Out of the Game3 (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

It was seven by the time they returned to the cabin after their foray for food. They put the groceries away then Alex got two steaks grilling while Claire worked on a salad and her “famous” cheesy garlic bread. It was strangely domestic—preparing a meal with him. She was actually nervous about serving him food. He was one of the pickiest eaters she’d ever met, but it appeared as though he preferred no-frills food, comfort food, and of course, junk food. He was like a reverse Vic.

“Steaks are just about done,” he called from the patio. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I’m starving.”

She watched him tend the grill, admiring his lean and muscular physique. He had firm, developed pecs she’d already felt against her cheek, and when his arms had been around her when they were upstairs earlier, she’d felt...sheltered, like despite what he’d said about not wanting to fight for her, he would in an instant. And whomever he went up against would go down hard and not get up.

It was thrilling. Again, Alex was the polar opposite of her ex. Vic would have used his wits or his wallet to get out of sticky situations, which worked for him. She couldn’t fault him really. She remembered the time when someone had taken too strong of an interest in her and Vic’d had to step in. He’d ended up joking his way out of it while still establishing that Claire was
his
and no one had gotten hurt. Really, that was ideal. Wasn’t it? She’d always believed violence wasn’t the answer. At the time she’d been proud of her husband.

But then Erin had met Tim in a similar situation. A jerk pushed her to the ground and even though Tim didn’t know Erin from Adam, he reacted with brute force and a protectiveness that impressed Claire when she saw it on video. She’d even fantasized a little about what it would be like to be in that type of situation herself.

“What’s got you so smiley?” Alex asked as he came inside with a platter of juicy barbequed steak.

“Thinking about you fighting for my honor.”

“You’re hilarious. That’s not going to happen. I hung up my armor and exchanged it for a future in which I can go to a restaurant or bar and leave without bruised knuckles.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, checking on the bread. It was perfectly done, nice and toasty brown on top. When she took out the tray, he whistled in appreciation.

“Holy shit, that looks fantastic. And it smells even better. I’m so hungry I could eat a moose. Not that I would eat moose. I’d eat pork belly again before I ate moose.”

Moments later they were sitting down to the meal.

“So tell me about your family. Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“No. I’m an only.”

She nodded. “There were times when I wished I were an only child. What about your parents? They must be really proud of you.”

He shrugged.

“Don’t be so modest,” she said. “You’re a professional athlete. Little boys look up to you in droves, I’m sure. That’s got to be a source of pride for them. I hear it takes a lot of family support to raise an NHL player.”

He still wasn’t talking, which was odd. Alex could talk the ear off a gossip columnist.

Eventually, he blew out a breath. “I’m not being modest. I honestly don’t know. My mom left me and my dad when I was six. I came home from school one day and she was just gone.”

“Oh, Alex...” Her heart went out to him. She imagined a little boy version of Alex, devastated and confused, and she immediately hated the mom.

Alex scoffed. “Don’t. I’m over it. I’ve been over it for a long time. She left a note for my dad, but I never saw it. He told me she realized she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.” He tossed his napkin on the table and drank some water.

Because there was a limit to how much prying she could justify to herself, she let the subject drop, even though she knew there was a lot more to his story he wasn’t sharing. For instance, she’d never seen photographs of him on social media with family members. Ever. There were buddy pictures galore. Selfies too, mainly with hot babes. And it made sense now that she hadn’t seen anything with his mom, but there weren’t any of his dad either, which was curious.

After they cleaned up, they watched a movie. In the lobby of the resort was a vast collection of DVDs. Alex bribed the front desk guy to let them take six titles instead of just one.

“You choose three movies you think I’d like but probably haven’t seen and I’ll do the same,” he suggested.

She got
The Intouchables
, a surprisingly funny foreign film Vic had rented once.
A
Little Romance
to see just how far she could push his romantic side. And
Stranger Than Fiction
because if he liked seeing Alan Rickman in disparate roles, he might like seeing Will Ferrell being something other than over-the-top outrageous.

He chose
The Fifth Element
—he seemed to really like Bruce Willis.
The Terminator
, a total man movie, but a supposed classic, according to Alex. And
Goon
, a hockey movie.

When it came time to pick for tonight, they put the DVDs in a bag and Claire pulled one at random. “And the winner is...
Terminator
.”

“Yes!” He pumped a fist. “You’re going to love it. There’s a damsel in distress in it but she becomes really strong by the end,” he added. “I say that in case you’re one of those women who gets all offended by helpless female characters in movies.”

“I don’t want a steady diet of helpless heroines, but I like the occasional damsel-in-distress plot.”

They went into the living room, where Alex turned the lights down. “You can’t watch a movie like this in bright light. Kills the mood.”

After putting in the DVD, he sat next to her on the sofa, not too close, but close enough so she was aware of his big, male body. He smelled like a combination of soap and smoke from the barbeque. She wanted to press her face into his neck and take a deeper whiff. But she knew where that would lead and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

The Terminator
turned out to have a riveting story, once she got past the eighties hair and clothing. The trouble was, Claire usually avoided this type of thriller because sometimes they got too intense for her. Case in point, when the assassin robot entered a nightclub where his victim sat, unaware he had found her, Claire held her breath.
Run away
, she wanted to tell her.
Run away!

Suddenly the movie stopped. Alex had paused it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.

She had to consciously relax her hands, which had been closed into tight fists. “I’m fine,” she said, not wanting to look like a wimp.

“Because you can cuddle up if you want. I won’t try anything.”

As he lifted his arm to make room for her, one corner of his mouth bent upward in an irresistible, boyish smile.

She scooted closer into the curve of his warm body. “Did you pick this movie on purpose so you could offer to comfort me?”

“Hell no.” He settled his arm over her shoulders. “If I wanted to do that, I’d have picked something like
The Hills Have Eyes
or
Alien.
Now
those
were seriously scary movies. I was afraid to eat spaghetti for weeks.”

She thought about asking why, then thought better of it. “I don’t go to movies like that. This one is about as intense as I care to get.”

“We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to...”

“No, I want to see it. Just...just tell me when the creepy parts are coming.”

“I will.”

He was as good as his word. When the terminator had to fix his own eyeball, she turned her face into Alex’s chest. The disgusting squishy noises were enough to convince her she’d made the right decision. At the end, when the machine was hunting Sarah in a factory, it was nothing more than a metal skeleton, having been stripped of all its flesh in a fire. Its remaining glowing red eye was frightening, but Claire couldn’t look away. She had a death grip on Alex’s thigh. When the terminator was finally defeated and its eye slowly went out, some of the tension left her body.

As the credits rolled, she heaved a sigh of relief.

“Well? Did you like it?” He patted her hand, which was still resting on his leg.

“I did. It was good. Scary, but good.”

“Most of the sequels were pretty good too.”

“I think I’ve had enough of cyborgs for now, thanks.” She let her head fall back to rest on the sofa.

“You tense? Let me rub your shoulders.”

At his urging, she turned so her back was to him and then his hands were on her. She’d put on a tank top and shorts, so it was skin to skin. He massaged her deftly with just the right amount of pressure using his thumbs to soften up the muscles that had stiffened during the movie.

She imagined another scenario in which they were easily intimate with each other and he unhooked her bra and slid his hands underneath to cup her breasts. His fingers would tease her nipples until they were tight and hard and she was breathless with longing.

As he rubbed alongside her spine now, she arched her back, torn between wanting to guide his hands to her breasts and knowing she shouldn’t. It was the first night and she didn’t want to look easy.

“Hey, relax.” His rumbly low voice had a bit of seduction in it now. The playfulness she’d gotten accustomed to was gone. “Feel good?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He adjusted his position behind her, placing one knee near her hip. He was closer now. His hands slid down to her upper arms.

“Claire, your neck is so sexy.”

That surprised her. “My—my neck? Not my breasts?”

He laughed softly. “Oh, your breasts are fucking outstanding, but I didn’t want to be obvious. I like your neck, too.”

He leaned closer. Paused. Every hair in the vicinity rose.

“Yours is sexy, too,” she said on an exhale.

Another chuckle.

“I mean it,” she said.

He brushed his lips against her shoulder. She shivered.

“Tell me...what’s so sexy about my neck?” he asked.

“It’s strong. Not too thick, not too thin.”

“What are you, Goldilocks?”

“Hey, when someone compliments you on the girth of your neck, it’s polite to say thank you.”

He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder again, this time more firmly. “Thank you. Your neck is perfect too.” He kissed his way there slowly. “Smooth and silky. Lickable.”

His tongue touched her skin and she made a low, involuntary noise as she dropped her head forward as he kissed and licked his way to her ear. Every inch of her skin felt sensitized. Her panties were soaked. Her breasts ached. She could imagine how incredible it would feel to have Alex on top of her, sliding into her. She knew instinctively he would be able to make her come over and over. Shoot, she was on the edge of orgasm just from thinking about it.

But again, she couldn’t just fall into bed with him on the first night. It might be old-fashioned, but the way she saw it, she was worth a bit of work on his part. Sort of like the adage, “you get what you pay for.” There wasn’t any money being exchanged, but the idea was the same. If she just gave herself up to him at the first touch of his lips on her neck, there would be no sense of accomplishment on his part. Or hers, for that matter. Plus, she was nervous.

Alex had probably slept with a hundred women. His criteria for a good lover were probably very refined and she worried that on his checklist of items, she’d only hit two, both of them being her breasts. She didn’t think of herself as particularly skilled in bed. She knew what Vic liked, but he was hardly sexually adventurous. Alex, she assumed, was probably up for anything. Literally.

“Alex.”

“Hmm?” He was nuzzling her ear, making her breath come faster.

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“
Tonight
. You’re not going to sleep with me
tonight
.” He nipped her on the earlobe. “It’s okay. I’ll wait.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her back to lean against him. “But just out of curiosity, why? You’re turned on. I know that for a fact. I’ll still respect you, you know. Women have as much right to hot sex as guys do.”

“No, I know. I believe that too, but I just...” She shook her head.

“What? Come on.”

“I just think you might be disappointed.”

She felt him stiffen. He moved away and turned her so they were facing each other. “What the makes you say that? Did your ex tell you you were a lousy lover? Because from what you’ve said about him, I wouldn’t put it past him.” He looked grim. “I swear, if I ever meet this guy in person...”

“No. No, he never said anything like that. We didn’t talk about sex.”

“Then what makes you think I’d be disappointed?”

“You just know so much more about sex than I do. You have so much more experience.”

His eyes went wide and he laughed. “Are you calling me a man slut?” He laughed again.

Her own laugh sounded uncertain. “No. Maybe.”

“Just because I’ve had a lot of sex doesn’t mean I know a lot about it. I eat a lot of food too, but that doesn’t mean I’m an expert chef.”

“That’s not the same thing.” She glanced at him. “Unless all you do is lay there and let the woman do all the work.”

“Hell no. I’m a very active participant. Very. Active.”

She shut down all the possibilities that her brain suddenly wanted to supply. She tried not to think about how easy it would to open his pants and straddle him right there on the sofa.

“So that’s exactly my point,” she said. “You know stuff I don’t know. Positions. Techniques. I can see it now...you’ll ask me to do something—something everyone other woman in America knows how to do, and I’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He became pensive. “Oh, I see.” He put his cheek against her hair. “You mean you don’t know how to do the French Twist or the Carpet Burn? Really?”

“No. See? This is exactly what I was afraid of. I’m out of the loop. While I was married, I missed all those
Cosmo
articles that everyone else read. I haven’t even heard of those positions.”

“Sweetheart, come on. At least tell me you’ve
heard
of the Reverse Kneeling Organ Grinder.”