It’s clear my needs were her priority when she set this up today, which tells me more about her frame of mind than she realizes. Charlene is worried, just as I am, about the expansion draft. I know better than to expect her to say it outright, but her concern is laid out in the offerings surrounding us. What Charlene doesn’t understand is that my needs end and begin with only her.

Starting at her shoulder, I drag my finger along her skin, following the contour of the pearl necklace, and slowly circle her.

Her hazel gaze rises to meet mine, lashes fluttering. It’s filled with need and uncertainty and desire. My worry is echoed in the parting of her lips, in her shallow breaths and her tiny hum of longing. I want to take her to the edge and hold her there. I want to make her understand that there is no end to us, that I will never willingly walk away from her—not unless that’s what she wants.

Charlene is like a firefly, and sometimes that’s what I call her. She’s elusive, and if you catch her she’ll burn bright, but keeping her trapped dulls her fire and dims her beauty.

So I don’t trap her. Not for long, anyway. I might enjoy watching her burn for me, but in the end I always set her free. Over and over, I let her fly away, even though it goes against every instinct I have.

So far she always comes back. I keep waiting for that to change, and hoping it won’t. The expansion draft could be a potential threat to this thing we have, and it makes me edgy.

I dip down and press my lips to hers, flicking my tongue out to taste her, but not slipping inside as I’m sure she wants. Her lips are like candy, but I taste the salt of her uncertainty, tracked in tears over her cheeks. Charlene stumbles forward, chest meeting mine as she grips my shirt.

I drop one hand to her hip to prevent contact from the waist down, and to help keep her upright. She moans against my lips, the sound sweet and needy. As much as I’d like to deepen this kiss and make it last for hours—and I truly would—she needs to be taken care of. And so do I.

I pull back, stroking her cheek as she whimpers her displeasure. “You should choose something from your circle of sex toys so we can play.”

I allow a half-smile to form as I drag a finger from the center of her clavicle, down between her breasts, going lower to circle her navel before I finally dip between her thighs. She sucks in a tremulous breath as I skim past the hood piercing—the one she opted to get during a long stretch of away games. Her legs shake as I brush the inside of her thigh.

“What are you waiting for?” I cup between her legs. “Make a choice, little firefly. Or maybe I should call you little bunny, all considering.”

“But I—” Her eyes roll up as I drag my fingertips past her entrance. She’s so wet. I can feel myself unraveling—the stress of this day, the possibility of potential loss too much to handle. I need to drown myself in the certainty of her.

“Unless you’d prefer I make it for you.”

She exhales a quick breath as I remove my hand from between her legs. I grip her hips to keep her steady and glance to the right. Her eyes follow mine, landing on the ball gag, and dart back to my face.

She tips her chin up, so determined, even though her voice wavers. “I want whatever you want.”

I tap the end of her nose and smile darkly. “I guess we’ll find out whether that’s true or not, won’t we?”

Two hours later, Charlene is stretched out along my side, her head resting on my chest. Her manicured nails trace the dips in my abs. When she reaches my navel she circles, the sensation sending a rush of goose flesh over my skin. She flattens her palm and smooths it all the way back up, as if it will erase the imaginary lines she draws on me.

“Keep doing that and you’re going to wake the beast,” I warn.

She lifts her head, resting her chin on my pec, her wide hazel eyes meeting mine as she drags her finger back down the center of my chest.

Somewhere downstairs a cell phone buzzes across a hard surface.

I grab her hand before she reaches my navel and thread my fingers through hers. “We need to discuss how to handle our friends.” I bring her fingers to my lips, kissing the tips of each so she doesn’t take it as rejection.

“I’m spending tomorrow afternoon with Violet and the girls.”

“Which means you’ll be fielding questions, I’m sure.” I understand that asking the guys not to say anything excludes their significant others. Charlene is always the exception to every rule, it seems. I’m aware it’s no different for my friends, hence the reason I asked Alex to allow Charlene a chance to talk to Violet—I’m not sure that was a reasonable demand, considering.

Charlene chews on the inside of her lip. “What should I tell them?”

“What do you want to tell them?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like we’re superfreaks or anything.”

I fight a smile. We’re far from superfreaks, although Charlene’s collection of toys, outfits, and props would lead some to believe otherwise. “So maybe that’s what you tell them.”

“Violet might be upset.”

“Why?” Violet doesn’t strike me as judgemental. From what I understand, she likes to dress up Alex’s cock as a super hero, which is fucking weird. But then Alex is also a little off center, so there’s that.

“Because she’s always been open with me, and I haven’t been the same with her. I sort of let her come to her own conclusions. I let all the girls come to their own conclusions, but now they’re going to have all these ideas. It’s one thing for them to speculate when there was no evidence to support it, but this is different. It was kind of fun to keep them guessing, and I never figured they would take me seriously. Now they’ll want to know what’s really going on.”

I trail my fingers down her spine, enjoying her shiver. “I can take the blame for all the secrecy.”

“I like the secrecy. I liked that what we had was just ours.” Charlene murmurs, eyes on my chin. “I just don’t want Violet to be hurt.”

“And you’re worried about that?” I prompt.

“It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine,” she says, possibly as much to herself as to me.

“You’re sure?” I don’t understand why Violet would be hurt, but then she’s a woman, and sometimes I don’t understand their reactions to things. Even Charlene, who I can read fairly well most of the time, has odd reactions on occasion.

She nods pensively. “I mean, I guess the most awkward part is that all my girlfriends’ significant others have seen me naked. But it could be worse, right? At least it wasn’t the whole team.”

Charlene is referencing the time Alex and Violet were caught fucking in the locker room. Alex had been ejected from the game for beating the shit out of a Toronto player. The guy had been taunting him, so it was somewhat understandable. The entire team walked into the locker room as a woman was screaming her way through an orgasm. That woman turned out to be Violet, now his wife.

All I saw were her legs wrapped around his waist.

In this case, all of our closest friends have seen Charlene’s pierced nipples, so it’s a little different, but I’d prefer to lessen her anxiety over this, rather than make it worse, so I don’t point that out. “Fortunately it was only a few of the guys.”

“What’re you going to tell them?”

I lift a shoulder. “I don’t have plans to tell them anything.”

“But won’t they ask questions?”

It’s my turn to shrug. “They can ask, doesn’t mean I’m going to answer.”

“But you can’t tell them nothing.”

I don’t understand her sudden panic. “Is there something you want me to tell them?”

“No. I don’t know. Just . . . all that stuff in the living room sort of paints its own picture, doesn’t it?”

“And that concerns you?”

“They’re going to think you use all that stuff on me.”

“You’re the one who surrounded yourself with it.”

“It was all stuff I thought you might be interested in,” she mumbles.

“Ah, now the truth comes out, but I’ll keep that little detail to myself, if that’s what you prefer.” I untwine our hands and hook her leg over my hip. “We can discuss details later, over dinner. Right now I have plans to fill you up again.”

CHARLENE

Ever have one of those dreams where you know it’s not real but you can’t seem to pull yourself out of it? It happens to me all the time. I have this recurring nightmare where I’m locked in an RV and there’s no way out. The RV gets smaller and smaller, like I’m Alice in Wonderland and I’ve eaten the wrong thing. I’m growing, growing, growing while everything else is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.

I wake up and instantly go into panic mode because I can’t move. It takes me several blinks and just as many seconds to realize I’m not in my bedroom, I’m in Darren’s, and it’s him I’m trapped under. Well, I’m not exactly under him, but he’s wrapped completely around me, which is . . . abnormal.

Usually Darren sleeps like Dracula, on his back with his arms crossed over his chest, and I starfish on the other side of the bed. But not today. Today we’re spooning.

I try to slip out from under his arm, but it tightens around me. “Oh no you don’t.” His voice is gravelly in my ear, and his lips brush my neck. “I’m taking full advantage of the fact that you being here means I don’t have to rub one out in the shower.”