twenty-four

(March 2)

Leah told Sidney it had been fifty-four days since he left Cole Harbour.  He’d been in her bed that last night, and well into the morning after.  So fifty four days since he’d pushed her up against a door with a kiss before they tripped their way inside.  Sid made it a little farther this time.  He swiped the key card through the lock, heard the digital beep followed by the thump turn of the door’s bolt.  They were just inside when it swung shut behind them.

He wanted to take Leah to the floor or toss her on the bed of lift her into the air and stay right there, not moving.  The urge to sprint across the finish line surged through him like a drug.  But Sidney needed to do one thing first.  He reached for the zipper on Leah’s parka and slowly drew it down, revealing her soft clothes – bright yellow sweater, thin t-shirt, snug jeans.  He let her open his winter coat and push it from his shoulders; felt it pool against his heels.  Sidney did the same, freeing Leah’s shape, then slipped his hands around her waist.

Her mouth lifted up, expecting a kiss.  Sidney promised himself this was the last time he’d ever make her wait.

“I meant what I said before.”

Leah’s nose twitched; she couldn’t fight a smile.  Being in Sidney’s arms felt glorious, weightless, like she had all the time in the world.  If he wanted to talk, she could give him a minute.  Well, maybe thirty seconds, she thought.

“That you love me?”

He nodded.

“That you missed me?”

He kept nodding.

“That you were going to kiss me in front of all these people, you were just waiting for someone to recognize you?”

Sid tilted his head.  “When did I say that?”

“The airport at home, before you left.”

He remembered.  He’d felt a similar power, a giddy recklessness at the idea of being normal and doing what he wanted, when he wanted.  That was back when he thought he could love her and leave her and learn from the whole thing.  He’d been so wrong.  But in a way, that night had been a gateway drug for what he did today.  Sid knew how easy to was to get addicted to a feeling.

“So technically I did warn you,” he said.

Leah figured thirty seconds were up.  “Yeah, I was ready,” she answered, and kissed him.

Sidney’s hands quickly moved over the rise of her ass, feeling the edges of jean pockets beneath his palms.  He yanked her in tight and kissed her with all the want and waiting and worry of fifty-four days apart. 

Leah returned his kiss with her own heat.  There had been anger and frustration with Sidney, disappointment too.  Bust mostly Leah had been mad at herself for being the girl she said she wouldn’t be; for falling in love with a guy she said she wouldn’t.  For stepping up to the edge of this cliff and walking right off.  Sidney’s life was too big, Cole Harbour was too small - she was caught in the middle of a hundred things she’d been sure of a day ago.  Yet again, Sidney Crosby was changing everything.

They kissed deeply until they both felt his body begin to stir, breaking their concentration and reminding them of other things that had been neglected too long.  Leah rolled her hip against the hardening shape in his lap.  Sid abandoned her backside for two handfuls of her shirt, which went flying, then quickly of her hair, tugging back, exposing her neck.  He buried himself in the smell of her skin.

Leah tugged Sid’s sweater up the slope of his back, inch by inch as his t-shirt came with it.  Both went overhead, mussing his already messy hat hair.  She leaned back and watched her fingers move down his chest – it wasn’t something she’s ever get sick of, the way his wide body tapered toward his waist, all that muscle just waiting to be put to good use.  She bit her bottom lip, letting every finger lift away except one that dragged over his belly button and down to the top his jeans.

It was almost too much for Sidney to see Leah admire him.  His own view wasn’t bad either – her breasts rose up from the cups of her bra, endless soft skin for him to explore.  They both watched as her fingernail grazed the button above his fly, tapping like a knock on the door.  Sid’s dick twitched hard; she saw it, felt it.  Her blue eyes found his just as her finger dipped inside his waistband.  Her other hand helped to pop the button with the tiniest motion.  Tugging his now open pants, she backed up toward the bed taking Sidney with her.

The bed was huge, a king, but Leah knew Sidney would take up a lot of it. 

Best to be underneath him, she thought, or on top.  Just to make sure they had room.  His body was endless perfection and she’d have spent all night studying it but for the insisitent throb between her legs.  Needs she had and needs to be met quickly, loudly, so they could hurry up and do it all over again.  Her backside bumped the edge of the mattress.

Sid caught her body between the immovable bed and his own immovable lower body.  This time it was his hands on her button, then her zipper, opening with the sound of wrapping paper being torn off a gift.  He folded the her jeans, just an inch, and smiled.

“Peach,” he said.

“Hmmm?” Leah was a little distracted by the promising size of his fingers.

“These,” he rubbed the pad of his thumb against the silk of her panties, “are peach.  And your bra.  You brought these to Pittsburgh.  I saw them in your suitcase.”

Leah remembered.  She just didn’t know Sid had seen them.  Of course, he did have to pack up her stuff and bring it to James’ house after… well, after.  But that was before.  She could have been mad or sad at the thought of that night, and those since, all wasted.  But she chose wisely.

“Now,” she slowly pushed his zipper down, deliberately pressing his erection, sending every vibration right back on itself.  “I finally get to wear them for you.” Leah guided her hand inside his pants until his bulge filled her hand.  Sidney groaned in pleasure at the same time Leah smiled.  The size of him had not been a dream, but a very accurate memory.

The heel of her palm pressed along his shaft as Leah reached deep, dragging her fingers over his balls, just the cotton of his shorts between them.  His blood poured south, abandoning all critical function, rushing to meet her.  For the first time since the last time he’d had Leah, Sid felt woozy.  Leah shoved his pants to the floor.  Sid stepped out of his sneakers.  With his socks still on, he took Leah down onto the bed.  She landed with a bounce, their mouths connecting.  Her hands twisted into his hair, caressing his ears, tracing his jaw.  She tasted like velvet and sweetness and the warm, dark slip of everything else her body promised.  Sid shimmied her jeans down until she kicked her feet free.  Then he caught her right foot in his big hand.

In their time together, Sid had never taken any time.  Now tomorrow was a long way off as he pressed his lips to the insider of her ankle.

Leah gasped as Sidney’s firm, curvy mouth found her skin.  The spot was ticklish: he didn’t care.  Sid kissed right through it.  He licked the hollow between her ankle and heel, tested at the taut flesh of her lower leg between his teeth.  His kiss slid up behind her knee and explored the spot with the tip of his tongue.  Then he lowered that massive frame, pushing her legs apart and kissing even higher.  Her panties were soaked, her pussy already fluttering.  Sid nipped at the softest part of her inner thigh before sending a hot breath across her cleft.

He touched one thick finger to her delicate panties, already damp with her desire.  Rubbing the smooth fabric against her feverish skin made Leah’s back arch hard.  He did it again with two fingers. 

“OhGod,” Leah said.

Sid chuckled, hooking that finger into the silk and pulling it aside.  Then he took his kiss right to her body.

“Sid,” she gasped.  He went hard for her slit, raking his tongue around the edges before driving it inside.  The sweet honey taste was almost as good as the shaking he was wringing from her body. Sid kissed harder and earned another soft cry.  His cock beat hard, begging for a turn.  He flattened her hips to the mattress, tilting her toward his mouth, and pulled her panties farther aside.  Then he sucked her clit between his lips.

“Fuck,” she breathed.  Leah had never felt Sid’s mouth on another part of her anatomy but this was beyond imagining.  The pillowy lips, darting tongue, even a hint of stubble were raking every nerve ending south of the border into a heap, ready to be set on fire.  He grazed her clit with his teeth, earning a whimper, just as he pushed two fingers deep into her pussy.  Leah bucked and moaned.

Sid was at a rolling boil.  Between her body tossed out before him, his face between her legs, the sounds she was making and the fingers in his hair, he wanted to stay there all day.  Almost as much as he wanted to bury his dick and the first of many hot, depserate loads of pleasure into that space.  Already his heart was racing.  Sid levered himself up.  Below him, Leah looked like a goddess in her lingerie with her hair tossed about.  She looked up expectantly through fluttering lashes.  Sid took the two fingers he’d penetrated her with and slipped them into his mouth, sucking them clean.  Then he climbed on top.

In Sid’s mind, he was smooth enough to say something romantic at a time like this.  In reality, there was not stopping to think or talk or anything other than paste his mouth to hers and push.  His cock found the spot and they moved together.  Leah dug her nails shamelessly into his shoulders.  The hard, thick pressure spreading her body was almost too good; better than she remembered.  Sidney screwed himself inside until she felt his thighs under her backside, titling her hips, thrusting for that last inch.  He got it, lifting her ass off the bed.  She sobbed out a breath.

Sidney tried to stop.  He tried to slow.  He gritted his teeth and fought against his own body, but it was like trying to hold back a tide.  Every atom wanted release.  As strong as he was, he wasn’t that strong.  Desperate for another flash of pleasure, he stroked hard.  Leah’s mouth fell away, her neck twisting as she cried out.  Sidney buried his face in that soft skin and the tight sheath around his cock fluttered.  He growled desperately.  Determination alone made him move again, nearly pulling the orgasm from his body as he dragged out of her like a cork.  Just as he felt the first drop spill, Sidney shoved back in deep and broke.

Leah gasped.  Sid was hot and heavy and she felt the throb as he came, groaning, his mouth half-dragging across her skin.  It was pure surrender.  He hadn’t meant to come so soon and certainly not to come first, but the release of being together ripped it right out of him.  Sidney had lost control – that was at least twice today.  Leah smiled at the obvious world record and wondered if anything about Sid would ever be the same.

“I’m sorry, I…,” he started to say.

Still the same nice guy, she thought.  Leah shut him up with a  kiss.

Sid was breathless.  He was also embarassed that their third date – if you could call the times they’d been in bed together dates – had started this way.  But Leah twisted her tounge along his as they shared the feeling of his dick relaxing inside her.  His shoulders sagged, releasing the half push-up he’d been holding.  Leah wrapped her arms around his back and held tight.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Sid turned onto his side, taking her with him, twisting their arms and legs together.  His eyes were golden, lighter than Leah had ever seen them.  That meant he was the happiest yet.  With one finger, she traced the tiny lines and scars that hockey had left all over his beautiful face; the lines and scars from her song.

“I love you,” Sidney said, as her touch grazed his bottom lip.  “I could’ve told you that the night we met.”

“Liar,” she smiled.

“Okay,” he laughed.  “But definitely when I woke up sprawled all over you at the movies and you didn’t even make me let go.”

“I was holding onto you, remember?  That was a pretty big hint.”

He brushed an auburn curl from the side of her face.  “Well I’m a pretty big idiot.” 

She shrugged.  “I could have told you on New Year’s, when you kissed me.”

With a  confused look, Sidney lifted up onto his elbow.  Leah’s eyes dropped to his chest – she bit her lip, like she found him delicious, and he nearly forgot what he was going to say.

“Wait, you were so mad at me for kissing you!”

“Yeah, well… I was mad at myself for falling for you.  I didn’t want everyone and their mother and their blog to know I was being the predictable idiot,” she admitted. 

“You are not predictable, Leah.  I thought you hated me for that until the night you said it was a good kiss.”

“It was a great kiss,” she corrected.  “Not as good as today, though.  Or that one, when the lockout was over….”

They both thought back to the moment Sidney did the most rash, impulsive thing and climbed into her bed.  He didn’t want to talk.  He wanted to stamp his name all over her body and the delicate thing they’d built.  He wanted to take a piece of her with him in exchange for their piece he would be leaving behind.

“Yeah,” he dipped his head self-consiously.  “That was a great kiss.”

Leah kissed him again.  She pulled his face close, hand along his stong jaw, and carefully touched those perfect lips.  They were built for kissing and they delivered.  It seemed like hours passed as they lay there making out like they had all the time in the world.

Sidney was relaxed and happy like never before.  Maybe the first day of the off-season after winning the Cup, when everything was right and no one could take it away.  It was not his natural state, so it took his body a little while to respond.  When it did, Leah giggled, her mouth on his.  She wasn’t shy though – she moved one hand to stroke his hardening legnth and kept right on kissing.

It wasn’t long before Sidney’s stong hands were rolling her easily, settling her onto her stomach.  He swung onto her and Leah sighed.  His weight was like an anchor.  Sidney settled along her back, his erection stiff against her thigh as he nudged her legs farther apart.  His arms blocked out the world; just his mouth at her ear and his body on hers.  A slow, insistent push drove his cock deep into her body once again.

“Baby,” he whispered.  The soft rise of Leah’s ass and narrow span of her back fit perfectly.  She twisted two handfuls of the blanket overhead and used it for leverage, working back against him.  Her motion doubled the impact and Sid had to slow his roll.

“You’re gonna make me come,” he warned.

“You’re gonna say that a lot,” she looked back with a gleam in her eye.

“Someday I’ll get you back,” Sid laughed.  For now she was right.  He put one hand over her wrists, holding them far in front of her prone body.  The other he snaked under her hip, fingers reaching for her clit.  She flinched as he found his mark.  Another light graze and she did it again.  Her pussy trembled.  Sid stroked right through it, the push as good as the pull in such a tight spot.  Working his fingers in rhythm with his thighs, Sidney quickly had Leah at his mercy.  Each thrust sent her forward against his hand, just waiting to push that button.  She couldn’t turn her head enough, so Sidney bit her earlobe and whispered.

“I dreamed of this.  So many times.  It was always you, from the first day,” he told her. 

“Sid,” Leah breathed.  It was one thing to know he loved her.  It was another thing to feel him loving her.  But to know that he always had, that they’d been equally crazy and foolish from the first day… it broke Leah’s heart and put it back together at the same time. 

“Whatever happens,” he said, “it will always be you.”

____

Sometime in the night, when Sidney had lost count of the times they’d been together, he lay awake with Leah in his arms.  It was fully dark but the curtain was open, the lights of Toronto sparkling outside.  It had been open the whole time, which made Sidney laugh.  They hadn’t cared about anything but each other all day, no matter who saw.  Maybe someone had seen more than they intended.

Leah stirred against his chest.  They’d been napping just long enough to restore their energy before having another go at each other.  Finally Sidney felt satified, at least for a few hours.  It would be months, if ever, before he really had enough of Leah. 

With her head against his chest, Leah sighed.  “Why didn’t you tell me, back then?”

Sid knew what she meant: why didn’t you tell me you loved me?  He’d been asking himself the same question.  There were moments in Cole Harbour when it might have worked.  There were other moments he was throwing himself at her, hoping to stick, without the promise of anything more than one last night together.  The truth would have made that night different – better, perhaps, or maybe stopped it from happening at all.  In a time when Sidney thought one night to remember was all he’d get of Leah, he’d chosen to have it rather than risk it.

“I was scared you didn’t want me.  Didn’t want my life and all this craziness.”

She tipped her face up.  Even in the darkness her eyes were blue.  “You’re not scared anymore?”

“Terrified,” Sid admitted.  “Only now it’s too late, and I didn’t even give you a choice this time.”

Leah traced a finger along the hollow at the center of Sidney’s chest, between his pecs, over his heart.  For all that she’d tried to be there for him and protect him, in trying to be be a friend, Leah had failed to do one important thing.  “I should have trusted you before,” she said.  “I was so worried about being left behind, looking stupid.  I should have known that you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Sidney rubbed his hand across the small of her back, marveling at the smooth skin and size of her.  He would never get tired of this.  Knowing he almost never had it made him weak.

“I did, though,” he said.  “That girl in Pittsburgh….”

Leah stopped him.  “We don’t have to talk about that.  We weren’t together.”

“I was with you, though, even if we weren’t a couple.  I knew I was in love with you.  And I… I just want to tell you that I don’t remember it.  That’s not me, and I would never do that again.”

Leah saw the concerned crease of Sidney’s brow, the serious look on his face.  She let her head fall back.  “I trust you, Sid.  And if that doesn’t work, I’ll ask James to keep an eye on you.  I can be very persuasive.”

He made a gagging noise and Leah laughed, curling around him.  They shifted postitins to tangle up together in a new way.  Sid was going in for a kiss when he stopped.

“Where is Taylor?”

“Ummm… uh oh,” Leah said.

Sid fumbled for the bedside table, throwing an extra pillow aside to find the clock.  It was one in the morning.  His pants were a heap on the floor – he nearly fell out of bed reaching for them.  His ass hung in the air as he awkwardly stretched out.  Leah whistled a catcall.

He hit the power button and shook the phone, as if that would make it boot up faster.  The moment it came online all the tones sounded: text, voicemail, missed calls.  There would be a hundred of them from his coach, parents, agent, probably Duper and Flower and everyone else.  He ignored them all and hit send on Taylor’s number.

“Hey Sid!” came the answer, shouted over plenty of background noise.

“Where are you?”

“Out. At a bar,” Taylor said.  Leah could hear it from her side of the bed.

“Is Neal with you?”

Taylor laughed.  Bless her heart, Leah thought, she laughed right in rich, famous, overprotective her brother’s ear. 

“He had curfew two hours ago!  Don’t you?!  What are you still doing awake?” Her tone was so insinuating that Sid blushed, disgusted by the fact his sister knew he’d been up all night with Leah.

“He’s not with you?”

“No, KGB.  He went home, alone, before eleven.  Jeez!”  There was so muffled talking and the phone being moved.

“Sid, hey, it’s Gina,” the next voice said.

“You guys okay?” Sid asked.

“Of course.  James did go home, Taylor wants me to verify.  There was only minimal kissing, some groping, a little humping against the wall as he licked tequilla shots off her neck.  You know, the usual.  Then he left.”

Sid growled, knowing she was joking but still mad.  “I would kill him.”

“At least he’s hot.  You should see the guy Taylor’s making out with now.”

“GINA!” Sid shouted.  Leah could hear her best friend cackling as she hung up.  He grumbled, turning the phone off again. 

“You don’t think they really…?” he asked Leah.

“No.  James isn’t actually crazy.”

Sid looked unconvinced.  “And he never tried anything with you?”

So James had not told Sidney about the night after they ran from the club.  He hadn’t detailed the way Leah walked around his house wearing nothing but his t-shirt, daring him to make the bad decision she couldn’t make herself.  James had touched her arm, kissed her forehead and called himself a bad guy.  Then he’d done the right thing and walked away.

“Never,” Leah told Sidney honestly.  “He never did.”

Sid pressed his mouth into a hard line.  It was the answer he’d expected but it hurt to know that when push came to shove, Neal was a better man than he had been.  Sidney had taken the low road with a random drunk girl while James managed to keep his hands off something he wanted very genuinely, something that would have been good for him – angry captains aside. 

“He’d love to know we’re talking about him though,” Sid tried a joke.

“In bed,” Leah pointed out.

“And now you’re thinking about him, in bed,” Sid grimaced.

Leah leaned forward until her lips were almost touching Sidney’s.  His size and shape in the darkness of their own private space was intoxicating.  James could never be this, never come close.  One locked door between them and the world, and Sidney was all hers.

“Care to distract me?” she asked.

____