Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

The rest of the evening was hell, and that was because of me.

I should have kept my mouth shut, I had no right to say that, and I did it anyway. It was a reflex. I didn’t think about what I said at that moment. Like I talked first and then thought and realized what I said.

When Weston let go of my hand, I realized what I had done.

That the New Jersey Devils were interested in him was something he should tell his Dad, not me.

I screwed up.

The mood in the car was terrible as we drove home.

It was the last night at the Sinclairs until we moved into the newly renovated house the next day. Mom and I had already been there the last few days with Ethan, and he and a buddy from his relay race helped us set up the first furniture.

We set up as much as we could as Ethan prepared for Game Week. So was Weston. He offered to help, but Mom insisted that he should focus and prepare for the games.

The dresser was already in my room, with a round mirror above it. My bed was still boxed up because a piece of furniture had to be delivered later. I’ll sleep with my mattress on the floor for the first few nights.

It made everything worse. The last night at the Sinclairs, the silent treatment in the car, and the tense atmosphere.

Although I could sleep over at Weston’s house sometime, just like he could at mine, it was different from the last few weeks.

Weston and I entered the house and were the only ones already home. Rick, Camilla, and my Mom were still at the benefits gala, saying goodbye to the last people and having the food from the buffet packed up.

I sidled up behind him and followed him to his room.

Weston disappeared into the bathroom, and I hung my dress on a hanger. His room had somehow become mine as well. The guest room was now only for changing clothes as if it was a dressing room.

I put on the exact t-shirt I’d been wearing to sleep the last few days, traipsed through the bathroom with the dress on the hanger, and hung it on the closet door in the guest room.

‘Can we talk, Wes?’ I asked cautiously, watching him throw his white shirt in the wash and fold his suit.

‘I’m just tired. I want to sleep,’ he grumbled.

Ouch.

But I accept his decision. I just want to lie in bed with him, in his arms, and sleep to have enough energy for tomorrow.

Weston stopped as we entered his room, and I almost ran into his bare back. ‘I think it’s better if we each sleep in our own bed tonight, Luna,’ Weston scratched the back of his neck, and I glared at him.

It took a moment to realize I wasn’t imagining his words.

‘Are you serious right now? Why are you shutting me out like this now? That’s unfair,’ I asked him, ‘this is the last night I’m here.’

My eyes started to burn, and I could feel tears welling up, but I  tried not to let the tears leave my eyes.

Those tears are not going to run down my cheeks.

‘So many things are unfair in life, but this is the right thing to do. Good night, Luna.’

That hurt.

That sentence felt like a punch in the stomach.

Without returning his last words, I walked past him, grabbed my comforter, and silently walked past him.

I was aware of my guilt and knew what I did wrong, but it hurt me almost more that he shut me out and pushed me away from him. I can’t do more than show Weston I knew what I had done wrong and try talking to him.

If that’s what he wanted, I could do nothing.

I slept like shit. Really shitty.

If I could even call it sleep.

My head was full of thoughts from last night. I reviewed the whole evening and our brief conversation and replayed it the whole time. I was thinking of just going to Weston’s room, but something inside me, like a second voice, kept me from doing so.

I also hoped he might change his mind and come to me, lie in bed with me, or hug me.

With my ear to the door of his room, I tried to listen and somehow find out if he had already been awake or was still sleeping. But since I heard nothing, I turned the silver-colored doorknob and cracked the door so my head would fit through.

There was no one there.

His bed wasn’t made, which was always the case, but when I looked for his gym bag, which was always next to the closet, was also gone, I knew he had already left the house.

I ran down the stairs to the kitchen, and Mom was the only person there.

‘Where is everyone else?’ I asked perfunctorily.

‘Weston is already at the ice arena,’ she answered what I wanted to know.

My Mom looked at me worriedly. ‘Luni, what’s wrong?’

‘We had a fight because I didn’t think, and now I messed up,’ I chewed on my bottom lip.

‘You know he looks just as messed up as you do?’

She took me in her arms, and I put my arms around her waist, hugging her tightly as she stroked her hand through my hair.

‘Find a way to talk to him and tell him what you think. It’s the only way you’ll be able to work it out, and then everything will be okay, but only if you talk to him,’ she gave me a kiss on the temple, ‘promise?’

‘Mhm,’ I nodded.

I made another cocoa, took a peeled orange upstairs, and started packing the rest. First, I packed all the bathroom items into my little makeup bag after I freshened up. I stashed the last items in a suitcase, which had been under the bed for the last few weeks, and pushed it into the hallway before making the bed and vacuuming around the room.

Mom put my suitcase, her suitcase, and two boxes in the car, and I made one last tour in the room and looked in the drawers to see if there was anything else of mine lying around.

My mood was not very good, I was thinking a lot, and somehow I still had the feeling that nothing would come of it.

My head hurt from thinking, and my heart felt heavy because I missed Weston.

I was looking forward to the house because it was on a small one-way street centrally located between downtown Eastburgh and my college. The yard was small, but Mom made the most of it and had a porch built onto the house by it. The house had white wood siding and, as if facing the garden, a small porch at the entrance.

I loved that little house.

Mom locked the front door behind her and threw the front door key in the silver mailbox that hung on the wall.

We drove to our new home, started packing everything out of the car into the house, sorted the boxes, and assigned them to their respective rooms.

I was sitting in the middle of a mess, surrounded by boxes and laundry baskets of clothes.

The dress I wore to the Benefits Gala yesterday hung on my door and a long string of lights that I wanted to hang on the roof’s slope.

I had so many things going through my head, and my head was about to burst

Since I got up, I just wanted to get to him and hug Weston. I would love to leave this mess here and run to the campus where he had practice at the rink because tomorrow will be the last game against the Chicago Polar Bears.

I wanted to apologize to him and explain that it that I didn’t intend to take away his opportunity to tell his Dad about it. My cell phone was on the long windowsill, which doubled as a seat, and I looked up Weston’s contact and called him.

I was sure he wouldn’t answer because he was rarely available when you tried to call him during practice.

I left a message in our chat asking if he had time to talk later.

As I continued to unpack, I kept glancing at my phone repeatedly, hoping he would call or send me a message.

Aria’s and Lucy’s messages were the only ones on my phone screen because we would meet this weekend to try out the new Italian restaurant that had opened up in town.

It was just after eight in the evening, and I still hadn’t heard from Weston. I tried calling him again, but it went straight to voicemail this time.

After the shower and with wet hair dripping on my t-shirt, I made myself cocoa late in the evening in the kitchen between all the dishes that had not yet been put away to lie down in bed and hopefully fall asleep quickly.

This day just sucked.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and I heard my Mom’s slippers tapping on the hardwood floor to the front door while I was in the kitchen dumping the cocoa powder into the cup.

‘Weston,’ I heard my Mom say.

I looked up from my cup and ran with the spoon in my hand around the corner to where I stood across the hall from Weston.

‘I’m going to bed. If anything happens, you know where to find me. Good night you two.’ Mom ran up the stairs, and we both heard her close the door to the bedroom.

I looked over at him, still standing there like I was frozen.

Weston looked so tired and beat. His posture was tense, but his shoulders were slumped.  He must have come straight here from practice because he was clutching his gym bag in his right hand. I ran up to him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and felt his hands around my waist after he dropped the gym bag on the floor.

‘I’m so sorry, Wes,’ I mumbled, hugging him as tight as possible.

‘I’m sorry too, Luna.’

I loosened the hug and looked at him, confused.

‘No, you have absolutely no reason to apologize, okay? I wasn’t thinking at that moment, and I just said it. It was not my right to take that away from you, and—’ I didn’t even get a chance to finish. Weston took my face between his ice-cold hands, which were burning on my cheeks, and pressed his lips on mine.

‘I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that. I was angry and at the same time overwhelmed with how to react, and I didn’t know how to help myself but to be stubborn,’ he explained himself.

‘Do you want to stay here overnight?’

‘You’re still asking that?’ he smiled.

God, I missed this, and it wasn’t even twenty-four hours where we barely saw each other, and it felt like it had been several months.

I was already in bed, if you could call the mattress on the floor with cardboard boxes, makeshift nightstands, a bed, and listened to the splashing sound from the bathroom.

Weston and I were drinking cocoa downstairs in the kitchen, which I made for both of us, and talked about everything.

It felt good to know everything was okay between me and him again. The splashing from the shower in the next room quieted, and shortly after, Weston entered my room, hair soaking wet, a towel around his waist, and drops of water on his chest.

I was fucked.

‘Stop looking at me like that, Luna.’

Weston searched in his gym bag for a t-shirt he could pull over.

‘How am I looking at you?’ I provoked him and sat upright without taking my eyes off him.

How could I resist that sight?

‘Don’t make me say this out loud.’

‘Or what will happen?’

My gaze slid over his naked, still, slightly wet torso. Individual beads of water lay on his chest or slid down his abs to the waistband of the towel.

‘Maybe I should finish something I started,’ Weston said as he crawled onto the mattress toward me.

My heart beat faster at the statement, and my breathing equaled it. I spread my legs a little to give him a chance to get closer to me, and he propped himself up with one hand beside me.

The water in his hair strands dripped onto my face, and I felt the cold water on my skin. His hand slid down my underpants, and I felt his fingers stroking the thin fabric.

Weston’s fingers stopped at the lace waistband on my underpants, and he began playing with the waistband. I felt his hand inside my panties over my shaved pussy and ran two fingers through my fold.

‘Look at how dripping wet you already are.’

I was already wet before his warm fingers slid through my pussy.

I twitched at his touch as his fingertips applied light pressure to my clit.

‘I didn’t know you were so sensitive,’ he grinned dirty and licked his lips. Weston took his hand from my shorts and pulled my t-shirt up a little, exposing my bare breasts.

Slowly he kissed his way from my belly button to my hard nipples, sending single jolts of electricity directly between my legs by nibbling on them, intensifying my desire for him, his touch, and his dick.

While he nibbled my nipples gently and covered my breasts with kisses, I felt his thumb on my clit. Except that the thin fabric of my underpants was between them.

‘Do you like it like that?’

‘Yes,’ I breathed out, enjoying his touch.

My heartbeat quickened, and I felt it pounding against my chest.

I felt his hand on my top, which he kept pulling up until I pulled it over my head. Weston kissed me briefly on the mouth, leaving short, wet kisses on my body with his lips down to the waistband of my underpants.

Each kiss from him on my skin left a tingling sensation, and the closer he got to my underpants, the tingling got stronger.

He pulled my underpants down over my thighs to my legs and dropped them on the floor next to the mattress.

I had never felt so safe and beautiful as I did right now, lying naked in front of Weston. I looked at him until my eyes slid from his face down his torso to the waistband of the towel at his hip. Through the towel, I saw his boner, and I would love to rip that towel off his hip.

Slowly his hands went to the waistband of his hips as he knelt in front of me on the mattress between my legs.

He opened the white towel and exposed his hard dick after dropping the white towel where my underpants were.

‘God, you are perfect. How lucky am I to call this pussy mine,’ he said, and I felt him scanning my whole body and moving his hand up and down his dick.

‘Do you have a condom?’

‘Uhm, I thought you had one.’

‘Fuck,’ he said.

‘Well… I’m on birth control,’ I said hesitantly, not knowing how he would react and what he would think of us having sex without a condom.

‘Are you okay with that?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Mhm,’ I nodded, ‘I trust you.’

I watched Weston’s grip on his length quicken, and the urge grew in me to touch myself in front of him as well. Before I could even do that, I watched as Weston leaned over me and extended an arm to one of my pillows.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked him, confused, as he placed the small pillow under my lifted pelvis.

‘I’m trying to make you feel good. Be patient, pretty girl.’

Weston took his dick to my entrance and stroked my clit before I felt the tip of his cock inside me.

Slowly he penetrated me, giving me what I craved so much. ‘Fuck, you feel so fucking good.’

I felt Weston penetrate me more, supporting himself with both forearms next to my head.

‘Mhm…Wes,’ I moaned as I felt the friction of his dick against my clit.

‘Do I make you feel good?’

‘Yes,’ I moaned as softly as I could.

Weston’s movements were getting faster, and I could feel my clit getting more sensitive from the friction.

‘Fuck, Luna,’ he moaned into the crook of my neck as he sped up.

He felt so good inside me, and I noticed a knot forming in my stomach, tightening more with each subsequent movement. My hands clawed into his hair, and I ran my nails down his neck to his shoulder blades.

‘Hmm, is that good?’ he asked me.

‘Can we change positions?’

Weston lay back on the mattress, and I sat over his dick. With one hand, I supported myself. With the other, I took his length and guided it to my entrance.

I lowered myself onto his dick and let my head fall into my neck as I felt Weston’s dick inside me.

‘Look how well you’re taking my dick inside you, Luna.’

Carefully, I moved my pelvis up and down as his thumb continued to stroke my clit.

‘Fuck, Weston. I’m about to come,’ I whimpered as the knot in my abdomen tightened faster as I rode Weston’s dick.

‘Oh baby, you’re doing so good.’

I held my hand in front of my mouth because I didn’t want to be so loud, afraid my Mom would hear us.

‘Mhm… Luna. Ride my dick faster,’ he moaned my name, dropping his head in his neck while I rode him.

‘Ah… Fuck,’ Weston gasped the words, and I saw his well-toned abs tighten.

He swallowed hard, and I saw his Adam’s apple move. Weston didn’t give the impression that it was over. While he supported me by my hips, I touched myself and stimulated my clit the way I liked it while I continued to ride him until I felt my orgasm.

My heartbeat quickened, and I felt him all over my body, and I felt my abdomen burst as the knot in my stomach loosened.

Weston sat up straight as his cock slid out of my twitching pussy, and I watched his cum run out of my pussy.

‘Let me clean you up before I taste you,’ he murmured against my lips.