Meet Your Match (Kings of the Ice, #1)(71)

It was what every guy wanted, especially a world-renowned professional athlete like him.

The theme park without the roller coaster.

I tried to channel my best friend’s words, her idea that this could be fun. I wanted Vince, even if this was the only way I could have him. Because I knew if we didn’t draw lines in the sand now, I’d read too much into every look, every touch, every sweet word he whispered against my skin.

Vince Tanev was far too easy to fall in love with.

And I knew I wouldn’t survive it if I did.

Now, I had him wrangled back into a box. It wasn’t the same one I’d shoved him into after that first night we met, but it was a box nonetheless, one with solid walls and a lid I could shut and tape up when the time came.

But my heart squeezed painfully in my chest, because even being in control, I had a feeling I was already too far gone to come out of this unscathed.

“Now,” he said, climbing back into bed with me. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and looked at the screen before tossing it back face-down. “I have forty-five minutes before I have to be at practice.”

He kissed me, long and slow, his lips massaging mine as he settled between my legs. My core fired up at the feeling of him pressed against me, at his tongue dancing with mine.

“How about you sit this pretty pussy on my face,” he mused, reaching down to slip a hand between my legs. “And show off that lack of gag reflex you teased me with last night.”

“Is this your proposal to sixty-nine, Vince Tanev?”

He slid a fingertip inside me, and I bit my lip, rolling into the touch.

“Oh wait,” he said, withdrawing. “I forgot. You’re too sore. Maybe we should—”

Before he could finish that sentence, I kissed him silent, rolling until I was on top of him and crawling up to straddle that sexy scruff around his smile.





Witchcraft



Maven



Fall slipped away like a summer vacation after that.

In so many ways, nothing had changed. Vince still had practices and games and travel. I was still there with him every step of the way. We still volleyed back and forth with each other around the team, nothing out of the ordinary, him trying his best to push my buttons only for me to turn around and do the same to him. I grew closer with the other players and the coach. I spent what spare time I could wiggle into my schedule catching up with Livia over cocktails or a greasy pizza at her place.

But in every other way, my life was unrecognizable.

Whenever we weren’t traveling or at the arena for practice or a game, Vince was inside me.

He took me every morning, every night, and every afternoon we could make it work. Any time we were alone, his hands were in my hair, his lips fastened to mine, his thighs spreading mine open until he could find the contact he so desperately searched for.

I knew that man’s hands and mouth and body more intimately than I knew my own now. I knew how his fingers pressed into the skin at my hips when I straddled him, knew the exact sighs and moans he would set free the moment he was inside, knew the gentle sweep of his tongue when we were warming up, and the passionate frenzy it became when foreplay turned to fucking.

And I was content.

No, I was floating, high on life and on the elixir Vince pumped into me with every single touch. I didn’t think about the rules we’d set or the fact that it all would end after that first morning together in my bed because I didn’t have time to think.

We were wrapped up in each other in every possible way, and I was living in the present moment as if the future didn’t exist.

November bled into December, the holidays kicking up in a whole new way in Tampa. We were always a bit cheeky in our Christmas celebrations, anyway — lawns boasting Santa Claus in his swim trunks on the beach, palm trees glittering with lights, our weather staying firmly in the eighties while the rest of the country battled its first falls of snow.

But this year, the city hummed with an exciting energy, because for the first time in over a decade, the Ospreys had a winning record.

We were 14-11-1, and every home game was packed to the hilt now. The city was lit up in blue and white, too — buildings painting their bricks with Ospreys Nation or Fly Birds Fly. Our players were healthy and hungry and out to prove a point, and every eye in the city was on the prospect of making playoffs.

Every eye in the nation seemed to be on Vince Cool.

Our accounts had swelled to a combined three-million followers in just two months, sparking the demand for me to have not one, but two social media associates to manage the comments and messages while I focused on content creation. Reya and Camilla also worked with our marketing team to launch an entire store of branded merchandise, everything from t-shirts and stickers to beach chairs and umbrellas.

And in the midst of all the chaos, Reya had pulled me to the side and told me to start drafting my concepts for what would come after the season.

“You’ve earned the spotlight,” she’d told me. “What you do with it next is up to you.”

Full control. I had full control of my content, my subject focus, my future career, and — most excitedly — my sex life. I was flying so high I was dizzy off the lack of oxygen. And, strangely enough, this new chaos somehow felt… comfortable.

I found a home within the mayhem.

One afternoon before a five home-game stretch, Coach gave all the players the day off to rest and recharge. I snuck away long enough to have brunch with Livia, who was just as busy as I had been lately with the team dentistry and her other South Tampa clients, before finding a text from Vince.