Legend, page 6
His eyes are asking me outright, and I tell him what he needs to know. “I’m safe.”
Relief transforms his face and his hips thrust upward. His cock rams into me deeply, and I relish the pinch of pain his size causes. I’ll always relish it.
“Pepper,” he groans as he starts to fuck me against the refrigerator. “Your pussy is so warm and wet. I’m going to come fast.”
“Me too,” I whisper as I hang onto him. He’s driving into me just like last night. Long, deep strokes that strike at something deep within me. My orgasm bubbles again, and I think of how damn dirty this is…fucking quickly in the kitchen before the baby wakes up and what his semen inside of me will feel like.
It’s a first for me and it’s everything I thought it might be and more.
“With me, baby?” Legend mutters into my ear before biting down hard onto my lobe.
I cry out from that sting of pain and urge him on. “With you. But go harder.”
“Goddammit,” he curses as if I just asked way too much of him but he gives it to me anyway. The fridge starts slamming against the wall and I hear stuff falling over inside.
When that moment of quiet bliss hits—when my orgasm pulls inward for just a moment before I fly apart—I tell Legend, “I’m getting ready to come.”
It hits me hard, my internal muscles locking down onto him, and blinding pleasure punches through. He feels it, curses again and slams in one last time.
I can’t actually feel him coming but I know he is because he grits his teeth and gives a long grunt of relief before dropping his head to my shoulder. “God, Pepper…you actually almost just killed me.”
I giggle and run my fingers over the back of his neck. While I couldn’t feel his semen splashing about my insides, I sure can feel the way his cock pulses inside of me. I squeeze my muscles tight and he groans again.
“Death of me,” he murmurs and then kisses me hard. When he lifts his mouth, he looks at the clock. “I know I should be embarrassed but that took less than five minutes.”
“And yet the end results were catastrophic,” I tell him seriously. “I’m okay with a five-minute fuck.”
Shaking his head, he smiles at me. “You’re something else.”
Legend lifts me off his cock and when he places me on the kitchen floor, I hold my skirt up and out of the way. His semen starts running down my legs and he stares at it in fascination for a brief moment before nabbing a towel off the counter. Rather than hand it to me, he squats down and cleans me up gently. Then to my stunned amazement, he slips a finger inside of me. Looking up with a sly grin on his face, he says, “Still quite a bit in there. Might leak out some more.”
And with that, he pulls my panties back into place and tugs my skirt loose so it drops around my ankles. When he stands, he winks at me. “I like knowing that you’re in my kitchen getting ready to eat my food and your panties are soaked with my cum.”
My face flushes again, but I like it too.
Way too much.
Legend tucks himself in and fastens his jeans. He glances at me and asks, “So when you said you’re safe, you meant?”
He trusted my word, and while I didn’t get a chance to reciprocate that trust because he just took it upon himself to ram into me, I have to assume he’s safe too.
“The usual,” I reply almost shyly, because this is an awkward conversation to have after the fact we just had unprotected sex. “STD’s and stuff.”
Legend doesn’t seem worried at all, which has to mean that he has a level of trust in me at this point. But is that really surprising, given what we’ve been through together with his daughter the last few days.
“And birth control?” he asks with a smile on his face. “Pill? Or are you getting a shot? Or what?”
I shake my head. “I’m not on birth control—”
Legend’s face blanches and he actually stumbles backward as he looks at me with horror.
I shake my head and hold my hands out. “Sorry. Please don’t worry. What I should have said first was I can’t get pregnant, so I don’t need to have birth control.”
His face goes even whiter and his voice is so soft, I can barely hear it. “You can’t have kids?”
“Does that turn you off?” I whisper back, because that’s what it appears to me.
He jerks and blinks. “God…no!” He then pulls me into his arms. “Not at all. But I just…I see how great you are with Charlie and for you not to be able to have that for yourself…”
He’s stating succinctly the sorrows I faced when finally deciding to have a hysterectomy.
“Why can’t you?” he asks as he leans his head back to look at me.
“I had really bad uterine fibroids. Suffered them for years. Had surgeries that removed them but they always came back. It was really painful. I mean…knock me on my ass painful, and a lot of heavy bleeding.” I pause and take a deep breath, letting out slowly to hopefully quell the jitters in my voice. “And so I had to weigh the long-term relief versus getting pregnant.”
Legend hugs me again, placing his lips against my forehead briefly before he says, “I can’t imagine the pain you must have been in. I know it had to be unbearable for you to make that decision.”
I blink back my tears, because it’s over and done with. I went through the grief two years ago when I had the procedure done, and I’m only being sappy now because Legend is being so kind and I really kind of like him a lot.
I give a cough to clear my throat and pull out of his embrace. He gets a brave smile from me. “I’m good. I had it done two years ago and I don’t regret it at all. It changed my life for the better.”
It’s like a bell goes off in Legend’s head and his eyes flare. “The little scars on your stomach…”
I nod with a laugh. “Yeah…that was the surgery. They were able to do it with a laparoscope so it was minimally invasive. I’m surprised you noticed them.”
After all, we were going at it hard and rough last night and it was over quick.
“I noticed a lot about your body, Pepper,” he says gruffly. “But I bet there’s more still to learn.”
“Maybe,” I say with an impish tilt to my head.
By the look in his eyes, Legend takes my noncommittal response as a challenge and starts to walk me back to the refrigerator again. My body flushes at the thought of him fucking me again so quickly, but sadly, we’re interrupted by a tiny cry emitting from the baby monitor speaker we put in the kitchen.
Legend’s head falls so his forehead rests against mine. He holds it there a moment, and then with a sigh, tells me, “We’ll resume this later.”
“Later,” I agree softly and then push him away from me. “Now, go get your daughter and I’ll finish cooking. Then I need to run home for a quick shower before we do the nanny interviews.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he says and then gives me a slight slap on my ass. I yelp and I get a mischievous look from him. “Liked that, did you?”
“You’ll have to discover that later,” I say primly and move around him to the stove where I light the burner under the bacon again.
Legend laughs. “Fair enough.”
He turns for the kitchen’s back staircase, but then whirls back around to face me. “Um…I was going to ask one of the guy’s wives that have kids about tomorrow, but thought I’d ask you instead.”
I tilt my head curiously. “Ask me what?”
“Even if I find a nanny today that I like, I still have to do background checks and stuff. I’ve got a home game tomorrow and need someone to watch Charlie for that time period. I usually leave for the arena about three hours before the game, so I’d need you around 4:00 p.m.”
I know he trusts me. He proved it by fucking me without a condom, but damn if it doesn’t send chills up my spine that he thinks enough of me to ask me to watch his daughter.
I smile at him. “I’d be glad to.”
“You’re awesome, Pepper,” he says with a bright grin back at me. Then he turns around and bounds up the stairs. I shamelessly listen in on the baby monitor as he talks to his daughter who coos back at him.
Legend is going to be a great father.
Chapter 9
Legend
The mind-set of a goalie is unique. We must be physically, mentally, and emotionally sound at all times. If we get scored on, it’s imperative we shake it off and reboot our brains so to speak. That’s because the scrutiny on our play is more microscopic than the other players. When they say you win or lose as a team, well…that’s pure bullshit. A goalie can and will lose you some games. There are many times—whether it’s a shoot out or a penalty shot—when the entire game rests squarely on my shoulders.
I start my pregame preparation two and a half hours before game time. When I arrive at the arena—be it a home or away game—I change from my dress suit into some workout gear. T-shirt, shorts, running shoes.
I then grab all my sticks for the game and tape them up while shooting the shit with the other players in the locker room. Once my sticks are taped, I don’t give them to the equipment staff to take out to the bench. Instead, I walk them out there myself, not because I don’t trust the staff, but because I want to see the ice before I begin my warm-ups. I spend a few minutes just sitting on the team bench and staring at the rink while I reflect on what will be needed of me.
About an hour and a half from the puck dropping, I start my warm-up. Light jogs, a few fast sprints, and plenty of dynamic stretching. I also bounce small rubber balls against a wall to get my reflexes firing property. I do this by myself and people leave me alone, because while I’m preparing my body, I’m also deep inside myself preparing my mind.
With forty minutes left until the game starts, I go from workout clothes to my game gear: socks, pants, skates, leg pads, shoulder pads, chest pads, elbow pads, blocker, trapper, sweater, and mask. I once read an article that said today’s goalie equipment costs roughly six thousand dollars. I don’t know for sure since the team ownership pays for that stuff, but I wonder sometimes how my parents afforded for me to play growing up.
Thirty minutes until the puck drops and I’m on the ice with the rest of the team doing warm-ups. The music is cranked loud and the Vengeance fans are ferociously loud which helps to amp me up. I’ve never played for a team with fans that were this vocal during warm-ups. It gets so loud during game play that sometimes I imagine the ice is vibrating with their cheers.
When warm-ups are done, the team returns to the locker room and I open myself up to the coach for a few minutes while he gives us a last-minute pep talk. Coach Perron is fucking phenomenal. He needs to be a motivational speaker if he retires from doing this, because he has the words along with the delivery that always gets the entire team fired up.
By the time we hit the ice for the start of the game, I am as prepared as I will ever be.
Tonight all of my preparation—both mentally and physically—pays off. I’m sharp as a tack and my reflexes are firing on intuition bolstered by skill. It’s deep into the third period and we’re up 1–0. I never bother to look at my stats during a game, so I have no clue if I faced forty, fifty, or sixty shots.
But I’ve stopped them all.
Three minutes left and I’ll have a shutout.
I carefully watch play that’s happening in the Blazers’ territory. Toronto has been surprisingly strong this year, so however many shots I’ve faced, they’ve been legitimately tough to stop.
Tacker takes a hard slap shot that clangs off the post, ricocheting back to almost the blue line. He’s fresh off his ten-game suspension for beating the shit out of another player during a game and he’s playing better than ever. Bishop moves to pick it up, but one of the Blazers hooks his skate and he goes crashing to the ice. Fucking numbnuts referee standing there doesn’t even call a penalty, and worse yet…another Blazer picks up the free puck and has an early jump on all the other guys.
He shoots down ice straight for me.
Justin Meisner, a second-year player who is one of the best stick handlers in the league.
I spread my legs, crouch to protect the goal, and watch the center of Meisner’s chest as he speeds toward me. At center ice, I block out the rest of the arena and everything goes silent in my mind. My gaze drops lower until Justin’s chest is more in my peripheral vision and I can laser onto the puck which he taps back and forth with his stick.
I’m focused.
I’m ready.
I’m going to stop him.
Then…Charlie’s little cherub face enters my mind in Technicolor and I feel intense euphoria sweep through me. My vision dims just a moment, but then it clears and once again I see Meisner bearing down on me.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, I chant in my mind.
I’m doing this for Charlie.
Everything I do is for Charlie.
I don’t take the time to figure out why I’m thinking about my daughter when the next few seconds are perilous to me, but she’s all I can think about right now.
Meisner does a quick juke but I don’t fall for it, keeping my body rooted but nimble.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
He knows I’m not going to succumb to a fake, so he makes his move. A quick flick of the wrist as he tries to flip the puck in over my left shoulder.
I’m too fast.
Charlie.
My glove hand shoots like lightning across my body and I make a backhanded catch.
The crowd goes crazy and all I see in my mind is my daughter.
We did it, Charlie. Everything I do, I do for you.
My teammates swarm me and I get multiple head pats while someone—probably Bishop—slaps my ass.
And then I wonder…is Pepper watching the game? Did she see that brilliant save? Is she thinking about me the way I’m thinking about her right now?
During a fucking game.
I give a hard shake of my head.
It’s one thing to think about my daughter but it’s quite a breach of focus to think about a woman, even one as amazing as Pepper. I can’t let that happen again.
* * *
—
It turns out, Pepper was indeed watching the game, because she told me how great I looked while she was riding my cock. When I came home, I first went to the nursery and checked on Charlie. She was sleeping peacefully, but as I’ve recently become accustomed to, she’ll be waking up a few times during the night to be fed.
I found Pepper asleep on my bed, which is what I’d have expected as it’s right next to the nursery. She’s a back sleeper and had her head tilted toward me when I walked into the room. Her face was so peaceful and serene, and I knew I wanted to mess that up because I was still riding high on that amazing shutout I just had.
So I woke her up with my mouth on her stomach. So easy to pull up her T-shirt and kiss that soft skin. Pulled her jeans off, then put my mouth between her legs until she was writhing and begging and saying all kinds of dirty things she would do to me if I let her come.
So I did.
Then I took her up on her offer to ride me hard. Watching my thick shaft disappear into her, her tugging at her nipples then rubbing her clit while she bounced on me was a sight to behold. I bucked so hard when I came, I almost threw her off me.
Now she’s tucked tight into my body because when she tried to slip out of bed to head home, I said only one word: “Stay.”
And so she did.
“How did Charlie do tonight?” I ask her as we snuggle in. I’m feeling way mellow and my voice reflects that.
Pepper’s hand is resting on my lower belly and her thumb is idly stroking the line of hair that runs south from my belly button. It feels sweet and erotic at the same time, and I know we’ll fuck again before we go to sleep.
“She’s such a good baby, Legend,” she murmurs into the gloom as I’d turned all the lights off except the hall light. “She eats and sleeps so well and isn’t very fussy. You really lucked out.”
“I really wouldn’t know,” I say with a chuckle. “But next time I’m woken up at 3:00 a.m. for a feeding, I’ll remind myself it could be worse.”
“Well, once you get a nanny in, you can share in that responsibility,” she posits.
I shake my head. “No way. If I’m here in the house, I’m taking care of Charlie.”
Pepper is silent a moment and her hand goes still on my stomach. Finally, she says, “You’re only human, Legend. Don’t wear yourself out trying to be super single parent. You have the means and ability to hire help, and you should utilize it. There’s nothing wrong with sharing in that responsibility. It’s what couples do all the time.”
I consider this, and while I know she’s right, I really feel I have to prove myself for some reason. I’ve always been one to rise to a challenge, and I don’t want anyone to think I can’t hack this father thing.
Perhaps so as not to press me further on this, Pepper asks, “Have you given any more thought to the nannies we interviewed?”
“Not really,” I admit. We interviewed four yesterday afternoon and not one of them stood out among the others. They all just seemed…adequate, and that makes me uneasy. “I’m getting nervous. I don’t have anyone hired, which means I can’t start background checks. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, then we have the Christmas holiday, so I’m not even going to be able to do anything until the day after that.”
“That’s cutting it close.”
She’s not telling me anything new. She’s well aware that I’m okay to count on her or some of the hockey wives to help babysit during home games in a pinch, but a week from today is my first away game since bringing Charlie home and it’s causing a bit of panic that I don’t have a nanny that can care for her while I’m gone. I know Pepper would do it if I asked, but I can’t ask her. She’s got a full-time job and even though she says she’s not under a pressing deadline, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t work. I can’t intrude on that.
