12. Noah

12 /

noah

Frankie Bardot owns me.

Completely.

Nothing in my life has ever felt like this. Frankie’s body gets me drunk, but her hold on me is so much deeper. She has me thinking bigger. Dreaming more. Seeing a life beyond the draft and what I might do on the ice. She makes me want to put good into the world. And with her at my side, I feel as though I can.

I need to get out of this room before her dad comes home. Before her mom and Anthony wake up. This isn’t the way I want her family finding out about us. They deserve to hear the reasons we care about each other. And yeah, Anthony maybe has a right to get up in my face, but his displeasure won’t matter to me. I’m not ending my pursuit of his sister. I’ve held back for too long.

I slip my arm from under Frankie’s head, and she stirs, rubbing her eyes and cracking them open to look at me.

“No, don’t go,” she moans. Her naked body is so hot against mine, but for the last hour, her tits have been growing harder in the cool air. I may have tasted one as she slept, blowing on it just to watch it pucker.

“If I don’t get out of here now, the sun will come up and this will be the spot of my death,” I joke— not really joking.

“Yeah, but?—”

She wraps her hand around my cock, which is still hard. It hasn’t softened all night.

“Woman, you will be my end,” I groan against her lips. I let her stroke me a few times, and I slide my hand between her legs, feeling how slick she is. So ready. So wet.

Mentally, I’m calculating how quickly I can make her come before I must leave. But my brain is thankfully firing enough to know that if we start this again, I’m not going to do anything quickly. I’m going to taste her and tease her. And make her late for the photo booth and cause her family to wonder why she hasn’t left her room.

“Fuck, I have to,” I say, pulling our lips apart. Her hand slides over the end of my cock, and I twist in her bed, swinging my feet to the floor to give my devil’s side some space from temptation.

Running my palm over my face, I smile into my hand as she trails her fingers up my spine, sitting up and pressing her lips to the back of my neck.

“Thank you,” she hums.

I chuckle softly.

“For what? Fucking you until you were exhausted or?—”

“For everything,” she whispers. “For taking care of me when I’m sick, and for running the booth yesterday. And for helping to raise money for our community and being a real Santa to people who need one.”

Her hand snakes around my side to my chest, and I bring it up to my lips.

“You make me better,” I say.

We sit in the most comfortable silence for several long seconds.

“And thank you for fucking me,” she finally says, breaking it up and causing me to laugh a little louder than I want.

“I’ll see you in a few hours, yeah? And then maybe tonight you can come with me and my mom to pick out a tree. I think my mom misses the pine scent. My dad usually hauls it home and sets it up, but he won’t be home until March.”

“Okay,” she says, her voice gravelly. Her eyes are barely open when I stand to take her in. I pull my pants from the floor, step into them, and then toss her sleep shirt to her so she can cover up.

“Don’t forget the deposit,” I remind her, slipping my shirt over my head and stuffing my wallet, keys, and phone into my pocket.

I hold her blanket up so she can crawl back underneath. It’s not quite five yet. She still has a few hours of sleep ahead of her. I tuck her in, smoothing her hair from her face before bending down to kiss her head. The mental picture of her soft form will stick with me, and I nearly tell her I love her before I swallow those words so I can process them.

I slip out of her room and gently close her door, not exhaling until I reach the top of the stairs.

What the fuck was that? I love her? I mean . . . shit. I love her.

My pulse races, but with every step I take, it regulates until I’m fucking grinning like an idiot at the bottom of her family’s stairs. I grip the round, wooden finial where we used to hang our coats when we were kids after playing in the snow. I glance over my shoulder, up to the quiet, dark hallway beyond the landing, and just before I take a step to rush back upstairs and tell Frankie everything in my heart, a throat clears in the darkness.

Anthony flicks the reading lamp on the second I turn to face the den. He’s still wearing the same clothes as he did last night, but he doesn’t look as sloppy and drunk. He’s sobered up. And he’s fucking furious.

“Going somewhere?”

He jumps to his feet and straightens his sweatshirt before adjusting his jeans along his hips.

“Ant, look?—”

“You get what you need here? Time to leave?” He takes a few ambling steps forward. I take one back and hold up a hand.

“It’s not what you think, man.”

“No?” He steps toward me again, closing the gap. He’s going to hit me so fucking hard. I brace myself for the impact.

“I really care about her, Anthony. This is different. She’s different.”

He shoves my chest, two palms dead center, and I lose most of my air and fall back a few steps.

“You’re right, Noah. She is different. She’s my fucking sister,” he shouts, shoving me just as I regain my balance.

“Yes. It’s your sister. And I’m sorry that it had to be this way, but I am not backing down.” I steady my legs this time, and when he pushes me, I shove him back, my hands hitting his pecs with a massive thud.

“Fuck you,” he coughs out, grabbing my shirt by the collar and pulling me into him until the cotton tears.

I wrestle his hand away from me just as his other fist crashes into my jaw. The crunch of bone-on-bone rings in my ears, and the lights overhead illuminate the second Anthony’s body rams into mine, knocking me into the dining table, then the floor.

“Anthony! Stop!” Frankie’s voice is shrill.

“Boys! Stop it!” Her mom’s tone is familiar, the same one she used when we roughhoused as young boys. This fight is different, though. As long as I’m within reach, Anthony is going to keep coming for me. He can’t hear reason right now. He doesn’t want to.

“I asked you for one thing! One. Thing!” His voice is hoarse from a heavy night of drinking and the volume he’s blasting at me.

“You don’t get to do that,” I grunt, grappling with him as he swings at me wildly, landing a good shot just under my left eye. Eventually, I have him pinned, and I cuff his wrists with my hands and press them into his chest.

“I told you not to fuck up her life, man. She has a good thing going. A scholarship at Harbor. She doesn’t need you in her head. You know she’s weak when it comes to you. You know it!”

I push his knotted hands into his diaphragm out of anger, and he coughs out a gasp. I’m stronger than he is, even if he’s raging. I’m bigger. And if this continues, I’m going to seriously hurt him. As I attempt to climb off his waist, he grabs hold of my leg, tripping me up enough to allow him the upper hand. But I’m done fighting with him. I understand his anger. I just need him to calm down so I can explain.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” he growls, his arm elevated and ready to come down on my face.

“No!” Frankie screams, pulling at the back of her brother’s shirt. He fights against her, leaving them both in a strained stalemate as I scoot backward to gain space from Anthony.

He tries to shake Frankie off, and I’m about to leap to my feet to pull her off his back when a pair of massive arms peels her away and wraps around Anthony’s waist.

“This stops now!” Steven Bardot’s booming voice renders everyone speechless and still. Anthony is not quite limp as his father drags him back several feet, his arms locked around his son’s torso and biceps. Anthony doesn’t dare fight back.

Still on the floor, I let my back fall against the kitchen cabinet, my mind finally catching up to just how far I traveled during this scuffle. When my gaze lands on the man who coached me as a boy and taught me everything I know about hockey, I suddenly feel like the twelve-year-old who was mesmerized by him. I also feel really fucking ashamed.

“Your eye,” Frankie cries, rushing to my side and pressing her cool fingertips to my skin. I gaze at her, my left eye swelling enough that I can see my own cheek puffing up. I wrap my hand around her wrist.

“I’m sorry,” I croak.

She shakes her head.

“He made it all up. Did you know that? The volunteer hours? He doesn’t need volunteer hours. He was just trying to get in your?—”

“Enough!” his father shouts, shoving away from his son and pointing a rigid finger in his face. His dad’s jaw is clenched, and now Anthony looks like a little boy, too.

“In your room!” Mr. Bardot growls, pointing up the stairs. Anthony blinks at him defiantly until his dad jerks him toward the steps by his sleeve. “I don’t give a shit if you’re an adult. This is our house, and you will not act like an animal in it. Go!”

His dad points up the stairs, and Anthony scales the steps with heavy stomps of his feet. His gaze sticks to mine, his eyes hazed with a resentment I’m not sure I’ll be able to overcome. I let him win, and look away.

“Noah, are you all right?” their mom asks, handing a cloth filled with ice to her daughter. Frankie presses it to my eye, and I wince.

“I’ll be fine. I’m really sorry. This is all my fault?—”

“Nonsense. You two don’t owe Anthony anything. And none of us are blind,” she says. My gaze flits to Mrs. Bardot, and Frankie glances at her mom, too. With a soft smile, her mom squeezes my shoulder and winks, then turns her attention to her husband, who is pacing at the bottom of the stairs.

“I ruined Christmas,” I mutter, taking over the cold compress. Anthony’s aim is a little too perfect. My face hurts.

“Stop it. You only ruined part of it,” she teases. I laugh, then wince.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, lifting my shirt to check the state of my ribs.

I cover her hand with mine.

“I can take a check to the body. And this . . .” I circle my face with my hand. “Not my first fight.”

She runs her hand through my hair and laughs softly.

“You hockey players are idiots.”

I nod and press the ice to my lip, hissing. Yep. That hurts too.

“You’re not wrong,” I agree.

Frankie leaves me sitting as she wets a second towel under the faucet and returns to dab lightly on my face. The pink on the towel isn’t as crimson as I expected. I’m going to have some scratches, but I don’t think anything is going to need stitches. I think I may have cracked one of Anthony’s ribs. I feel like shit over that.

“Santa may need some good makeup today,” I say, squinting as our eyes meet.

Her head tilts to the side as she studies me, pressing the wet cloth to my face a few times before her lip ticks up on the side and she grimaces.

“You’re going to need a sub today. No amount of makeup will cover this.”

“At least the original Santa is home. Maybe it’s good that your dad came back early,” I say.

She nods, but there’s a hint of regret pulling down the corners of her eyes. I recognize it because I feel it, too. This past week has been the best of my life. I love getting to do good deeds with her. I love hearing from the kids and talking with the families.

“Did you really make up needing volunteer hours?”

Shit. I was hoping she missed that part.

My molars gnash together as I let a tight-lipped, guilty smile push into my cheeks.

“Noah!” Her chastising of me is a bit playful, thank God.

I lift a shoulder and let my hand fall to my lip along with the ice pack.

“I wanted a reason to spend time with you.”

“You could have asked.”

I chuckle and look down at my lap. She makes it seem so simple, and maybe it is. At the time, though, it was terrifying.

“You intimidate me a little,” I say. Her head leans to the side, and I shrug. “You do! I mean, you threw that sweatshirt at me pretty hard. It had oomph! I was hurt.”

Her laughter is soft and subsides quickly, as does mine. I reach my hand up to her face, and my thumb gently strokes her skin. Her hand covers mine, holding my palm to the side of her face, then turning into me to press her lips on the inside of my wrist.

“I won’t hurt you again,” she hums.

My breath grows heavy. I hold her gaze for several quiet seconds, my heart wanting to say so many things. It’s not the time for that. But it is time for a promise.

“I swear I’ll never hurt you again either.”