Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Niko

I seldom think of myself as a stupid man, but as the word "mine" echoes off the walls of my skull, I must acknowledge that I am the worst kind of idiot. And I do not fucking care. Not right now when Chloe looms over me, rumpled and warm, her lips bruised from my kisses and her chin pink with beard burn.

I allow her to roll the condom over my cock as her soft thighs straddle my hips and her gorgeous breasts bob before me for the taking. A perfect handful each, just as I prefer them. It takes a lot to fill hands my size.

It is not as if I have been celibate since Peyton, but I have certainly been careful—and picky, ignoring the advances of puck bunnies and preferring instead to bed women who have no knowledge of my profession or, often, my name. It is better that way.

But this—being with Chloe—brings a sort of intimacy I have no experience with, no reference point with which to compare it. Yes, Peyton and I were married, but I am unsure we ever even liked one another. We married because she was pregnant. No other reason, nor did she appear to require one.

But Chloe is my friend. We share genuine affection, which makes fucking her not only indescribably stupid but dangerously complicated. I told her I cannot offer a relationship, and she agreed this is only about scratching an itch, but I cannot afford any confusion before I take her body.

So, despite ninety-nine percent of the blood in my veins currently residing in my cock, I manage to rein in the remaining one percent to shore up a handful of brain cells and pause. "Chloe," I draw her attention, my voice ragged.

She looks up from my straining dick, which is now half covered in latex, to meet my gaze. Fiery lust fills the blue of her irises, her pupils wide and her chest heaving. "What?" Her voice is breathy when she stills her hands.

"I want to make sure we...both truly understand what this is...and what it is not." I am unsure which of us needs the reminder.

She grins then, leaning forward to drop a quick kiss on my lips before straightening again. "What do I keep telling you?" She doesn't pause before answering her own question. "You need to lighten up, big guy."

Since there is only one way to interpret her words, I release that last 1 percent to do its worst while Chloe resumes her task. I vow to make her pant my name as many times as possible before dawn—and real life—break in.

As soon as I am sheathed, she rises to her knees, stroking my cock before positioning the head at her entrance.

"Stop," I command, causing her eyes to flash back to mine. "You will go slow. I will not have you hurting yourself, malish ." I am big—proportional to the rest of my body, which makes me more than some women can take.

She draws in a breath and lowers herself until just the head of my cock is seated in her heat. She groans. "I'm not sure if I can go slow." When she hastily rises and drops her pelvis farther this time, I lock my jaw and brace her hips with both hands to halt her movements.

"You will ."

The steel in my tone has her nodding and finally obeying. Her next movement is slow and controlled as she takes more of me, causing us both to groan. She is impossibly tight and wet around my cock, and I regret the need for a condom. I want to be coated in her juices and spill my cum into her like the beast I am.

As with all things in my life, I take fucking very seriously. If anything is worth my attention, it gets my entire attention and effort. It has proven to be too much for some women, but everyone has their own preferences. Mine lean toward women who like being controlled in the bedroom and allow me to make their pleasure my objective.

"Good god." Chloe's head falls back on her next downward slide. "'Big Guy' is beyond fitting as a nickname." One more rise and fall, and I am finally seated fully inside her, tight in her body's grip. She brings her head up, a half laugh escaping her throat. "I'm a little concerned you might puncture a lung."

I frown at her, my hands freezing on their path to her breasts. "Are you in pain?"

This time, her laugh is followed by a groan, and I move to pull her off me. She bats my hands away and reseats herself, sheathing me to the root.

"Don't you dare! I was joking." When she groans this time, I recognize it as pleasure instead of pain.

My hands fall to the sheet under me, my frown intensifying. "You think this is funny?"

When her only response is a wide grin, I decide Chloe Cooper is in need of a lesson she will not soon forget. Before she can so much as blink, I flip her to her back and drive my cock inside her until she gasps. Her thighs hug my hips as she moans, "More."

I need no further invitation. My strokes are measured but strong. But when she winds her arms around me, her hands beginning to explore my back and shoulders, I halt all movement. Chloe whimpers in protest.

"Hands above your head," I instruct. "I want you focusing on my cock taking your pretty pussy and nothing else."

Her immediate compliance has the beast inside me purring with contentment. "Good girl," I murmur before resuming my thrusts into her wet heat. Her mewls and moans are too much, so I take her mouth with mine and we mimic our bodies' movements with our tongues, delving and retreating.

When I feel the first flutters of her inner muscles around my cock, I tear my mouth from hers and shift to my knees. Gripping one creamy thigh in each hand, I jerk her into me as I thrust forward, my eyes trained on her pink, swollen pussy taking the length of my cock over and over.

"Nikolai." The word is a plea, but I do not relent in my motions, driving into her until she spasms wildly around me. Her back arches off the bed and her head digs into the mattress as she whimpers my name. Every muscle in her body is drawn tight as I continue to fuck her through her orgasm.

Sweat drips from my forehead into my eyes, and I swipe it away as the familiar rush of adrenaline races across my back, and my balls draw almost painfully tight. Chloe is mewling beneath me, her arms still above her head like the good girl she is.

I readjust my grip on her thighs, our skin slick with perspiration as I piston faster, the loud, repeated slap of my pelvis against her luscious ass and thighs reverberating around the room.

Then my vision clouds with white, and I'm coming hard and long, never letting up my pace until the last shockwave rushes down my spine and I am utterly drained. My body collapses to the bed, but I am careful to land just beside Chloe, pulling her limp body with me so we remain connected.

Ragged breaths spill from my lungs as Chloe's face collides with my shoulder and she quietly pants what sounds like a mantra. "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit."

I slide an arm around her waist, drawing her even closer. "Are you all right?" I manage to ask over the heaving of my chest.

"With utmost sincerity, I can promise you I have never been better."

I can feel her lips curving against my skin, and a sense of profound satisfaction settles deep within my chest.

"I will need a few minutes to recover, I am afraid."

This time she barks out a laugh, and it is only then that I realize this might be the first time there has been laughter in my bed. To my mind, humor and fucking are the most improbable of bedfellows. But to think of Chloe without a ready smile on her lips or a chuckle in her throat is even more incongruous.

When my breathing returns to normal, I reluctantly pull out of her, securing the condom as I do. "Stay here," I instruct before climbing out of bed to dispose of the rubber in my bathroom.

When I return with a warm washcloth in hand, it is to find Chloe reclining with a sheet pulled up to her neck. My nostrils flare as I bend and yank the sheet down, tearing the entire thing from the bed and tossing it to the floor in one motion.

Chloe gasps and brings a hand to her breasts, but I only respond with an order. "Thighs apart, malish . Now."

Instead of complying, Chloe narrows her eyes and asks, "You keep saying that. What does it mean?"

Without answering, I sit on the bed and run a hand gently up one of her legs. When she finally allows me to guide her thighs apart, I say, "It is a...what is the word? A name you call someone special."

Her face softens at that. "An endearment."

"Yes, an endearment," I confirm before lifting the washcloth to her mound.

"There's really no need," Chloe says as I lay the cloth over the pink skin. "We used a condom."

"It is for soreness," I explain, concentrating on my task.

"Oh." She allows herself to relax back into the mattress. "Thanks." Her tone is almost shy.

But I am afraid I have veered into territory that is only shared by people with a different kind of intimacy between them, so I add, "I am nowhere near finished with you tonight, and I need you to keep up."

I cannot help but chuckle when her responding gulp is audible.

Two hours—and two orgasms—later, Chloe is having difficulty keeping her eyes open. "So, where did you learn English?" she asks over a yawn.

I bring my folded arm behind my head to prop it up while she burrows into my chest. It feels too damn good having her soft curves relaxed against my body, skin to skin. "I moved to Canada to play when I was twenty years old. The only English words I knew were ‘hamburger' and ‘hockey.'"

"Well," Chloe murmurs, "That's really all a guy needs when you think about it."

My lips tip. "I suppose. But I soon learned enough from my teammates and from watching old television programs at night. Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days were my favorites."

She lifts her head to smile drowsily at me. "I am such a sucker for anything fifties and sixties, in case you can't tell from my personal style."

"Ah. I knew there was a reason I liked all of your tops."

She dips her chin into my chest again and laughs. "Yeah, I'm sure that's the only reason."

I drag a finger over her bare shoulder and smile to myself. "My teammates waited an entire season before telling me no one has used the words ‘nifty' or ‘shucks' in forty years. I was beginning to wonder how my luck with women was so awful."

Her body shakes with her silent laughter.

"To this day, I have never figured out what a shlemiel or a schlimazel are," I confess, referencing the words used in the theme song for one of the shows.

"Me neither," Chloe responds, following it with another giant yawn.

We are both quiet for a few minutes while I absently caress the soft skin of her shoulder. When her breathing begins to even and slow, I am faced with a conundrum. As good as it feels lying here with Chloe, sleeping in the same bed is a mistake. However, there is no way I would ask her to leave, so I resolve to sleep in Ayana's room or on the couch since I long ago turned the fourth bedroom into a home gym.

"I am going to shower," I whisper before carefully disentangling myself and shifting sideways to the edge of bed.

"Hmm," Chloe hums, eyes closed and body limp under the sheet we retrieved from the floor. She is so fucking beautiful. Her eyes blink open once, then twice, and when she sees me standing beside the bed, she jerks up to prop herself on an elbow. "Oh! Sorry. I fell asleep." Her unfocused eyes dart around the carpeted floor. "I'll grab my clothes and go."

I narrow my eyes and return to the bed on hands and knees, not stopping until she is trapped under me, wide eyes taking in my stern expression.

"You will not."

"Nikolai," she protests. "We already agreed this is just sex. I don't need to sleep in your bed."

I bend closer until I feel the brush of her breath on my cheek. "You are right, malish ," I whisper. "It is only fucking. But when you are in my bed, that entire gorgeous body—including your sweet pussy—belongs to me. And I am telling you to close your eyes and go back to sleep."

I don't wait for any response. Instead, I close the small gap and kiss her hard and deep before taking my half-hard cock to the bathroom for a long shower. When I emerge thirty minutes later, I find Chloe sprawled out naked on my bed, sheet thrown to the floor once more. Any urge to smile at the sight, however, is tempered by the uneasiness that progressively grew and settled as I showered.

So, I pad quietly from the room in search of a place to pretend to sleep until morning.