The Year We Fell Down: A Hockey Romance (The Ivy Years Book 1)

—Corey—

Oh, HELL yes, my hope fairy yelled as Hartley deposited me on my bed and shut the door. Then, even though I could still hear him puffing from exertion, he wrapped his powerful arms around me and picked up where he’d left off, his kiss deep and urgent.

My heart skated around my chest as he curled his hands in my T-shirt and pulled it up, over my head. Then, with exactly the sort of dexterity I’d expect from Hartley, he removed my bra with one hand.

I pulled back. “What are you doing?” I breathed.

“You have a question that needs answering,” he said. “And there will never be a better time to answer it.”

While I considered this idea, he leaned me gently back onto the bed. There will never be a better time, he’d said. Was that because we’d just drunk an entire bottle of champagne? Or because Stacia was coming back?

I was afraid I knew the answer.

“Also…” Hartley’s thumbs grazed my breasts, and I sucked in my breath. “I’m a specialist on this topic,” he mumbled. Then his tongue landed on my nipple. He circled it once, before putting his warm mouth over my breast and sucking gently.

Oh my God.

I heard a groan escape my own lips, and all reason went out the window.

“That’s a girl,” he said.

This time, when his hand slipped down my body and into my pants, I forgot to freak out. He kissed me deeply while his fingers slid toward places that had rarely been touched before. When you spend much of your senior year in a hospital, there isn’t a lot of time for dating and fooling around. His hand curved, fitting between my legs. I registered the sensation of his fingers there.

He chuckled against my lips. “Callahan,” he whispered. “Give me your hand.”

He dragged my hand down my torso and into my panties. They were wet, and so was my own body where his hand led my fingers.

“Game on,” he whispered.

Then he pulled our hands back into the air, and I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “That’s…” my brain didn’t seem to function.

“That’s encouraging,” he finished for me. “But that’s not all you need to know, is it?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, he gave my yoga pants a good yank.

“Whoa,” I said. “Not so fast.” I rolled onto my side, moving away from him.

He dropped his hands immediately. But then he said, “Chicken much?”

I pushed myself up on an elbow. “What? Just because I don’t want you groping me makes me a chicken? That’s bullshit, Hartley. Just because nobody else ever said no to you doesn’t make it impossible.”

His eyes flashed with amusement, and something else that I couldn’t read. “Fine. If you can tell me to my face that you don’t want my talented hands on you,” he dragged the pads of two of his fingers across my breast, “then I won’t call you a chicken.” He scooted closer to me, giving me a tiny kiss, with soft lips. “I’ll take it back.” Another kiss. “I will say, ‘Callahan is not a chicken.’” He punctuated the statement with a slow kiss. He teased my nipple with his thumb, and I felt lightheaded. “Say it,” he whispered between kisses. “Tell me you don’t want just a little more of this. In the name of research.”

I dropped my head onto the pillow, taking a shaky breath. “This is the weirdest night ever.”

He chuckled, and then there was a tug. I saw my panties in his hand. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He threw them on the floor, which is pretty much exactly what I’d been fantasizing about since September. But in my fantasies, we were making passionate love — it wasn’t just a random hookup, and it sure wasn’t a science experiment.

I felt his hand cup my hip. “Can you feel this, Callahan?”

I nodded, my mouth dry.

He slid a hand down my quad, which I felt, until it dipped below my knees. “How about this?”

I shook my head.

“Interesting,” he said, as if he might whip out a clipboard and begin taking notes. In fact, he sounded exactly like the doctors I saw at every visit. Can you feel this? How about this?

And suddenly it was all wrong. I pushed his hand away. “You’re making me feel like a lab rat.”

He withdrew his hand. “Sorry. Wrong approach.” He reached for me then, cupping my face in his hands and kissing me. That was better. But things were still off balance. I was sinking under the weight of my own vulnerability. If this were a championship hockey game, I’d know what to do. I’d lash out with some bold maneuver to win back the moment.

Feeling cornered, I reached for the zipper on the hip of Hartley’s breakaway pants. I reeled it downward, as far as I could reach.

He broke our kiss to look down, watching me. “What’s that for, Callahan?”

“Why am I the only one naked?”

“Well…” he hesitated. “I wasn’t going there, you know, to demonstrate my honorable intentions.”

“Hartley,” I looked into his eyes. “Who could mistake you for someone with honorable intentions?”

An unreadable emotion flashed across his handsome face. But he quickly replaced it with a smile. “Good point, Callahan. And I’m not a guy who needs much convincing to get naked.” He unzipped the pants on the broken leg side, and then he sat up and shucked them off, along with his boxers.

And that left me trying not to stare at his erection. He was thick and beautiful, and I’d had at least a little something to do with that.

I dragged my eyes to his face. “Lose the T-shirt.”

He smiled, wrestling it off. “Callahan never does anything halfway.”

And…holy cow.

The room was lit only by the night-light my parents had so stubbornly installed. But its dim rays managed to accentuate the shadows of his muscular pecs, and the flex of his bicep where he propped himself up. His sculpted chest tapered to a trim waist and hips. I’d meant to even the score a little, to spread the self-consciousness around. But it utterly backfired. I now had the most gorgeous naked guy spread out in front of me in my bed, looking as comfortable as he always was. “Is that better?” His dimple quirked at me.

I couldn’t even answer.

He was amazing, and I wanted to dive into him and never come up for air. There was no way I could feel any more vulnerable than I did that second. Because I wanted him — I wanted this — more than anything else in the world, and I couldn’t even let him know. To Hartley, this was an experiment, or just another evening’s diversion with his neighbor Callahan. This time without clothing. But to me it was everything, and terrifying, too. I hoped he couldn’t read it on my face. My heart thumped spastically.

Whoa! Maybe you are a chicken. My hope fairy reappeared, wearing black lace lingerie, and a pout on her face. Don’t panic now, she insisted. This was just getting good.

The old Corey had always been a risk-taker, a team captain, a fearless girl. I never panicked, even with one minute on the clock and a tied game. I needed that Corey back, and right away.

Before I could think better of my impulse, I pushed up on two hands and bent over Hartley’s waist. And then I did something he wasn’t expecting, and something I’d never done to a guy before.

I licked him.

It was a single, playful sweep of my tongue. But it had exactly the intended effect. His stomach muscles contracted, and his hands gripped the bed in surprise. I heard him suck in his breath.

I swung back up and pinned him with my gaze. “That’s for calling me a chicken.”

His startled eyes looked into mine as he exhaled gustily. “Jesus, Callahan. Punish me more.”

I gave him a catty little shake of my head. For a second longer, we just stared at each other. Then he grabbed for me with both arms, hauling me onto his chest, his tongue slicking my lower lip. The next few minutes were lost to me, as I drank in his kisses and sank into all of his beautiful skin. It was delicious, even though I knew I was a goner. I would never get this night out of my head. The kissing we’d done on the sofa had already ruined me. I didn’t even care.

“Where is it, Callahan?”

Hartley was asking me a question, but I was too drunk with lust to focus. “What?”

“Where is it? Where did you stash Digby?”

When enough oxygen reached my brain that I could understand the question, I shook my head. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Hartley said. He leaned over me and opened the drawer of my bedside table. “Is it in here?”

“Hartley!” I grabbed his arm. But it was too late. He already held the little box in his hand. “Put that back,” I said. “That’s just too weird.”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t. These are fun.” He’d dropped the box and pulled off the top. Now he picked it up and showed it to me. “I guess you’ve never tried one before?”

I shook my head. “Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Women love these. But…” his smile faded, and he looked into my eyes. “You especially should give it a shot. I read this article…”

My mouth fell open. “You Googled my problem?”

He looked a little sheepish. “I always study to get an A, Callahan. There was this paper about paraplegic women…”

I closed my eyes. “I read that too.” A pair of doctors had discovered that paralyzed women often had more sensation inside than outside. And guess what the test subjects had used to discover it?

“So you should be willing to try it. And why not on the Weirdest Night Ever?”

“Oh my God,” I breathed as the device began to whir quietly in his hand.

“Maybe we can make you yell that,” he said, his eyebrows wiggling.

“It’s a machine,” I protested.

“It’s a toy,” he argued. “See?” He pressed it gently against my breast, and I felt a gentle hum which was not unpleasant.

I grabbed it out of his hands, and touched it to his chest. Then, as he watched, I dragged it down his body, inch by inch. I studied his face as I went along. When I approached his waist, his smile faded. And when I touched it to the head of his penis, his eyes fell shut and he shifted his hips. I aligned the vibrator with his erection, and he blew out a breath.

But a moment later he broke into a smile, moaning “Ohh… Mr. Digby.”

I dropped the vibrator, hooting with laughter. His eyes flew open and he grabbed it off the bed, shutting it off with a twist. I couldn’t stop laughing. It loosened something inside my chest, breaking apart a knot of anxiety I’d brought into the bedroom with me. I rolled onto my back, giggling at the ceiling.

Hartley hitched himself closer to me then, his shoulder covering mine. His smiling mouth closed over my lips, and I stopped laughing. There would never be enough of his kisses. The best I could do would be to memorize the shape of his lips on mine, and the way he sucked gently on my tongue. It was hard to worry about much of anything while he kissed me. So this time, I didn’t panic when his hand slid down my body. I felt his fingers spread between my legs. I really felt them. And that fact made me want to shout with joy. “Okay,” I said shakily.

The next sound I heard was the quiet whir of the toy. And then he placed it against my body. It was different from anything I’d felt before. Like a shimmer of pleasure. “Oh,” I said, my stomach muscles tightening.

“That’s it…” he breathed, leaning closer to me.

His erection brushed my hand, so I closed my fingers around it. This earned me a grunt of satisfaction from Hartley. So I began to stroke him. His breath caught in his chest, and he made a noise in the back of his throat. A very sexy little noise.

Hartley was not too distracted, however, to continue his mission. The little vibrator slid downward. I held my breath.

“Okay?” he breathed.

I nodded because it was. A current of sensation began to gather down there, spreading throughout my core. I sank into the darkness of my eyelids. As Hartley touched me, the world shrank down to the size of our two bodies. I teased Hartley with my fingertips, and our kisses became sloppy and distracted. There was a tiny click, a small adjustment of the toy, and then the sweet shimmer between my legs gathered steam. “Oh,” I gasped.

“That’s not too much?”

I couldn’t even answer him. I could only arch my back off the bed, angling my body closer to his hands. “Oh…” I said again, beginning to see dots before my eyes. And then a tingle in my belly seemed to bloom, and I felt a starburst between my legs. Whatever sounds I made then, I couldn’t even hear.

“Fuck, yes,” I heard Hartley pant, and it made me remember to curve my lazy fingers more tightly around his shaft. I stroked him hard, and he made a strangled sound. And then, “Callahan, I…” The next thing I felt was a spurt of warm liquid against my hip, and in my hand. I slicked my wet hand down him one more time, and his hips jerked with satisfaction.

A moment later, the noise of the vibrator died as Hartley turned it off, leaving only the sound of two people breathing hard. Hartley put one beautifully muscled arm over his eyes. And since I wouldn’t be caught staring, I took a long look at his body, the rise and fall of his broad chest, and the now half-sagging member dipping towards my sheets.

Wow. The full impact of what we’d just done began to sink in. With shaking fingers, I took a tissue off the bedside table and wiped off my hip.

“Sorry for the mess,” he said, his voice tight. His eyes were still covered.

“No problem,” I whispered. He still wasn’t looking at me, and I was starting to wonder why. I pushed his arm off his face, but he only turned his chin away, toward the wall. “What the hell? Now you feel guilty?”

He gave half of a laugh. “No way, Callahan.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

With a sigh, he reached for me, pulling my body across his, gathering me up on his chest. And when I looked down at his face, I was startled to find that his eyes were shining. When he caught me looking, he closed them. “It’s just… I wanted that for you,” he whispered. “A little less shit to shovel.”

My heart was fit to burst, for a dozen conflicting reasons. Fooling around with Hartley had been amazing, and God knows I’d wondered. But lying in his arms was the best thing ever, and I couldn’t say so. I love you, Hartley. Those words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them down. Instead, I said: “Thank you for that selfless act of research on my behalf.”

He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome. And my dick thanks you for letting him play along.”

My heart gave a squeeze, because those were not the words of love I craved. So I made a little joke, because that’s what I do when things get tense. “Do all guys refer to their dicks in the third person?”

Hartley stared up at the ceiling, his gorgeous face thoughtful. “Pretty much.”

We lay there quietly, our heart rates returning to normal. Hartley stroked my hair against his chest, and I tried not to worry about what would happen next.

“I need to ask you a question,” I said. Hearing my words, his face took on a wary expression, so I hurried on. “Hartley, what is your shit to shovel? Because you never say.”

He chuckled. “You noticed that, huh?”

“I did.”

He shifted then, turning carefully onto his stomach, folding his arms underneath his chin. We were no longer touching. “Thing is, Callahan, I don’t think I can talk about that tonight.”

“Really,” I said, flipping over onto my stomach too. “So all my shit is on the table, but not yours?” That didn’t seem fair. “You’re all up in my business…” Then I clapped a hand in front of my mouth. Even so, a bark of laughter escaped.

“What?”

I put both hands in front of my face. “I can’t believe I just said you were all up in my business.”

Hartley snorted. And then the two of us were shaking with laughter, side by side. And it was just like any other night’s joke, except naked.

Then, from the common room, I heard Dana open the outside door, arriving home. Hartley and I glanced at each other, clapping our hands in front of our mouths. As Dana moved about the common room, switching the television off, we shook with silent laughter. We didn’t stop until finally I heard the sound of water running in the bathroom. Even then, we were still gasping for air, and fighting off the rippled aftershocks of uncontrollable mirth.

Soon it became very quiet in my suite. Dana had gone to bed.

Hartley took a deep breath. “I think that’s my cue to sneak out,” he said. Slowly, he sat up, found his boxers and wiggled into them.

No! I wanted to shout. But I held my tongue, and found his T-shirt, passing it to him. I pulled my own over my head. I didn’t want him to watch me putting on my other clothes, because it was such an awkward, hopping process. So I pulled the blanket at the foot of my bed up over me instead.

“Before you go, could you, um, push my chair into my room? I’m kind of stranded here.”

His eyes opened wide. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

I smiled, and hopefully it was convincingly untroubled. “No biggie. I didn’t need to go anywhere for a little while there.”

He blew out a breath, and I could feel it — that was the moment things got weird.

Hartley hopped into the living room, retrieved his second crutch, and then shoved my chair at intervals into the bedroom. When he made it all the way back to me, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Goodnight, Callahan,” he said, one hand dropping to my knee where it lay under the blanket.

I couldn’t feel his touch, but I wanted to.

“Goodnight, Hartley,” I whispered.

He leaned back then, giving me a quick kiss on the nose. His face was serious, almost sad. “See you at brunch tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I said as he rose to go. Because that won’t be weird at all.

After the door closed again, I lay there for a long time, missing him.