Page 50 of The Hanukkah Hoax
Helping her seek out her pleasure and ensuring she took it from no one else besides him.
It was that single thought that proved to be his undoing. Alec roared his release into the darkness of his bedroom, echoing in time to the lighter cries from Marisa as she found her pleasure alongside him.
And it was through the hazy aftermath of the strongest orgasm of his life that only her sweet voice managed to penetrate.
“It’s after midnight.”
“Aye,” he agreed, though how she could make sense of anything, let alone tell time, was beyond him.
“A new day.”
“So it is, and a happy one at that.”
“It’s going to be a good day.” The brightness in her tone warmed him, because he’d likely had something to do with putting it there.
“A perfect one, after you get some sleep.”
“Oh, I suppose,” Marisa said, though even she couldn’t fight back the yawn trying to break free.
“Have coffee with me tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Whatever you say,” she said drowsily.
“Then sleep well.”
After Alec cleaned up and checked that Hugh hadn’t made leather confetti out of his boots, he hobbled back to bed with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. But when he went to plug his phone in to charge, he accidentally brushed his thumb over the email icon. He had every intention of closing it right back down, until he saw Brennan’s name at the top of the heap, with an all-caps subject line titled ARGENTINA CONTRACT OFFER.
Alec’s stomach sank like a stone, then threatened to drag the rest of him down with it as he took in the most lucrative contract terms he’d ever expect to see at his age. It was more money than even Brennan originally thought they could get and scores more than he would ever hope to negotiate out of Great Britain again.
But it was for a coaching position. Not as a player.
Which meant that if he had any hope of staying in the game, the only way to do so would be by leaving it.
Alec leaned forward with his forearms on his knees and cursed.
If this was what Argentina would offer him, he wouldn’t just need Arthur’s New York sports spotlights and praise. He would need the entire hemisphere’s worth of sports reporters to even convince Great Britain to counter effectively.
And if he accepted the offer, everyone, Phoebe included, would know he couldn’t go out on top as he’d hoped and boasted about and bloody sacrificed for.
That even titans were still expected to hold up the weight of a world, even if the world was content to spin without them.
Whatever he decided, whether signing with Argentina or holding out for a renewal with Great Britain, either option cast a grim pall over his future.
Because both choices saw him oceans apart from Marisa.
Chapter 20
Marisa had never been more grateful for some solid alone time, even if that definition had turned out to be rather relative.
While the cold strip mall bench she was sitting on did absolutely nothing to warm her hind quarters, Hugh’s hot breath, on the other hand, was doing a bang-up job of cooking her calf to a nice medium-rare within her jeans.
It was the most sensorially confusing hot seat she’d ever found herself in.
Through the window of the coffee shop Alec had ducked into to call his agent, again, a new wave of heat warmed Marisa’s body, one that had nothing to do with the meaty mastiff she was currently babysitting—or being babysat by, given the amount of wary canine side-eye he kept sliding her every time she lifted her head to check on a certain Scot.
Alec had squished himself into a tiny booth near the front window, and though his broad forehead seemed to furrow deeply at times, setting all sorts of worries in Marisa’s mind, he always managed to toss her a lopsided grin and one of those little two-fingered waves every so often during his conversation.
It did jack shit to calm her pedaling nerves.
