“What?” she taunted, biting her lip, grinding her hips into his. “What are you gonna do?”

  He let out a low growl, grabbing her ass and rolling her. She squealed and squirmed as he fucked her, long and deep and hard, his cock pinning her like a spread butterfly on the white sheet.

  “Henry!” She hung onto him and pushed him away at the same time, her nails raking over his back, her teeth biting into the soft flesh of his shoulder. He barely noticed, only grunting and thrusting deeper, panting his lust into her ear. “Henry. Henry. Oh fuck, Henry, don’t…I can’t…breathe…oh…now…oh fuck, make me come now!”

  He felt her, again, oh yes, again, her pussy spasming, and it was more than enough to send him over the edge. His balls were drawn tight, his dick cocked, aimed and ready, and he exploded deep inside of her contracting cunt, a delicious, fiery milking, emptying himself of whatever fluid might be left in him.

  “Oh.” Val breathed, blinking up at the ceiling as Henry threw himself next to her, still gasping for breath. “Wow.”

  “Sorry,” he panted, eyes still closed. “You make me…crazy.”

  “If that’s crazy…” She laughed. “I like crazy.”

  He welcomed her as she snuggled up close, the impossibly soft flesh of her thigh sliding over his. “Are you sure Marcus is going to be okay with this?” It was too late to ask, of course, but the thought of a six-foot-five, two-hundred and fifty pound defensive lineman coming after him was more than a little daunting.

  Val snorted. “Marcus is too busy running his little business to care what I do.”

  “His business?”

  She hesitated and then said, “He’s a bookie. They run the whole thing out of the frat house.”

  Henry blinked. “Oh.”

  “It’s no wonder he’s always watching the games, right?” She lifted her head, concern in her eyes. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  He shrugged. “Who would I tell?”

  They both heard the sound of a key in the lock. Val grabbed the Hudson Bay blanket, wrapping it around her, just as Dean shoved the door open.

  “Hey!” Henry protested.

  Dean blinked, taking in the scene, Val wrapped in a blanket, Henry completely nude, the Fleshlight still wedged into bed. Dean held up Val’s bra. “The sock wasn’t on the door.”

  Val rolled her eyes, standing and grabbing her clothes off the floor and the bra out of Dean’s hand, brushing by him. She held the blanket closed around herself and headed toward the bathroom.

  “Sorry, man,” Dean apologized, glancing toward the closed bathroom door.

  Henry pulled the sheet over himself as Dean flopped across from him on his own bed.

  “Listen, can I ask you a favor?” Dean asked, lowering his voice.

  “Sure.” Henry grabbed his boxers off the floor, pulling them on.

  Val came out of the bathroom, shrugging on her jacket and finding her purse, her eyes meeting Henry’s. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Wait.” Henry took a few strides toward the door, grabbing her arm. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.” She rolled her eyes at Dean. “Talk to you later?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She opened the door, starting out, and then turned back to kiss him on the cheek. “Bye.”

  Dean waited until Henry closed the door before asking, “Do you have any money I can borrow?”

  Henry frowned, sitting down on his bed. “Not a lot…”

  “Dude.” Dean sighed, elbows on knees, putting his head in his hands. “I’m in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I just…” Dean looked up at him, eyes bleary. “Can I borrow three hundred?”

  “Three hundred?” Henry’s jaw dropped. How was he going to explain that to his parents? “Can’t you ask your dad?”

  “No way.” His roommate threw himself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m tapped out.”

  Dean always had cash—always. There seemed to be an endless supply attached to his debit card. Henry couldn’t believe it. But he’d never seen his friend so desolate before.

  “I have to go to the ATM,” Henry said “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” Dean perked up, eyes bright. “Tomorrow? You promise?”

  “Sure. What are friends for?” Henry slapped him on the shoulder as he got up. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

  Henry turned the water on, stripping off his boxers, and when he turned to gaze in the mirror, he saw the Hudson Bay blanket folded neatly and left on the sink, and a big heart drawn in lipstick on the mirror with a phone number written in the center. Val’s number.

  It’s a bad idea, Henry, he warned himself, moving to smear the number, but in the end, he just couldn’t do it.

  Chapter Six

  Thanks to an unseasonably warm week in December, the ice in the rink was far too slushy for Henry’s liking, but he wouldn’t have cared if he’d had to skate on water—under Professor Franklin’s tutelage, he was now passing English, off academic probation, and most importantly, the coach had put him on the ice for an actual game!

  He thought things couldn’t get any better when he scored his first official college hockey goal—a gorgeous shot that slipped into the five-hole like it had been meant to be—until he saw Libby in the stands. He wouldn’t have seen her if the camera hadn’t panned in on her reaction to the goal and showed it on the screen high above—she was standing and actually dancing in the aisles, her red hair like a beacon the cameraman obviously couldn’t resist.

  Henry couldn’t either.

  He actually stumbled getting back onto the bench, taking the congratulations from his teammates with a distracted smile, scanning the rink for Libby, finally finding her, still standing in the aisle and waving. At him. He raised his hand, grinning like a fool. It was the first time he’d seen her since that night in the hot tub. He’d called her several times and she hadn’t returned any of them. Had she been coming to games all along? He continued to give her the tickets he’d promised, slipping them under her dorm room door in an envelope, hoping to run into her in the hallway, but he never had.

  He usually gave her both tickets, but today he’d given another one to Professor Franklin. His parents hadn’t made it up for a game—he kept putting them off, embarrassed to tell them he’d been benched. But he’d given a ticket to her just that day as they sat in the late afternoon sunshine, working on Henry’s worst nemesis—phonemes.

  He’d tried subtlety. “Do you like hockey?”

  “Henry, you’re distracting yourself.”

  He’d sighed. “I just wondered if you wanted to see me play. My parents can’t make it.”

  “Funny, I was going to ask if you wanted to see a movie tonight.” She had smiled when he blinked at her in surprise. They saw a lot of each other lately, but they’d never seen each other outside of a school-type setting. The idea intrigued him. “It’s foreign. Subtitled. I thought it would be a good experience for you.”

  “Oh.” Another learning experience. Go figure. “What time?”

  “Show starts at nine.”

  “We can go after,” he’d suggested slyly. “The game starts at five.”

  “It’s a deal then.” She’d agreed, putting a white sheet of paper in front of him with one word on it. “Now, what is that word?”

  “Volcano.”

  “Look again.” Toni—she’d insisted he start calling her Toni if they were going to work together four times a week—had put a clear blue-tinted sheet over the page. For some reason, the change in color helped him shift his focus.

  “Tornado,” he’d corrected himself, shaking his head. “Why do I do that? I’m so stupid.”

  “No you’re not. You’re just dyslexic.”

  “Which means stupid,” he’d countered.

  “Did you know Thomas Edison was dyslexic?” No, he hadn’t known. Every time he put himself down, she always managed to find a way to build him back up. “So was Albert Einstein.”

  “Really? Mr. E Equals M.C. Squared?”

  She’d laughed. “Your memory is amazing sometimes.”

  “Yeah, and then I can’t tell the difference between a volcano and a tornado,” he’d grumbled.

  “You know the difference,” she’d insisted. “You just have a hard time with the symbols that represent the things.”

  He’d beamed at her. “Hey, maybe someday, some tutor will tell another guy like me, ‘You know Henry Baumgartner, the famous hockey player? He was dyslexic.’”

  “Anything’s possible,” Toni had agreed, turning his focus back to the work at hand.

  She was a slave driver sometimes, but she claimed he’d gone from a third-grade reading level to a sixth-grade one in just the short time they’d been working together. He’d even managed to write his own paper for her class, and she’d been willing to give him an oral exam separately from the rest, which he’d passed with a ninety-six percent. He understood theme and symbolism in The Great Gatsby perfectly well if he didn’t have to spell it.

  Now Henry sat enjoying the fruits of his labor, his first goal of the year showing on the scoreboard above, the woman who was responsible for his progress sitting proudly in the stands, and now there was Libby, too, sharing the moment. He wished he could go talk to her, ask her why she hadn’t called. It was probably a roommate thing, he’d long ago decided. Elaine wouldn’t talk to him—was probably mad he’d gone after Libby. And Libby probably just felt a normal loyalty toward her roommate in the whole thing. It put him in an impossible position.

  Libby’s not here just to see you, he reminded himself, secretly hoping she was.

  Her presence buoyed him so much he scored again on the very next shift, carrying the momentum of the goal he’d made just five minutes earlier. He felt the pass coming to him long before it was on his stick. He had sensed it coming moments before, when they were all tussling in front of their own net on the other end of the ice. He didn’t know how he knew, couldn’t explain the incredible body awareness he experienced on the ice, but he could anticipate, not only his own teammates’ moves, but the opposing team’s as well, with eerie accuracy.

  That’s how he knew to put a rush of speed on toward the net, sensing a defenseman in red moving in behind him but he would be unable to check or block Henry—he was too fast. There was a pass coming from the right, unseen but coming anyway, and he put his stick out for it, stopping the puck’s trajectory without another thought and not even looking at the net before pulling back to take the shot.

  The puck went in over the shoulder, the goalie twisting to get it, upended, staying there on his ass, winded and cursing himself for missing the shot, as Henry howled and pumped his fist in the air. The four of his teammates who were on the ice surrounded him, cheering and jostling and there was more of that again at shift change, guys slapping him on the back, the coach giving him an approving wink.

  They won the game two to one, and both his team’s goals belonged to him.

  He was flying by the time they headed off the ice toward the showers, and then Libby was waiting for him. How she’d managed it, he didn’t know, but she was standing outside the locker room, hugging herself against the cold and smiling. He wanted to put his arms around her to warm her up. Hell, he just wanted to put his arms around her.

  “Hi Henry.”

  His teammates trudged by him, admiring the girl he stopped to talk to. “Hey.”

  Just be casual, he told himself, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm. His heart was thumping like a rabbit’s.

  “I just wanted to say great game.” She had to crane her neck way up at him because his skates gave him several inches in height.

  “Thanks.” He couldn’t help smiling, even though the expression felt too big and goofy on his face. “How’ve you been?”

  “Oh, you know.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Busy.”

  “Yeah, me too.” They just stood there. Smiling. It was kind of awkward, but then again, it wasn’t. Henry said the first thing he could think of. “How’s the library?”

  She laughed. “Still standing.”

  “Well that’s always a plus.” Henry couldn’t keep his eyes off her and tried to make conversation so his staring wouldn’t seem so obvious. “Seen any good vampire movies lately?”

  “No, I haven’t been out to a movie since…” It was the first time her gaze shifted away from his. “Well, I’ve been busy.”

  Impulsively, he took a chance. “Want to go?” When she didn’t answer, he pushed ahead, ignoring the vibe she was putting off, hoping it was just nervousness. “To a movie?”

  A movie. That reminded him that Toni was taking him to a movie after the game and he had to get into the shower. For some reason, the thought made him feel guilty, as if he was betraying someone. Going out with Toni, even just to some artsy education movie, excited him. He couldn’t even say why, and wouldn’t have admitted it out loud to anyone, especially Libby. But it was the truth.

  “What’s playing?” Libby asked.

  He shrugged, his grin widening. “I don’t have a clue.”

  “I don’t know, Henry. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Libby sighed when she saw him frown. “Maybe…maybe after we get back? I’m going home for break. My parents live in North Carolina.”

  “That’s far.” Henry was already ridiculously planning the road trip in his head.

  “Anyway, I’ve gotta run.” She reached out and touched his arm. He couldn’t feel much through all the padding and she must have known it because she found his wrist, bare skin between his glove and his jersey, squeezing there. “I just wanted to tell you…great game.”

  He tried to think of something to make her stay, watching her retreating form, and called out, “So I’ll see you January?”

  “I’ll be here.” She waved back at him and then disappeared around the corner.

  * * * *

  The Michigan Theater was hardly crowded, even on a weekend. Art movies, especially foreign, were popular in a college town, but this was an old one. “An oldie but a goodie” as Toni had said. Henry had vaguely heard of it, but had never seen it.

  Toni picked their seats, somewhere in the middle, and there was only one other couple in the place besides them.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to follow this,” Henry admitted in a low voice. The screen was black—no previews or pre-show garbage to clutter it up. It was eerily quiet.

  “You’ll do fine. It has a real story.” She shrugged out of her coat and he admired the way her skirt rode up when she crossed her legs and turned toward him, revealing the tight hug of her brown suede boots around her slender calves. “It doesn’t jump around like a video game.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  She laughed, a sound that was as familiar to Henry now as breathing. Although at one point, he never would have thought the dragon-lady was capable of laughing. “I think it was required viewing when I was in college.”

  “So what did you think of the game?” He tried to sound casual, but he really wanted to hear her opinion. He’d asked her to come to the game for a reason. He’d wanted her to see, wanted her to understand how important it was to him.

  “I was impressed.” Her face changed and he could see she really meant it. “I can see why you got a scholarship.”

  He felt his chest swell with pride, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pretended to be watching the couple sitting near the front of the theater. The next words she spoke made him actually flush and he was glad the lights were dim.

  “You’re quite an amazing young man.”

  He didn’t have any idea what to say. For some reason, he didn’t want her to know how much it pleased him. “You sound like my mother.”

  “Well, we can’t have that.” Toni chuckled. “So tell me something…” She sat back in the red plush seat and he noticed her skirt riding up higher. The woman almost always wore skirts and it just accentuated her most astounding features. It was maddening. Henry knew damned well he shouldn’t be looking, or even thinking about it. But he did. He was. “Who was the girl?”

  The question got him to stop focusing on her knees. “What girl?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “The pretty redhead who waved to you.”

  “You saw that?” He flushed with the memory.

  She glanced sideways at him. “The whole stadium saw that.”

  “She’s just a friend,” he insisted, sounding more defensive than he wanted to.

  She didn’t respond verbally but he saw that press of her lips and knew for some reason she wasn’t happy with his answer. It made no sense at all, but he felt guilty on two counts—as if he was somehow betraying Libby by being here. Back when he was with Libby, he’d felt as if he was betraying Toni, and he wasn’t actually involved with either woman! It made his head hurt.

  “Toni…” he started. She turned to him, her dark eyes even darker in the dim light. He didn’t know what he wanted to say. Something to bridge the sudden gap between them. He finally said something he hoped would convey to her what it meant to him, everything she had done and continued to do. “Thanks for coming.”

  “You’re welcome.” She touched his hand, briefly. As the lights began to go down, she leaned over, murmuring, “Are you ready for this?”

  He shrugged, sinking down into his seat. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  He was afraid it was all going to go too fast for him to keep up, but Toni was right—it had a linear storyline that didn’t jump all over the place. It started out with some girl wanting to rent the same apartment as some guy in Paris—but all of a sudden they were having sex in it. That, he figured, had to be the “tango” part of The Last Tango in Paris.

  He’d seen Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire in high school. This Marlon Brando was older, meatier. But the girl? He didn’t know who she was, but she reminded him a great deal of a young version of Toni—big dark eyes and long dark hair and legs that went on for-fucking-ever.

  It was making him think things. Things he definitely shouldn’t be thinking. He watched Brando and the girl rolling around on the floor, feeling his cock starting to get hard. Although, he didn’t know if he was actually reacting to the movie or to the heat of Toni’s thigh against his in the dark.

 

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