Learn Your Lesson: A Single Dad Hockey Romance (Kings of the Ice)

Chloe

I felt like a rag doll that had been dragged behind a truck and flung into a raging ravine by the time I was sneaking out of Ava’s room that night.

The adrenaline that had kept me alert for hours had long crashed, and I felt the remnants of it tingling beneath my skin as I carefully shut her bedroom door and tiptoed down the hall.

A heavy sigh filled with relief left my chest as I descended the stairs, running a hand back through my messy hair.

As I expected, it was a bad sprain. My guess was that she’d rolled that ankle when she came down on it. The doctor gave us a prescription for a low dose of ibuprofen and sent us home with the usual orders: rest, ice, elevate.

Ava had been an absolute trooper. In fact, by the time we left the ER, she was making the nurses laugh, happily accepting treats as her father handled the outtake paperwork and pulled the SUV around to pick us up at the door.

The media had caught wind of the situation — which was supremely shitty, because that meant someone at the hospital had leaked it. When it was time to leave, there were reporters lined up and wanting to interview Will, to know what happened and have it aired on the evening news.

He had handled it like a pro, shielding both Ava and me from view as the camera shutters flashed. It was a stark contrast to how he’d been at the park. There, I knew he’d been in shock. But once we were on our way to the hospital, he came back to himself, back to the man with a plan.

Though he’d been silent most of the evening.

The media, blessedly, didn’t follow us home. Once we were here, Ava had wanted a bath and a book. Now she was passed out, holding tight to her favorite stuffed fish and gently snoring.

What a week it had been.

Between the chaos today and the absolute mess of emotions I’d lived in since the night with Will, I was so strung out I wasn’t sure I even qualified as human anymore.

There was no way around the truth.

He’d hurt me.

When I’d asked him to stay, when he’d thrown our arrangement in my face, asking if I could still handle it like I was losing control…

It was like having the warnings of my matriarchy thrown right in my stupid face.

I couldn’t look at him after that, not without my stomach bottoming out and my heart threatening to seize in my chest. He had to have known I was already hurting that night, that I’d needed him. We’d found escape in each other. We’d found a release.

But I’d needed him to stay.

And he didn’t.

I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know what to do. Reddit had been no help. All they’d done was berate me for being stupid, saying how I’d failed at fucking without feelings.

They were right.

I’d deleted all my posts, deleted my username, and pulled up the group text with the girls. I’d typed everything out — the truth — but in the end, I deleted it all.

I’d never felt so alone.

Until today, when Will had opened up to me about Jenny at the park. I didn’t even have time to analyze what that meant, what he was trying to say before Ava got hurt.

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When I made it downstairs, there was a soft light glowing in the kitchen. My body ached as I made my way over, and I found Will with his palms on the kitchen island counter, his eyes on a glass of amber liquid that looked completely untouched.

“She’s down,” I said, wincing a bit as I slid onto one of the barstools. You would have thought I was the injured one for how my body was protesting the movement. “Took two times reading that new book she loves so much, but she’s sleeping now.”

I looked at Will when he didn’t respond. He was just staring at the glass, his jaw tight, chest slowly inflating and deflating.

“Hey,” I said, reaching across the counter to grab his wrist.

His eyes flicked to mine when I did.

“She’s okay,” I assured him with a soft smile. “You raised a tough kid. If anything, I bet she’ll be bragging about this tomorrow.”

I chuckled a bit, and Will looked at where my hand was on his wrist before he pulled away completely. I frowned as he stood there, just… staring at me.

Then, slowly, like a predator creeping in on its prey, he rounded the kitchen island until he was standing just inches from where I sat.

He gazed down at me, the heat of him radiating off his skin in waves that made chills sweep across my arms.

“Will?”

His jaw flexed at the sound of his name, and he took another step, slipping into the space between my legs as his hands reached for me. They slid along my jaw, over my cheeks, until his fingers were in my hair and cupping my neck and tilting my chin.

My eyelids fluttered at the feel of him, at the overwhelming waves of electricity that coursed through those hands and into my soul.

His throat constricted, eyes searching mine, thumbs gliding along the line of my jaw.

He tilted my chin more, until my neck was arched, my eyelids heavy as I watched him bend. His dark eyes were locked on mine, never faltering, his hands strong and steady where they held me in place.

Will pressed his forehead to mine, inhaling a long, slow breath and letting his eyes shut at the contact. It was as if he were breathing me in, memorizing me with his hands as his fingers curled in my hair.

He swallowed, jaw muscles popping, nose flaring like he was battling a war I couldn’t see.

And then he lowered his mouth to mine.

And he kissed me.

Shock zipped up my spine, replaced quickly by a longing so deep and intense that it hummed in every inch of my veins. I sucked in a breath at the same time Will did, like we were resurfacing after being under water for years.

Oh my God.

He’s kissing me.

He’s kissing me.

His lips were warm and firm against mine, his hands holding me to him. My heart seemed to float away on a cloud the longer we were connected, and when he peppered that kiss only to start a new one, it soared to another universe.

I’d had this man in so many ways. I’d had him on his knees for me, been on my knees for him. I’d had him inside me. He’d had me twisted up in dozens of positions. I’d had him in beds and in baths and against kitchen counters.

But none of it compared to how it felt to have his mouth take mine.

Slow and intentional, sweet and needy. His soft lips met mine time and time again, exploring, discovering. The first time I parted my mouth and his tongue swept inside to taste mine, I moaned, a shock of pleasure ripping through me.

I pressed up out of the barstool and into his touch, into the kiss, my body igniting at the low groan in his throat when I did. One hand stayed firmly in my hair, his thumb still caressing my jaw, as the other snaked around my waist and pulled me into him. He couldn’t get me close enough. He wanted more when there was nothing more to take.

And yet I wanted the same, like if I could strip my entire self and bestow it at his feet — I would.

“Will,” I breathed against his lips, his name a question and an invocation.

“Fuck the rules,” was all he answered, and then we were moving.

Blindly, we bounced down the hallway, me stepping on his feet as he dragged me along without wanting to break the kiss. When we’d hit a wall, he’d press me into it, dragging that kiss along my jaw and down my neck before he’d claim my mouth again.

Each time he did, we both moaned together, the next kiss always sweeter than the last.

He was everywhere, his hands on my body, thigh pressing between mine, hips caging, chest breathing hard in time with my own. I ceased to exist outside of his touch.

It was all consuming, a fiery surrender and a shock of light against a dark sky.

I knew we were in his room only by the way his scent invaded me. It was his body wash and leather and rope and that particular smell that was just him. The scent completely enveloped me when I was laid down in his sheets, and my heart ricocheted in my chest.

He’d never fucked me here before.

The only time I’d been inside this room was for a shower after our first lesson, and even that had been brief.

There was nothing rushed about this.

Will took his time, like time was all we had, slowly peeling our clothes off one article at a time. My dress, slipped over my head and left in a puddle on the floor. His shirt, pulled over his head with one hand behind his neck. My bra, unclasped and shoved aside. His shorts, button unfastened, zipper tugged down, fabric ripped to his ankles before he was descending on me again.

He punctuated each new loss of clothing with a parade of kisses along the newly exposed skin until we were both bare and trembling, holding onto each other in the darkness of that room as if it were our first time.

“Need you,” he managed on a low, rough breath as he slid between my legs. He kissed me hard with the admission, his brow furrowed, heartbeat labored where I felt it thrumming through his chest. “Need you so fucking much.”

I dug my nails into his back to signal that I felt the same — that I’d maybe felt it longer than I’d ever admit.

I didn’t know what it meant, that he was breaking his own rules, that he’d opened up to me today and he was kissing me tonight, and that when he slid inside me, we both cried out and clung to each other.

But I knew it meant something.

There was a monumental shift. I felt it in every thrust of his hips, with every slide of him inside me, with every kiss he pressed along my jaw, my collarbone, and most of all, against my lips.

He moved slowly and with purpose, like he was trying to write poetry with every measured flex. There was no dirty talk, no commands, no filth whispered into my ear.

It was sensual and deep, our connection that night. It was a joining of souls. It was a white flag of surrender, a victory cry from a hard-fought battle won.

Will pressed up onto his elbows so he could lock his eyes on mine, and those honey wells held my gaze as he continued to fuck me slow and deep. The sensation of having him looking at me like that felt more powerful than anything happening below our waists, and it sent me spiraling.

I came without trying. I came with a whimpered cry and my eyes squeezing shut and my heart pounding out of my rib cage as the slow waves washed over me.

Will came right behind me, his groan low and reverberating through my throat as he kissed me there and flexed harder, deeper, burying himself in me like he never wanted to leave.

Then, he was kissing me again, his mouth on mine, tongue seeking access until I let him in. He stole what little breath I was holding onto with that kiss, and then he was moving inside me again, his release slicking me and making round two so easy to begin.

He pulled me on top, and I rode him just as slowly as he’d taken me, until he was leaning up, pulling me against him, kissing me deep as we both found a second release.

I didn’t know what time it was when we finally cleaned up.

I didn’t know what was racing through his mind as he washed me and kissed me and dried me with a soft towel before leading me back to bed.

I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

But I knew that this time, he asked me to stay.

This time, he curled his hot, massive body around mine and pulled me into him, fitting us together like puzzle pieces.

This time, he held tight, like he would never let me go.

This time, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

This time was different.

Everything was different.

And I was unafraid.