Chapter 12

Bishop

What’s your room number? I text Brooke after I get my bag unpacked. I’m tired, but not so tired that I don’t want to fuck her. I’ve thought about barely anything else on the ride from the airport to the hotel.

Tacker is still in the bathroom and the shower is running. His suitcase sits on the bed with the top opened. It looks like a five-year-old packed, with stuff just thrown in haphazardly.

I wonder why we got paired as roommates. We have no voice in the matter and room with whomever the powers that be tell you to room with. Brooke efficiently met with the hotel night manager, who had all room keys available when we arrived. Brooke read from a list that I’m quite sure her boss probably put together, and I was slightly surprised when she called Tacker’s and my names to share a room.

Didn’t make any difference to me who my roommate was, as I fully intended to sleep with Brooke in her room. As the only female on this trip, she got one all to herself, and we were going to take advantage of that.

My phone chimes and I look down at her return text. Not going to tell you. Now go to sleep.

I stare at my phone for just a moment, not really comprehending that she just shut the metaphorical door in my face.

Finally, I’m able to reply. I type out, Seriously? but before I hit send, I change my mind and delete it.

Instead, I write, Tell me the room number or I’m going to go knock on every door until I find you.

Her response is pretty quick. Three laughing faces with tears emojis, followed by her room number.

Smiling, I tuck my phone into my pocket and walk over to the bathroom door. I give a sharp rap on it and call out to Tacker, “Going down to Brooke’s room. I won’t be back tonight.”

“Later,” I hear him call back.

So much for getting to know the reclusive guy, but there will be time for that later. I’ve only got Brooke for a few weeks.

Grabbing my room key off the dresser, I head for Brooke’s room, which is one floor down. When she opens the door, she’s wrapped in only a towel, her shoulders still wet from a shower she must have taken. Her hair is still dry and pinned up in some kind of frothy mass on top of her head.

“Hey,” she says as she holds the towel closed with one hand. She steps back from the door and I walk in, shutting it behind me. “Took a quick shower. I’m kind of wired for some reason.”

“First game of the season,” I say in a teasing tone as I follow her into the room. “First ride on a fancy plane. Hanging with scintillating professional hockey players. Of course you’d be wired.”

She looks over her shoulder at me with pursed lips. “Not sure it was the hockey players, but probably the plane ride. That was awesome.”

Coming to a stop at the end of one of the queen beds, she turns to face me. I take another step, my hands going to her waist, and look down. Her face is beautiful from any angle, but when she peers back up at me through those thick lashes, it might be her sweetest look.

“How about a back rub?” I say to her.

“Does your back hurt?” she asks, concern filling her eyes.

“No, goofy,” I say back to her with a grin. “I was talking about me giving you a back rub. To relax you a bit.”

“Oh.”

“Although I know of other ways to relax you too,” I tell her with a suggestive waggle of my eyebrows.

“Yes, you do,” she agrees with a murmur, her eyes glazing over a bit.

It’s completely suggestive to me that she’d be very open to me relaxing her with an orgasm, but hell…I can do that anytime.

Bringing my hands to her shoulders, I turn her toward the bed and order, “Lie down on your stomach. I’ll be right back.”

As Brooke lets out a tiny giggle and starts to climb onto the bed, I head into her bathroom to rummage through her things. I’ve seen enough of her beauty products in her bathroom to know exactly what I’m looking for.

I snag the lotion from the vanity, and when I return to the bed, Brooke is on her stomach with her cheeks resting on her forearms and looking straight at me. Those whiskey-colored eyes seem to glow as she watches me approach.

She’s removed her towel and her naked body demands my attention. Skin that I know to be delicately soft, the gentle dip of her lower back, and the rounded cheeks of her ass. Long fucking legs with the prettiest feet that I think I’d really like perched on my shoulders tonight.

The thought makes me start to harden, but I ignore my own body for the moment. I promised Brooke a back rub and I’m going to give her a good one. I’m going to make her boneless, then come with my cock deep inside of her. If I’m on my A game, I’m going to time it just right so we come together.

I crawl onto the bed and flip my leg over her body, allowing me to straddle her just over her buttocks. I glance down at her ass, wondering if I’ll ever fuck it. My dick gets harder and I shake my head, opening the bottle of lotion. I pour some into my hands and rub them together to warm it up.

When I place my hands on her skin, she sighs as if I’m quenching something within her.

I use only the lightest pressure to distribute the lotion all over her upper and middle back, settling my weight slightly on her ass. Sliding upward, I curve my fingers over the edges of her shoulders and dig my thumbs down into her trap muscles. Brooke groans appreciatively and it makes me smile.

It’s quiet for a few moments while I work on her, spending a great deal of time on her upper back. I’m not in a hurry despite the late hour because I can function very well on just a few hours and I don’t have to be anywhere until the team skate at 11 A.M.

“Does your mom come to your games?” Brooke asks, and I note her voice sounds heavy. That also makes me smile.

“She does,” I tell her as I move my hands down to midback. “She’ll come to some home games in Phoenix and she’ll come to road games that are close to London.”

When we had breakfast this morning—or actually yesterday morning, as the clock says it’s almost 12:30 A.M.—Brooke spent some time poking around in my background, so she knows all about my mom. Much like her, my life was pretty much an open book and no dark skeletons are in my closet. I told her about my father dying and my mother taking on both roles to raise me. She knows I’m very close to my mom, a fact that I know sometimes can embarrass dudes, but not me. My mom is fucking awesome times ten.

“She’s so lucky to have a career that has let her take the time to support you in your hockey,” she murmurs, and I note that her eyes are droopy. She has a serene smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“It was really beneficial when I was younger,” I agree. “Having a loved one cheer you on can really make the difference. Now, if they wouldn’t let her travel, I’d just have her quit her job and I’d support her so she could come to all my games.”

“Really?” Brooke asks in a dreamy way that tells me she thinks that was a very sweet sentiment.

I laugh as I run my thumbs up the muscles that protect her spine. She shivers and I glide them back down. “No, not really. My mom’s a financial analyst for a large insurance company and would never quit that job. She loves it too much and she’s one of those people who will probably work until the day she dies. She doesn’t know how to do slow and relaxed.”

“I wish I felt that way about my current job,” Brooke murmurs, then gives a tiny yawn, her eyes remaining closed, her face peacefully slack. I definitely give good back rubs.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just in New York—and the job at the magazine—everything is high pressure, deadline oriented, and I always moved through life at a full-on sprint. But here…it’s just not like that.”

“You don’t sound enthused about what you’re doing,” I observe.

“It’s not just that,” she says softly. “I mean, yeah…not what I want to do. It’s just…the work’s not all that challenging, so I’m really glad I’m getting this opportunity in merchandising.”

I take a moment to replenish some lotion in my hands, and I scoot to straddle the backs of her thighs so I can work on her lower back. Brooke gives a tiny groan of satisfaction, her closed eyes scrunching tighter for a moment when I hit a tight muscle. I ease up on my pressure and her face relaxes again.

She doesn’t say anything more about the job, but I am incredibly curious about something else, because Brooke told me day before yesterday that she’d go back to New York if she could.

“How’s your dad doing?” I ask her.

Her eyes pop open and her head lifts from her arms. She twists her neck slightly to look back at me in question.

I shrug. “It’s just…if your dad’s doing good, and we’re going to be orchestrating our breakup in a few weeks, maybe you could get your old job back in New York? You could even use the breakup as sort of an excuse to want some distance.”

Brooke just stares at me, her face devoid of any expression. I hold her gaze, still moving my hands across her lower back.

Finally, she lays her head back down and slowly shuts her eyes as she answers, “He’s actually doing quite well. I think training camp sort of got him back on track. New team. New home. It’s the fresh start I think he needed to break away from the darkness he’d sunk into after my mom died.”

“What was her name?” I ask.

Another slight smile comes to Brooke’s mouth speaking of not just a child’s love she had for her mother, but a true fondness for the woman herself. “Margaret,” she murmurs. “But everyone called her Margie.”

“I can tell by the tone in your voice that she was an amazing woman,” I say.

“If you’d known her,” Brooke says in almost a whisper, “you’d understand immediately why my dad was so broken when she died.”

“You were broken too.” I’m not sure why I just said that, but Brooke never talks about her pain. Yet I know she loved her mother as much as her father did.

At first she doesn’t say anything and I regret making this turn heavy, but I find myself really wanting to know the answers too. Brooke sucks in a little bit of air and breathes it out slowly. Her eyes open and she stares across the room almost blankly. “I broke quietly and unobtrusively.”

I immediately draw the conclusion. “So your dad wouldn’t see it. You didn’t want the extra burden on him.”

Once again Brooke twists her neck to look at me and smiles. “My dad has been a source of strength for our family for my entire life. The provider and the protector. If for one moment in my life I could be his strength, then I was going to do it despite how I was feeling inside.”

My hands stop moving on her body as we hold our eyes locked on to each other. Profound respect wells up inside of me for this slip of a girl who could be such a rock at times. I wonder how tired Brooke must have been in those months following her mom’s death, as she became the source of her dad’s strength. As she kept a spine of steel and her wounds inside.

“Lay your head back down,” I murmur as I nod toward her arms crossed beneath her face.

She only blinks once, but complies, immediately closing her eyes as I resume the back rub. I talk to her about stupid shit, telling her a few stories about training camp this week. Stories that aren’t overly interesting and sometimes are a bit technical and boring. She’s not into hockey on a deep level, so it’s the perfect type of information to spout to her right now. I continue to rub her back, going softer and softer in my ministrations, keeping my voice low and level as I tell her about the drills we did last week.

Forecheck drills.

D-zone coverage.

Wall work.

Puck protection.

It takes no time at all before Brooke is breathing deeply, sound asleep as I’d intended.

I slide off the bed and head into the bathroom, where I wash my hands. I snag Brooke’s toothbrush and don’t give a second thought to using it, brushing my teeth quickly with her mint-flavored toothpaste.

Flipping out lights as I make my way back to the bed, I note there’s going to be no way to get her under the covers without waking her up. So I strip down to my briefs and grab the comforter off the other bed.

I lie down next to Brooke and cover us both up before rolling to turn off the bedside lamp. I then scoot inward, gently sliding my arms around her and giving her a slight roll so I’m spooning her.

I close my eyes and wait for sleep.