“Don’t stop now,”her words encourage me. Her voice is soft and light, and I want to tease her back, but anything I might say gets stuck in my throat as her bra strap falls. “Help me take this off?”
My fingers areunderneath the band of her bra before I can even command them to go there. It’s like they prefer taking direction straight from Mel, and I can’t say I blame them. She stretches her arms over her head, and I take her bra off, skimming the sides of her breasts as I go.
Mel sits before me,naked from the waist up, as I hold her bra in my hands. She takes it and reaches across me to tuck it into a drawer by her bedside. Her movement is practical—she’s putting her clothes away instead of tossing them on the floor—but maybe it’s calculated too? Because her hand is on my thigh for balance and her left breast grazes my chest. Damn, I wish I was shirtless too.
Though her task is done,she doesn’t resume her earlier spot. Instead, she crawls across me, and I’m half-tempted to squeeze her perfect ass as she makes her way to the middle of the bed. She sprawls out on her stomach and spares me a look. “I’m ready for that backrub now.”
The words are exactlywhat I want to hear, but still, I freeze for a second. I need to get my head on straight.
“Relax,”she says. “You’ve had massages, right?”
“Yeah,”I answer.
“Well,start there. But maybe go a little lighter. After all, I haven’t strained any muscles playing hockey; I just need you to massage my back until my muscles aren’t so tense and I melt into the mattress.”
“Got it,”I say, though, honestly, I got nothin. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much or too little, right?”
“Of course,but you won’t need me to tell you. Just focus on my body. What’s it doing? Is it relaxed or tense? Think about the little moans and mutters I make—do I like what you’re doing or do I need you to switch it up?”
These arethe exact questions I don’t have the fucking answers to when it comes to girls, but Mel knows that. And I get what she’s doing here. She’s making it so I’ve got to pay attention, to respond, to react. These are all things that come naturally to me on the ice. In a girl’s bedroom? Not so much.
But she’s puther trust in me, and that means a lot. She doesn’t have to be here, and I know that. We could put up a facade for her douchey ex in public, and not have to take things this far in private.
“I’m waiting,”she says, though her words aren't snippy or filled with annoyance. Instead, there’s a note of anticipation in them. “I want this just as much as you do. Maybe more. It’s been a long time since anybody’s made me feel good without strings attached or without telling me what I want to hear, even if it bears little resemblance to the truth. So, put your hands on me, Will. I can’t wait.”
Her words tripan alarm in my brain and my hands go still. “Mel—” I say, trying to convey a thousand words with just that one syllable.
“It’s okay,”she says, shaking her head. “No one is here but you and me. We can deal with all that another time—or never—but right now is just about the two of us.”
I nod.“Whatever you want, Mel. Always,” I say, the words truer than I think she realizes.
I takea deep breath and take in my surroundings. There’s a mountain of pillows in front of us, so I nab one and lift her head slightly before tucking it into place. I’m about to ask if she’s warm enough, but I stop myself. A glance at her arms tells me she’s cold, so I grab a blanket from the foot of the bed and drape it over her legs so that it chases the goosebumps away. She purrs like a contented cat, and I mentally pat myself on the back. There’s a basket of stuff on her nightstand, and I scan the contents quickly. There’s hand cream and body lotion and something called cuticle oil in a little glass jar. There’s also a bottle of lube, and I want to think about all the possibilities it holds, but I can’t go down that rabbit hole right now. There are a few bottles of nail polish and some lip balm. I want to check with her and ask her if she likes the lotion, but I don’t. It wouldn’t be sitting half-full on her nightstand if she didn’t like the stuff. Grabbing the bottle, I squirt a few pumps in my hand before rubbing my palms together to warm them up. The scent drifts up, and I’m hit with that citrus-y smell that I now associate with Mel. I inhale again. It would be easy to get addicted to this stuff. Almost as easy as it would be to get addicted to Mel. Being around her has quickly become my favorite thing. But I can’t wax poetic now. I have a job to do.
I plantmy knee firmly on the mattress, stretching my body so I’m straddling hers, and damn, does my dick take notice.I’m careful to keep my weight on my legs, so I don’t crush her, and when she lifts her ass slightly, it’s all I can do not to grind against her, but I keep myself in check. “This okay?” I ask.
“Better than okay,”she answers, and I take that as my cue to keep going.
Her skin issmooth and soft as I glide my hands over it, the lotion easing my path. Mel moans in appreciation, and I take that as a signal to keep going. At first, I just explore. My hands wander across her back in a lazy pattern, stopping only to add a little more lotion. I trace my way back up to her shoulders, taking care to knead the stress away.
“That feels so good,”she says, the words coming slowly like she’s in a daze.
I ruba little harder in response, but when I notice her shoulders tense, I ease up. I make my way down her back just like this, rubbing and massaging as I go, always checking to see if I’m doing it right. If the sounds Mel’s making are any indication, I am. Her soft moans and whimpers spur me on and make me wonder, if she’s this vocal during a backrub, what does she sound like during sex? I hope to god I get to find out.
I scoot backwarda bit when I get to the small of her back, my fingers still working out the knots in her muscles. I’m not sure if this part of the body is a universal erogenous zone, but Mel sure as hell seems to like it. I place my thumbs on the dimples that sit right above her perfect ass cheeks and press firmly in small circles.
“That,”she pants. “Do that.”
I takeorders well from Mel Cohen, so I obey, this time wrapping my hands around her waist so that the tips of my fingers brush the soft skin of her belly.
“Backrub’s over,”she announces breathlessly, turning on her side and knocking me off-kilter for a second. Before I can panic, I take a look at her face, and Christ, it’s damn near glowing.
“You’re really good at backrubs,”Mel tells me, crawling up the bed to lie back on the mound of pillows.
“Givingyou a massage is way more fun than getting one from a trainer,” I tell her, trying my damnedest to concentrate on her face instead of her half-naked body. I must do a shit job, though, because she catches me stealing a glimpse.
“I thinkyou’re ready for a more advanced lesson,” she says, and that one word is all the reminder I need to keep myself in check. She’s my love-tutor, not my girlfriend. My brain likes to forget that little detail, but that might be because my brain is currently housed in my boxers.
“Yeah? What’s next?”I ask, letting my eyes wander in appreciation.
