Van (Cold Fury Hockey 9)

My eyes move back up his body and there's no doubt I woke him up from a sound sleep. His eyes are barely open, slightly glazed, and his hair is sticking up all over the place.

"Jesus Christ, Simone," Van mutters as he drops to his knees to peer at me under the fridge lying atop the broken table. "Are you okay?"

"I think a spray bottle may have fractured my spine," I groan as I try to roll over in the small space to get off it.

"Don't fucking move," he orders me, and I obey without question. "If you've got a spine injury--"

"I don't," I assure him as I start to wiggle.

"Stay the fuck still," he bellows at me, his expression a mask of acute worry.

I go absolutely still, not because I have a broken back, but because as much as Van has yelled and cursed at me over the last few weeks, I've never heard him do so with a tinge of fear in his voice.

I watch mesmerized as every muscle in his body contracts and strains as he single-handedly pushes the refrigerator up and back into place. He immediately spins and drops back down beside me.

"Okay, do you hurt anywhere?" he asks as his eyes roam over me. I was so worried about Lucas this morning I didn't even bother to wear something sexy. In fact, I've got a baggy Dartmouth T-shirt from a former boyfriend and a pair of sweatpants on.

"There's a spray bottle under me," I murmur. "Otherwise I'm completely fine."

Van's eyebrows draw inward. "A spray bottle?"

"I was trying to clean the top of the refrigerator and the wall behind it," I explain, and because I know he'll want the details, I continue. "I was trying to put my knee inside the freezer to haul myself up, and well...it's a chain of events that led to me being down here on the floor."

"Of all the fucking stupid idiotic things," Van mutters under his breath as his arm slides under my shoulders to help me sit up.

"Your white knight skills suck," I mutter back, not needing or appreciating the way in which he's making me feel like shit.

"I'm not your white knight," he says as he helps to pull me to my feet.

I wince as I straighten my back, knowing that there's probably a bruise in the middle in the exact shape of a spray bottle.

"What's wrong?" he says as he turns me around, and before I can even tell him, he's pulling up the back of my T-shirt. He hisses slightly between his teeth and his fingers touch my skin ever so gently. "You've already got a bruise forming."

My breath catches in my throat, not from the promise of a bruise, but just from that tiny touch of his fingertips to me. Feather light, but feeling like a wrecking ball, knocking the wind out of me.

I want more, and the part of Simone Fournier that is devious and plain trouble with a capital T says, "I think I might have cracked my ribs."

"Where?" he asks with concern as he gently turns my body.

I have to keep the smile off my face as I pull my shirt up at the side and flat-out lie. "Here, on the side...and to the front. It hurts worse in the front."

Van bends to peer at my ribs, his fingers tracing the skin there. I pull my shirt up higher in the front until the underside of my breast is exposed. I hold my breath as his fingers skim closer, but as I look down at him, his face is clinically worried as he looks for a broken rib or something.

He presses tentatively on my top rib just under my breast. "Does this hurt?"

Only between my legs, I think unabashedly.

I shake my head and whisper, "Maybe a little higher."

For a brief, glorious moment, his fingers actually start to drift higher and are within an inch of feathering across the bottom of my breast, but they pull up short and his eyes lift to mine. I try to look at him as if I might be in pain, but he's having none of it as understanding dawns clear in his eyes, which look more like the steel gray of a cloudy day right now.

"God, you're fucking shameless," he growls as he straightens and jerks his hand away from me.

I give him a mock guilty expression. "Sorry?"

"You are totally not sorry," he mumbles.

"No, I am," I say as I turn to face him and take a step closer. My hands go to his naked chest...nothing more than a light laying of my palms against his warm skin. I can feel his heartbeat thundering madly, and I wonder if it's because of the crash that had him tearing out of bed or the fact I'd almost had him caressing my breast.

Van stands his ground, though, and doesn't dislodge me. I press the advantage by moving in just a little closer.

"It's just," I say softly as I let my thumbs gently stroke the skin and crisp hair of his chest. "I can't help it, Van. I'm so damned attracted to you. You make me crazy."

It's not lost on me that this is the first time I've been completely and utterly honest with Van, without some cheesy pickup line or come-on.

Van's nostrils flare wide as he looks down at me. His eyes darken, every bit of the blue leeching out until they look like orbs of charcoal.

"Give into it," I beseech him softly, sliding just one hand up and over his shoulder. I go to my tiptoes to put my mouth closer to his as he stares stonily down at me. I let the other hand drift down his abs with no particular destination in mind.

I have no motive at this point, only a very insane and hopeful wish that he would just merely kiss me. I've never been this close to him before. He's never let me get this close to him before, and I'll chastise myself thoroughly and much later, but I'm not giving up this advantage right now.

My fingers skim the edge of the elastic waistband of his briefs, and Van actually stops breathing. My breath catches in my lungs, knowing that this could go either way, and not wanting to make the wrong move. I hold my ground and we stare at each other with an intensity that seems to create almost tangible arcs of electricity between us.

For a moment, everything just freezes in place except my own galloping heartbeat...

Then Van's hand locks around my wrist so fast and hard I gasp. I'm filled with disappointment as he starts to pull my hand away from the edge of his underwear, but then I'm completely bowled over when his other hand clamps onto the back of my neck and he jerks me into him.

His eyes go darker and I can see actual distaste in them for what he's about to do, and then he does it.

His mouth hits mine, crushing in its force, full of anger, desire, and loss of control. I involuntarily push my hips into him, my body not having any control either. I can feel he's thick and hard, and a shudder ripples through me at the knowledge.

Van spins me, pushes me back into the fridge, and it rocks as I hit it. He thrusts his entire frame into me, pinning me there so I can't move.

Not that I want to.

This kiss is everything I imagined it would be on that one day I'd find a man who could really push my buttons. It's something I never expected from Van, as he doesn't seem like the kissing type. If I had to bet, I'd say he's more of the ripping-clothes-and-taking-what-he-wants type.

When his tongue touches mine, not hesitantly but absolutely claiming, a deep moan tears free from within me. It rumbles so hard, is so harsh and abrasive because of the need behind it, that Van goes utterly still for just a moment before he's actually pushing away from me.

My palms go to the fridge to hold me upright because he has rendered my legs completely weak. He stares at me hostilely and I can't help it. My eyes drop momentarily to see his thick erection straining against his briefs.

My fucking mouth actually waters, but when I look back up to him, I'm dismayed to see him put the back of his hand to his mouth and give it a quick wipe, as if he can't stand the taste of me.

It's a clear indication that he's done.

This is proven when he spins on his heel and storms back to his bedroom, slamming the door resolutely behind himself.

Chapter 5

Van

I have got to fucking get my own place.

Now that Stephanie broke up with Lucas, he's around a lot more. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but he has become a mean son of a bitch lately and he's drinking a lot. Sim

one is constantly riding him to get his head out of his ass, which he doesn't like one bit. This means they are both fighting like cats and dogs, or maybe that's just how siblings fight.

And then there's Simone, who is still driving me batshit crazy. My warning to her three nights ago fell on deaf ears apparently, because she hasn't changed her wily ways one fucking bit.

I'll have to admit, when I heard that refrigerator crash and caught my first glimpse of her lying on the floor, I about had a goddamn heart attack. Not because I held any affection for her, or because I didn't want to clean up brain matter after the vomit and tomato sauce of the day before.

Rather, I didn't want to see someone like her--with such a life force filled with vitality--extinguished from this earth. No matter how much she drives me nuts, and how much I am struggling to fight my unholy attraction to her, I'd take her harassment every fucking day for a millennium for her not to be dead.

That was my initial thought.

It changed after her hand started straying down my stomach and I found myself drowning with a perverse need to take her. Throw her on the floor, spread her legs and just fucking take what she's been begging me to take.

That thought nauseated me, so I obliterated everything by just fucking kissing her. It's not a favorite pastime for me. Too intimate and all that shit, but damn if it didn't make me feel immediately better.

Until her moan.