Chapter 15
Roman
I open my front door before Lexi’s foot hits the bottom step of my porch, as I’d been watching for her car to pull into my driveway. She looks up at me with her right hand holding her ukulele by its neck.
“I’m prepared to serenade you if necessary,” she quips with a smile as she holds it up for me to see.
“Now why would that be necessary?” I ask her as I step out onto the porch and cross my arms over my chest.
“Well, because the text you sent me in response to my voicemail was very cryptic.” She steps up fully onto the bottom step and waits for my move.
And damn, she looks cute as hell in black leggings, black ankle boots with shaggy fake fur around the edges, and an oversized dark purple sweater that hangs off one shoulder.
It’s cold as hell outside, so I ask as I frown down at her, “Where’s your coat?”
“Figured I didn’t need it,” she replies as she stares at me. “I’d either jump out of my car and grab my bag from your front lawn, or I’d be warm inside your house.”
“Hmmmm,” I say in contemplation.
“And yet here I am, freezing my ass off on your front porch,” she points out sweetly.
“You’re not quite on the porch yet,” I counter. “But how about getting that ass up here and rectifying it.”
“So I’m invited in?” she asks coyly.
“You’re invited to the top of my porch,” I say sternly, although my lips are curving to indicate I find her adorable.
“Well, in that case,” she exclaims with excitement as she bounds up the three steps, coming to a hopping stop right in front of me. “Here I am.”
Shaking my head, I offer an amused smile and murmur, “I don’t know whether to kiss you or spank you.”
Her eyes flash hot and her quick reaction to my suggestion of a spanking causes my body to tighten all over. I almost groan out loud when she cocks her head and asks, “Is spanking a serious option?”
I mutter a curse word in Czech under my breath, which she finds hilarious as evidenced by her giggle. Curling my hand around the back of her neck, I merely turn and push her toward my open door, releasing my hold on her as she steps inside.
She turns to face me in my foyer, her ukulele in one hand and a soft expression on her face. “I’m really sorry, Roman. That I reacted so hastily to Gray’s advice to stay away from you.”
And fuck if that doesn’t get me somewhere right in the center of my chest. I’ve had reason for people to apologize to me in the past for whatever reason, but I’ve never had those words leveled at me with such sincerity before.
“What did Brian say that made you come to your senses?” I ask, because her voicemail said he was the reason she was reaching out to me. I had been at practice and had missed her call, but I was grinning from ear to ear in the locker room when I’d listened to it. I didn’t call her back, but sent her—as she noted—a cryptic text that simply said, Come by around 6 P.M. and you’ll find out.
Some might think that was mean, not letting Lexi off the hook easily, but I’m confident she took that text exactly as I meant it. A joking gesture to let her know I wasn’t mad at her. If I was, I would have told her her bag was on the front lawn. And Lexi clearly took it the way I knew she would, as she showed up at my door with her ukulele, knowing I’d be charmed by her and it.
Lexi chuckles and answers my question. “Well, I had no clue Brian was so wise, and there were lots of words exchanged, but he basically reminded me to think for myself and to follow my heart.”
“Wise words indeed,” I observe.
“So am I forgiven?” she asks solemnly.
“There was nothing to forgive,” I tell her truthfully and without the generalized teasing that’s been going on since she got here.
“Well damn,” she says morosely, and with sad eyes continues, “If there’s nothing to forgive, then that means I technically did nothing wrong, which then translates into no spankings, right?”
Another muttered Czech curse as I shake my head at her. “You’re so bad.”
“Well, Gray says you are too, but here I am,” she quips.
Laughing, I again put my hand around the back of her neck and guide her toward the living room and then the kitchen. “Before we get to spankings—and I’m sure there are some in our future—I’m starving and I’ve got dinner ready. Let’s eat.”
“Oh my God,” Lexi says on a deep inhale as we enter the kitchen. She pulls away from my hand, sets her ukulele on the small dining table, and walks zombielike toward the food I have laid out on the island counter. “What in the holy heaven is this delicious-looking stuff?”
Grinning, I step up to the counter and point to the items on the platter. “This is vepřová, which you Americans fondly call roasted pork. This is knedlíky, which are bread dumplings, and here is zelí, which is your basic sauerkraut.”
“You cooked all this?” she asks as she looks at me in amazement.
Nodding, I tell her, “I wanted to share a traditional Czech meal with you, and this happens to be my favorite.”
“You can actually cook?” she asks with even more amazement.
“In my house you learned to cook or you didn’t eat,” I tell her, and then instantly regret it the minute her eyes turn sorrowful, so I quickly add, “All I mean is that my parents worked so hard and were always so busy, and along with my hockey schedule, there weren’t a lot of family meals.”
“Oh,” she says softly as her eyes go back to the platter of food. “But still…this is incredible.”
“So you’re impressed?”
“You’re so getting laid,” she says dramatically. “But probably not tonight. Well, I’m not sure about that. I should taste the food first before I commit.”
And I laugh again. A deep belly laugh, because she’s funny and cute, she pulls something from me I didn’t know existed, and being around her makes me feel fucking good. There’s no doubt I’m going to get laid at some point, and I honestly don’t give a shit if it’s tonight or in the foreseeable future.
—
“Favorite movie?” Lexi asks as she sits on the opposite end of the couch from me, casually strumming her ukulele. Not really playing a song, but just different chords as we talk.
“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” I say with no hesitation.
“Never saw it,” she responds. Another casual strum, her fingers very light on the strings.
I shift on the couch, scooting my body down a bit more. We’re on opposite ends, facing each other. Lexi ditched her boots and she’s sitting cross-legged with her back against the armrest. I’m laying sprawled on my back, also having removed my shoes. My body is longer than the couch, so my legs are slightly bent, with my feet resting on the cushion at the sides of her hips.
“Not surprised,” I say lazily. “I think it was made before you were born.”
“If it’s so old, how come you’ve seen it?” She’s stopped strumming and is watching me with her head tilted to the side.
I shrug. “I like action movies. Even the older ones.”
“I like chick flicks,” she says with a grin. “What’s your take on them?”
“That you should never ask me to watch one with you,” I tell her adamantly.
I’m thinking there are a lot of ways I’d be happy to spend my time with Lexi, but I do have my limits.
Lexi snorts at my response. “I’ll give you a pass.”
We’ve been sitting here lobbing questions at each other since we finished dinner over an hour ago, and in that time I’ve learned some very interesting things. For instance, she was bitten by a copperhead snake when she was fifteen while hiking in the woods with friends, and to get over her fear after that, she took a snake-handling course through a local wildlife agency. Though it was no surprise to me, I learned she’s a daredevil and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, bungee jumping being her favorite rush. She’s highly allergic to bees and carries an EpiPen in her purse. She’s also slightly allergic to shellfish, but that doesn’t stop her from eating it. Lexi’s favorite food is spaghetti, she hates carrots, and is a terrible baker, but she continually tries with repetitive failure.
Lexi likes to read psychological thrillers, has a soft spot for dogs, admitted the fact I work with golden retriever rescue was a major point in my favor, and once got arrested for underage drinking when she was seventeen. She snores lightly when she sleeps, hates taking baths, preferring a shower instead, and almost choked to death once when she was dared to try to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon.
I’ve learned a ton of other inane stuff about her, but some important stuff as well. Her favorite flower is a yellow rose, her birthday is week after next—she’ll be twenty-seven—and she’s never had a relationship last longer than six months.
“Best vacation you’ve ever had?” I ask her, since it’s my turn to question.
“That’s easy,” she says with a fond smile. “When I was eleven, my mom took me to Disney World. She had saved up for like three years to be able to do it, because as you know, teachers don’t make all that much money, but it was amazing. She rode all the rides with me, and I had so much junk food I almost got sick. It was amazing and my lesson from it was if I have kids one day, I’m going to start saving up money a lot sooner so I can take them when they’re a little younger.”
She speaks with such determination there’s no doubt that it’s a goal she’s had set in her mind for a very long time. While the passion with which she talks about that vacation and her desire to pass that on to her own kids one day is touching, it’s also a bit of a mystery to me. Vacation for me was my parents shipping me off to my grandmother’s house for long weekends when I was growing up. Trying to imagine my mother and father at Disney World is quite ludicrous, actually. It wasn’t until I was an adult and playing professional hockey that I started to appreciate the time off in the summers and made efforts to travel for pleasure and play, but never once did I feel like I was missing anything growing up. I guess when you don’t have something or know of something, it’s hard to miss it.
Lexi starts picking out a tune on her instrument and I recognize it immediately: “Let It Be,” by the Beatles.
She starts to sing the song that most everyone in the world knows, using a combination of strumming and picking at the strings, alternating back and forth fluidly. I watch her carefully, love how she closes her eyes sometimes when she’s particularly feeling a lyric or melody, and when she opens them back up, they’re on me and nowhere else. That voice of hers…smoky, husky, so fucking sexy. She has no hesitation holding my gaze as she performs, always doing so with a sweet smile, and I admire that there’s not a moment of shyness or doubt in herself that causes her gaze to drop.
When she finishes the song and only after the last chord fades away, I nod toward the ukulele in her hands and tell her in a gruff voice, “Put that down and come here.”
Her eyebrows rise, but there’s clear interest in her eyes. “Come there?” she asks for clarification as she points to my body.
I tap my chest. “Right here. Right on top of me.”
Lexi’s cheeks flush and a little puff of breath blows out of her, but she immediately leans to her side and places her instrument on the floor.
With absolutely no hesitation, she comes up to her knees and slowly crawls up my body. Our gazes are locked tight and her eyes darken with intensity. When her chest comes level with mine, and her knees are pressed into the cushion just inches from my crotch, she asks me softly, “You going to kiss me?”
“I was thinking about it,” I tell her as my hands come around her lower back, and I press on her until her body lowers and presses flush against mine.
And fuck, she feels good against me, just her soft curves and warmth starting to get me hard before I even lay my mouth on hers.
Lexi’s forearms support her weight on my chest and she looks down at me with sizzling eyes and her long dark hair framing her face. We just stare at each other, knowing that once we take this step, our casual, light, and flirty friendship is going to change.
Fuck is it going to change.
Leaving one hand on her lower back, I slide the other up and over her shoulder, letting my palm glide up her neck so my fingers can tangle in her hair. She shivers when my thumb strokes her jaw before I cup my hand around the back of her head.
Lexi’s hands reach out and circle behind my neck, which causes her chest to lower to mine, the soft curves of her breasts feeling fucking fantastic against me and causing her face to lower just a little bit more toward mine.
“So this is it?” she whispers as she licks her lower lip.
“This is it,” I agree, and because I absolutely cannot wait one moment longer, I put pressure on the back of her head to force our mouths to close the distance. The first touch of her lips against mine causes a pleasure to punch straight through to my groin and she has no hesitation in immediately accepting my tongue. I give it to her slowly, angling her head a bit with my hand. My mouth moves against hers, gently but deeply, my hand at her lower back keeping her tight to me.
I could probably be content with just this slow mouth fucking, my nerves humming and my blood on a low boil, but Lexi moans softly into my mouth and I involuntarily react by nipping at her lower lip. I grab it with my teeth, press into the soft flesh with a low growl, and Lexi’s entire body jerks against mine.
And Christ, my dick goes full-on hard, lengthening and swelling against her as our hips start to move and gyrate.
Giving a tiny suck first, I let Lexi’s lip pop free, then she immediately presses her mouth against mine, rougher this time. Her head turns one way, mine goes the other, and our tongues engage in an almost pornographic battle.
Lexi moans again and grinds down on my erection, and suddenly I can’t even begin to imagine why we would have tried to keep things slow. My hand on her back slides down, over her ass, where I squeeze it as she continues to rotate her hips, and that only makes me want more. I drop my hand lower, run my fingers over the seam of her ass, which I can feel in exquisite detail given the thin material of her leggings, and then I press hard against the back of her pussy.
It’s like I just pulled a fucking trigger the minute my fingers grind into her warmth, and Lexi groans so deeply into my mouth with such yearning that I start to kiss her harder. Our teeth clash as our mouths battle, trying to devour each other. Lexi pulls one hand away from my neck and wedges it in between our bodies. She lifts to one side to make more room, and then her hand is on my dick, squeezing it in just the right way through the denim.
“Christ,” I mutter into her mouth, and she starts a slow stroke against my aching shaft.
I shift my body, extend my shoulder, and get my fingers down deeper in between her legs. She’s hot and slightly damp, and I try to push my fingers into her through the restrictive material of her leggings and panties.
I’m on the verge of losing control, and images of me ripping her clothes off and plunging into her start pulsing vividly in my imagination. I consider pulling my hand up, snaking it down the back of her leggings and panties so I can get my fingers into that wet warmth I know is begging for my touch.
“Roman,” Lexi gasps as we both stroke and fondle and press against each other. Her voice is needful, so full of yearning that it causes an ache in my chest.
I want to fuck her so bad. Right here on my couch. Screw the rest of the foreplay, my cock wants inside of her right this very fucking moment, and I think I might go crazy from wanting it.
No…from needing it.
I absolutely fucking need it right now.
And with a burning realization that actually causes a twinge of fear to course through me, I think that I might need this more than I’ve needed anything else in my life.
That knowledge, knowing she has that kind of power over me, doesn’t douse my feelings in the slightest. It’s not even the source of my fear.
What is starting to make me slow my kiss and my hand between her legs is the epiphany that Lexi produces feelings in me that are foreign—in a good way—and because of that I might need to give a little deference for how this is going to go down.
“Lexi, wait a minute,” I mumble into her mouth as I move my hand from between her legs and place it over her own hand that’s stroking me. I halt her movement and it causes her head to rise up so she stares down at me with hazy eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she rasps out.
“We should probably slow down…take things a bit slower,” I say thickly, my body threatening to rebel as my brain tries to take control.
“Why?” she murmurs, her eyes dropping to my lips before rising back up to meet mine. “I want this. Don’t you?”
“Fuck, yes, I want it,” I growl at her, my fingers involuntarily squeezing against her hand, making her squeeze my cock. “But…it’s moving fast. I don’t want there to be regrets.”
“Why would there be regrets?” she asks, her eyes clearing up a bit because of the serious nature of the conversation.
“There wouldn’t…not on my part at least,” I try to explain to her. “But…listen, I like you. I think you like me too. This is just different, and I’m not in a major rush for us to fuck. We can slow it down, continue to get to know each other.”
She stares at me a moment before she murmurs, “But I’m ready.”
“Are you?” I ask her bluntly. “You give me your body, that’s a big deal. For both of us.”
Damn…I’ve never said that to a woman before. Never cared if it went too fast, and never once did I worry if a woman would have regrets, mainly because I’d most likely never see her again.
But Lexi’s different.
So damn different in all the right ways, and I just didn’t realize women like her existed.
“Roman,” she says gently, her face lowering a little so she can peer at me. “You defended me once. Do you remember?”
I nod my head.
“And I asked you why, when you hardly knew me. But it turns out, you did know me. You knew me well, because you said I’m a woman who plays a ukulele in a coffee shop for tips, and you’ve never seen anyone happier in their existence.”
“I did say that,” I agree softly.
“And that right there…it gave me great insight into the type of man you are too,” she continues. “There’s something between us…you know it. It’s different. It’s mysterious. But it’s real and we’re both ready.”
Christ, this woman, lobbing common sense and mysticism at me all at once, but in my heart of hearts I know she’s right.
“You’re sure?” I ask her, giving her one last chance to slow down this barreling train we’re on.
Lexi grins at me, reminding me that there will always be some type of levity between us. “Well, after that meal you made me tonight, I told you there was a good chance you were getting laid.”
I laugh, raise my head, and give her a swift kiss. When my lips release hers, I say, “Okay. Let’s go to my room. We need a bed for what I plan on doing to you.”