Page 135 of Stand Your Ground
“So, you better get hard again for me, Rook. Round two starts now.”
I tried to laugh, but it was cut short when she squeezed me in her hand, already coaxing me back to life. “Jesus, woman,” I groaned, rolling us so she landed on her back with a gasp. I kissed her, deep and hungry, soaking up every sound she made. “Maybe I want to take the reins for this round. What do you think of that?”
She arched a brow as I hovered over her. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Oh, come on,” I teased, kissing the corner of her smirk. “You know you like it. When I remind you I’ve got you. That you’re safe with me. That you can let go and let me lead.”
Her sigh turned into a moan as I punctuated each of those promises with slow, lingering kisses across her breasts. Her hips arched into mine, thighs spreading to let me in, and I knew I had her.
“I’m going to take care of you,” I murmured against her neck. “You understand me? I’m going to cook you anything you crave. Run you a bath every night. Massage you until you’re moaning for me the way I love to hear. You’re going to let me dote on you, Livia Young, because I fucking said so.”
Her laugh was breathless, sultry. “God, I’ve never found it so hot to be bossed around.”
I smirked, pressing into her, voice rough with laughter and desire and a love so deep I thought it might break me.
“Funny,” I said. “That seems to be the number one turn on for me.”
And with the laugh I earned and cherished, I kissed her again — letting the night swallow us whole.
No Threats Necessary
Livia
June in Tampa tasted like salt and celebration, despite the fact that some might think we shouldn’t be celebrating at all. The air was heavy with summer, the kind that curled my hair and made it even harder to breathe than the little body crowding my organs.
There was a faint hum of laughter rolling out from the back deck of the waterfront house that belonged to the Ospreys General Manager. It was decorated and fully catered for the end-of-season party. Lights were strung across the railing, and they twinkled against the dark water, the downtown skyline barely visible off in the distance. Tampa felt like home more than ever in that moment.
We didn’t get the ending Carter dreamed of. The Ospreys lost in Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the entire city felt the ache of it. But there was pride split right down the middle of that ache. The boys had played like men possessed, Carter most of all. He was incandescent on the ice— stronger on the puck, calmer in the face-off circle, feeding passes like a conductor. His name was on lips that had never said it before. Broadcasters said “what a season” about him with reverence.
He was a revelation to the league.
And a revelation in my life.
At twenty weeks, I’d popped past the point of ambiguity; there was no mistaking who I was carrying with me everywhere I went. Our little girl announced herself in everything I wore, from the soft white dress I’d chosen tonight to the big Ospreys t-shirt I slept in most nights, one I stole from Carter.
It was wild now that we were in the part of pregnancy where movement was a thing. I laid awake most nights struck with wonder, my hand on my belly, feeling my world flip along with her. And when Carter talked, she stretched and kicked, as if she already knew his voice, as if she already adored it.
He followed me around the party with one hand tethered to me, unable to help himself. It would have been ridiculous if it weren’t so sweet. The man had been shameless in his advances with me since the day I met him, but he was full-on obsessed now.
I couldn’t even pretend like I didn’t love it.
“You good?” he murmured for the third time in ten minutes, palm warm against the small of my back, thumb sweeping idly. His hair was tousled, his jaw clean-shaven after he and the rest of the guys let their beards grow all through the playoff run. He’d put on a linen shirt for me and left the top few buttons undone because he knew I liked to kiss the notch of his throat.
“I’m perfect,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. Considering I’d had two Fruity Pebbles cookies from Bake’n Babes, a delightful little mocktail, my feet were bare, my friends within arm’s reach, and my man glued to me? Perfect was the only way to describe it.
On the other side of the deck, Aleks and Mia held court at the long picnic table, her laughter ringing out like a bell every time he leaned in to whisper something at her temple. They were leaving for their honeymoon at last, bags already packed and waiting at the door, and the way they couldn’t stop touching each other told me they were both over the wait.
Chloe and Will had claimed the hammock like a pair of teenagers, swaying gently, a newly married glow radiating off them both. Will still looked at her like he couldn’t believe she’d said yes. Ava wore an Ospreys cap backward and was making her rounds to anyone who would listen to her discuss why our loss in the fifth game had been complete bullshit and all due to mistakes by the refs.
Maven and Vince were on the stairs just inside, heads bent together, whispering and giggling like kids. Vince had one hand splayed over Maven’s barely there bump and the other braced behind her on the step. Every few minutes, Maven shot me a look that saidcan you believe this?and I shot one back that saidnot even a little.
She’d just found out that she was having a girl, too.
We’d giggled all night together, dreaming about how our daughters would be best friends. They didn’t have a say in it. It was just how it would be.
It was a good night. The kind of night I wanted to bottle for our daughter and say,This. This is your family. This is what love feels like.
Grace breezed onto the deck in a sundress and bare feet, cheeks sun-kissed from a day on the water. She pressed a cold beer into Jaxson’s palm and stole his snapback, tucking her platinum hair up under it with a grin. “You look sappy,” she told him, tilting her head at him like she was suspicious. “Is this what retiring your bad boy era looks like? Concern and a wrinkled brow?”
