There’s a moment, a fraction of a second, between something said and when it’s heard. It’s in that heartbeat that I wished I could bite off my own tongue.

Her expression was still neutral. Her dark, burnished hair set off rosy cheeks and long, straight bangs highlighted bright eyes. Her lips were the color of a just-bitten apple. Forbidden fruit, I thought stupidly, as if she were Eve and this could somehow be all her fault. Then the words reached her ears - and everyone else’s - and the whole thing changed.

It wasn’t a stupid question. It was actually a great question, hence my defensive and derisive answer. I didn’t want to talk about why I, or my linemates, or my entire team sucked at the very thing we are paid millions of dollars to do. I didn’t want to explain why on some nights, we could not perform the single function for which we’d trained our entire lives. Looking at this girl, I knew there was definitely at least one other function I’d have no trouble performing for her. The press were generally off limits but rules were made to be broken, right? Maybe someone in that pretty head, or between those thighs, she had been thinking the same thing.

I watched as the hope of anything ever happening between us slid right off her gorgeous face.

“What was the conversation on the bench during the sequence where you took consecutive penalties?”

Three penalties. I took three in ten minutes, all of them stupid and two of them probably legit calls. The sequence was that after the first one, Coach told me to get my shit together. After the second, he threatened to slide me to fourth line. After the third, he didn’t say a single thing and that was the worst - not a word. None of that was visible on the ice. Even after it all, I still got ice time. My line didn’t change. There’s no way for anyone not on that bench to know what happened. So she asked.

“Coach asked me if I looked forward to answering stupid questions about it all night. You know, from all the brilliant investigative journalists who’ve obviously played a lot of hockey themselves.”

Oh boy. That was really fucking smart. She blinked once, the light of multiple cameras in both of our faces. Cameras that just recorded my response and her reaction for all time.

I should have done something - apologized, immediately and loudly, on camera - but I was stuck looking into her eyes. They were a little hazel, not really brown, and they pinched at the corners as my words reached their mark. She fought off expressions in rapid fire - shock, affront, disbelief all flashed through her eyes but never reached her face. Only I could tell because I was standing so close. Those soft-looking lips parted though, a tiny gasp. In any other circumstance I would have loved to make her breath catch.

“Okay, that’s it for tonight. Thanks everyone.” Our PR director Jennifer inserted herself between me and this girl, forcing her to step back. The rest of the media scrum followed suit, cameras and recorders still out. Jen’s fingers dug into my elbow like a vice and she practically dragged me away. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that most of the reporters had turned their attention to Letang. Only that girl was still watching me.

We turned a corner and Jen practically threw me against the wall. She rubbed the spot between her eyebrows like she was forcing a migraine back into it’s cage.

“Sorry,” I said stupidly, as if to preempt her rage.

“For which part, James?” Her voice was always softer than expected, making her anger more pointed. “Insulting Lindsay? Or sports writers in general? For doing it on camera? Or to a woman? I think you managed to be an asshole, an ingrate, a moron and a misogynist all in the space of two sentences. Or maybe you think we didn’t already have enough problems with the Ottawa media?”

She was so right that I just saw red.

“I’m sorry! I’m fucking frustrated and sick of talking about this shit. Isn’t this your job? Aren’t you supposed to keep that from happening?”

Jen was shorter than me by a foot but seemed to grow like a giant until she towered over me. That low voice got clipped and very, very cold. “If you don’t want to talk about shit, James, then don’t play like shit.”
____

“Yikes, sorry Linds.”

I was rooted to the spot where James Neal just reprimanded and insulted me in front of half a hundred players, writers, coaches and staff. Behind me, Mike from the Sun was rewinding the audio. As if I need to hear it again. Danny, my cameraman, lowered the equipment from his shoulder. “That was really rude,” he continues.

We had everything we needed. Nothing else we brought back now would get shown anyway. The Ottawa media had been all over the Penguins since Cooke ended Karlsson’s season with a skate blade to the Achilles tendon back in January. Every matchup had been a frenzy, half the topics made up and the other half blown out of proportion. Now, as a seven seed giving the big, bad number one team a run for it’s money, every outlet in town was baying for blood.

Except me. Funnily enough, I had been the voice of reason in the Pens/Sens battle this year. And I’d taken some shit for it. The Matt Cooke thing didn’t look intentional to me and I said so. No problem, right? Except I was the only person in a crowded room not yelling fire and it turns out that sometimes, people listen.

They’d be listening now.

“Hope you like being on the news, Lindsay!” one of the network crew guy said. There were a lot of cameras tonight, in a larger than usual scrum. We were all crowded in tight. So when James turned a quarter left, we were close. Very close. If anyone got within a foot of Crosby, proximity alarms sounded like they were about to touch a painting in a museum. With James, I was suddenly close enough that I could smell the clean, honest boy sweat smell of him over the stench of the dressing room. Even in my heels he was tall, and in tight quarters his shoulders and chest seemed broader than I remembered. He wore head to toe black Under Armor with a Pens cap jammed backward over his head. None of that mattered, of course. I was studying the dazzling array of colors in his thickening beard, fifty shades of red made garish by the harsh TV lightning. it crept right to the crease between his jaw and throat, where it was met by a mop of soft curls so long I nearly reached out and twirled one around my finger. When someone to my left asked a question, he turned my way. There were even more colors in his eyes, all of them blue.

I wasn’t here to browse the merchandise, but a girl could window shop while she worked. It was work, too, trying to be taken seriously among the hockey reporters who’d done nothing else their entire lives. More than a few resented on-camera jobs going to younger reporters, forget women, because they paid better and had more perks. Not my fault, I always told myself. Being a pretty girl had it’s advantages but it also meant I really had to know my stuff.

Question, I told myself. Focus. It was a good question too - bold enough that I wouldn’t be accused to taking it easy on the Penguins, but open enough to give James a real chance to answer. When his full lips finished gently answering the previous question, I threw mine in. Hoping no one had already asked it while I was admiring the man answering.

“What was the conversation on the bench during the sequence where you took consecutive penalties?”

“Coach asked me if I looked forward to answering stupid questions about it all night. You know, from all the brilliant investigative journalists who’ve obviously played a lot of hockey themselves.”

Poof. Silence. His aquamarine gaze found mine and held, widening ever so slightly as we both - and everyone around us - realized what he said. Then the PR lady was pushing me back and he was gone.

“You might make Sportscentre with that one,” another beat reporter said on his way out.

I grabbed a hold of Danny. “Let’s just go.”
____

I charged past Jen to keep from telling her that she could either be hired as coach or shove her opinion of my play up her ass. Back into the locker room, most of the media were talking to Tanger but a quick check of the players’ general disinterest told me no hot girls in tight skirts were still in the area.

Shit. I scooped up a towel and went for the door.

The hallways were full of the usual gaggle of equipment guys, facilities people and whoever else got down there and liked to hang around. In my full Under Armor and socks still pulled up over otherwise bare feet, I looked out of place as I jogged off in the direction of the nearest exit.

I heard her before I saw her - heels I hadn’t realized she was wearing clicking their disapproval against the cold, hard floor, getting away as quickly as they could. Around the corner, she was halfway to the door. My socks slipped a bit as a I slowed, either because of the buffed floor or the sight of her: a perfect silhouette of curve-hugging, high-waisted skirt, bouncing brown hair and long, long legs ending in heels that punctuated her shape like exclamation points. A guy with a camera bag slung over his shoulder hurried to keep pace with her determined strides.

“Hey, wait a sec!” I called. They both stopped and she spun very slowly on one stiletto. From a distance I could see the angry look on her face.

“I’ll, uh, load up,” the cameraman said, dipping his head as if to pretend he’d never seen anything.

Alone, she shifted her weight to her right leg and crossed her arms over her chest. I hustled right up to her.

She was pissed. Those eyes I’d noticed as hazel were black now, regarding me as she would stare down a guy that wouldn’t give up hitting on her in a bar. Her jaw was set, which only made her face look more heart-shaped and her lips even more ripe.

“Hey.” I stopped a foot away, suddenly very aware that I was soaked in sweat and still wearing my base layer. I wiped the towel across my face one more time as she watched with lovely disdain.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Her glare faltered but quickly rearranged itself back into displeasure.

“That was really rude of me.”

She said nothing and her eyes never left mine. This girl was tough. “And mean,” I added.

She moved her weight to the left, rustling the fabric of her clothes against all that skin hidden beneath. I felt it under my clothes too.

“You forgot insulting,” she added.

“Uh, yes. You’re right. It was also insulting. I am sorry.”
____

I wasn’t about to let James Neal off the hook just because he was James Neal, or rich and talented, or because he was 6’3” inches of spandex fighting for it’s life to keep a perfectly engineered body under wraps. Those unruly curls and that ginger beard and those blue, blue eyes could go to hell for all I cared.

Right?

Wow, I am really angry.

“You could have said it to a guy,” I hissed. “You could have said it to anyone in there with a microphone, for any question that they asked you tonight. You had to pick me. Because I’m not cut out to play sports since I don’t have a dick, which means I’m not cut out to cover sports either since a dick is the same as a brain around here!”

I thought he might step back, or slap me for all I knew. He’d been mean but I’d just given it right back. Instead the corners of James’ eyes crinkled.

“Wow,” he said, a smile creeping into the corner of his mouth.

“What?” I demanded.

“You’re really mad.” Now he was grinning, all boyish and shining through that amazing beard.

I huffed indignantly. “Yeah I’m mad. I work really hard to be taken seriously around here and you talk to me like I’m a fucking joke!”

“I said I was sorry,” James held his hands up in surrender.

“You said other things too.”

I was pushing. James would have a limit somewhere around here, where I lost the apologetic guy and got back the jerk who derided me in the first place. The part of me that appreciated his apology was buried under the part that didn’t want to need it, that would not be soothed by more words from a lying mouth. The rest of me was busy thinking about that mouth.
____

As a hockey player and a person, my real problem is patience. I don’t think before I speak. I can’t wait out the bad times knowing the good will come - I have to force everything and in doing so, I make it worse. Some problems weren’t worth solving, I told myself by way of an excuse. But this one, this girl, needed a solution that ended with more than her accepting my words.

Remember patience? Still a problem.

“You’re right. I should just stop talking,” I suggested. My hands were already in the air between us.

“You really should.” Her lips pursed, like she had won.

Wrong again. My hands were around her upper arms and before she knew I was touching her, I was kissing her.
____

My brain blinked off like a computer restarting. It tried to process the information being received but every bit was unintelligible, impossible. Circuit boards fired and failed, all I could do was wait.

James’ grip was as hard as his mouth was soft. He was big, strong and sweaty. That last part I didn’t know until my traitorous mouth opened itself like a fool raising the gate and inviting the enemy inside. His tongue brushed over mine, tasting of velvet and salt. He held us both perfectly still until he was finished with every non-word he had to say. When he pulled away, it was barely an inch. I blinked, trying to bring his red beard or his blue eyes into focus but everything just blurred. If he’d let go I would have fallen.

James did not let go.

Instead his voice came in a whisper, brushing my face. “Now you know what it sounds like when I’m not sorry.”
___

My knees buckled when our tongues touched: her’s was tentative but it was a whole lot better than shoving me away and screaming for help. Instead she stood there and let me communicate in a way that left no argument. Now the question was what to do next. I couldn’t let go, she’d come to her senses and run. I certainly couldn’t spend the night alone after what we’d just shared - I was still frustrated and sorry plus now I was all turned on and aggressive. I’d never sleep anyway, and it would be her name on my lips.

I briefly calculated how long we’d been gone - maybe ten minutes. Maybe long enough. I pulled her back toward main hallway. It took a moment for her to realize we were moving.

“Stop. Stop. What are you doing?” She tried to tug her arm free.

“Taking you somewhere I can apologize more... thoroughly.”

Her eyes narrowed, like I’d just said something completely stupid, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “If you think I’m the kind of girl who fucks a hockey player in the locker room shower, you’d better start apologizing again.”

Fuck. How did she know? I leaned down, close enough to kiss her again. “Then pick another place, and make sure no one can hear us.”
____

Jesus Christ. Five minutes ago I was enraged at the idea of players and men in general disrespecting me and now I was shaking in my soaked panties over a guy who thought he could just fuck me in what was practically a public bathroom. This was not the way to gain respect....

And I didn’t care. I was getting a big, hard and very apologetic piece of James Neal’s pie tonight, and more than once. He owed me. It was just a question of where. James’ expression was demanding, as if he needed to convince me. Poor guy had no idea he’d rewired my brain with that kiss. Maybe I’d let him keep working hard.

“You think you’re so great,” I said with the straightest face I could manage.

James didn’t even flinch. “It’s more of a promise.”

I let my eyes roll down his chest, taking in the cup he wore - that was my kind of promise. The thick thighs below it seemed ready to back up any claim. Still I let a smirk curl my lip.

“Once again, thinking with your dick.”

James’ hand came up to brush my bangs aside. It was a surprisingly tender gesture from someone demanding that I let him fuck me senseless, and probably as effective. A little shudder ran down my spine. His soft voice followed that same path.

“This time you won’t be sorry.”

You’re fucking right, I thought, catching his wrist before his fingers reached my neck. If he so much as touched my blouse it would fall off right in the hallway and then we’d never finish before I got fired. Amusement flashed in James’ eyes, as if I could keep him from doing anything he wanted. Only curiosity made him stop.

“We need to go,” he said.

I moved his arm out of my way and lifted onto my toes. My lips touched the corner of James’ jaw, just below his ear, on the first inch of bare flesh where his beard ran out. His pulse pounded against my mouth. I kissed the spot, letting my tongue wander a moment on his sensitive, salty skin. The pulse in his wrist thumped a matching rhythm against my thumb.

Right at his ear, I said, “The only thing you need to do is to follow me.”

Suddenly a good little boy, James fell into step beside me. I led him into the depths of the building, going opposite the direction of the locker rooms. There were office suites here meant for visiting teams - it was wrong to pray for a place to do bad things, so I wished for one instead. I passed two suites, hoping to get as far away as possible. The entrance to the third faced an offshoot hallway, so I reached for the door. James’ long arm beat me to it. He palmed the knob, rather suggestively I thought, and flicked his wrist. It popped open.

His grin was victorious. “Looks like is my lucky night.”
____

I had another smart remark for Lindsay but never needed it. The office lights were off, just a small window on the hallway spilled light into the suite. We’d have to watch out for that. I followed her through the open door, swung it shut and pushed her up against the back of it.

She squeaked at the impact of my mouth and body at the same time, but the sound melted into a purr as I kissed her deeply. The first time would be a fast time - my dick was already swelling uncomfortably against the cup I still wore under my base layer pants. Before I’d even been in her once I was thinking about how I was going to do it again.

Lindsay was not shy either. She ripped the hat off my head and pushed her fingers into my sweaty hair. The fact she didn’t care if I was an unshowered mess made my head spin. Between that and the way she practically dragged me into this dark corner, this night was about to make up for the double overtime loss.

Her waist was small in my hands as I drew that silk blouse from her skirt and guided my hands underneath it, thumbs together in the middle until I had two handfuls of her incredible breasts. The silky cups of her bra couldn’t hide how hot she was for me; I peeled one down and circled her hard nipple with my fingertip. She responded by grabbing my ass.

I used my thigh and hips - cup too, since she’s the one who wanted to fuck a hockey player - to hold her in place. We both watched my big fingers open the tiny, delicate buttons of her shirt, revealing inch after slow inch of her. I gently touched the crease where her breasts met, then her top was open. Lindsay obediently titled her head and allowed my mouth to work it’s way down. I nipped her bra strap between my teeth and pulled it off her shoulder. The other surrendered to my fingers before I pushed her tits up and buried my face in them. She rubbed the back of my neck as I licked and sucked and bit her soft skin, revealing those dark pink nipples that rolled like candy under my tongue. I was so lost in it that I didn’t hear Lindsay speak until she pulled me away by the hair.

In the dim light her dark eyes were still disapproving, as if I wasn’t living up to expectations. She arched one perfect eyebrow.

“Strip.”

You got it, baby. I had plenty of experience getting out of this tight clothing. I whipped my shirt up and over my head, saw her eyes widen and her plump bottom lip slide ever so slightly between her teeth at the sight. Surely I could do better than that. I slipped my thumbs into my waistband and shimmied out of the spandex pants, careful to take my jockstrap off with them. I’m big but there’s no point in exaggerating. I pushed that clothing down until I was in just my shorts, also skin tight, then I stood up to my full height.

Lindsay closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door, like she was burning the sight into her memory. A smile worked its way onto her lips: guilty, satisfied, vindicated. It was so genuine I thought for a second maybe she was punking me, planning to run off and leave me standing there half-hard and three-quarters naked.

She opened one eye slightly, peeking.

“Still mad?” I asked.

“I might be coming around,” she smirked.

I nodded toward her partially-dressed body, which was a hundred percent too covered for my taste, and said, “Your turn.”

Lindsay let her shirt fall, and delicately hung it from the corner of a nearby chair. The movement elongated her hourglass shape - she even kicked up one heel as she leaned over. She turned her back and looked over her shoulder.

“A little help?”
____

Men are so predictable, and James was all man. His shorts must’ve been made of Kevlar not to shred over the size of his thighs or the hard-on he was packing. The rest of him was incredible: not like a model, there was no six pack or huge pecs, more like a finely tuned machine made of perfect moving parts. He was taut and firm as far as the eye could see, muscles coiled beneath his skin. Sadly, the little bit of hair on his chest and the trail running down from his navel were nowhere near the ginger of his beard.

Well, no one’s perfect.

At the slightest invitation, he was all over me again. The smell of his sweat mixed with whatever deodorant he’d been wearing made me wild. His chest landed against my bare back and his hands right over my ass, gliding against the fabric. They came back up, found the zipper and tugged, taking my skirt down with them. I braced my hands against the wall as James ground his erection into my ass, thick fingers tracing the lace band of a thong across my hips.

“I like these.” The words were hot on my skin. As soon as he said them, his right hand slipped between my legs. I rocked on my stilettos.

“Hmmmm, you really were mad.” He chuckled softly, stroking my well-soaked panties before tugging the tiny piece of material aside. “And I really am sorry.”

His soft mouth closed on my neck the moment his fingers pushed into my pussy. I went boneless - James caught me with his other arm, holding me tight. The outline of his cock throbbed against my backside. His hand came free, gently exploring my slit, then pumped back inside. I moaned.

“Lindsay,” he whispered. “You might want to hold on.”

I reached for the wall again, whatever good it did. James guided my hips away, bending me at the waist until my back arched and my ass hung in the air. He hooked his wet fingers into my waistband and slowly, side-to-side, drew the g-string over my ass, lowering himself at the same time. Strong, warm hands caressed the back of my thighs until my panties were stretched between my knees. Then his hands started up again. His thumbs reached my crotch first and I gasped. They pulled and spread and his mouth came crashing down.

I whipped my hair back at the feel of that beard rasping my inner thighs, that tongue spearing into my pussy and the drag, all friction and heat, of it along the length of my slit. He kept going, hands squeezing like he knew I would buck when he reached my backdoor. I did. It was useless. James held fast and made every nerve ending below my waist sing.

“Fuck,” I exhaled.

Between my legs, I felt his mouth smile.
____

I could have spent all day eating this chick out for as much as she fucking loved it. Lindsay shimmied her ass in my face and rolled her pussy along my tongue like she couldn’t get enough of my mouth. She was about to get all of something else when I heard her swear.

“What was that?”

“I said fuck, you feel so fucking good.”

She watched me get back to my feet and work out of my shorts. Long, dark hair fell like an ink stain across her back, well short of her narrow waist. The flare of her hips would be just the wheel for steering this car. I carefully freed my cock and it sprung to attention, desperate for a tour of duty.

Lindsay licked her lips.

That was it. I caught her face and kissed her as best I could from behind, bringing her body into line. My tip grazed her slick mound and I growled, deepening the kiss. The moment our tongues twisted together, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pushed. Not too fast, not too slow, I screwed myself into Lindsay’s tight body. She fought me, twisting and rippling along my dick so hard I nearly came. By the time I was in to the hilt, she was whimpering and I had lost my breath.

“Damn baby.” I had to pause, buried, and wait for the dizziness to pass.

“James,” she asked quietly, “please don’t stop.”

She held the wall and I held her. I ground my teeth until I was sure I wouldn’t blow my load in the first minute: this was no time for a shorthanded goal - I wanted to give this girl everything, not two pump and be a chump. She moved, teasing herself out until she could take me every time, then working back harder into my lap. Within a minute her ass was slapping against my thighs.

A shadow fell over us - someone walking by the window. We both froze.

Five seconds passed.

“Shit,” she laughed. Her smile, so bright and gorgeous, stabbed at my heart. I pulled free of her with a wet pop! and spun her around. Her eyes were wide with surprise.

“I want to look at you,” I said.
____

James grabbed the chair I’d hung my shirt on and dragged it closer, out of the view of the window. He went down with me on top, straddling his lap in a tumble of arms wrapping and mouths meeting. He seemed twice my size, easily working my hips to ride my slit along his cock. I had two handfuls of his still-damp hair and one earlobe between my teeth when he picked me up and put me right down on his rod. My mouth fell open, soundless.

He was long and so, so hard, like being stuck on a spike. I’d never even seen thighs like his, forget sat astride and let them toss me around. More women would ride horses if they ever tried this. Each of his hands were the size of my head and all over my body. James lifted me with his knees, running me along the length of his shaft over and over again until he decided that wasn’t enough. He thrust his hips up as I was coming down and bottomed out inside me.

A sharp cry ripped from my throat. James clapped a hand over my mouth, those blue eyes flashing a warning, but he didn’t stop. Instead he did it again.

“You like that, eh?”

I glared at him and he traded his hand for his lips. The kiss was dizzying, rough and seeking, wrestling for dominance that his body was having no trouble finding below. Its hunger and neediness surprised me. James wanted me to want him. Mid-kiss he nailed me again.

“OhGodighthtere,” I sobbed, our lips barely parted. His hand slipped into my hair, holding our faces together. New sweat was forming on top of his game sweat.

He smiled. “You’re really bossy.”

I could hardly breathe. “You’re an asshole.”

“My charm worked on you.”

“Not... charm,” I said, losing my voice for a moment as he plowed into me, “It was your beard.”

James laughed, and forgetting for a moment what we were doing he kissed me like a boy on a first date: simple, laughing, sweet. I took his moment of weakness to hook my feet into the back legs of the chair, finally get some leverage, and buck hard in his lap.

His eyes shot open in surprise and a curse broke mid-kiss.

“Fuck,” he hissed. “You little bitch.”

I tossed my hair and stroked again. “There’s that charm I was looking for.”

With an ease that should not have surprised me, James wrapped me in a bear hug, tipped us both out of the chair and came down on top of me with a whomp. I wanted him closer, I wanted him all around me but I yelped in pain as his thrust raked my back against the the industrial carpet. James reached for my blouse and clumsily spread it out alongside us with one hand.

“Hold on,” he said. I did - arms and legs around his torso. He lifted to his knees, hair falling into his face, moved one foot left and set me down on the silk square. “Better, baby?”

“Yes.”

“And you think I’m an asshole,” he chided. The head of his cock prodded my lips apart, needing no direction to find its way home. But James didn’t shove himself inside and make me scream, he didn’t plow me into the ground. He put one elbow on either side of my head and blocked out the entire world except for biceps, beard and blue eyes.

“I don’t mean to be,” he said quietly.

That put my impending orgasm on hold. James wasn’t even inside me and I felt it like a burst in my heart. “I was kidding, James.”

“You were not. And I deserve it, I was a jerk.”

I pushed his hair away from his eyes. “Well I’m not doing much defending feminism, here on my back underneath that jerk. So you can’t be that bad.”

James gave me a sarcastic look. “Oh I can be bad.”

I stared right back. “Not as bad as I am.”

He turned playful again, apology made and conscience less cloudy, if not entirely clear. One move of his hips and James was inside me again. He waited until I had toexhale to make room for everything he was taking, when I was at my most vulnerable before speaking.

“I’m fucking the opposing team’s hottest reporter on the floor of their arena after playing nearly two full back-to-back Stanley Cup playoff games.”

Once he was in all the way, swollen and stiff, I managed to breathe. “Overtime games mean overtime pay. I’m still on the clock, James, so you can take all night.”
____

Pushing back inside Lindsay was heaven, just as hot as her sexy, ballsy attitude. Good thing one of us had it - I was feeling all weird and emotional all of a sudden, like I’d gotten something I didn’t deserve as a result of my bad behavior. If I’d never been a dick to Lindsay, I wouldn’t be sinking my dick into her now. I never would have known what I was missing.

I sat up, knelt between her legs and watched her fantastic tits bounce with every move I made. I needed to come to get my mind straight, for this to be about sex and winning and all the things I knew how to handle. Her eyes got wide as I licked my thumb and lowered it to her clit.

One touch and she jumped like she’d been shocked. My cock throbbed so hard I groaned, pressing harder against her hot button. Her stomach clenched, wracking every muscle below her waist and nearly twisting an orgasm right out of me. I flicked my thumb.

“GodohGod,” she breathed. My cock throbbed again. Her whole body was quickening, I worked harder to force every stroke deep into her core. The friction and her panting were raising my temperature too. I rubbed harder, faster, then stopped, making one slow, lazy circle with a featherlight touch.

“No!” she snapped.

I snickered. “Bossy.”

“Please,” she said. A more appropriate reply.

That’s it, I knew. Every girl had a combination and I had just cracked Lindsay’s safe. She was mine now, at my mercy not a moment too soon. I matched my hand to my hips, giving one as I took the other away. Lindsay’s body rioted - bowing at my touch, pulling greedily at my dick. The two forces crashed together again and again until darkness was creeping in at the edge of my vision. I raced to meet it, pummeling her body and earning a tiny noise each time. Lindsay’s fingers dug into my thigh as she got closer.

“Wait for me,” I growled. Lindsay whimpered angrily, unable or unwilling to fight the feeling building between her hips. I felt it too - hers and mine - both of us brimming with desire.

“I’m almost...,” she said and then she was: gasping, back arching, nails clawing and I felt her break open all over me. Like falling into the ocean, I broke too. I reach for her, pressed my mouth to her mouth and silenced us both. My cock thrummed, spilling load after load of heat and want deep inside her body.
____

We lay there for a while in stunned silence, pulses slowing. James’ cock was flagging inside me, I could feel it moving - the only thing between us but breathing.

It was a few minutes before the low, sexy voice at my ear said, “Do you want another interview?”

“What?” I could hardly speak with him sprawled across my chest.

“An interview where I apologize and I’m nice to you.”

“No.”

“Oh.” James lifted his head, that sweaty hair a wild mess. So he had a short fuse and a sarcastic streak. He was actually a pretty good guy and a very good lover. There were interviews everywhere but only one place I wanted to find him: laying on top of me, naked, panting and spent.

I scratched at the rough of his beard. “James, I like you better when you’re bad.”
_

Notes

The Penguins need some kind of help right now, so I am are bringing the only thing I have other than a jersey and a loud voice. You may have noticed that James Neal is pretty sassy to the press. In fact, if he were other than James Neal, I would be inclined to say he's an asshole. That ginger beard is my weakness though. So here's my contribution - enjoy, and hope for a win on Wednesday night!