The Play (Briar U Book 3)

New Year’s Eve

Hunter has me on the bed before I can even say hello. His greedy mouth latches onto mine, the kiss stealing the breath from my lungs.

“I missed this,” I whimper, and I feel his answering groan vibrate through my body. I wrap my legs around his trim hips and shamelessly grind against his very prominent bulge.

“Missed you too,” he mumbles. His lips are exploring my throat now. He sucks on the side of my neck, then rolls us over so that I’m straddling him.

His hands slide underneath my shirt to cup my boobs. I’m not wearing a bra, so his calloused palms are a delicious scrape over my sensitive flesh. My nipples instantly pucker and strain against his touch.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Take this infuriating thing off.” He peels the shirt off me and whips it across the room.

A laugh flies out. “Hey, now, my shirt didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It was covering these perfect tits. I’m furious at it.” The hot whisper fans over my nipple and I moan when he draws it into his mouth and sucks deeply. God. I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I’ve seen him. How have I gone without this for two weeks?

I roll my hips, grinding his covered erection. He cups and squeezes my breasts, then curls one hand behind my neck and tugs me down for a kiss. His tongue touches mine and it’s like a bolt of lightning directly to my core.

In an unplanned synchronized frenzy, we fumble at each other’s waistbands. He shoves my PJ pants down. I try to do the same with his jeans, but the denim snags on his thighs. He grins and lifts his ass to help me out. He’s still wearing a shirt, but naked below the waist, and his cock springs up, long and thick. My mouth actually waters.

“Fuck,” Hunter chokes out as his gaze roams my nude body.

Our gazes lock. A second ticks by, two, three.

And then we’re mauling each other again. I find a condom and put it on him. He pulls me back onto his lap. I impale myself on him, and off to the races we go.

I don’t know how long I ride him. It could be seconds, minutes or hours. All I know is that the knot of pleasure between my legs is almost painful, unbearable. My breathing is shaky. So are my hands. My fingertips tingle as I stroke them over his sculpted pecs. Lord, I know I’m close.

Pippa was right when she posited that maybe I’ve been having sex all wrong. Or maybe sex simply becomes predictable when you’ve been having it with the same person for years. With Hunter, it’s completely unpredictable, and right now I’m relishing the newness of it, all these firsts with him.

First kiss.

First fuck.

First orgasm while I’m riding his dick.

I come first, collapsing onto him, and he thrusts his hips, digging his fingers into my ass. He bites my shoulder as he comes, and I laugh breathlessly against his damp chest. We lie there for a moment, his arms wrapped snugly around me, his dick still buried inside me.

“Oh my gosh,” I say dreamily. “That was so good.”

“So good,” he mumbles.

We stay in that position for nearly a minute before he reluctantly withdraws. I sit up and help him remove the condom. “Here, let me get rid of this. I need to pee anyway.”

I return to the bed a minute later and we snuggle up, still naked. Hunter reaches for the fleece throw at the foot of the bed, pinches the corner and drags it up to cover us.

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” he remarks.

“Are you just realizing it now? Did you not see all the decorations the girls are setting up downstairs?” Theta Beta Nu is hosting one of the many parties on Greek Row tonight. Which means my presence is mandatory.

I’m touched that Hunter chose to come here tonight instead of chilling with his boys. His teammates are throwing a huge party in Hastings.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to Conor’s?” I fret.

“No.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’m never leaving this room.”

“Well, we have to leave it at some point to make an appearance downstairs.”

“Fine. We’ll go down once every hour for twenty-minute intervals, then come back up here and fuck. After midnight, all bets are off and we stay in here forever.” His hand slithers down to pinch my bare butt.

“You’re insatiable.”

“Babe. I’m literally coming off a nine-month sex drought. If it was possible, my dick would be permanently inside you for at least three weeks.”

“Three weeks?” I yelp. That sounds exhausting. Fun, but exhausting.

“You’re right. That’s completely unreasonable. I’ll need at least three months inside you before my balls return to normal. It takes a while for semen production to regulate.”

I snicker loudly. “Gross.”

Voices echo outside my door as several of my sorority sisters pass by.

“Well, if you do want to go and party with your friends, I wouldn’t fault you for it,” I say, carelessly stroking his ridged abdomen.

“Not going anywhere, Semi,” he says stubbornly, his arm tightening around me.

“Can I ask you something?”

He snorts. “You’ll ask regardless of my answer to that.”

“True.” My grin fades as I broach the subject I’d been avoiding since we first had sex. “Are you mad at me for pushing you to break your celibacy vow?”

“No.” Nothing but sincerity there.

“Are you mad at yourself?”

“I was the morning after,” he reveals.

“Really?” I say in surprise. This is the first time he’s admitted to having any doubts or regrets about us.

“Yeah, for all of five minutes.” His calloused fingertips tease my shoulder. “Then I saw you lying there naked in my bed, and I wanted to keep breaking the vow, over and over again.”

“But it was important to you,” I say guiltily.

“It was, but…” His hand continues roaming my bare skin. “This feels more important.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t push him to. We lie there for a while, neither of us in a hurry to join the party, which has already started judging by the music that’s rocking the house.

“Did you have a good time in New York?” After Christmas he spent a few days in Manhattan with Dean and his girlfriend.

“It was fun. The Bruins were playing the Islanders, so Garrett got us into the box. Fucking amazing game.”

I reach up and run my fingers through his hair. “None of your hair seems to be missing,” I tease.

“It’s the gel, man. Stops me from pulling it out.”

“What do you like better—watching live hockey, or playing it?”

“Playing, obviously.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

“Have you ever played in front of a crowd as large as the one in TD Garden?”

Hunter chuckles. “No college arena even rivals that. Now that would be a thrill, eh?”

I furrow my brow. “I still don’t get why can’t do it. From what Brenna’s told me, someone would sign you in a heartbeat. She says if you announced your interest, half the teams in the league would be courting you after your graduate. But you keep saying you’re not interested and it makes no sense to me. You said you don’t want to be famous, but I don’t believe that’s the reason. I mean, maybe it’s tied into it, but what’s the real reason?”

“It’s the lifestyle, Demi. I have a problem with debauchery.”

“No, I think you think you have a problem with debauchery,” I correct. “But from what I’ve gleaned, you don’t drink to excess, you don’t have any harmful sexual compulsions that interfere with your regular life, you don’t do drugs. You’re charming, so you could easily handle being interviewed or doing press.” I inject a note of challenge into my voice. “So what are you really afraid of?”

Hunter is silent for a long time. He absently strokes my shoulder. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “If I tell you, do you promise not to make fun of me? Or judge me?”

I almost laugh until I realize he’s serious. So I put on my best neutral tone. “I promise I won’t make fun of you. And I’d never judge you, Hunter.”

“Okay.” His chest rises as he draws a breath. “I’m afraid I’ll cheat,” he confesses.

“Cheat? Like in the game?”

“No, the other kind of cheating.” He exhales in a slow stream of air. “All those road games, all those hotel rooms and hotel bars, all those women throwing themselves at me. I know I don’t have a sex addiction, but I’ve got my father’s genes and they don’t exactly have the greatest track record.”

“Your father’s a narcissist. You’re not.” I plant a reassuring kiss on his shoulder. “You’re nothing like him, baby.”

“He’d disagree with you on that. A few years ago he told me we’re two of a kind.”

My eyes narrow. “Why on earth would he say that?”

Hunter sighs sheepishly. “The summer before college, he caught me fucking a chick on our kitchen counter. Mom was visiting my grandparents that weekend, and Dad was supposed to be away on business, but he came home early.” An edge hardens his tone. “You should’ve seen how proud he looked to find me buck-naked and going to town on a girl I wasn’t even dating. I met her at a party the night before and she stayed over.”

I try to imagine what my own father would do if he walked in on me having sex with someone in our kitchen. Commit a double homicide, obviously.

“He was genuinely proud to think his son was a depraved cad. But I guess that’s not much of a surprise. I know Dad slept with at least three of his assistants—one I witnessed firsthand. And I just…I think about all the business trips he took over the years. I bet he had a woman in every city. I’m sure there were more affairs than Mom and I could even imagine.”

“And you’re worried you’ll have a girlfriend or wife, and you’ll be away a lot and cheat?”

“Pretty much.”

“So you’re punishing yourself for something you haven’t even done.”

His bare chest tenses. “That’s not it.”

“That’s exactly it. You’re preemptively punishing yourself—depriving yourself of something you love, for fear you might do something you hate, some vague point down the line. That’s not a healthy way to look at things.”

“No. I mean, maybe? Maybe that’s it, or maybe it isn’t. All I know is that when I decided not to enter the draft after high school, I felt relieved.”

“And yet every time I see you watching Garrett and Logan play, there’s envy in your eyes.”

Hunter’s ragged breath tickles my head. His chest rises and falls again. “Let’s put this on the shelf for now. It’s hurting my brain. Tell me about your holidays.”

“I already did—we texted every day,” I remind him.

“I know, but I like your voice and I want to hear you talk.”

I smile against left pec, then offer a more detailed recap of my visit to Miami. I tell him about my new nephew, about my crazy aunts and my excitable cousins. Being a very Catholic community, Christmas is very much celebrated in Miami, and one of my family’s favorite traditions is a visit to Santa’s Enchanted Forest. I took my younger cousins there, and five-year-old Maria peed on one of the rides. While sitting in my lap. Fun times.

“Do you speak Spanish?” Hunter asks curiously. “I just realized I don’t even know if you do.”

“I understand it better than I speak it. Dad has a terrible ear for languages, so he only speaks English at home. Mom used to speak both to me because she didn’t want me to lose the Spanish, but I kinda have,” I say glumly. “Not entirely, though. I mean, I’d be fluent again in a week if I was around people who spoke it exclusively.”

“I’d love to learn another language. You should teach me Spanish, and then we could practice together.”

“Deal.” I snuggle up closer to him. “Oh, and on the flight home, I tried bringing up the med school thing to my dad again. Mom is staying in Miami for another week, so it was just me and him. But he wasn’t having it,” I admit.

Hunter strokes my hair. “You still having doubts about that?”

“More than doubts.” I inhale slowly. “I don’t want to go.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud.

“Then don’t,” Hunter says simply. “You shouldn’t go to med school for your father—you should go for yourself. You need to walk your own path, and that means following your own dreams, not his. Your first priority should be pleasing yourself, not him.”

A laugh tickles my throat. I try to hold it in, but it ripples out.

“What is it?”

“I just realized what a sad pair we are.” I can’t stop giggling. “Here I am sacrificing my aspirations to be like my father, and you’re sacrificing your aspirations to not be like your father. That is fascinating.”

“Jesus. You’re such a psychologist. Is this what it’s always going to be like? Lying in bed naked while you psychoanalyze us?”

I prop up on my elbow, biting my lip. “Does it actually bother you?”

“Nah.” He flashes his dimpled smile, and I lean down and kiss one of those adorable dimples. “It’s funny,” he continues. “Most of the time, you analyze and rationalize and try to find solutions. And then other times, you’re batshit crazy.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I am not!”

“You have a violent streak, you maniac. You smash people’s game consoles.” He grins up at me. “Quite the dichotomy, Demi Davis.”

“Both crazy and sane,” I say somberly. “A rare condition, indeed.”

“Anyway.” He strokes his knuckles over my cheek. “You don’t need to chase your father’s approval—you already have it. I don’t think he’ll disown you if you choose grad school over med school.”

“You don’t know how he feels about PhDs, Hunter. For the rest of my life he’ll be making wisecracks about how I’m not a real doctor.” My buzzing phone captures my attention. “Shit, that’s probably Josie ordering me to come downstairs and hang more decorations.”

I stretch across his muscular chest to grab my phone from the nightstand. Hunter uses the opportunity to slide one palm between us to cup one of my boobs.

I shiver in pleasure, but my arousal dissolves when I see my father’s name. Speak of the devil.

I click on his message, and my eyebrows soar. “Oh, this is interesting.”

“What?” Hunter lazily caresses the swell of my breast.

“My father is inviting us to New Year’s Day brunch tomorrow.”

Hunter’s hand freezes. “Us?”

“Yep.” I sit up and grin at his panicky expression. “He wants to meet you.”