Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(50)

"Guess this is something we need to work on then." I smiled, leaning in to brush my lips against his. He turned his face a little to the side and leaned further into me to rub his jaw against my neck, the hairs tickling me. I giggled, shoving him away playfully. "Get your head straight, Mase."

I wasn't sure how I could help him get his head straight. I had a few ideas, but then again, would that make it worse?



Game 77 – New Jersey Devils

Friday, April 2, 2010



"Is there something you want to talk about?" Callie coyly inquired as she looked over at me. I continued to mull over how I wanted to ask the question when she offered me her flask. We were sitting in Evan's condo, watching the game, but my mind was hardly on the game. Once again, I declined the flask and settled on water.

"What?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"Are you doing all right?" Callie questioned.

"It's just hard," I relented. She might have been the only person that could understand. Even if she didn't, it'd feel good to get it off my chest. "Evan is…well, he's probably the best guy I've ever met, but he acts like I'm some kind of delicate flower he's going to rip the petals off, and damn it if I don't want a few petals ripped off. Yeah, what happened to me was really shitty, but guess what?" My voice got a little louder, and I may have even slammed my water glass down. "Maybe I want the aggressive hockey player and the occasional pulling of hair. But he won't do anything aside from kiss me. What's wrong with me?"

"Well for starters..." Callie took a slow drink from her flask and then set her it down. "...your hair isn't long enough to be pulled, so that's out of the question for a few months. And then we have the whole aggressive Evan thing." She smiled, trying to be honest. "It's not going to happen."

Way to burst my bubble.

"But he was with you," I pointed out, grasping for anything as a reason.

"He cares about you. Be glad he's treating you with respect. He'll come around, but you didn't see what he saw. Yeah, it happened to you, but Evan found you. He was there when they were trying to revive you and praying that you survived it. Then by some weird twist of fate, he fell for the girl he saved, and now you're asking him to get physical when he saw the aftermath of you being raped...and you were a virgin."

Well, now that she put it like that, I felt like an ass.

"Just give him time. I don't know Evan that well, okay? But I know he doesn't do anything without putting his heart and head into it first."

"Callie..." It took me a while, but this had been on my mind for a while, and I knew eventually I would ask. "This might sound weird, but what was it like to sleep with Evan?"

Callie squinted, mid bite. "You're right, that's weird."

I knew it.

"It'll be different with you, so I can't really say."

"Why?"

"He likes you. We never had that. I'm sure he liked what we were doing, but that's all it was, motions. There was never anything there besides friendship, not love."

Ignoring her love comment, thoughts rolled through me, and I asked, "Was he rough?"

"Only when I wanted him to be."

"Damn it, Callie!" I grew frustrated with her vagueness. "I need details!"

"My God, you're such a girl right now. Fine..." she leaned forward, "...but don't get all weird on me." I nodded eagerly so she'd continue. "The first time I f*cked him, it was not long after the first game of the season and they'd won. Everyone was at the bar. I was messing around with Jake Sedin at that time, but things were kind of going south, so I was flirty. It wasn't like Jake and I were dating, so it wasn't a big thing. Evan was there, fresh off a win, smiling, flirty, and nice. He bought me a drink, I bought him one…next thing I knew he was in my bed showing me all about a D-man's strength." She winked and gave a sigh. "Defensemen are some of the best in bed I've come across."

"Oh."

"See, you didn't want details, did you?"

"No." I waved my hands around. Surprisingly, I didn't feel jealous like I thought I would. Instead, I felt like I was getting some kind of behind the scenes look at Evan. "So was he good?"

Her gaze glistened with amusement. "Made me come three times in a matter of fifteen minutes…I'd say he has some skills."

"Do the guys know that you sleep with more than one at a time?" I asked, wanting to know. It was another question I had been dying to ask her. I'd never met a girl like Callie before or the way she regarded her sexual encounters like they were no big deal.

"Yeah, most of them know. Evan knows, Leo, Remy, Tyler, most all the guys on the team do. I had a boyfriend once, and when he found out that I had slept with most of the starting four lines on the Chicago Blackhawks, well he made me feel slutty. They don't. Just because I sleep with them doesn't make me a slut. People put too much weight into being with just one person. I'm not saying that being with just one is bad because to be in love, that's cool, but I haven't found that yet. So I have fun until the day I find love."

I thought for a moment, picking through my salad, her words sinking in. "That makes sense."