I Joined My Dead Sister's Curling Team, and Her Widower Joined Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Ice Shed

After her first practice, Leif stops joking in the ice shed, and Britt takes him on the bench until Dale appears in the doorway.

The first time I slid out of the hack on Thursday night, I landed flat on my face.

The ice at the club was cold and hard.

Four men stood over me in slider shoes, trying very hard not to laugh.

Leif Hovde was the only one who did.

"Bakken, you're a natural," he said.

"You fell with real conviction."

"Help me up," I said.

He gave me his hand, and I took it and pulled, and he came down on one knee on the ice beside me, swearing happily.

Dale Hovland, the skip, stood at the far end of the sheet with his broom held upright.

"Again," he said.

I threw my first stone that night with Gunnar's big hand on the small of my back, steadying me out of the hack.

It was a bad throw and a long way short, and all four of them cheered it anyway.

Nils, the big blond one, swept it without being asked.

He did not say a word to me all night.

On the wall by the trophy case hung a photograph of Annika in the team jacket, laughing.

Her red toque was pulled down to her eyebrows.

I looked at it for a while.

I had never once seen her look that happy at home.

When practice ended, Leif was the last one on the ice with me.

He took my elbow and tilted his head at a gray steel door beside the lockers.

"I promised to show you the pebbler," he said.

"It's the most thrilling machine in Minnesota."

Across the ice, Dale raised one eyebrow and went on coiling the rope.

Gunnar looked at me over the top of a box of brooms and nodded, once.

Everybody knew.

That was what I had asked for, and now I had it.

The ice shed was small and warm and smelled of hot rubber and cold concrete.

A space heater glowed orange in the corner.

A long wooden bench ran along one wall, and a tall steel tank with a hose stood by the door.

"That's the pebbler," Leif said, and pointed.

"I'd like to tell you it has a story, but it doesn't."

"Leif," I said.

"I had a whole speech," he said.

"It was funny. It had a bit about the hack."

I stepped in close and put my hands flat on his chest.

He was lean and hard under his club sweater, and his heart was going fast.

"Stop talking," I said.

"I can't," Leif said.

"It's all I've got."

"I don't believe that," I said.

I slid my hands up around his neck and kissed him.

He made a startled sound against my mouth, and then he kissed me back.

He kissed me hungrily, and clumsily, with his hands flying everywhere, and he laughed into my mouth in the middle of it.

"Sorry," he said.

"I laugh when I'm scared."

"Don't be scared," I said.

"Sit down."

He sat on the bench.

I stood between his knees and pulled my sweater over my head.

I was wearing a plain black bra, and his eyes dropped to it and stayed.

"Well," Leif said, softly.

"That's the end of my comedy career."

I unhooked the bra and let it fall.

He put his hands on my waist, and then his mouth on my breast, hot and wet.

I arched and threaded my fingers through his sandy hair.

He sucked, and scraped lightly with his teeth, and I gasped.

"Leif," I said.

"Take your pants off."

He fumbled his belt open with shaking hands.

I knelt on the concrete between his legs.

The floor was cold through my leggings, and I did not care.

He lifted his hips, and I pulled his jeans and boxers down to his knees.

He was long and lean, with a flushed head and a vein running up the underside.

I wrapped my hand around the base and licked him once from root to tip.

Leif's whole body jerked.

"Oh my God," he said.

"Oh, that's, no jokes. I have no jokes."

I took him into my mouth.

He tasted clean and salty, and I sank down as far as I could and drew up slowly with my tongue flat against the underside.

He groaned and dropped his head back against the wall.

I moved my mouth over him with a steady wet rhythm, and I cupped his balls in my other hand and rolled them gently.

His hips came up off the bench.

"Britt," he said.

"Britt, I'm not going to last."

I looked up at him with my mouth full and did not stop.

His hand came down and cupped my jaw.

He was looking at me with wet, wide eyes, and the grin was gone.

"She threw every stone hard and swore at it," he said, hoarsely.

"Annika. I miss that sound so much I can't stand it."

I pulled off him slowly.

"I know," I said.

"I know you do."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"That's the worst possible thing to say with your mouth on me."

"It's the first true thing you've said all night," I said.

"Say more of them."

I stood, peeled my leggings and underwear down, and kicked them off.

He watched every inch.

Then I climbed onto the bench and straddled his lap with my knees on either side of his thighs.

I took his cock in my hand and rubbed the head against my clit, up and down, slow and wet.

We both groaned.

"Put it in," Leif whispered.

"Please. Please, I'm begging."

I sank down onto him.

He was slender and hard and went in easily, and the stretch of it still made me gasp.

I seated myself on his lap and held there, with my arms around his shoulders and my forehead against his.

He was shaking.

His hands came to my hips and gripped them hard.

"You feel so good," he said.

"I'm not kidding. I'm not joking. You feel so damn good."

"I know," I said.

"I can feel how good it is."

I began to ride him.

The bench creaked and the space heater ticked, and the cold shed filled with the slap of skin on skin.

I rolled my hips, slow, then faster, and he thrust up to meet me.

Every thrust hit deep.

"Look at me," I said.

His eyes opened.

They were gray-green and soaked.

"You're mine for the next minute," I said.

"Not anybody's joke. Mine."

"Yours," he said.

"Yours, Britt."

I took his hand and put it between my legs.

"There. Rub it."

He found my clit with his thumb and rubbed hard circles in time with my hips.

I threw back my head and rode him faster.

The pleasure built in my belly and spread, hot and tight, and I knew it would be quick.

"Come on me," I said.

"Don't hold it."

"I'll hold it for you if you want," he said, and then he laughed, helplessly, a cracked wet laugh.

"I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. Oh, God."

I came with my fingers dug into his shoulders, grinding down on him, with a cry that bounced off the steel walls.

He felt me clench and went rigid.

"Britt," he said.

"I'm, I'm," and he came inside me with a long groan, pulsing hard.

I held him through the end of it, with his face in my neck.

He was breathing hard.

"Well," he said at last, into my skin.

"Now I have a new bit."

I laughed against his hair.

"Keep that one to yourself," I said.

"I will," Leif said, softly.

"Believe me. I will."

We stayed there for a while with the heater ticking and my fingers in his hair.

I had just lifted off him and found my sweater when someone cleared his throat.

Dale Hovland stood in the shed doorway, holding my winter coat.

His face was calm and his eyes were not.

"Saturday," he said.

"My shop in Northeast. Wear jeans you like."

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