Harper

Once upon a time, my husband had to choose between flying home for a very short Christmas visit, or going somewhere warm.

Now our only holiday constraint is the kids’ school calendar, and they have two two weeks off.

So we spend one week in Manitoba, with their cousins, and one week in the Bahamas.

And then it’s back to real life. Because as much as we love the little slices of luxury Kieran’s twenty years in the NHL affords us, I’m still a working nurse—just part-time now—and he’s still a dad who has to get up early to take his daughter to hockey practice.

Being on vacation hasn’t slowed that down at all, though.

I wake up to an empty bed, the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen, and the joyous sound of sticks slapping against the ice.

After I wrap my favourite robe around me to stave off the cold, I glance out the window. It’s dark still, the sun won’t rise until eight, but floodlights illuminate the backyard rink we have at the cabin. Kieran’s brother sets it up for us; our niece and nephew use the heck out of it on the weekends, too.

But right now, it’s just our eight-year-old, Lina, and her dad. He’s skating backwards, hacking at the puck, and she’s giving it as good as he is. My fierce little warrior girl.

I check on her brother, still fast asleep in the room next to ours.

A buzzing draws me back to our bed. Kieran left his phone on the bedside table, and it looks like a group chat with the other senior advisors and AGMs to the Highlanders is lighting up this morning.

One day, when the kids are grown, Kieran might want to be a GM, like his mentor Dick Dorrian. For now, he works in a supporting role, so he can take vacation time and be a dad first.

But he will still want to see this text chain as soon as possible. Our lives will always be juggled with the exciting business of hockey, and sometimes that happens reallyearly in the morning when you’re a time zone further west from the team. I dress in extra warm clothes, pour myself a coffee, and take his phone outside.

As soon as I step onto the deck, Kieran’s head swivels in my direction. He say something to Lina, who curves around him in a big swoop and picks up the puck again. She flips it into the net as he makes his way to meet me at the side of the rink, then waits for him to pass her another one from the bucket of pucks near where I stop with my coffee.

“It’s fucking cold.” My teeth chatter as I hand him his phone.

He kisses me good morning—mmm, that’s nice and warm.

“More of that, please,” I say softly.

He smiles against my mouth. “Should I check my messages first?”

“Maybe.”

He kisses me once more before tugging off his gloves and tapping into the texts. Then he groans and rolls his neck. “Lina,” he says, raising his voice without looking away from the screen. “I gotta go do some work on my computer.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t slow down her drills.

“And it’s cold.”

“I’m warm enough.”

His lips quirk.

I squeeze his arm and take over. “Well, I’m not warm enough, so humour me with a breakfast break. Five more minutes.”

When Lina and I get inside, Kieran’s on his computer and Cale is awake—sort of. He’s curled up against his dad’s side, blinking slowly as he watches something on Kieran’s phone.

The rest of the day goes by in the same cycle. Both kids hit the ice after breakfast, then come inside for a long warm up period. I join them in the early afternoon, when the sun is at its brightest.

Cale gets a non-stop fit of the giggles when I take a turn in goal. Even though he’s only five, he’s pretty sure that’s the position he wants to play, and I’m terrified of the puck.

Kieran’s family arrives mid-afternoon. They stay in a second cabin we’ve built tucked back against the woods, but we have Christmas Eve dinner together in the main house.

It’s loud and chaotic. We FaceTime with my mom and Darnell, who have already headed to the Bahamas. We’ll join them in a few days.

And because my sweet girl was the first to wake up this morning, she’s also the first to get tired and blinky-eyed.

The kids want to have a sleepover with their cousins tonight, in the new cabin, which means she needs to get changed into her pyjamas before she zonks out.

She leans on me, getting heavier and heavier, until I realize it’s time to say good night—or Kieran will be carrying her upstairs, sleepover spoiled. “Come on, honey,” I whisper. “Time for bed.”

She gives Kieran’s family a sleepy wave, and lets me guide her upstairs. I supervise the teeth brushing, then she changes into her PJs.

When I step out of her room, I see Kieran herding Cale into the bathroom. Our little night owl is protesting. “But I’m not tired!”

“You just need to brush your teeth and get changed. Lina’s heading over to the other cabin, though.”

I love Kieran’s stern dad voice. It brooks no argument. And I love even more the way he turns and catches my eye, that private, lingering gaze. Even after a decade of marriage, this man sets me on fire at every opportunity. “Hang on a second,” he murmurs to me. Just as clear an instruction.

My pulse jacks up.

I send Lina downstairs and out the door with my sister-in-law, then return to the upstairs bathroom, where Kieran is making sure Cale is using an appropriate amount of toothpaste.

He leaves our son with his sonic toothbrush and moves me into our bedroom.

Closes the door.

Pushes me against me, his mouth finding mine in the dark.

He palms my ass, squeezing me against him. His body is thicker now that he’s not playing professionally anymore, now that he eats ice cream freely and only works out a normal amount. My body has changed, too. I’m softer after having two kids. Wider at the hips, heavier at the tops of my thighs.

Some of his favourite parts, where he lingers with his hands and his mouth once we’re alone at night. And sometimes at unexpected stolen moments like right now. Not quite alone, not yet, but needing…this.

“Busy day,” he murmurs, his breath ragged.

Work. Kids. Family.

“A few rounds of cards and then early to bed for us, too?” I wriggle against him.

His cock hardens against my belly. He drags in a deep breath, and—

We’re interrupted by a light knock at the door. Low on the door. “Mommy?”

Kieran presses his fist to his mouth and wrenches himself off me. 

Wordlessly, I slip out and take Cale to his room. Help him into his jammies, then send him downstairs, where his cousins are laughing.

I return to our bedroom ready to fan my face, laugh about that interruption with my husband, and return to our holiday festivities.

Instead, I find him leaning back against the headboard like a debauched prince. Or a king, I suppose, at his age. Silver flecks in his stubble only make him more handsome.

And wicked.

“We have guests,” I whisper.

I still close the door.

And it’s good that I do, because he holds up a bottle of lube and a butt plug, casually wiggling both in one hand.

“I know.” He pats his lap. “Come here.”

Butterflies flutter in my chest, but I do as instructed. Climb onto the bed so he can arrange me over his lap.

He flips up my Fair Isle sweater dress and tugs down my leggings. Smooths his hand over my bare bum, then squeezes. “Have I told you today that you’re a good girl?”

My face flames and I press it into the quilt. “Probably.”

In deed if not in word. 

His grip relaxes and he strokes his fingertips over my flesh and then down between my legs.

I squirm.

He stills me.

“You are, you know. The best girl. My girl.” He flexes his thighs, pushing his cock into my belly. “Want you thinking about this for the next hour, until I boot everyone out because I need to have my wife. Think about how much I crave you. How hard I get when you are a good girl for me and hold still.”

I’m not still at all. I’m trembling. But I breathe through that and try to relax as he lubes me up, then slides the skinny plug into me. Seats it between my cheeks, then tugs up my leggings.

Even after a decade, that little plug is all I need to send me spinning to a place where it’s just the two of us.

* * *

Kieran

Downstairs, I find Cale wrestling my teenage neice and nephew in that dangerously-close-to-overtired-and-manic way he sometimes gets, so I scoop him up and redirect him towards my brother.

Harper busies herself with putting away dessert leftovers. I follow her into the open kitchen part of the cabin’s main room and snag a cherry pierogi. She doesn’t meet my gaze, but her cheeks are rosy pink and her lips are curved up in a secret smile.

“Feeling good?” I ask under my breath.

She sucks in an eager breath. “Mm-hmm.”

“Excellent.”

She stretches up on her toes, trying to reach for a Tupperware container. I bracket my body around hers, pinning her to the counter as I helpfully snag it off the top shelf. “Need anything else?”

The pink in her cheeks gets darker. “So much more,” she murmurs.

I last forty-five minutes before I ruffle Cale’s dark curls. “Time for bed, bud. Santa will be here soon.”

That cuts off his protests.

We put on our coats and boots, and I wrap a blanket around him as well because the temperature has dropped significantly from the daytime high. It’s a short walk to the toasty-warm second cabin, where my sister-in-law is reading quietly on the couch. My nephew promises he’s got the rest of Cale’s bedtime under control, and I leave them to it.

Back in the main house, Harper has been pressed into a game of cards. She’s squirming just the tiniest bit as she sits at the table, studying her hand.

For all my urgent desires to get my wife naked beneath me, I could watch this for hours. The way her eyes hood a little as she shifts, the way her lips part and she sucks in a desperate pull of air. Then, her very good efforts to rein herself in and hide just how turned on she is, because that’s for us and us alone. For me.

Now that the kids are out of the house, I go to the mudroom and unearth the special box of Santa stuff. It’s hard to make Christmas magic happen two thousand kilometres from home, but with some careful misdirection on either end of the trip, we get it done.

When I return to the great room, my sister is yawning.

Excellent. Now the grown-ups can start to fade away.

Harper wins a hand.

I fill Cale’s stocking, then Lina’s. Then my nephew’s, then my niece’s.

She loses the next hand.

Wins one more, and is declared the winner.

“I think that’s enough for me,” she says smoothly. “Shall we call it a night?”

My sister waves in my direction. “Santa is almost done his work, too.”

One more trip from the mudroom with wrapped presents, and then yes, I will be.

By the time I return, everyone is spilling out the door. Flashlights guide their way down the path, and then Harper latches the door shut.

I catch her around the waist. “You forgot to put a snack out for Santa.” I nibble on her neck. “I demand you feed me directly from your body.”

Laughing, she sprints for the stairs. I turn out the lights and follow more slowly. Savouring the quiet, this gifted moment of being alone with my love.

Upstairs, I find her pulling off her sweater dress. Under it, she’s wearing a soft cotton base layer shirt and equally soft leggings.

And those?

Nothing at all.

We have a gas fireplace in our bedroom, and I turn that on. Don’t want my bride to be cold tonight.

When I turn around again, she’s disappeared into the closet.

She reappears a moment later, and her soft base layers are gone. In their place, she’s wearing a jersey.

My jersey. A number that was recently retired by the Highlanders.

She crosses to the bed. The sweater rides up her thighs as she climbs on, flashing me a tantalizing slice of dusky bare sex and the unexpected flash of the plug above her pussy.

Then she folds herself forward, face down against the quilt. Arms stretched out in front of her. Ass and hips in the air, jersey sliding all the way up to her waist now.

My cock throbs as I strip down. I’m not going to rush to getting inside her, not when her pussy is dripping for me—and I want to drink all of that up.

But this right here? Her in my jersey, wrapped in my God damn name? This means so fucking much to me.

I take my time joining her on the bed. “Show me more of that pussy,” I rumble. “Spread your legs even wider.”

She arches her back and presents herself.

I trail my fingers up the back of her thigh and then press on the plug with my thumb as I squeeze her ass. Spread her cheeks. Growl in appreciation at the view and her little whimper of need.

Then I stretch out beside her and lift her up by the hips, hauling her on top of me so I can put her pussy where I want it—right on my face. Fuck, that nearness always gets me going. The scent of her, the glistening promise of her soft sex.

She scrambles to get her hand on my cock as I start to lick her up. She’s swollen and ready, amped up from more than an hour of sitting on a plug I wedged inside her body to remind her that I’d be claiming her as soon as I could.

Her stiff little clit bounces against my tongue and throbs when I suck on it. Her slippery juices run freely into my mouth as I slurp at her between hungry pulls.

She presses her face against the side of my cock, her mouth open, her breath warm and shaky.

I could come like this so fucking easily. Spurt all over her face and we’d laugh about it.

Sometimes, I have a hair trigger because my wife is the fucking sexiest woman in the world. But tonight, I want inside her. Tonight I want to grip her hips and bury myself deep.

“Come on my face, baby,” I growl against her pussy. “Come for me now, and you can choose where I put my cock.”

She cries out as I suck her clit back into my mouth. Her thighs start to shake, then clamp down, and there’s a pause where her whole body goes taut, before her clit pulses again in my mouth, and it ripples through her whole body.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Good girl. That’s my girl. Fucking beautful.” I lick her again, avoiding her clit now.

She yanks off the jersey and sends it flying.

We tumble together, twisting around on the bed until she’s beneath me.

“Need you inside me,” she gasps. “Leave the plug in.”

She’s so tight like this.

Full.

And all mine. I work myself into her, already on the edge. I exhale roughly when I’m balls deep. “Love you,” I growl.

She throws her head back and I press my face to the long stretch of her neck.

“Love you, too,” she whispers, and I feel it through her throat. “Love you inside me like this…”

I snap my hips in, then withdraw. My cock feels every inch of the length of the plug.

She feels it, too, I can tell. The drag of my erection through her extra-tight channel makes her moan.

Now it’s her turn to demand an orgasm. She wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me, her lips finding my ear. “I want to feel you come. Take me, Kieran. Please, just use me.”

My head spins at her whispered suggestion. How much love it takes to share something like that. How fucking fun my wife is, always.

I hunch over her, fucking her faster. Giving her my cock, my need, my weight. Pounding at her, until she’s crying out my name, over and over, and my balls pull tight. All of it so fucking hot. So perfect.

And then I spill inside her tightness, throbbing in long, heady pulses. She flutters around me, too, my spurts getting milked even harder by her second climax.

* * *

Harper

Five days later

For the second time in less than a week, my husband has absolutely railed me into the mattress because we have a bit of time to ourselves in a vacation home.

Instead of a late night fuck in flickering firelight, today’s session was more of an late afternoon delight under a lazily turning overhead fan, courtesy of my mom and Darnell taking the kids across the island to a rum cake baking lesson.

“I think my mom is angling for a third grandchild,” I say sleepily as Kieran runs a cool washcloth over my lower back.

Where he came, in a big messy pile, because he wanted to mark me.

He drags the cloth over my skin again. “This isn’t how we get that done for her.”

I laugh. “Mmm. Nope. It was fun, though.”

He drops down beside me and tugs me into his side. “Would you want another baby?”

I think about an epic meltdown Cale had this morning. “The real question is, do we want another five-year-old?”

I look up just in time to see him try to school his expression. But even in profile, I can tell he’s grinning.

Because yes, he wants another five-year-old.

I shiver, the overhead fan making my damp skin unexpectedly cool in the warm Caribbean air. “We’d have to rent a bigger airplane.”

He laughs. “We can manage that.”

“It would add another five years until we can have a longer getaway, just you and me.” Something we’ve been talking about. A week in Italy, just the two of us. Like we did for our first anniversary, when we conceived Lina.

“It’s up to you,” he murmurs.

He’s still smiling.

I think about it all afternoon. As the house suddenly gets noisy when they return. As the kids bicker their way through a dinner they only want to eat part of. But it’s when we go for a sunset walk along the beach, and Kieran and Darnell bring the ministicks for a game of seashell two-on-two, that I know we’re probably going to keep going.

“Did you ever think about having another baby?” I ask my mom.

She started dating Darnell when she was thirty-eight—my age now.

She shook her head. “You were all I ever wanted.” Then she smiles. “Why?”

“No reason.”

“Secrets?”

I watch my husband chip a seashell across a line in the sand they’ve denoted as the goal area.

It’s hardly a secret how much I love him.

But some things…like dreaming about the future…are just ours. For now, anyway. “Mmhmm.”

She pats me on the shoulder, then stops and pulls out her phone. “Go down there and stand with them, won’t you? That would make an excellent family portrait, with the sun setting…”

I jog to the water’s edge. Kieran calls a time out, then drops a welcome kiss on my mouth. “Hi,” he whispers.

I smile up at him as he tugs on my ponytail. “She’s taking a photo for a painting reference. Think it would be too on the nose to ask her to give me a baby bump in it?”

His eyes flash, and he bites his lower lip as he leans in again for a longer, more lingering kiss. “Think you can be quiet tonight?”

I can always be quiet. I’m his very good girl.

~ * ~

Want more hockey romance? Check out my other books: Prime Minister and Mr. Hat Trick both hockey-oriented stories in my Frisky Beavers series (what happens when the Prime Minister of Canada has a summer beer league? An NHL player joins his team…)

And the next book in the Off the Ice series is The Scoring Secret!

Finally, you’re always welcome to hang out in my Facebook reader group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WardhamAmbassadors