SEVENTEEN
She looked calm, an angel while she slept.
Had he taken advantage? He suspected he had. He also suspected he didn’t care.
If he’d given her one small moment of peace during this turbulent time for her, then he refused to regret a moment. Violet was a passionate woman both in and out of bed, a woman whose emotions needed to be fed.
Slipping inside her, he’d found her hot, tight, as new as the first time he’d been with a woman. He wanted to touch her again, trace his fingers over every tattoo, explore her more thoroughly. He wanted to learn all her secrets. For now he let his eyes run point, not wishing to wake her. He’d have to get back to the house soon to take over for the tutor.
His phone buzzed in the pocket of his sweats, now pooled on the floor. Leaning over the side of the bed, he removed it and grimaced at a text from Remy: You okay?
Shit, he’d charged out of the locker room two hours ago without a word to his teammates.
Yeah, just had to be somewhere.
A pause while Remy typed. Anything you need to tell me?
How about, I’m not drinking but I’ve found a new addiction? The last thing he needed was Remy getting in his business, but the man was born to interfere. He didn’t want to alarm him and say there was a problem with the girls—or break Violet’s confidence, because he was guessing she hadn’t told her sisters.
A friend needed my help.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do. We’re gonna need you at 100% this week.
Bren smiled grimly at the phone. Since coming across Violet in her car and learning what was troubling her, he’d been unable to focus on his game and it had shown in practice. Quick dispossessions, sloppy passes.
He put the phone back into his pocket and let his gaze wander around her bedroom. Like Violet, it was a mishmash of styles that somehow managed to come together in a way that worked. A half-finished abstract mural took up the west wall, photos of what looked like her mom and maybe her aunts took up the east. Violet had certainly put her stamp on this place, which was strange, considering she was supposed to be leaving soon.
He turned north and found a pair of startling green eyes smiling at him.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“What?”
“I know that look.”
“What look is that?”
“The look that says you might be regretting what just happened here.”
“Not regretting. Never regretting.” He’d stopped beating himself up over crappy decisions months ago. “I just worry I might have taken advantage.”
“Pretty sure I took advantage of you, Nessie.” She turned over to face him, and he couldn’t help but notice how her breasts moved.
They’d felt different in his hands. Not in a bad way, but in an undiscovered country kind of way. He knew she was self-conscious about them, but when everything about her was perfect to him, she needn’t be.
“You had just heard some emotional news.”
“So had you.”
True. Knowing she was going to be okay had stripped his insides.
“So, really, I took advantage of your relief the nanny wasn’t about to buy the farm. God knows you don’t want to lose your child-care solution in the middle of the play-offs. Kind of sneaky of me, don’t you think?”
“Very.” He’d let her have this if it made her feel better. They both knew the truth.
Coming together like this was as necessary as breathing.
“When are you going to tell your sisters?”
She motioned between them. “About me joining Club Chase-Bangs-a-Rebel?”
“About your health scare.”
Her mouth thinned and it took her a moment to reply. “Why worry them? I’m okay.”
“Yes, but not telling them, Vi . . . That’s not right.”
“I don’t want to put this on them. It’s not . . .” She shrugged one beautiful shoulder.
“It’s not what?”
“My role.”
He leaned up on his elbow. “Your role?”
“In the family. This family. You know how everyone’s got a part to play? Harper’s uptight Ms. Judgment, the one who tells you where you’re going wrong—all with the best of intentions, of course. And Isobel, she’s the peacemaker, the one who wants everyone to get along.”
“And what’s your role?”
“I’m the mixer. The troublemaker. Bringer of fun. I get into the middle of this fucked-up Chase family dynamic and question the status quo. When I arrived, everything with these girls was hockey, hockey, hockey—and don’t get me wrong, it still is. But now they’re less guarded with each other and with Remy and Vadim. I like to think I’ve helped them see their lives from another angle.”
“Violet, love, you make it sound like you’re a cross between Mary Poppins and that angel in It’s a Wonderful Life—”
“Clarence.”
“Yeah, Clarence. Fixing problems, setting people straight, and then poof! you’re out of here to go make someone else’s problems go away.” The thought of Violet leaving, for that’s what she’d eventually do, made him queasy and angry. Quangry.
“Poof?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I like collecting wings.”
“But what about you? Who fixes your problems?”
“I do, Bren. I fix them. I’m one of those self-rescuing princesses you may have heard about.”
“And then you’re out.”
“It’s no secret I’m not sticking around.”
This was not news, and there was no good reason why this should have made him furious, but it did. He stared at her, willing her to understand what he couldn’t verbalize properly. Framing it as a family problem instead of a Bren problem seemed best.
“Your sisters want to be there for you just as you’ve been there for them, Violet. Don’t leave without giving them that chance. I’ve known this family for a long time. I know how Clifford ran it. He left scars.” On this woman, too, even if she refused to admit it. “Sure, you’re the catalyst, Violet, possibly the best thing to happen to them.” Possibly the best thing to happen to me. “But it’s a two-way street. You have to be willing to accept the love back.”
“I—I’ll think about it.”
He nodded. That would do for now.
She leaned over the side of the bed, giving him the perfect vista of her truly exceptional ass, and popped back up with her bra. Turning slightly away from him, she started to put it on.
He cupped her arm. “Do you have to?”
Her mouth went slack a little. “I thought that maybe we—”
“Were done?”
Gently, he removed the bra from her fingers and threw it so it landed on a dresser. A girlish titter came out of her mouth, so odd because Violet had never come across as nervous before.
“Were you thinking I’d bang and bolt? Or is that what you’d like me to do?”
“I don’t want you to think you have to stay.” The vulnerability in her voice snapped a clamp around his heart. Whether she knew it or not, she’d crossed a forearm over her breasts. “You said before that you couldn’t give me 100 percent, and that’s fine. I don’t need that. Five percent. Maybe ten if you’re feeling generous.”
He cursed his previous declaration, which had made Violet doubt that she deserved everything that was in his power to give. But she was right about one thing: his life was being pulled in a million different directions at the moment, and he didn’t have the bandwidth for a relationship. Neither did he want to give his ex any ammunition for when she came at him next.
Yet giving this up wasn’t an option.
He curled a finger over her wrist and pulled gently. “I don’t want to confuse the kids and I don’t want people in my business.”
“Meaning Remy and all those gossipmongers on the team.”
“Aye, they’re the worst.”
She grinned. “Harper and Iz are the last people I would tell about this. Neither am I looking for hearts and flowers. I’m not planning to stay long enough to let you in, Bren St. James, but for the time I’m here, this body belongs to you.”
No strings, the perfect offer, especially for a man who couldn’t commit to more than one day at a time. Especially for a man who didn’t deserve a woman as good as the vision before him.
Hungrily, he scanned the gift she was giving him.
“If this body belongs to me”—he coasted a palm over her generous hip, moving higher to stroke the side of her breast—“then I’ll need to know everything. What turns you on, what makes you hum, what gives you pleasure.” With the backs of his knuckles, he stroked the tops of her breasts. “Can you feel when I touch you here?”
“Touching them is more about comfort than discernible pleasure. The nipple is purely cosmetic. Tattooed to add color.” She traced an erotic circle around it, then moved his hand around the side. “I feel more here, and if you were to taste them, my brain would make connections from the visual. More because I’d assume you’re enjoying it rather than the fact of pleasure itself. A feedback loop.”
He loved her honesty. Had he ever met a woman more in tune with herself and her body?
Thin scars edged along the underside of her breasts, reminding him of her bravery, of what she had endured. His fingers mapped the side, where she’d directed him, then he inclined his head and slicked his tongue over the nipple on her right breast. It felt weird to do this, knowing it did little for her.
He peered up to see her reaction. Her eyes were heavy lidded. “More,” she whispered.
He sucked on the faux bud. It looked like a real nipple. It felt like one on his tongue.
She made a low sound in her throat and his dick responded, pushing against her thigh. She shifted her body slightly, raked her fingers through his hair, and all the while she stared at him with those eyes he wanted to sink into.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand move, her fingers slipping between her beautiful thighs. She stroked gently, then harder, and it drew his moan, a vibration along her breast. Locked together they continued—him sucking on the breast she couldn’t feel, her touching herself with long, slick strokes. She was finding a way to make it work. To craft her own pleasure, and his with it, because her pleasure was his.
He slipped two fingers inside her and their hands worked together to get her to that peak. It didn’t take long, her body a responsive instrument beneath his touch, its clench around his fingers the ultimate reward. And then he watched her lazy smile in the aftermath while she watched him grip his cock and stroke hard.
He knelt over her, using rough and mean pumps to draw out his pleasure, but really it was her eyes that got him there. In them he saw a surrender of trust that broke him open.
At the last moment, she whispered, “Mark me.”
He came all over her perfect breasts, a ropy spurt that lashed across her body, and branded her as his. With her he felt renewed. Changed. Worthy.
With her he felt like the man he was meant to be.