Third Time's the Charm

“You can’t.”

“Oh, I can,” he said, locking the door.

She glanced at the clock, already knowing what it said. “You can’t!”

Sidney Crosby leveled those bottomless brown eyes across the confines of her office. It seemed smaller now than ever. The only window was behind her, overlooking downtown from the sixth floor. No one to see in - and he did not even glance out.

“I can,” he repeated, “and I will.”

“You’re on the ice in thirty minutes,” she hissed.

He tossed his ratty black Penguins hat on the coffee table with a snap. At least it was the pre-game cap, threadbare and beaten, instead of the post-game one with its legendary salt line. His hair was just long enough to hint at the curly, unruly mop it could become. One oversized hand raked hard through those locks.

“Half an hour and I’m keyed up as fuck, Jax. I can’t even think.”

She could tell. His broad shoulders were high and tight, that solid body coiled like a spring. His dark energy went through her like a knife. One tug of those giant arms and his black warmup jacket came off over his head. Standing there in just his spandex base layer, which would soon be soaked with sweat, Sid knew she was defenseless.

“What about your routine?” His precise pre-game regimen was legendary as it was obsessive.

“You really going to send me out there like this? Or you think I’d play better if I had a little,” he took a step forward, “release?”

Jacqueline backed up; no use. The edge of the desk bumped her ass, arching her back and flexing her legs for a moment. Sid’s eyes dropped right to her pencil skirt - he didn’t miss a thing. The corner of his full, forceful mouth twitched.

“Now will you undress, or am I going to have to rip those clothes off?”

Sid could not think, that was true. He could not get past an elevator without thinking of her office, upstairs, where no one would think to look for him and where Jacqueline was right now, doing some last minute work before the puck dropped of the 2014 NHL Playoffs. This was a big event for her too, but Sid prefered to be the biggest part of her night. He finished his pre-game ritual and sat in front of his stall. Everything was warmed up, loose and yet all the blood in his body seemed to pool in his lap. His cock twitched. Ignoring it did nothing, just tightened the screw. This was not part of the plan - and that plan never, ever changed. Fuck, he thought. It was either take care of himself in the bathroom with a hot, hard session or sneak upstairs for an infinitely hotter, harder one with her.

He didn’t knock. She looked up as he walked in, got to her feet as he closed the door. She was, in order: dark blond hair and square glasses, light eyes, pink lips and rack that made her white shirt tug at the center button; the only thing in the builder tighter than the hard-on swelling in his pants. Taut waist, flared hips and legs all the way down to leopard print slingback heels that he planned to make her keep on. Now she backed away from his approach, ever the good girl.

Sid reached for her hip, sank his grip into her softness.

“Jax,” he said, bringing his mouth to her ear. He was close enough to see the goosebumps rise on her skin. “Twenty-nine minutes.”
____

It had happened before. Jacqualine had been working late before Christmas break, leaving through the downstairs entrance to avoid a cold, snowy walk to staff parking at Consol Energy Center. Few people were around as she cut through one of the workout rooms. Of course Sid was one of those few. He’d been on the bike, zoned out, until the clicking of her stilettos snapped him into reality. For once in his life he was alone somewhere, so he stopped Jacqueline to talk. She was in communications, they knew each other as well as Sid ever let anyone know him - a fact she teased him about right away. He promised to let her get to know him. She asked what was in it for her. That had been dinner, then a drink. Sid was drunk on her proximity without it. The ride back to her car turned into a stop at his house turned into they never made it past the living room with any of their clothes on. He’d breathed her name as he pushed between her legs, surrendering the last wall between them: “Jax.” No one had ever called her that.

The next time happened on the road. A rough game in Florida was worse than anywhere else – the Pens should beat the Panthers easily, but hadn’t. Passes didn’t connect, the defense fell all over itself, no shots got through traffic. Sid had taken two bad penalties out of frustration, the second leading to the goal that ultimately won the game. Nothing drove him crazier than losing badly. Emptying the tank over the Panthers… he flexed his hands just to find they were already balled into fists. Florida’s warmth seemed to mock the team’s mood as the bus made its way back to the hotel. Sid figured no one would care if he went to the outdoor pool, even if it was after hours. But Jacqueline had the same idea, lounging against the far corner with only her head above water. It stopped Sid in his tracks. Mist rose off the heated pool, curling the tendrils that escaped from her topknot. He knew what he needed to do.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said after circling around the approach from behind. She jumped, water splashing against her bare skin. “The pool’s closed.”

“Oh, hi,” she said, smiling guiltily.

Holy mother of… Jacqueline was thinking. Sidney Crosby did not just go swimming. A man like that did not simply take off his shirt. He stood over her, pale against the dark sky, like a Greek myth where Zeus appeared in human form and ravished some lucky girl. She’d seen him shirtless before – naked too, the memory making her hormones zing – but it did not get old.

The night was quiet, few lights were on. He slipped into the pool and the hair at the back of Jacqueline’s neck stood up. It was like the presence of a shark in the water. She all but held her breath as he dropped under and stroked out, then came up with a push of his hand through that inky dark hair.

“Out here alone, eh?”

She nodded.

“Not really safe.”

“It’s Florida, Sid.”

“Still.” He swam closer, neither of them able to touch the bottom. “Anybody could find you.”

Jacqueline tipped her head. That night Sid had allowed her to get know him, she had barely scratched the surface. Probably best – it was a drug, exposure not only to his fame but more powerfully to his smile, his presence. A girl could get hooked on the difference between Sidney Crosby, Hockey Player and the guy he was alone, in a pool, under a full moon. His approach was perfectly timed; he reached out and held the edge of the pool on either side of her shoulders. They did not touch. She could not move. Drops of water clung the soft, almost tender features of his perfect face.

“Anybody could find us, you mean?” she teased. He seemed to want that.

“Sounds like a PR nightmare.”

His mouth was on hers, smothering any more conversation. The bottom of her bikini didn’t last a second in his grip. Sid held her to the side of the pool and did his best to make her scream. As she came, face buried in his flexed shoulder, Jacqueline wondered if he wanted to get caught.

There had almost been a third time. Right after the Olympics the Penguins threw a party, celebrating everyone’s return from Russia or Cabo and hopefully putting them on the road to the Stanley Cup. They bought out a bar. Jacqueline dressed the part – not for Sid, but so as not to be totally outshone by the WAGs in attendance. The women were always nice to her even if they could not quite understand why she worked in hockey instead of just marrying into it.

Sid saw her the moment he walked in the door, but forced himself on a giant lap of the crowded room to speak with every single other person first. It took ages. From the corner of his eye he saw other guys talking with Jacqueline – Beau and Borts, no challenge there – and a few hitting on her, which did concern him. When James Neal stepped up to the plate, Sid started hurrying along. By the time he reached her, he passed Neal walking away.

She wore white, tight as a cinch with a wide, square neckline low enough to prove she could compete with the big girls. Black panels were stitched into both sides of her dress, arching in at the middle to create the illusion of an even narrower waist and even more hourglass figure. It tapered to her knee, somehow showing more by wrapping that revealing. Black peeptoe stilettos revealed bring pink toenails.

Sid could feel her legs around his waist in that pool, holding on as he fucked her. He could hear her soft breath that night on his couch, then his floor and in his bed, when he hit just the right spot. He felt other eyes in the room watching him approach, like they knew he had secrets.

“Neal trying to get in your dress?” Sid signaled the bartender.

Jacqueline hated that she’d been waiting for Sid to take his damned time getting here. James had been a… welcome distraction. And a very promising offer.

“He did say something about breakfast,” she said lightly.

Sid’s laugh was low and dark. “Ask around, Jax, any woman here can tell you he doesn’t last that long.”

Jax. He only called her that when… well, never in company. He watched for its effect. Instead Jacqueline rolled her eyes. She was no ingénue – she worked in communications for Christ’s sake, she heard everything. Probably even a few things Sid didn’t know. But he wasn’t allowed to boss her around just because he knew her weakness.

“Doesn’t stop them coming back,” she spoke of James but obviously meant Sid.

Facing away from the crowded room, Sid let his eyes roll down her body. He drank his fill of the way she looked in that dress, one hip out, leaning against the bar. Those long bare legs had held him as tightly as those long bare arms. He’d hugged every curve. The spot where her hair brushed her neck, right at the juncture of throat and shoulder, where he’d found the key to her shuddering, gasping orgasm. His mouth dry, Sid licked his lips.

“Must’ve had something they liked.”

He would have thrown her on the bar. She’d have jumped up there anyway. But they were surrounded by the people who wrote their paychecks. Sid was about to tell her to be at his car in twenty minutes when they were interrupted by Neal, coming back, looking smug. If he couldn’t have the girl, he’d sure as hell keep Sid having her. One of the WAGs was with him. It used to amaze Sid when Neal fucked someone’s WAG right under all their noses. Now he knew it wasn’t just the sex - it was the rush, the game. It was the way Jaqueline moved in the dark. Before Sid could get the situation back under control, she excused herself and disappeared.

Things got busy. Two months passed.
___

“Now will you undress, or am I going to have to rip those clothes off?”

Jacqueline’s lips parted in a tiny gasp. The sound grazed Sidney’s skin, the sense memory of her mouth all over his body. He crashed into her. The kiss was hot, like a slap in the face, and he forced himself as hard against her as he could. Jackie whimpered in his arms. He was shoving handfuls of her skirt up her thighs to get closer.

“Sid, the game…,” she panted.

“If I don’t have you now, I won’t be able to skate.” His words were a jumble – he got her skirt to her hips, shoved her legs apart and pinned her with his hips. Leaning back, he peeled the spandex workout shirt over his head. Jacqueline’s eyes were wide, staring.

“Buttons, or I’ll pop them,” he warned, watching her breasts rise and fall with hurried breaths.

She did as she was told. Sidney out of his track pants, naked beneath them, his hard cock red with anticipation. Jacqueline held her breath. This was not happening.

His thick fingers groped the crack of her ass, a smile coming when he found her thong. Twist, snap. So much for that. She tilted back and spread her legs, Sid wasted no time. He remembered the deliciously soft give of her pussy, followed by the tight, hot squeeze as he worked himself in to the hilt. He knew the way she said his name, like a sigh of pleasure, when he took her each time. Her big, light eyes blinked back at him now, waiting. He watched those eyelashes flutter as the tip of his cock prodded her folds.

“Jax, are you wet for me?”

“Pretty much all the time,” she admitted, snickering.

His kiss grazed her earlobe. “Hmm, even when you’re all alone in here?”

“Anybody could find me,” Jacqueline repeated his words from the pool, from the night this became what they did instead of what they had done. “Even Neal.”

Sid held her by the waist and drove balls deep in one stroke. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Then, planted as deeply as he could go, Sidney gave her a kiss to match. Standing there naked in her office, her heels pressed flat to the back of his thighs, Sid kissed her as he fucked her until she came with a moan neither of them could stop. Ever in control of his mind and body, he let go at the same moment. Her cry muffled his own. They stayed there, fitted together like lock and key, until hearts stopped pounding and bodies stopped rioting. When his senses returned, Sid felt better. Calmer. He moved to kiss her lips but found her cheek instead.

Jacqueline had turned her head to see the clock. “Nineteen minutes.”

That movie star smile blazed to life - not the one he gave press, but the smile Sidney gave to people who knew him. “Saturday night,” he said, reaching for his pants.

“Game two.”

He stood, still stripped to the waist. “You know how I am about my pre-game routine.”

Jacqueline stayed against the desk in only the bra and heels he’d left on her. She wasn’t sure she could stand on her own yet. Sid turned his shirt right side out and pulled it on, stretching even the specialized fabric almost to its limit.

“What if I’m not up here?” she asked.

Sid had his hat in hand. Seventeen minutes. This time his kiss found Jacqueline’s mouth, hard and sure.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”
_

Notes