpered, writhing against him.

He balked, whole body freezing as I grinned and bit my lip.

Then, he was laughing, shaking his head and digging his fingers into my ribs. “You little brat.”

“Mmm, gonna spank me?”

He tickled me mercilessly, until I was thrashing and nearly crying from laughing so hard. I pushed until he let me climb on top of him, and then I straddled his hips and framed his head with my hands in the mattress, lowering my mouth to his.

“I love you, you impossibly frustrating man,” I said, kissing him between each word. I ground against his erection with a sigh. “Now give me what I want.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We were all hands after that — fingers sliding buttons through fabric, zippers unzipping, clothing being shed left and right. We laughed as we maneuvered one another, the dance not graceful or sexy in any capacity, but then we were bare to each other, warm bodies pressing against one another and trembling with need.

I clawed at his back when he flipped me into the comforter and began kissing his way down between my thighs. I wanted him inside me, impatient as ever, but he just grinned against my skin and took his sweet time making me writhe beneath him.

Every press of his lips against my skin was searing hot, a branding iron I didn’t want to run from. I longed for his name all over me, for him to leave his mark for me and all the world to see.

“I’m going to taste this sweet cunt every fucking day for the rest of my life,” he rasped, licking me with one hot, flat strike of his tongue that had me bowing off the bed.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“I don’t think you’ve clued me in on this plan,” I panted, whimpering when he began working that expert tongue against me. “No ring on my finger.”

“Yet,” he growled, and then my thighs were prisoners to his strong grip, and he was feasting while I moaned and held onto the comforter for dear life.

Yet.

The word sent electricity soaring through me, the thought of being his forever a strong enough notion to make my knees quake and my heart give out.

But all thoughts raced from me the more he worked his tongue and fingers in the perfect way to unravel me. I came on his tongue, trying not to scream too loud as he held me against him and didn’t relent until I was falling lax and struggling to catch my breath.

Even then, he blew hot air over my sensitive clit and kissed along my inner thighs until I was grabbing at his shoulders and pulling him up. I rolled onto my stomach, bending one knee toward my chest and looking over my shoulder with my ass offered to him like a prize.

I fucking loved this position now. Ever since that night in the hotel room, it was one of my favorites. I knew by the way Will groaned and bit his lip that it was one of his, too. His hands reached for my ass, palming it in the appreciative way he always did before he was lining himself up where I wanted him most.

He slid inside me easily, my pussy wet from his mouth and my release. When he filled me to the hilt, we both gasped and moaned — me loud enough that he was covering my mouth with one hand and grinning against my ear.

“Shhh,” he said, and my eyes rolled back as he withdrew and flexed inside me, slow and measured.

God, it felt so good. He felt so good. I couldn’t even recall the awful experience I’d had the first time in college — not now. Will had eviscerated every touch before his, had wiped any memory that wasn’t his hands on me from my mind forever.

He peppered kisses along the back of my neck as he thrust in and out, both of us moaning and breathing heavily, climaxes mounting. I could have come again, but Will was wound tight, and soon he was picking up his pace and burying himself deep until I was moaning into the pillow and he was up on his knees behind me, hands gripping my hips as he fucked me wildly.

I preened under his praise as he came, fighting back his own groans as his body stilled inside me, his release pumping out in rivulets that leaked out of me when he withdrew and pushed inside one last time.

He owned me.

This man owned me, body and soul.

Will withdrew all the way reluctantly, kissing my shoulder before he was rolling off the bed and hustling into the bathroom. I heard the water run, and then he returned with a warm washcloth, running it between my legs as I moaned and stretched like a cat.

When we were both cleaned up, he wrapped me in his arms under the buttery sheets, his legs tangling into a pretzel with mine until I was giggling beneath the prison he’d made with his body.

“Can’t breathe,” I teased, my voice muffled by his chest.

“You’re still running that mouth of yours, so I call bullshit.”

“Hey, what happened to all those promises about taking care of me?”

He swatted my ass. “I think I fulfilled that duty tonight.”

I chuckled, burrowing into his arms and sighing contently. We were quiet for a long while, his fingers running through my hair, mine drawing shapes on his back. I’d never felt so whole.

“So, what’s next?” I finally asked.

Will released me enough to let me lay into the pillows, and he propped his head up on his palm. “What do you want?”

“Well, I think we should tell Ava.”

“Agreed.” He frowned. “What do you think she’ll do?”

I sighed, watching where my finger drew a line along the dusting of hair on his chest. “I won’t even pretend to know. But whatever her reaction is, she’ll have us there to work through it all with. That’s the best thing we can offer.”

He nodded. “What do you think about moving into the house?”

I smiled. “You want me to?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, tightening the grip of his legs around me.

“I don’t want you to get sick of me.”

“Impossible.”

“And what about the cats?”

“Move them in, too. I’ll give them their own room. I’ll make this whole damn house a cat tree if that’s what you want.”

I snorted. “Coconut would be pleased.”

“She likes me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone.”

He shrugged. “Just wait, you’ll see. She’ll be purring in my lap watching Jeopardy in no time.”

We talked like that for what felt like hours, going over logistics that felt like we were talking about what we’d do if we won the lottery. Then again, I guessed in a way, I had.

Eventually, we both grew quiet, and Will’s eyes darkened as he traced the edges of my face with his thumb.

“I’m going to mess up sometimes,” he whispered. “I know I will.”

“And I’m going to need constant reassurance from you,” I combatted. “There’s always going to be a part of me questioning if this is real, if I’m going to wake up one day and you’ll be gone.”

His frown deepened. “I would never leave you, Chloe.”

“And one day, I’ll believe that wholeheartedly,” I said. “But for now, I’m battling against a lifetime of being told and thinking that all men do is leave.”

He nodded, a long sigh leaving him before he leaned down to press his lips to my forehead.

“I can’t wait to prove that theory wrong,” he said. “I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay so damn hard.”

I laughed, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing tight. “And I’m going to be there through all the mess ups to remind you what a good man you are.”

“Fuck, I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I teased, and then he was tickling me and wrapping me back up in a straitjacket of legs and arms and kisses.

Everything I’d ever known was blown out the window that night, a new life beginning — one better than any I’d ever dreamed.

And under the mountain of that man, I whispered words I’d never tire of, no matter how I teased.

“I love you, too.”