Underneath It All (Storm Series) (8 page)

“Who’s talking about kids?” Sarah asked, breezing into the room and wiping her hands on a dish towel. Turning to Alaina, she said, “A pleasure to meet you. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m Sarah.” Then she regarded Sebastian. “Did you tell them to sit down? Offer a drink? I know you weren’t raised in a barn—I’ve seen your parents’ house.”

Sebastian gave her an unrepentant smile
, and she patted the side of his face. Rob tried to control his envy. Normally it didn’t bother him to see his friends being all lovey-dovey, except when they went too far with the cuteness. But as he watched the pair, he realized how badly he wanted that for himself. He’d been so close with Christa all those years ago and had played the field since then, not wanting to go through the agony of another breakup. It still freaking hurt every time he let himself think about it. But he wanted to settle down. The realization hit him like a puck aimed at his head, leaving him disoriented.

Shaking his head,
Rob pulled Alaina down on the couch with him and put his arm around her, which earned him patronizing looks from his friends. Yep, the gig was up.
Oh well.
As they conversed, he played with Alaina’s hair, lost inside his head, thinking about his recent revelation until she elbowed him.

“Sarah asked you a question.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” He looked up at the woman standing in front of him, tapping her foot, a smirk firmly in place on her face.

“Wine or beer?”
Sarah repeated.

“Beer.”
Rob didn’t drink a lot during the season, but one or two with dinner didn’t hurt anything.

Sebastian went to the kitchen with Sarah
, and Alaina turned to Rob. “I like your friends. They don’t pull any punches.”

“No, they certainly don’t.
Wait, what did they say? Did I miss something?” Rob knew his friends would never say anything mean or disparaging, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t embarrass him like hell if the opportunity arose.

“
You
were
a million miles away. I thought so. Where did you go?”

“No
where important.” He wasn’t about to share his thoughts with Alaina yet.

She didn’t look convinced, but before she could press him on the matter
, Sebastian returned and handed Alaina a glass of white wine and Rob a beer. “Emulsifying. That was the big word.”

“Ah,” Alaina said. “Yeah, that
’s one you’d have to understand the definition, in English or in French, to be able to translate it.”

“I’ve been here long enough that I think in English, but yes, so
me words…” Seb flailed his hands, “just go away. Pretty annoying.” Turning toward the kitchen once more, he said, “I’ll be back in a second. I want to make sure Sarah doesn’t burn herself.”

Both he and Rob cracked up
, and Alaina looked between the two of them as if they’d sprouted alien heads. Rob explained how the first time Sarah had them over, before she and Sebastian had become an item, she’d burned her hand taking dinner out of the oven and he’d been forced to wait in the living room while Sebastian tried to kiss her and make it better.

“A true wingman, huh?”

“Yeah. The sacrifices I make for my friends…”

Sebastian returned. “All good.”

“You know,” Rob told Alaina. “I tried to buy Sebastian a ‘swear word of the day’ calendar for Christmas, but he actually didn’t need any help in that department. Apparently hockey players the world over are fluent in swear.”

Alaina laughed
, and Rob grinned at Sebastian, feeling more than a little smug. The man’s eyebrows had practically grown into his hair as he watched the interplay between him and Alaina. His friends had probably expected to have to push the two of them together.

Nope, bro. I got game.

Dinner was better than Rob expected. The meal was delicious, that part didn’t surprise him in the least; but Sarah and Sebastian behaved themselves, and he actually found himself feeling grateful to them as he learned a lot about Alaina from the questions they asked, though the niggle of guilt about how he’d sucked face with her rather than trying to get to know her better, wouldn’t go away. Since the team had practice the next day and she had school, they left shortly after nine.

After he drove her home,
Rob walked Alaina to the door of her apartment, shoving his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t push her against the thing and take her mouth again.
I might need to look into a 12-step program for kissaholics if this keeps up.

Taking a deep breath to calm his raging libido, he asked,
“Can I call you? Maybe we can grab dinner, just the two of us?”

“Yeah, that’d be fun. And t
hank you for today. The entire thing was a dream come true. The kids are going to be so excited when they see everything. I’m guessing all we’ll achieve tomorrow is a rearrangement of the classroom. They’ll be too keyed up to do anything else.”

“I didn’t think about that. Do you want to hide the stuff until the weekend?
I should have some time to help you set everything up. Maybe we can coerce, I mean, request Sebastian and Sarah’s presence too.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, waving his concern away. “
The day will be like their birthdays and Christmas all wrapped into one, times about a hundred. I’d like to give them that.”

“You’re the boss.
Be sure you take pictures.” Motioning behind her, he said, “Better get inside. The urge to kiss you isn’t going away, and we both have big days tomorrow.”

“Oh.” She ducked her head, smiling. “Well, then.”
She fit her key into the lock. Once she had the door open, she turned back. “Goodnight, Rob.”

“Goodnight.”

Alaina ran her fingertips down the side of his face then over his lips, where he captured her fingers with his hand and kissed them. After pulling away, she waved and went inside.

As he returned to his truck, his thoughts were swirling.
Clearly, at this point, they didn’t know each other well enough to make any hasty judgments, but had he finally found someone? A flashback to the looks shared by his friends over dinner tonight brought a smile. What would sharing the same intimacy with Alaina be like?

~ * ~

FOUR

The next game was a
t home against Colorado, a team that wasn’t in the Storm’s conference, and the temptation to take it easy, to conserve his energy for other games was there, but Rob never gave in to the lure. Come April, the two points the Storm would get by winning this game could turn out to be the deciding factor between the team making the playoffs versus missing them, or between getting home-ice advantage versus having to deal with pumped-up away crowds.

One of his friends from junior
s played for Colorado, and before the game in the hallway outside the visitors’ locker room, Rob spoke with him briefly. They were laughing and joking, but once the game started everything would be different. He had no friends on the ice save his own teammates.

“So have you found some woman dumb enough to make an honest man outta you?” Jeff asked. Jeff had married a girl he’d met way back
when he and Rob had been playing together, and they already had three kids, though Jeff was a year younger than Rob.

Rob debated whether or not to mention Alaina, but
decided not to because the thing between them was still so new. Instead, he said, “Nope, not yet. Still enjoying the variety.” In truth, he hadn’t had sex with a woman since a couple of weeks before he’d met Alaina, putting him on an almost two-month drought. For Rob, that was a long time. He loved women, and women loved him.

“
You wait,” Jeff warned. “That girl’s gonna show up and hit you right between the eyes. You’ll be a dead man.”

“We’ll see.”
Time to change the subject before I go all starry-eyed talking about Alaina.
“How’re your parents?”

The two men conversed for a few more minutes
, and then each went their separate ways to prepare for the game. Unfortunately, the Storm lost by one goal, a soft one that Brendan, their All-Star goaltender—normally—let in during the last minute of play. The man was pretty Zen for the most part, but afterward, Rob and the other guys kept their distance as Brendan sat in his stall, still fully attired in uniform and pads, his elbows resting on his knees and hands propping up his chin, obviously reliving the moment right before the goal. Brendan was a perfectionist, which was a very bad and yet very good quality in a goaltender. Bad because it was almost impossible not to let in at least one goal per game, but good due to the naturally competitive way the player would approach the game, which the rest of the team, especially the other ultra-competitive guys like Rob, often fed off of to spur themselves on.

Saturday mid-day following the Thursday night game, Rob ended up at the school after Alaina admitted she was having trouble putting the cubbies together. Of course, no written directions were found, only poorly drawn pictures, and pieces of the thing were scattered over a ten-foot radius. Alaina’s hair was in a messy ponytail, and she was clad in dusty yoga pants and a fleece, but Rob still wanted to find the nearest closet so they could play “Seven Minutes in Heaven.” Kissing Alaina was definitely a slice of heaven.

Before he got too carried away and
his jeans didn’t have a prayer of hiding his erection, he brought his toolbox closer to the mess then started sorting pieces based on what he believed their purpose to be.

Alaina stood, glari
ng at the parts. “This makes no sense to me whatsoever.”

“The instructions are crap.”

“What’re you doing, anyway?”

Rob indicated the piles.
“I’m sectioning off the different areas of the cubbies. I figured that would be easier than searching for something every time I need a new part.”

“How can you even tell what goes together?”
Alaina crinkled her nose and Rob couldn’t believe how cute and yet sexy he found that simple gesture. He was losing it.

“Manly spatial
-relations skills, baby. Now come give me a thank you kiss.” Pulling her flush with his rapidly overheating body, Rob delved into her mouth, thrusting his tongue in what he knew was a poor substitute for thrusting somewhere else. But if this was all he could have until they became more familiar with each other, he’d kiss her morning, noon, and night.

A throat cleared behind them and Alaina jumped away like shrapnel.

“Oh, hi, guys,” Rob said to Sarah and Sebastian as a flush worked its way up his neck and into his face. He’d completely forgotten he’d called for reinforcements. A quick glance showed Alaina appeared mortified. “So, um, Alaina and I are dating.”

Sarah chuckled. “I would hope so. Otherwise you’re sexually harassing the poor woman.” After a beat she continued
, “What can we do?”

God bless Sarah for
moving things along.

Alaina smiled at Sarah. “Want to help me figure out where to put all these
art supplies Rob made me buy?”

The two women
walked over to another part of the classroom, and Sebastian sidled up to Rob. “Sooooo…”

Already exasperated
, Rob said, “Not much to tell. We’ve kissed a bunch of times. I’m probably being a dick not taking her out on dates, but as you know, our schedule’s been kind of crazy.”

“Speaking of crazy,
” he waggled his eyebrows, “you are totally crazy about that girl.”

Rob’s eyes widened. Was it that obvious?
“We don’t even know each other that well.”

“Doesn’t matter. I knew the
re was a connection the first second after Sarah and I collided. You guys have the same thing between you. It’s obvious.”

“
Really?”

“Oh yeah. The way you look at her
. The way she looks at you. She watches you. All through dinner the other night, she kept glancing your way.”

“You’re imagining things.”
But Rob wouldn’t meet Sebastian’s gaze. The man was right, but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet.

“No, I’m not. Remember, it wasn’t even a year ago that Sarah and I got together. I remember what those first days were like. You still tease me about showing up at her office at nine
PM with a lame excuse just so I could take her to dinner.”

Rob laughed as he finally looked up and spied Sebastian’s knowing expression.
“We need to get moving on this,” Rob said, indicating the menagerie of parts at his feet.
And stop talking about me and Alaina.
There was time to do that later when the woman wasn’t within earshot.

“Nice try
, changing the subject, and I’ll leave you alone. For now.”

The
guys assembled the cubbies and a couple of other pieces of furniture while the ladies cleared out some of the old stuff, putting the lot into storage, since Alaina was afraid to throw out anything. Rob wished she didn’t feel like that, but could understand why; according to her, it might be needed again someday. Alaina had hinted that they couldn’t count on more funds, and he wished he could do more. Sebastian and Sarah left as he and Alaina put the finishing touches on everything before standing in the front of the room together, holding hands.

Rob’s
eyes began to sting.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I face down two-hundred-fifty-pound defensemen without batting an eye. I will not cry.

Alaina’s
hand jolted his, and he looked over to see tears streaming down her face. “I know, I know, I’m a total waterworks,” she said, wiping at the tears with her free hand.

“You have every right to be. You should be really proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

“You mean what
you’ve
accomplished.”

“No
.” He turned toward her. “What you’ve accomplished. All I did was provide the piece you were missing.”

“A huge piece.”

He shrugged, still unable to believe that a gesture he considered so little and simply the right thing to do could be perceived completely differently by Alaina. “But you’re the rest of the puzzle. Don’t you see that? You, the other teachers, the principal, you’re the glue that holds this place together. You’re the ones making a difference every day in the lives of these students.” Rob waved a hand toward the room at large. “This is all just stuff. Tools for you to use.
You’re
impacting their lives. I just helped you get more of what you needed to do that.”

She shook her head, a small smile breaking through her tears.
“You are the sweetest man ever. I’ve seen how you hide behind the jokes and everything, but underneath it all you’re a big softie. I’ve got you all figured out.”

He looked away for a minute before returning his gaze to hers.
She pretty much had him pegged, and he couldn’t decide if that made him nervous or relieved. “Just don’t tell anybody. You’ll ruin my rep.” Rob grinned and hoped it didn’t look forced.

Alaina chuckled.
“I won’t. I promise to keep your secret.”

“And now that we’re alone
again, I can’t resist.” Swooping down, he kissed Alaina hard, and her arms wound around his neck as she leaned into the kiss even more. Lifting her easily, he set her on her desk and moved between her legs. His hands roved up and down her back, squeezing and learning her contours, until he couldn’t breathe.

“Let me make you dinner,
” she said when they broke apart.

“I kissed you like that
, and you’re thinking about food? I must be losing my touch.”
Man, I hope not.
Rob had never worried too much about his sexual prowess, since no one had lodged a complaint, but Alaina made him question everything.

Alaina laughed, but the sound was uneasy. “Oh no. Nothing to worry
about on that account. I just…”

S
he bit her lip, and he used his thumb to dislodge her teeth before leaning down to lick it like he’d wanted to do last night. Rob loved her unique taste.

She pulled away, her expression serious.
“I don’t want you to go yet. I feel selfish. You’re using your entire weekend on me.”

“
Yes, such a hardship.” Rob snaked his arms around her waist. “Tell you what. If you can make something that’ll take, say, four or five hours to cook, and you let me kiss you and love on you all that time, I can be persuaded.”

“Deal,” she said with a giggle.
“Now back up so we can go. If dinner’s gonna cook for a long time, I need to get started. It’s already after two, and that pizza we grabbed for lunch isn’t going to hold you forever.”

“I was kidding about that
whole hours’ thing…sort of,” he said as he retreated. Rob couldn’t remember being this turned on by somebody and wouldn’t mind if today he could relieve some of the sexual tension that had built up.

Rob followed Alaina to her apartment, where she began to put together a pot of chili after she shooed him out of the kitchen. Relenting, he left, wishing she’d let him help more. He wasn’t a great cook by any stretch of the imagination, but he liked being useful. Rob smiled. The only exception was with his grandmother, who would’ve been insulted if he’d tried to lend assistance in the kitchen. It was firmly her domain.

Several
minutes later, Alaina walked into the living room, wiping her hands on a towel. Rob was surfing channels on her 32-inch TV and not finding anything good. He wasn’t all that interested in watching television, but at least a show would provide background noise to drown out the moans and groans he planned to pull from her body. The walls in her building appeared to be paper-thin, and the last thing he needed was Alaina feeling embarrassed about being with him.

“I know it’s not exactly a 60
-inch flat screen with a million channels, but surely you can find something,” she said, her voice laced with amusement.

“
Please,” he said with a scoff. “Your TV is fine.” She sat next to him and he left it on whatever channel he’d stopped on and turned to her, his heart pounding. “Time for loving now?”

“
For you, every minute of the day is loving time.”

“
Call me Don Juan.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows, hoping she didn’t notice his damp palms. For some reason it was important that he appear suave and in control of himself.

“Right.”
Alaina shook her head with a smile.

Rob pretended to study her. “You’re not
where you should be.”

“What d
o you mean?” Alaina looked at herself.

“
The best place for you is underneath me, no doubt about it.” Putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pushing, he continued, “You promised.”

Barking out a laugh, she said,
“You are so full of shit.”

With a
mock exaggerated gasp, he said, “The kindergarten teacher swears. I’m scarred for life.”

“I’m sure.”

He continued to apply pressure until, with a chortle, she collapsed on the couch cushions. “Much better.” Situating himself between her legs, Rob scooted his arms beneath Alaina’s shoulders and kissed her. “Much, much better.”