The Deal by Elle Kennedy
“Hannah,” he chokes out, and I feel his thighs tighten and know he’s about to climax.
I’ve never swallowed before, and I’m not brave enough to try it now, so my hand takes over as I stroke him to release. With a husky grunt, Garrett arches his spine, and wetness spurts onto my fingers and his stomach. His face is mesmerizing and I can’t tear my gaze off it. His lips are parted, cheeks taut. His eyes are a hazy swirl of gray, like a thick mass of clouds gathering before an impending storm.
Several seconds later, his body relaxes, practically sinking into the mattress as a sated sigh rumbles from his mouth. I love seeing him like this. Limp and spent and still having trouble breathing.
I grab some tissues from the box on the nightstand and wipe him up, but when I try to get up to throw out the tissues, he yanks me down and kisses me hard. “Jesus…that was incredible.”
“Does that mean we get to have sex now?”
“Ha. You wish.” He wags a finger at me. “Baby steps, Wellsy. Remember?”
I pout like a six-year-old. “But we know I can have an orgasm. You just saw it.”
“Actually, I felt it on my tongue.”
My heart skips a beat at his crude description. I fall silent for a moment, and then I let out a defeated breath. “Will this change your mind?” I scowl at him, then begin the reluctant recitation. “Garrett Graham, you are a sex god. You have achieved what no other man ever has. You are…insert more glowing reviews here.” I lift one eyebrow. “Now can we have sex?”
“Absolutely not,” he says cheerfully.
Then, to my sheer and total dismay, he hops off the bed and picks up his discarded jeans.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Getting dressed. I have practice in thirty minutes.”
As if on cue, someone pounds loudly against Garrett’s door. “Yo, G, we’ve gotta take off!” Tucker calls.
I snatch the blanket in a panic, desperate to cover myself up, but Tucker’s footsteps are already retreating.
“If you want, you can hang out here until we get back,” Garrett offers as he pulls his shirt on. “I’ll only be gone a few hours.”
I hesitate.
“Come on, stay,” he begs. “I’m sure Tucker will be cooking up something good for dinner, so you can stick around and I’ll drive you home afterward.”
The idea of being alone in his house is…weird. But the idea of eating a home-cooked dinner instead of hitting up the dining hall sounds pretty damn tempting. “Okay,” I finally relent. “I guess I can do that. I’ll put on a movie or something while you’re gone. Or maybe take a nap.”
“I will allow either of those options.” He glares at me. “But you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to watch Breaking Bad without me.”
“Fine, I won’t.”
“Promise…”
I roll my eyes. “I promise.”
“G! Move your ass!”
In the blink of an eye, Garrett walks over and plants a quick kiss on my lips. “I’ve gotta go. See you later.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in Garrett Graham’s bedroom, which is, well, I’ll just say it—it’s surreal as hell. I never even spoke to the guy before midterms, and now I’m sitting naked on his bed. Figure that one out.
I’m surprised he’s not worried about me snooping around and finding his porn stash, but when I stop to think about it, I realize it’s not that surprising at all. Garrett is the most honest, straightforward person I’ve ever met. If he has porn, he probably doesn’t bother hiding it. I bet it’s all neatly organized in a clearly labeled folder right on his computer desktop.
I hear voices and footsteps downstairs, and then the front door creaks open and slams shut. After a few seconds, I get up and put my clothes back on, because I’m not comfortable walking around naked in a room that’s not my own.
I opt against taking a nap, because I feel oddly energized after that orgasm. And that’s more surreal than everything else, the knowledge that I actually had an orgasm with a guy.
Devon and I tried to make that happen for eight long months.
Garrett did it after two hookup sessions.
Does this mean I’m fixed?
That question is way too philosophical to be pondering in the middle of the afternoon, so I push it aside and go downstairs to get a drink. But once I enter the kitchen, inspiration strikes. Garrett and his teammates are probably going to be exhausted when they get home. Why let Tucker slave over the stove when I’m already in the kitchen with nothing but time on my hands?
A quick exploration of the fridge, pantry and cupboards reveals that Garrett wasn’t kidding—cooking does happen here, because the kitchen is stocked with ingredients. The only recipe I know off the top of my head is my grandmother’s three-cheese lasagna, so I gather up all the necessary items and pile them on the granite counter. I’m about to get cooking when something else occurs to me.
Pursing my lips, I fish my phone out of my back pocket and pull up my mother’s number. It’s only four o’clock, so I’m hoping she hasn’t left for work yet.
Luckily, she picks up on the first ring. “Hey, sweetie! This is a lovely surprise.”
“Hey. Got a sec?”
“I’ve got five whole minutes actually,” she replies with a laugh. “Your father’s driving me to work tonight, so he has the honor of cleaning all the snow off the car.”
“You guys are already getting that much snow?” I say in horror.
“Of course we are. It’s gl—”
“I swear to God, Mom, if you say global warming, I’m hanging up,” I warn her, because as much as I love my parents, their global warming lectures drive me up the wall. “And why is Dad driving you? What happened to your car?”
“It’s in the shop. The brake pads needed to be replaced.”
“Oh.” I absently open a box of lasagna sheets. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you about Nana’s lasagna recipe. It serves eight, right?”
“Ten,” she corrects.
Frowning, I think about all the food Garrett shoveled into his pie hole when he came to the diner last week, then multiply that by four hockey players and…
“Crap,” I mutter. “I still don’t think that’s enough. If I wanted to serve twenty, do I just double the ingredients, or is there a different way to calculate it?”
Mom pauses. “Why exactly are you cooking lasagna for twenty people?”
“I’m not. But I am feeding four hockey players who I imagine have the appetites of twenty people.”
“I see.” There’s another pause and I can practically hear her smiling over the line. “Is one of these four hockey players someone…special?”
“You can just ask me if he’s my boyfriend, Mom. You don’t have to be cheesy about it.”
“Fine. Is he your boyfriend?”
“Nope. I mean, we’re kinda seeing each other, I guess—” Kinda? He just made you come! “—but we’re friends more than anything.”
Friends who make each other come.
I silence the annoying voice in my voice and swiftly change the subject. “Do you have time to quickly talk me through the recipe?”
“Of course.”
Five minutes later, I hang up the phone and start preparing dinner for the guy who made me come today.
28
Garrett
The house smells like an Italian restaurant when I walk through the door. I turn to Logan, who shoots me a WTF look, and I shrug as if to say fuck if I know, because I honestly don’t know. I bend down to unlace my scuffed black boots, then follow the mouthwatering aroma to the kitchen. When I reach the doorway, I blink like I’ve just stumbled upon a desert mirage.
Hannah’s sexy ass greets my eyes. She’s angled over the oven door, wearing Tuck’s pink oven mitts as she pulls a steaming pan of lasagna off the middle shelf. At the sound of my footsteps, she glances over her shoulder and smiles. “Oh, hey. Perfect timing.”
All I can do is gape at her.
“G
“You made dinner?” I sputter.
Her cheerful expression falters slightly. “Yeah. Is that okay?”
I’m too stunned—and genuinely touched—to answer.
Fortunately, Dean appears in the doorway and answers for me. “Baby doll, that smells fantastic.”
Tucker trails in after Dean. “I’ll set the table,” he pipes up.
My three roommates lumber into the kitchen, Tucker and Dean going to help Hannah, while Logan stands beside me, looking amazed.
“She cooks too?” he sighs.
Something about his tone—well, not something, since it’s the unmistakable note of longing that causes my guard to shoot up ten feet. Fuck. He can’t actually be into her, can he? I figured he just wanted to sleep with her, but the way he’s looking at her right now…
I don’t fucking like it.
“Dude, keep it in your pants,” I mutter, which summons a chuckle from Logan, who obviously knows what I was thinking and my opinion about said thoughts.
“Shit, this looks amazing,” Tucker says as he stands over the lasagna dish with a knife and serving spatula.
The five of us settle at the table, which Hannah actually took the time to not only clean, but cover with a blue-and-white tablecloth. Aside from my mother, no female has ever cooked dinner for me before. I kinda…like it.
“So are you dressing up tomorrow?” Tucker asks Hannah as he heaps a modest-sized square of lasagna onto her plate.
“For what?”
Tuck grins. “Halloween, dumbass.”
Hannah lets out a groan. “Oh crap. That’s tomorrow? I swear, I have no concept of time.”
“My costume suggestion for you?” Dean chimes in. “Sexy nurse. Actually, fuck that, we live in the modern world—sexy doctor. Oooh, or sexy navy pilot.”
“I’m not dressing up as sexy anything, thank you very much. It’s bad enough that I’m stuck passing out drinks at the dorm crawl.”
I chuckle. “Shit, you got roped into doing that?” The annual Halloween dorm crawl involves people popping into a dorm, getting free drinks, and then moving on to the next building. I’ve heard it’s actually a lot more fun than it sounds.
She sticks out her chin glumly. “I did it last year too. It sucked. You guys better stop in at Bristol House if you’re planning on going.”
“I’d love to, gorgeous,” Logan says in a flirty tone that makes me stiffen. “Don’t expect G here to show up, though.”
She looks over at me. “You’re not going out on Halloween?”
“Nope,” I reply.
“Why not?”
“Because he hates Halloween,” Dean informs her. “He’s scared of ghosts.”
I flip him the bird. But rather than own up to the real reason I hate October thirty-first with every fiber of my being, I just shrug and say, “It’s a pointless holiday with silly traditions.”
Logan snickers. “Says the Fun Police.”
Tucker finishes serving everyone, then sits down and shoves a fork into his lasagna. “Motherfucker, that’s good,” he mumbles between mouthfuls.
After that, all conversation ceases to exist, because the guys and I are ravenous after three hours of shooting drills, which means we’ve turned into cavemen. We waste no time demolishing the lasagna, garlic bread and Caesar salad Hannah made for us. And I mean demolishing. There’s barely half a serving left in the pan by the time we’re through with it.
“I knew I should have tripled the recipe,” Hannah says ruefully, staring at the empty dishes in wonder. Then she tries to get up to clear the table, at which point Tucker all but bodychecks her out of the kitchen.
“My mama taught me manners, Wellsy.” He gives her a stern look. “Someone cooks for you, you clean. Period.” His head swivels to the doorway just as Logan and Dean try to sneak out. “Where’re you ladies going? Dishes, assholes. G, you get a free pass since you have to drive our lovely chef home.”
In the hall, I plant my hands on Hannah’s waist and crook my neck to kiss her. “Why can’t you be taller?” I grumble.
“Why can’t you be shorter?” she counters.
I brush my lips over hers. “Thanks for cooking dinner. That was really sweet of you.”
A blush tints her cheeks. “I figured I owed you…you know…” The pinkish tinge darkens to red. “Because you’re a sex god and all.”
I chuckle. “Does that mean every time I give you an orgasm you’ll cook me a meal?”
“Nope. Tonight was a one-time deal. No more home-cooked meals for you.” She stands on her tiptoes and brings her mouth to my ear. “But I still get the orgasms.”
Like I could ever, ever say no to that.
“Come on, I’ll drive you back. You’ve got an early class tomorrow, right?” I’m surprised to realize that I actually know her schedule.
I’m not sure what’s happening between us. I mean, I agreed to help her with her sex problem, but…problem solved, right? She got what she wanted from me, and we didn’t even need to have sex to make it happen. So technically, there’s no reason for her to sleep with me. Or even keep seeing me, for that matter.
And me…well, I don’t want a girlfriend. My attention is and has always been focused solely on hockey, graduating, and the draft I’m planning on entering come graduation. Not to mention impressing the scouts who are already starting to show up at our games. Now that the season is in full swing, this means more practices and games and less time to devote to anything—or anyone—other than hockey.
So why does the thought of not spending any more time with Hannah bring the oddest clench of regret to my gut?
She tries to take a step down the hall, but I tug on her hand and kiss her again, and this time it’s not a peck. I kiss her hard, losing myself in her taste and her heat and every damn thing about her. I never expected her. Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them. How you went about your day and hung out with your friends and fucked other people without having this one important person in your life.
Hannah breaks the kiss with a soft laugh. “Get a room,” she teases.
I decide it might be time to reevaluate my stance on girlfriends.
*
Hannah
“Bwahahahahaha! Happy Halloweeeeen!”
I turn away from the closet—where I was just in the process of trying to find a Halloween-esque outfit that’s not a costume because I fucking hate dressing up—and gawk at the creature gracing my doorway. I can’t make heads or tails of what Allie is wearing. All I see is a skintight blue bodysuit, lots of feathers, and…are those cat ears?
I steal Allie’s trademark phrase by demanding, “What on God’s green planet are you supposed to be?”
“I’m a cat-bird.” Then she gives me a look that says, uh-doy.
“A cat bird? What is…okay…why?”
“Because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a cat or a bird, so Sean was like, just be both, and I was like, you know what? Brilliant idea, boyfriend.” She grins at me. “I’m pretty sure he was being a smartass, but I decided to treat the suggestion as gospel.”
I have to laugh. “He’s going to wish he suggested something less ridiculous, like sexy nurse, or sexy witch, or—”
“Sexy ghost, sexy tree, sexy box of Kleenex.” Allie sighs. “Gee, let’s just throw the word sexy in front of any mundane noun and look! A costume! Because here’s the thing, if you want to dress like a ho-bag, why not just go as a ho-bag? You know what? I hate Halloween.”
I snort. “Then why are you going to the party? You should go hang out with Garrett. He’s sulking at home tonight.”
“Really?”
“He’s anti-Halloween,” I explain, but saying it out loud doesn’t feel right.
I got the strangest feeling last night that he has a more serious reason for hating Halloween rather than just “it’s a pointless holiday.” Maybe something terrible happened to him many moons ago on Halloween night, lik
“Anyway, Sean’s waiting for me downstairs, so I’m taking off now.” Allie pops over and smacks a huge kiss on my cheek. “Have fun handing out drinks with Tracy.”
Yeah, right. I’m already regretting agreeing to help Tracy with the dorm crawl. I’m not in the mood to wait around all night for drunken college kids to wander into Bristol House so I can hand them drinks and Jell-O shooters. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to back out, especially when I picture Garrett at home by himself, scowling at his reflection in the mirror or throwing a tennis ball against the wall like they do in prison.
Rather than continue my search for a non-costume costume, I duck out of my dorm and walk across the hall to knock on Tracy’s door.
“Coming!” She appears nearly a minute later, running a comb through her curly red hair with one hand and applying white powder to her cheeks with the other.
“Hey,” she chirps. “Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Halloween.” I pause. “So listen…how badly will you hate me if I bail on the dorm crawl? And then when I add insult to injury and ask to borrow your car?”
Disappointment floods her eyes. “You’re not coming? Whhhhhhy?”
Shit, I really hope she doesn’t start crying. Tracy is the kind of girl who bawls at the drop of a hat, though in all honesty, I think her tears are of the crocodile variety because they always dry up way too fast.
“A friend of mine is having a bad night,” I say awkwardly. “He could use the company.”
She gives me a suspicious look. “And does this friend go by the name Garrett Graham?”
I smother a sigh. “Why would you think that?”
“Because Allie said you guys are dating.”
Of course she did.
“We’re not dating, but yes, he’s the friend I’m talking about,” I admit.
To my surprise, Tracy breaks out in a huge grin. “Well, why didn’t you lead with that, dum-dum? Of course I’m going to let you off the hook if it means you get to go and fuck Garrett Graham! Note to you—I will be living vicariously through you, because Oh. My. God. If that hottie so much as smiled at me, my panties would probably melt away.”