Sawyer (Carolina Reapers 2)

And again.

And again.

Until my headboard groaned from how hard I gripped it with one hand.

Until my nails dug into his back so hard I’d practically branded him.

Until I couldn’t see or think or feel around the man moving above me.

Until I gasped for breath, breaking our kiss long enough to catch those gray eyes that were locked on mine. And I watched him as he moved in me, a total and utter claiming of my body as he hit every spot I never knew I had. As he filled me so much I couldn’t understand how I’d ever felt whole without him inside me.

“Echo,” he growled my name, and I clenched hot and tight around him. “Fuck, baby,” he said, leaning his forehead against mine. The move was so intimate it threatened to rob me of the heavenly bliss he was treating me too.

So I gripped my hips and flipped him over, never breaking our bond as I now straddled him, pinning him to the bed with my hands on his sculpted chest. I settled lower on him, this angle so much deeper than before, and then I rode him. Hard and fast, all the while those gray eyes drank in the sight of me atop him, wild and demanding and greedy with his body. Greedy with our pleasure.

And when his fingers bit into the skin of my hips, when that strong jaw of his clenched? It sent a thousand shocks of electricity whispering across my skin, bursting in my blood. Every inch of me unraveled as we came together, our breaths nearly in sync. He gently stroked my thighs as I trembled above him, the aftershocks resonating in my body long after we’d stilled.

“Beautiful,” he said as I gathered my hair off my neck, needing the cool air to hit it.

“Delicious,” I said, my eyes drinking in the sight of him beneath me. This incredible, strong, unbelievable male beneath me. I smiled at him, an easy grin, as I fell atop his chest, limp and spent.

And he held me there, stroking soothing lines up and down my back until I did the unthinkable and fell asleep.

13

Sawyer

I pulled my truck up the long drive and parked in front of Axel’s place. Was I really going to do this? Did I honestly have a choice?

We’d pulled through the second round in a four-game sweep, and I’d been in net for every single game. Thurston had complained, but Coach Hartman told him that he wasn’t willing to risk his knee while I was still holding it down. He said we’d need his experience in the division finals, then conference and, God-willing, the Cup.

But Thurston had dressed for each game, sitting on the bench and watching me, waiting for me to fuck up, or to get tired enough to need a break. But one look at Thurston reminded me that the minute he touched the ice, we were all in jeopardy. But I wasn’t the only one who’d potentially seen that bottle. Zimmerman waited in the wings, growing steadily more frustrated as I saw all the ice time, and there was no love lost between him and Thurston.

I sucked in a deep breath, steadied my racing heart, and headed for Axel and Langley’s front door.

He answered less than a minute after I rang the bell.

“Hey, Sawyer, why don’t you come in?” The six-foot-six giant moved aside, and I walked into his house. It was one of the Tudor models in the small neighborhood we called Reaper Village. Sweet Water was a tiny town just outside Charleston, which gave the Reapers enough distance from the rink, and the fans, and when Silas won the expansion bid, he’d also bought up an entire development here so any players who wanted could live together in the community.

“Sawyer!” Langley flew down the stairs and threw her arms around me. “It’s so nice to see you outside the rink.” She leveled a look on me. “Maybe you could… I don’t know, come over a little more often? Or even choose one of those houses just up the street that came in your signing bonus?” She arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you probably want your apartment back, huh?” Damn, I’d been in the thing almost three months. I really needed to get my shit together and move. But the apartment was so much closer to Mom, and she’d be nearly forty-five minutes away once I moved out here.

“Oh, no, don’t even worry about that. Once I moved in with the husband here—” she looped her arm around Axel’s waist, “—we decided to keep the apartment for the exact reason you’re here. Just in case the team had a need. I’m just hoping you’ll move out here so Faith and Harper will quit bugging me about it. They miss you, you know.”

“You’re right,” I said, running a hand across the back of my neck. “I miss them, too. There just never seems like there’s enough time right now.”