Cold as Ice (15 page)

“You’re so easy to please,” Kelly replied.

“I try.”

Chapter Ten

Carter offered to drive since he’d had less wine even than Jake, and Jake handed over the keys gratefully. He didn’t feel the least bit tipsy, but if Carter wanted to drive he’d certainly let him. He took the opportunity of Eva being in the front seat and he in the back to really look at her. She was so beautiful, and he was sure she didn’t realize it. Her hair, which was usually up while she was working, hung down around her shoulders in loose waves. She’d worn some sort of clingy dress with a cardigan sweater over it, and he wanted to put his hands all over her to touch the curves of her lithe, toned body. She turned to say something to Luc, and his groin tightened as he remembered what her sweet lips had felt like around his dick.

But despite any plans Luc had for her, Jake would be happy just holding her. Never in a million years would he have thought the idea of holding a woman without having sex would appeal to him. Maybe it was because he was getting older, or perhaps it was that Eva was different. He couldn’t remember a time before they’d started seeing Eva that any of them had spent more than a few nights with the same woman. It should scare the hell out of him. Strangely, though, it didn’t. He felt at peace.

He glanced at Carter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Carter was not at peace. That much was obvious. Jake just hoped he wouldn’t freak out. After all, they had no way of knowing how Eva would react if one of them pulled out of the relationship. For some reason it felt like an all-or-nothing deal. Luc wasn’t at peace either. No matter what the other man said, this stuff with his heart racing had to be taking a toll on him. Jake sighed. It seemed like their lives were just one thing after another sometimes.

They returned to Eva’s house, and Jake grabbed the small bag of supplies they’d brought with them. Luc picked her up and she squealed as her skirt whooshed around her legs before settling mid-thigh.

“Now that’s a gorgeous view,” Jake said, pointing to Eva.

“Damn right,” Carter agreed.

“Where’s your key, honey?”

Eva fished in her coat pocket and handed it to Jake. He unlocked the door, and Luc carried Eva to her bedroom. Setting her down, he took off her coat and sat her down on the bed to remove her boots. Jake grabbed all three of the guys’ coats, dropping them on the couch before hanging hers in the coat closet. When he got back to the bedroom, Eva’s sweater and tights had been removed and Luc was kissing her as Carter massaged up her leg.

“You bastards! You started without me.”

Luc turned to him briefly. “So catch up.” He captured Eva’s lips again, and Jake watched for a moment as his friend kissed their mutual lover. Though he’d been sharing women for years, the idea of watching had never turned him on like it did Luc. It did now, though, and he finally understood what his teammate liked so much about it.

Breaking himself out of his reverie, he went to Eva’s other side and trailed the tips of his fingers up the leg Carter wasn’t occupied with. Her skin was soft, in contrast to his fingers, roughened from years of playing hockey. She smelled like raspberries. He loved raspberries. Eva moaned and Jake looked up. Luc’s hand was inside her dress, and from what Jake could make out, he was rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Not a bad idea. Jake tugged on the belt circling her waist, and the bodice of her dress fell open.

“Score,” he murmured before leaning up and taking her nipple into his mouth. He suckled her right through her lightweight bra, and she arched her back. “That’s right, honey. Show me how much you like it.” He really would’ve been fine not having sex tonight, but hey, if Eva was game he certainly was, too.

“Jake, oh, God, yes,” she hissed as he bit down.

“You like that, baby?” Luc asked. “Just a little bit of pain?” Jake kept his mouth on her nipple as he watched Luc pinch her other nipple harder. “Yeah, you do. I bet you’re wet for us.” He lifted his gaze to Carter. “Why don’t you check, Carter?”

Carter shot Luc a look, but nonetheless reached underneath her skirt and pulled her panties down and off her legs, tossing them behind him. Jake shifted his gaze and saw Carter trail two fingers through her pussy, bringing them up to show him and Luc how her juices glistened on them. He remained silent, though, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He was acting so strangely. Maybe the thing with the three of them and Eva was bothering him more than he was admitting.

Then Eva moaned again, and Jake forgot all about Carter. Luc covered the sound as he kissed her again. When they broke, she pulled away a little and the guys let her go. Jake’s brow furrowed. Had they done something wrong?

“I want this, guys, but I’m not up for a lot of horizontal gymnastics. I really am full from dinner, and I’ve had a long day. Could we maybe just be mellow tonight?” She bit her lip as if she expected them to be offended and walk out on her.

Jake spoke first. “Of course we can. We’ll do anything you want—or don’t want—to do, honey.”

She smiled, and he understood what people meant when they said they were dazzled by a person’s smile. Eva took his breath away.

“So if I just wanted to lie here and snuggle and kiss and stuff, that would be okay?”

“That would be more than okay, baby,” Luc answered. “We want you to be happy. Hey, why don’t we find some dumb movie on cable and we can all curl up here on the bed and watch it?”

She turned her smile on Luc, and Jake could swear Luc’s breathing hitched. Eva scooted up toward the headboard, picked up the remote from the nightstand, and handed it to Luc.

Jake stood up, taking a moment to surreptitiously adjust his cock in his pants before saying, “I’m gonna go get some water. Anybody else want anything?”

“There are bottles of water in the fridge,” Eva told him. “I’d love one, thanks.”

“Ditto,” said Carter, who’d just come back into the room. Luc shrugged.

“Four it is.”

When he returned from the kitchen, they’d found something they wanted to watch. He settled down on Eva’s left side, with Luc on the right and Carter stretched out width-wise at the foot of the bed. The movie was one they’d all seen a million times, but that didn’t stop them from cracking up at all the silly jokes. At one point Jake met Luc’s eyes over Eva’s head and sent a subtle nod to the other man. Luc nodded back, his eyes shifting down to take in Eva. When he returned his gaze to Jake, Jake cocked his head a little toward Carter and Luc’s eyebrows rose in a “who knows” gesture.

Jake’s eyelids started getting heavy, and he pushed down on the bed until he was mostly horizontal. The next thing he knew someone had batted at his foot. He woke up and realized he’d apparently tried to stretch out in his sleep and struck Carter. He raised bleary eyes to Eva’s alarm clock. It was after one. He nudged Carter again, this time on purpose, and reached over Eva’s sleeping body to shake Luc awake.

When both men were sitting up, he whispered, “Should we stay? Eva’s only got a queen-sized bed, and things are pretty tight with all four of us in it.”

Luc nodded, and Carter said, “At least you had part of a pillow.”

“We should probably go home. We’ve got a hard practice tomorrow and a game the next night. We can’t afford to get sore from sleeping funny,” Jake pointed out.

“Agreed,” Luc said. “Should we wake her up?”

“We can’t just leave,” Jake reasoned. He touched Eva’s shoulder and she mumbled in her sleep. “Adorable,” he said. Taking her shoulder more firmly in hand, he gently massaged it. After a few seconds, she woke with a startle. “Hey, honey. We need to go, but didn’t want to leave without waking you so you’d know we were leaving. If you can find someone to go with, why don’t you come to the game day after tomorrow?”

Eva yawned and then nodded. “I’ll call Louisa and see if she wants to go.”

“That’s our girl,” he replied, leaning down to give her a quick kiss. “Just call any of us and we’ll leave tickets at Will Call.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want some help getting into your pj’s?” Luc asked with a grin.

She batted his hand away and sat up. “I highly doubt you guys would get home anytime soon if we did that.”

“You’re probably right, but sex is the best excuse for missing sleep that I know of.”

“Come on, Romeo. The bus is leaving,” Jake told his friend.

“Yeah, yeah. You wouldn’t leave without your captain.”

Jake snorted. “Like hell I wouldn’t.”

Carter, who’d left the room a few minutes ago, came back in and tossed Jake’s and Luc’s coats on the bed. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on Eva’s forehead and then stood back up. “Let’s go before we’re so awake we can’t fall back to sleep.”

“I’m glad I don’t room with you. You’re so freaking grumpy when you don’t get your beauty sleep,” Luc teased.

Jake waved at Eva as they left the room and then followed his teammates out to his car. Climbing inside, he waited until the guys were buckled in and then pulled out of Eva’s driveway. When they were on the road, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Luc pivoted so he could see Carter in the backseat.

“So what the fuck is going on with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t kiss Eva on the lips at all tonight. Well, at least not after you stuck your tongue down her throat when we came to pick her up.”

“So what?”

“So I know from watching you,” Luc continued as Carter made a strange noise, “that you love to kiss women. You love kissing Eva.”

“Okay, you’ve got me,” Carter replied in an overly patient tone. “What do you make of my actions, oh wise one?”

“I think you’re withdrawing from her. When we were on the bed earlier you stayed down by the foot, and you didn’t really engage until I basically forced you to.”

“Look, man. I’m tired and I don’t really wanna have this conversation now.”

“Well, I do.”

“Just because you’re the fucking captain doesn’t mean the rest of us have to jump up to do your bidding when you say ‘boo,’ you know.”

“I know that,” Luc answered, and Jake took his eyes off the road long enough to assess his friend’s face, which was tightly drawn as if he’d eaten something he didn’t like. “But until you tell us what the fuck is going on inside that thick head of yours, we can’t figure out how to fix it.”

Swearing viciously, Carter punched the ceiling inside the car, and Jake jerked the wheel a little, shocked by Carter’s outburst. Of the three of them, Carter was most even-keeled. “Sorry, Jake,” Carter said. “As for you, Luc, you can go to hell. There’s nothing wrong, so just leave it alone.”

Jake knew Carter was lying. Hell, everybody in the car knew he was, but apparently neither he nor Luc was willing to call him on it. The rest of the drive to Carter and Luc’s condos passed without a word being spoken, and when Carter climbed out and slammed the door, Jake released a breath.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked Luc.

“I have no clue, but we’re gonna find out.”

“Don’t ride him too hard, man. I think he’s scared. People come to grips with shit like this at different speeds.”

“You seem okay with it.”

“Like I said, different speeds. Just cut him some slack.”

“Fine. I will, for now. But if this keeps up…”

Jake nodded, sighing. Sometimes dealing with the two of them made him feel like the middle child, the peacemaker. Luc, though not actually an oldest child, behaved like one, and Carter, an only child, had the personality of the youngest child. And when Jake wasn’t playing the peacemaker he oftentimes felt like their father. It had been that way since the three of them had forged their friendship a couple of years ago. Normally he didn’t mind, but every now and then it irritated the hell out of him. Right now he was irritated as hell. And worried.