The Hockey Captain Wants the Size 20 Team Chef Every Night novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Family Meal
Forty hockey players devour Corinna's first dinner, Doran takes the seat at her pass, and after the game he lifts her onto the steel prep table and kneels; the next morning the PR chief crops her out of the team photo.
The Blizzard won their home opener 4 to 1.
By ten that night, forty hockey players stood in my kitchen.
I had made short ribs, garlic mashed potatoes, and a pan of cornbread the size of a door.
The gravy had taken me two days.
"Nobody touches a plate until I say," I said.
Forty big men went quiet.
A lanky goalie with shaggy brown hair raised his hand.
"What if we're dying?" he said.
"Then you die in line, Ruzicka."
Pavel Ruzicka grinned so wide I thought his face would split.
"I love her," he announced to the room. "Hank, I love her. Marry her."
"I'm already married," said the coach, who stood at the front with a plate in each hand.
He was fifty-eight years old and built like a mailbox, and he'd eaten two bowls of stew at noon.
"Chef," Hank said. "Say the word."
"Eat."
They ate.
I had never seen anything like it.
Grown men with thighs sat on the floor and moaned over cornbread.
Pavel licked his gravy spoon and told me he was converting to my religion.
And Doran Beaulieu pulled up a stool at my pass, the steel counter where I plated, and sat down right across from me.
He'd showered, and his hair was dark with water.
His plain black T-shirt did nothing at all to hide his shoulders.
He had a bruise rising on his cheekbone.
"You got hit," I said.
"I scored."
"That's not what I asked."
"I scored twice," he said. "I thought you'd like to know."
I put a short rib in front of him, a fat one, and a mound of potatoes next to it.
He didn't look at the food.
He watched me put it down.
"You're staring," I said.
"Yes."
"The guys can see you."
"Let them." His voice dropped. "I'm not very good at pretending, Corinna."
He took his first bite and shut his eyes, and the sound he made went straight down my spine.
When he opened them again, they were dark.
"Stay after," he said. "Everybody leaves. Stay after."
"I have to clean."
"Then I'll help you clean."
"You'll get in the way."
"Probably," he said, and went back to his plate like he'd said something ordinary.
By midnight the kitchen was empty and my hands were pink from hot water.
I was wiping down the steel prep table when the door clicked shut behind me.
I didn't turn around.
"You said you'd help," I said.
"I lied."
His hands closed on my waist from behind.
They went all the way around.
His fingertips nearly met in front of my stomach, and his palms were hot through my apron.
I had spent my whole life being the biggest woman in every room.
For the first time in years, I felt small.
Not thin.
Held.
"Tell me to stop," he said into my hair.
"No."
"Tell me to leave."
"Doran."
"Say it again."
"Doran," I said, and my voice broke on his name.
He turned me around like I weighed nothing.
He set both hands under my thighs and lifted me.
My ass landed on the steel table, and my knees went around his hips.
"God, look at you," he said.
His eyes went over my face, my mouth, my chest rising under my chef's coat.
He undid the buttons one at a time with those big, careful fingers.
He pushed the coat off my shoulders.
He looked at my breasts in the plain black bra for a long moment, and his jaw tightened.
"I thought about this all day," he said. "I scored twice and all I thought about was this."
"You haven't seen anything yet."
"I've seen enough to be ruined." His thumb dragged over the top of my breast. "Soft. Heavy. Mine to carry."
"You haven't earned that."
"Then let me."
I lay back on the cold steel, and he took my clogs off and my pants down, slowly, kissing the inside of one knee.
My thighs were wide and pale in the kitchen light, and I waited for the flinch inside me.
It didn't come.
He pushed my knees apart with both hands and went down on his own knees on my kitchen floor.
A six-foot-six man, kneeling.
"Every inch of you," he said against my thigh. "I'm going to learn every inch."
His mouth found me, and I made a sound I didn't recognize.
He licked me slow and wide, with a groan.
His stubbled jaw dragged on my inner thigh and my hips bucked.
His hand clamped over my hip and held me down on the table.
"There," I gasped. "Right there."
"Tell me what you want."
"Your tongue. On my clit. Don't stop."
He didn't stop.
He sucked and circled until my back came off the steel and my fingers were locked in his wet auburn hair.
My thighs shook around his shoulders, and the pleasure rose and rose until I was saying his name and nothing else.
I came with my heels digging into his back.
He kept going through every second of it.
When I tried to push him away, he growled and pulled me closer.
When it was done, he rested his forehead on my belly and breathed.
"Nobody ever," I said, and stopped.
"Say it."
"Nobody has ever knelt for the whole of me."
His head came up.
His eyes were wet and furious.
"Then the world's a fucking idiot," he said. "I'd kneel every night."
He kissed me, and I tasted myself on him.
The next morning was team photo day.
I was in the hallway in a clean coat, carrying coffee for the photographer.
I walked into the edge of the shot.
Forty players stood in rows under bright lights.
Doran was front and center with the captain's C stitched on his chest, and he saw me and smiled.
"Hold, please," Delphine Hartley said, behind the camera.
She turned, and she looked at me for one slow second.
Then she tilted her head, and two men in headsets stepped between me and the lens and walked me out of frame.
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