All Hands on Deck

The road well-traveled was prototypical for the Pens during their west coast swing. Although, for Sidney and Tessa it was exponentially more stimulating in ways both new and familiar. They did a very good job of acting like friends, nothing more. Sidney never left when she did, didn’t talked to her excessively when in public, tried not to smile at her too brightly or stare at her for too long. Luckily the woman was so pretty nearly everyone on the team sent her some lingering glances every once and a while, so when he did so, it did not seem out of place. He never sat next to her again, didn’t invited her out to dinner with them, knowing someone else would do it for him. Basically, he got to enjoy her company more often than not simply because the others guys liked having her around just as much as he did.

Road trips, travel, the stress of being a part of a professional hockey team, it builds friendships, relationships, at a much faster rate than any other set of circumstances. The team is in close proximity nearly 24 hours a day, you stay at the same hotels, train together, workout together, play together, eat together, travel together, kill off boredom together, and talk to each other because there is no one else around. With no effort on his end and causing no suspicion, Sidney got to do all these things with Tessa. Her relationship with the team as a whole grew strong in no time. And Sidney’s feelings toward the woman seemed to swell towards the point of bursting more and more nearly every time he saw her, which was pretty much most of the day, everyday.

That being said, it was infinitely harder to get her alone for quality time, no matter how desperately he wanted her. Sexual encounters became more like games, puzzles almost, a challenge each and every time, but one that never failed to satisfy them in the end.

Hook ups in their hotel rooms was absolutely not possible; too many teammates, too many questions, too much noise, too much risk. Same for sex at the arena, for the reasons already noted. There was, however, one kiss, conducted in a closet in Phoenix that similar to their hand holding on the airplane was inherently innocent, but that set both of them on fire. While wandering the halls of the arena after a bathroom break before puck drop, Tessa found herself being dragged into a literal broom closet.

Sidney’s mouth was on hers before she even realized what had happened. After returning his affections, she pulled away smiling. “What are we doing in this closet?”

“Kissing. I couldn’t wait. You’re so damn cute, Tess.” He grabbed her ass, lifting her up as her back slid against the wall and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Then, his mouth returned to hers, both of them fighting off giggles at the ridiculousness of the situation and playfully making out like a couple of punch-drunk idiots. He was in full hockey gear, bulky with his base layer, pads, and jersey and she loved how sexy she found him even fully clothed. Already sweaty from his warm up he became even more so after working out his lips with hers.

He pulled away, breathing heavily. “We have to meet tonight. I don’t care how. I need you so fucking bad.”

Tessa agreed. “Ok…ok, yeah. I have an idea. Sneak out of the hotel tonight. Make sure no one sees you and wait by the Starbucks up the road. Text me when you get there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Just trust me.”

He did; so he asked no more questions and just kissed her for several more minutes, until the last possible second before he had to leave. When he was gone, Tessa let her heart beat return to normal before she left the closet and made a phone call.

That night, she picked him up from the Starbucks in a car she had rented. They drove out of the city toward the mountains, through the desert that was lit only by their headlights and inhabited solely by wildlife.

Tessa found a good spot and pulled off the highway, snaking her way through giant cacti and rolling tumbleweeds. When they parked he reached for her from the passenger's seat, but she brushed his hands away, instead getting out of the car and stepping into the still warm Arizona air. In the darkness, illumined only by the stars and moon light, she stripped down to nothing before laying on the hood of the car.

Sidney had gotten out with her, watching, appreciating how natural and at home she looked nude in the wildness, how the desert wind rustled her hair and caressed her skin. When she was reclined on the hood, he still just gazed at her until she prodded him. “I thought you needed me so badly.”

“Can’t I just look at you first?”

“Sure, if you want.” Tessa smiled at him as he walked around towards the front of the car. She bent her knees, spread her legs, and then slipped a hand between her thighs, just stroking her outer lips, meeting Sidney’s hard stare, moaning softly, teasing him. “You done looking yet?”

His hands hooked the back of knees and pulled her forward across the hood, making her squeal. He slid both his palms under her ass, lifting her hips and leaving her head and shoulders against the hood. Tessa rested her feet on his shoulders as he brought his mouth to her pussy, licking through her as his lips came together, as though he were kissing her.

Tessa’s hands slammed down noisily on the hood of the car. “About time.”

He chuckled with his mouth still on her center and she felt it flow through her entire body. “Damn straight. You taste unbelievable, Tess.” If you’ve ever seen a man, or a woman for that matter, eat a peach and really enjoy it…that’s how he treated her, feasting like a starving man, juice on his chin, sweetness filing his mouth as he groaned happily.

His tongue poked inside her, licking the walls of her cunt, tasting her arousal increase as he went. His wide palms on her ass kept her hips lifted and he grew harder hearing the moans she made when his fingers kneaded her pliable flesh.

When he circled her clit with the tip of his tongue, she jerked even higher, forcing her pussy against his lips. He licked through her again, lips coming together over her clit, pulling at the nub gently, sucking at her.

“God, Sid, yes!” After a few days of being close, but not able to touch, after whispering and silently speaking through text messages when they both loved to be so loud, after all that, hearing her screaming out for him, her voice echoing out into the still night air, Sidney was euphoric.

He renewed his efforts, laving at her clit and then licking inside her, squeezing her ass and occasionally pausing to rub his smoothly shaved cheeks and chin on the silky skin of her inner thighs, just because it felt so damn good. When he would stop to do this, her voice squeaked. “Sidney…oh, God…Sidney…”

He let her hips drop back down onto the hood and he forced her legs open, using both thumbs to peel back her folds and expose her clit fully. He licked at her unrelentingly, simulating every nerve ending on her pussy until she came like an explosion, thrusting her hips against his face, riding his tongue through the pleasure, screaming out his name over and over. He was definitely a hundred on a scale of one to ten.

She reached for him, desperately now, yanking his pants open and pulling at his cock until he crawled on top of the car, thrusting himself firmly inside of her. He had been hard for days with no relief so he came quickly, shirt still on, pants around his knees, a few quick, but forceful thrusts and he let go, done before he even knew he had started. That was only the first time.

Shortly thereafter, kissing down her neck and chest and thighs, he was hard again. This time he stripped off his shirt and pants fully before making languorous love to her on the hood of that car, no one to see or hear but the stars over Phoenix.

It was long, slow, deep. His kiss matched the skillful thrusting of his hips: intentional, unhurried, reverent. Tessa clung to him, her arms wrapped around his flexing back or stroking his baby smooth sides or delving into the sweaty mop he called hair. She counted stars in time with his strokes and stared into the bottomless brown of his eyes that she could just barely see directly in front of her face.

She felt him suck hard, just once, at her neck, before reining himself in, abandoning his bruising kiss to breathe in the scent of her hair. Hard to explain a hickey when as far as everyone knew she had never left the hotel. But my God how she wanted him to finish what he had started, how she adored the way he loved to mark her with his mouth. She shouldn’t have, but she did. Such possessive, testosterone driven instincts had no place between them. And yet, there she was, wishing everyone knew she was his, a thought of pure insanity if there ever was one.

Somewhere between Pittsburgh and Phoenix with intermediate stops in between, being with him all day everyday, she had become lost in him, his smile, his intellect, his compassion, his entire aura. And foolishly she had no desire to find her way back. She told him, “Sidney…please don’t stop. Just go lower where only you and I’ll see.”

Sidney moaned possessively, fucked her more deeply, more intensely as his mouth shifted lower, under her collarbone, but above her breast. She came with his mouth attached to her skin and sucking hard, his cock buried in her depths. He was still applying his mouth to her chest when he came, groaning against her flesh. That was Phoenix.

In Dallas, he met her father or her father met him, however you might think of it. She had not planned to see him until after the game, but Sidney, unbeknownst to her, arranged for him to come back to the locker room beforehand. Tessa had been talking to Hornqvist about some stiffness in his right shoulder when she heard his voice.

“Dad?”

The tall and tan Texan, dressed in his best flannel and jeans, held out his arms. “There she is.”

Tessa abandoned all professional decorum when she ran into his arms for a giant hug, squeezing him tightly. It had just been so long since she last saw him. “God, I’ve missed you. What are you doing here? I told you I’d meet you after the game.”

He looked overly pleased with himself and gestured toward Sidney with his thumb. “Oh, well, Mr. Crosby invited me when we spoke on the phone. Nice young man, pretty decent hockey player, too.”

Tessa wanted to run into Sidney’s arms as well for being so sweet. Instead, she just winked at him. “Yeah, he’s alright, I guess.”

Kunitz came up to them. “This your dad?”

“Mr. John D. Higgins, pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Chris took his hand and introduced himself. “Same here. I gotta tell you, we love having your daughter around. She really knows her stuff. Got a cramp in my calf the the other day, two minutes on her table, gone and I’m ready to skate again.”

Tessa elbowed him. “Stop with the flattery.”

Sidney interjected. “It’s true. She does an incredible job. We’re very lucky to have her.”

John nodded. “Mmm-hmm, don’t I know it. She ever tell you about my knees?”

“No, dad, because -”

“Well you see I had a double knee replacement, oh…I guess about fifteen years ago now. Doctors sent me home with this…I don’t even know, some new fangled machine was supposed to get my knees back in shape. I couldn’t hardly figure out how to turn the damn thing on let alone get myself all hooked up with the robotics it was running.” He paused to point at Tessa. “But this little thing, she was just in high school mind you, wild as a rabid squirrel most of the time, but a good kid, you understand. Anyway, she goes the library, gets all these books on rehabbing your knee after surgery and whatnot. That kid, I tell you what, she fixed me up better than them damn doctors ever could. She’s a blessing, is what she is. I knew then she was going places. So it just warms my heart, boys, it really does, to you say she hasn’t changed a bit. My little Tessa with the magic touch.”

Kunitz smiled wide at the story. “Is that what you call her? Tessa? We’ve been calling her Connie.”

“Connie is fine, really.”

“Uh-uh, that girl never did like that damn name, but sweeter than pie and would never tell you so herself. Tell you the truth, I don’t know if anybody calls her Tessa but me. Mother always called her Contessa, nothing less. She picked out that foolish name as it was.”

Tessa’s voice, though traced with laughter, had a warning tone. “Dad, please.”

“You’re right, you’re right, don’t speak ill of the exes. But you know what, if you boys wanna call her something besides Connie but not Tessa, since that’s what I call her, when she was baby I called her Nessie, like the Loch Ness Monster. Started as Tess then Tessie, but she would spit up so bad all the time that I started thinking she must have been spawned from some deep sea creature and replaced with my real daughter at birth.”

Tessa was blushing at his telling baby stories now. “Real nice.”

Kunitz and Sidney were both laughing and Geno had come over as well to join them. Kunitz said, “I like Nessie a lot better than Connie. I’ll spread the word to the boys.” He nudged Tessa with his shoulder and then shook her father’s hand again. “Thanks for coming out, John. And for raising such a fine lady.”

“Wow, you’ll are like the embarrassing uncles I never had or wanted. Thanks for this.”

“Ahh, never mind her. Now, if you'll excuse us Ms. Contessa, Mr. Crosby here promised to introduce me around to everyone.”

“Jesus Christ. Sid, that’s not necessary. He’s -”

“I’m fine right here, young lady. Now get your ass back to work.”

Sidney was nearly choking with laughter at this point. “Really, it’s ok. I’ve got it covered.”

God above how she couldn’t decide if she wanted to kiss him or kill him. As the evening went on, however, she was definitely leaning toward the former. Sidney was unbelievably nice to her father, but not in an obvious way. He was the Captain afterall and Tessa was the new girl. There wasn’t anything odd about him making a welcoming gesture towards her family. Yet for Tessa it felt deeply personal, just as it was for him as well.

Her dad insisted on taking them all out for dinner, but they just didn’t have time. Even still, during his brief visit, everyone seemed to enjoy John as much as they loved Tessa and they all agreed that Nessie was a far better nickname for her so it stuck immediately.

After the game it was hustle and leave as the team had to fly out of Dallas and on into Denver that night. Unfortunately, it had been snowing in Colorado for the last couple of hours and their flight was delayed because their plane wouldn’t be unable to land for a while. Waiting in the airport, Tessa and Sidney texted each other while sitting at opposite ends of a row of players who were all also on their phones.

“Why didnt u tell me only ur dad calls u Tessa? Id have called u something else”

“I didn’t want you to. I love the way you say my name.”

“Me too”

“Sid or Sidney?”

“Both, but especially when u call me sidney when ur coming and moaning”

“:P”

“btw, do u have a place in pitts yet?”

“Nope, still looking for something short term.”

“215-478-9045 that’s a number for sara used to work for the ice crew, moved to Tampa & wants to sublet her apt. in monroeville, not far, good location, wink wink”

“Do I wanna know why you have this # and know all this info??”

“Jealous?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, more like curious.”

“Haha, i didnt fuck her, shes friends w/my sister”

“Good ;) I’ll give her a call.”

“Good, happy to be going home after denver?”

“I’ll be happy to fuck you in a bed for a change.”

“Same here, tho i do enjoy u in cars”

“And on cars.”

“That too & speaking of ur fine ass u know beau is love w/u right?”

“Shut up.”

“Look up and tell me im wrong”

Tessa raised her eyes and caught Beau’s just as he tore them away from her and became really interested in his phone all of a sudden. Totally not subtle at all, that Beau. She swallowed a giggle and shook her head. “Ok, he might have a little crush on me.”

“Thats 1 way of putting it”

“Jealous?”

There was a long pause before his answer, as he debated about telling her the truth. Finally he replied simply and honestly, “Yes”

Tessa felt that giddy, girlish feeling rise up in her belly. So stupid all this emotion, but damned if it didn’t make her smile. “Don’t worry, he’s not my type, too young, too innocent, too blond.”

“Good”

Coach’s voice broke through the air. “Ok boys, sorry, and Nessie, plane’s ready. Get your shit and let’s get to Denver.”

There was both happy and grumpy murmurings from everyone as they boarded the plane. Tessa and Sidney exchanged a couple more texts before they were in the air and without service. “Still got that hickey?”

Tessa’s fingers found the bruise instinctually and pressed down, feeling the tenderness his mouth had caused a few days ago. “Fading, but there.”

“Dont worry i’ll darken it @ home & add a few more, pls call sara, i need u in bed asap”

Notes

I've been hoarding chapters so you'll get a few in rapid succession, I hope that's ok.

Also, I don't know how Sidney would text, but I imagine he would be lazy about it, hence all the abbreviations.