Offside Hearts (Love and Hockey Book 1)

Noah’s head is between my legs, his fingers digging into my thighs to hold me where he wants me.

He’s eating me out just like he did last night, with the same dedication and patience that worked me up to three orgasms, and I can already feel the pleasure building up inside me.

“You taste so good,” he mutters against my soaked flesh, and I writhe beneath him, overwhelmed by how good it all feels.

“Fuck. Noah!”

Every stroke of his tongue pushes me closer to the high, high peak and the freefall on the other side of it, but as my legs start to shake, I tug on his hair.

“Wait,” I breathe desperately. “Wait.”

“What?” He looks up, his blue eyes burning into mine. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” My pussy clenches, feeling so fucking empty, and I shake my head. “I want you to fuck me.”

His expression transforms, raw hunger filling his features. He crawls up to hover over me, fisting his pierced cock and guiding it right to the place where my body is begging for him.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs. “Once we do this, there’s no going back.”

I nod, my heart racing. “I’m sure.”

He makes a noise in his throat, dropping his head to kiss me as—

The plane lands with a jarring thud against the tarmac, jostling me awake.

My eyes pop wide open, my heart pounding. The dream I was having hovers at the edges of my subconscious, and I can remember every detail of it way more vividly than is probably good for my mental state.

My face is hot, my heart is racing, and there’s a distinct throbbing sensation between my legs. I glance around surreptitiously, hoping like hell that no one is paying attention to me. Luckily, I have the row to myself, so nobody would’ve heard me talking in my sleep.

Or moaning.

Or calling out Noah’s name…

I shake my head, puffing out my cheeks on an exhale as I try to think about things that don’t turn me on.

Thankfully, modern day air travel is full of un-sexy things, like having to gather up all your trash and hand it to a flight attendant who looks very annoyed. Or the slog of having to sit around and wait for everyone in the rows ahead of you to stand up and collect their things, which is exactly what I find myself doing once the captain announces our arrival.

I sit patiently, letting all the ins and outs of deplaning serve as a cold shower, but just as I’m about to get out of my seat and leave the aircraft myself, I catch a glimpse of Noah reaching up to grab his bag.

He was seated a few rows ahead of me, but he must’ve let some other people go before him, otherwise he wouldn’t still be on the plane. His shirt rides up a bit as he takes his bag down from the overhead bin, giving me a glimpse of his ripped abs and those sexy little V cuts at his hips.

When I look back at his face, I realize that he’s watching me watching him. He grins in my direction and winks before following his teammates down the aisle. My stomach starts to flutter all over again, and for a second, I’m right back in my dream. I can almost feel his hands on my skin and the press of his lips against mine…

“Margo.”

A quiet voice to my left snaps me out of my daze, and I turn to see Roy Benefield, the equipment manager, standing in the aisle next to me.

“Oh, uh, yeah, what’s up?”

“I asked if you wanted me to grab your bag for you?”

I smile, trying to act like he didn’t just catch me daydreaming about the star player of the team we both work for. “Yes! Thank you.”

Roy reaches up and grabs my suitcase, then places it down in the aisle so that I can easily pick it up on my way out. He follows behind me as I make my way down the aisle, and we join the last few team members as they deplane.

On the drive home from the airport, I give my mom a call. It’s been a while since we last spoke, and I usually call her at least once a week. Denver isn’t far from Boulder at all, but I still see my parents less than my other siblings do, so I try to make up for it with frequent check-ins.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hey, Mom,” I say, frowning. Her voice is coming through the speakers of my car, which makes it easy to hear just how much she’s struggling to get a lungful of air. “Are you okay?”

She laughs. “Oh, hi, Mar. It’s just you. I thought you were the repairman.”

“Repairman?”

“Yeah.” She heaves a sigh. “We have this busted sprinkler head in the front yard, and it’s been spraying water twenty-four seven. But of course, right now, it’s so damn cold outside that the water freezes, and it creates this patch of ice on the edge of the lawn, right by where your dad parks his car in the driveway. I swear he’s going to fall and break his neck one of these days.” She clicks her tongue. “Anyway, long story short, I’ve been playing phone tag with the repairman all week. So when I heard my phone ringing in the kitchen, I came running all the way from the backyard. I really didn’t want to miss him again.”

“I see. Well, sorry I’m not a repairman.”

“Are you kidding me?” She snorts. “I’m way more excited to talk to you than I am some flaky old repair guy. I’m not even sure I’m going to work with him, to be honest. He calls at the oddest times, and I swear it’s like he’s trying to avoid coming out here and doing the job.”

“Let me ask around at work,” I suggest. “I’ll see if anyone else knows of a better person in the Boulder area who could get that fixed for you.”

“That’s sweet of you. Thanks, Mar.”

I hear the sound of floorboards creaking underfoot, and I can tell she’s moving from the kitchen to the living room. My mom likes to take her phone calls while lounging on the couch, and since she and my dad still live in the home I grew up in, I can easily draw up a mental picture of where she is right now.

“Speaking of your work,” she goes on. “How’s it going? How was your trip? You were away with the team, right?”

“Yeah, I was. The trip was good, although they lost, which is never fun. But I’ve been settling in more and more, and I think the rest of the marketing and PR team likes me, so that’s good.”

“That’s wonderful. Not that I would expect anything else. You always were such a hard worker.”

She hesitates after that, letting out a soft breath. I get the sense there’s something more she wants to say, but for some reason, she’s holding herself back.

“Go ahead, Mom,” I tell her, pulling off the interstate as I get close to my neighborhood. “I know you’ve got something on your mind. Just say it.”

She exhales again, this time louder. “I really don’t want to burst your bubble or anything, you know that, right? You know how happy I am for you, and how proud your dad and I are. But…”

“But what?”

“But I just want to make sure you’re not working too much. You’ve had a history of overtaxing yourself in the past, and it’s led to that thing everyone is always talking about these days. What’s it called? When you run out of steam?”

“Burnout.”

“That’s it!” she says triumphantly. “In the past, you’ve totally burnt out by putting too much pressure on yourself, and I just want to make sure you’re not doing that again. Are you making time for just you? To do fun things and relax?”

I roll my eyes, even though I know she means well. “Yes, Mom, I’m taking time for myself.”

“Truly?” she presses.

“Yes, truly.”

My mother isn’t wrong to be worried. I do have a history of taking on a little too much and not prioritizing my own needs, and in a previous job, that led to a pretty toxic work environment with a boss who took advantage of my dedication and worked me to the bone. But I’ve learned my lesson and am much better at the whole work-life balance thing these days.

“I swear, I do plenty of stuff that isn’t work related. Stuff that’s just fun and easy. I even have a date coming up.”

I didn’t exactly plan on telling my mother about my date, but now that it’s slipped out, I find that I’m actually excited to have someone to talk to about it.

“Really?” The excitement in her voice is clear. “With who?”

“Oh, just some guy I met recently,” I say offhandedly. I’m trying not to lie, while also keeping the story vague and the details to a minimum. “I’m not sure exactly where it will lead, but he’s really cute and we have a similar sense of humor, so that’s a good place to start.”

“That’s a wonderful place to start! You’ll have to call me after the date and let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

“Oh, and don’t forget, your brother’s birthday is coming up next month. He says he doesn’t want a whole big party with the extended family or anything, just something small. But he definitely wants you there. In fact, we’d all really like to see you.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Oh, good!” I can practically hear my mother smiling through the phone. “That’s great. I’ll make sure your old room is presentable by the time you come. Right now, there are some pieces of exercise equipment and boxes from the garage in there. I’ve been telling your dad to clear it out for weeks, but you know how he is. He has to do things on his schedule.”

“Exercise equipment? Since when do you guys have exercise equipment?”

“Since they had a big liquidation sale at one of the big box stores in town,” she informs me. “And your dad decided that now was a good time for him to really get into fitness. His goal is to become a marathon runner.”

I blink. “He wants to run a marathon?”

“Well, half-marathon,” she corrects herself. “But according to him, that still counts.”

I laugh, shaking my head in disbelief. “I mean, I’m glad Dad is trying to stay active as he gets older but… he’s going from zero to sixty here. How does someone who gets winded going up a flight of stairs just wake up one day and decide they’re going to run a marathon?”

“You take baby steps,” my mom says. “You run a little bit each day and add on more as you go. But do you think that’s what your father did?”

“I take it from your tone the answer is no.”

She tisks. “The answer is heck no! That man tried to do five miles on the treadmill his first day of training, and pulled nearly every muscle in his body. Now the machines have been sitting there for weeks collecting dust. I keep nagging him to call up your brothers one Saturday so they can help him lift the machines and move them into the basement, not that he listens to me.”

“I can help when I’m in town for Josh’s birthday,” I offer.

“I don’t want to make you lift those things. I’m telling you, honey, they weigh a ton. But maybe if things are going well between you and this new guy, you can bring him along,” she adds. “We could use all the manpower we can get.”

I grin, thinking about how Noah would bring a lot of manpower into the equation. But then I remember I’m on the phone with my mother of all people, so I make a conscious effort to push the image of him lifting heavy machinery shirtless out of my mind.

“It’s probably a little too soon to be bringing this man to family events,” I murmur evasively. “We haven’t even had our first date yet.”

“I know, I know. I was just joking… mostly.”

“Mom,” I say in a warning tone.

“What?” She laughs. “I’m just happy for you, that’s all. And I hope this guy turns out to be a good one. You deserve that.”

A warm feeling spreads in my chest. I don’t want to get my mom’s hopes up by saying this, but I haven’t been this excited about a first date in… well, ever. “Thanks. I hope so too.”

Before she can say anything else, a beeping sound comes from her end of the call.

“Oh!” she chirps. “Someone else is trying to call me. That might be the repairman.”

“Pick it up. We can talk later this weekend.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind sending him to voicemail.”

“No, don’t do that. I have to go soon anyway, I’m almost home. Love you, Mom. I’ll call again soon, okay?”

“Okay. Love you too, honey! Have fun on your date!”

We end the call, and the car goes silent. Less than five minutes later, I park in front of my apartment building, and when I grab my phone from the little holder on the dash, I see that I have a text from Noah asking whether I made it home safely from the airport.

I text him back letting him know that I just arrived, and the next message I get has a smiley face emoji followed by a recipe for roasted garlic chicken.

NOAH: How does this look for our date Friday night? I know I’ll never unseat Tino as your favorite, but I want to at least give him a run for his money.

ME: Yum. Looks delicious!

NOAH: So do you.

ME: You can’t even see me right now.

NOAH: I know, but you always look delicious 😉

I put my phone away and get out of the car, hunching my shoulders to ward off the cold. Despite the gloomy, overcast day, I can’t seem to stop smiling as I haul my bags up to my floor and enter my unit.

Instead of jumping right into the shower like I normally do when I get back from the airport, I find myself meandering over to the couch and lying down with my phone. I start crafting a return text to Noah, laughing to myself as I come up with a flirty, witty response.

We end up texting until late into the night, and I don’t even remember to shower until after ten.