Wheeler (Seattle Sharks 8)

“Ha! I still have to confirm that the set designs you wanted changed went through for the shoot tomorrow, find the VAT paperwork two of the retailers are missing, and schedule calls with your CFO, CPA, and—”

“I get the point. I’m just going to have to run over to my mom’s. Apparently, Mormor was doing something with the balcony garden, locked herself out, and then started to climb over the roof...where she is now stuck, but quite content. My mother, however, is just a little worried, if the loud shrieking was any indication.”

“Omigod. Go!” Faith shoved me toward the garage.

I turned, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry. She does it all the time when she’s had enough of Mom’s lectures. I was just thinking of heading over to keep her company up there.”

Faith laughed, and the sound lit up my heart like fireworks. “Okay, then you’d better go.”

“I’ll be back.”

And then just because I could, I pulled her to me until her breasts rubbed against my chest. Then I kissed her softly, retreating when she arched for more.

“I’ll be waiting.”

“Come to Sweden, they said, we have Netflix, they said,” Faith joked as she settled onto the couch next to me.

“Hey, you were the one who didn’t want to go out tonight,” I reminded her. I stretched my legs out, resting my bare feet on the coffee table. The big screen came to life with the bright red logo.

She shrugged.

“What?” I asked. “If you’ve changed your mind, I’m sure we can meet up with Axel at whatever bar or party he’s at.” I had zero interest in hanging with a crowd tonight, but I had every interest in pleasing Faith.

“I like you here.” She tucked her feet under her and quickly glanced away.

“You keep saying that. Do you not like me at home?” My muscles tensed, waiting for her answer.

“What?” Her eyes flew to mine. “Of course I do. You’re...you. But when we’re in Seattle, it’s like I have to compete with every other woman, and photographer, and coach, and...well, everyone for your time.”

I stared at her so long and so hard that she flushed.

“It’s true,” she said softly.

I reached for her, gripping her hips and lifting until she straddled me, her thighs left deliciously bare thanks to the sliding hem of her shorts. She settled into my lap with a tiny gasp but threaded her fingers through my hair.

“You compete with no one.” I enunciated each word slowly.

“That’s not true,” she whispered.

“You want me off the ice? I’ll come. You want me off a photo shoot? I’ll shut it down. You want me in the middle of a press conference? I’ll walk off the dais. There is nothing and no one who comes before you, Faith. Not for me.” My fingers flexed on her hips.

The woman was fucking killing me. One moment she was kissing me like my tongue was part of her respiratory system, and the next she was telling me that she didn’t matter to me. I had some serious whiplash.

“You like the chase.” Her voice was soft but serious.

I let one hand rise to cup her cheek. “I like you.”

“You won’t once you get me.”

I would have laughed, or told her she was being absurd, but there was nothing but absolute certainty in her eyes.

“Explain why you think this.”

“Women fall at your feet.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Is it, though?” She arched her delicate eyebrow. “They flock to you. And I get it. You’re beautiful, Lukas. Charismatic, sexy, confident, all of it, and that’s without adding in the whole multi-million-dollar NHL star status.” She shrugged. “Girls are easy for you.”

“You’re impossible for me, so I’m not seeing where this is going.” I would have killed for her to be one of the easy ones, someone I could impress with a flash of a black card and a wink.

“You want me because I’m impossible,” she whispered, her gaze dropping away.

I lifted her chin with my thumb and forefinger until I had her attention again.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?” Her skin puckered between her eyebrows.

“I don’t want you because you’re impossible.”

“You didn’t want me when I threw myself at you,” she snapped.

I pressed my lips in a firm line to keep from smiling. “Is that what this is about? You think I didn’t want you when I could have you, so if anything happens now, I’ll lose interest?”

She nodded once.

“Faith, I didn’t touch you that night because you were hurting. You didn’t want me—you wanted someone to take the heartbreak away. Someone to make you feel desirable. And against my better judgment, I gave that to you. But I’d wanted you for too long to have that moment be about some other asshole who never deserved you. So I walked away, and then you stalked away. It damn near killed me to get so close to you, to watch you come apart in my arms, and then not take what you were so angrily offering. And then you didn’t bother to speak to me until you arrived at my office.”

“I was embarrassed,” she admitted.

I let my forehead rest against hers for a second while I weighed my next words.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you. I fought that attraction every second you were close because Eric is one of my best friends. He’d fucking kill me if he saw how I was holding you, let alone if he knew what I’d done to you the night of the ball. You’re not a chase to me. You’re not a prize. You’re not anything I was looking for, and yet you are everything I need, that I can’t walk away from. You have the power to ruin a friendship, to wreck an entire NHL team, and you’re so damn young.”

“What does that have anything to do with it?” she challenged, her fingers tightening their grip in my hair.

“Everything. You’re not ready for someone like me. You deserve an easier man. A softer man.” She deserved someone who would meet her on the quad for lunch and steal kisses between classes. Someone who was exploring what they wanted from life. Not someone who was already so set in their ways they had a reputation as a diva.

“I don’t want a softer man.” She rocked forward, and I groaned as she rubbed against my cock.

“Point taken,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

“I don’t want any other man.”

Her admission sent white-hot need straight to my dick, and something softer lodged in my chest.

“I don’t want you because you’re forbidden,” I told her as I pressed my lips to her jawline. “I want you because your smile could melt ice. I want you because your body is curved in every place that drives me crazy, because every time I jerk myself off in the shower, I imagine it’s these sweet lips wrapped around my cock.” I thumbed her lower lip and tasted her sigh as I rubbed my own over it, but pulled back before she could claim a kiss. “I want you because your laugh draws my attention in a crowded room. I want to be the reason you laugh, and smile, and moan. I want you because the minute my hands are on you, you’re liquid fire. Your responses are so honest, so innocent, and yet so fucking sexy that

I must have replayed that night a thousand times in my mind.” I kissed the line of her throat and my dick pulsed when she tightened her thighs around mine.

“Lukas—”

“Nope, not done.” I nipped at her exposed collarbone, loving the off-the-shoulder sweatshirt she wore. “I want you because you challenge me. You don’t take my shit, but you can absolutely handle me at my worst. I want you because you’re so fucking smart, and funny, and see the world in ways I never could.”

Her breasts filled my hands, and she sighed as I thumbed her nipples. “I want you because I’m hard the minute you walk into a room.” I rocked my hips against hers, using my dick to stroke her over our clothes.

“Lukas,” she whimpered, rolling her hips over mine.

“I want you because you love your family. Because you’re so careful with Hannah, with any of the Shark kids. Because I see you with them, and I envision my babies in your arms, blonde-haired and green-eyed girls, and ginger boys with Nordic-blue eyes. I want you because that doesn’t scare me.”

Her eyes flew to mine, a shimmer of surprise and a little panic in the green depths.

“And I want you to know that I’ll wait. That you’re twenty-one with a whole lot of life ahead of you. You don’t need to think about what I want. Or feel pressured that I’m going to knock you up and make your dreams that much harder to achieve. I bought that house in Seattle because I’m ready to settle down with you. I’m done with the one-night stands and nameless fucks. I have been for a while. But I’m not going to pressure you or steal your time away, and I’m not going to ask for something that you’re not ready for. You see, I’ve wanted you for years. I’ve had time to make my peace with it, to prepare for what having you in my life would mean in every way. I’m on third ready to take home plate, and you’re debating a run to first.”

She grinned, but it was forced. “Baseball metaphors? Really?”

“Deal with it,” I countered with a smile.

“You’d really wait for me to figure out my life?” she asked. Her tongue wet her lower lip.

“I’ve made it nine months without sex, and I’m still alive, so I figure I’m not going to die off while you sort your shit out. Yes, I’ll wait. You can go be a—”