Bonus Chapter: Ours

The Goal That Got Me — Bonus Content
by Aurora North

This bonus chapter takes place after the events of The Goal That Got Me. It contains explicit sexual content and is intended for readers 18+.

Ours

A Bonus Chapter from The Goal That Got Me

Riley Smith had carried a lot of heavy things in her life — hockey bags, gym equipment, the emotional weight of twenty-five years of performative toughness — but the box labeled EVE’S BOOKS (3 of 11) was going to be the thing that finally killed her.

“What’s in here?” she gasped, bracing it against her hip as she staggered through the door of their new apartment. “Bricks? A body? The complete works of every author who’s ever lived?”

“Mostly romance novels,” Eve called from the kitchen, where she was organizing mugs by size with the focused intensity of a woman defusing a bomb. “And some hockey analytics textbooks.”

“Those are the bricks.”

“Set it by the bookshelf. Jordan’s almost done building it.”

Jordan Hayes was, in fact, almost done building the bookshelf. She’d been assembling IKEA furniture for three hours with the silent, methodical competence of someone performing a sacred ritual. Around her lay the carcasses of completed projects — a nightstand, a dresser, a shoe rack that Eve had found on sale and Riley had declared unnecessary and would probably use every day. Jordan hadn’t spoken in forty-five minutes. She’d consulted the Swedish instructions once, set them aside, and proceeded from memory, which was either impressive or terrifying depending on your relationship with the concept of following directions.

Dani Kowalski was on the couch. She had a label maker.

This was a problem.

“I have labeled every box in this apartment,” Dani announced, holding up the device with the pride of a woman who’d discovered fire. “Every single one. Kitchen boxes are blue labels. Bedroom boxes are pink labels. Bathroom boxes are green labels. The miscellaneous boxes are—”

“Dani,” Riley said, setting box three of eleven down with a thud that rattled the windows. “Nobody asked for a box system.”

“Nobody asked for oxygen either, and yet here we are, breathing. The box system is essential infrastructure.”

The apartment was in Somerville. Second floor of a triple-decker, two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen that was small but functional, a living room with actual natural light. The second bedroom was Eve’s — she’d claimed it before they’d signed the lease, already calling it “the plant room” in a tone that brooked no argument. The main bedroom had a king-size bed still wrapped in plastic, a mattress protector that Eve had purchased after thirty minutes of online research, and nothing else.

It was theirs. The word still hit Riley in the sternum every time she thought it — theirs.

Eve emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts, sneakers, and one of Riley’s tank tops — a black one, oversized, the armholes cut low enough that every time she raised her arms, Riley could see the side of her sports bra and the curve of her ribs and the freckle on her left hip and approximately fourteen other things that were making it very difficult to carry boxes.

The dinosaur watering can got its own shelf. Riley complained. Eve ignored her. The watering can stayed.

“You’re disgusting, Smith,” Dani said from the couch, watching Riley stare at Eve bending over a box for the fourth consecutive time.

“Shut up.”

By mid-afternoon, the apartment was mostly unpacked. Dani was showing no signs of leaving. Jordan was still assembling furniture — she’d moved on to the plant room shelves, which had adjustable heights and a color-coded diagram from Eve.

Riley was losing her mind. Eve kept bending over boxes. The tank top kept slipping. They hadn’t christened the apartment yet and it had been hours.

Eve — who had clearly been doing this on purpose — caught Riley’s eye across the room. Held it. Then bent over another box, slowly, and looked back over her shoulder.

Riley stood up. “Okay. Everyone out.”

Dani: “We just ordered pizza.”

“Take it with you.”

Jordan, without looking up: “I’m not done with—”

“OUT.”

Dani grabbed the pizza, grabbed Jordan, and left. At the door she whispered to Eve: “You’re welcome.” Eve closed the door in her face.

The lock clicked. The apartment went quiet.

“Hi,” Eve said.

Riley crossed the room in three strides, backed Eve against the front door, and braced her arms on either side of Eve’s head.

“You’ve been doing that on purpose. The bending. The tank top. All of it.”

“Maybe.” The small smile. The private one. “Maybe I wanted to see how long it would take you to kick everyone out.”

“Four hours, Eve. I deserve a medal.”

“You deserve a lot of things.” Eve’s fingers hooked into Riley’s belt loops. “This is our apartment. Our door. Our wall.” Her voice dropped. “Our kitchen counter.”

“You’ve been thinking about that kitchen counter since we signed the lease.”

“Counter. Now.”

They stumbled to the kitchen. Riley’s hands found the hem of the stolen tank top and pulled it over Eve’s head. Sports bra next. Then Eve was bare from the waist up in their kitchen, and the afternoon light caught her freckles and Riley’s brain went offline.

She lifted Eve onto the counter. Eve’s legs wrapped around her waist. They were face to face. Eye to eye. No height difference. Just heat.

“This is our counter,” Riley said, kissing Eve’s jaw. “Our kitchen.”

“If you narrate every surface—”

“I’m going to narrate every surface. I’m going to narrate this apartment until you can’t walk through a single room without remembering what I did to you in it.”

Riley kissed down Eve’s chest. Took her time with her breasts — mouth and tongue and teeth, the way she’d learned Eve liked it. Eve’s hands tightened in her hair. Her hips rocked forward on the counter.

“Off,” Eve gasped, tugging at her own waistband. “Get these off.”

Riley slid the shorts and underwear down in one motion, and then Eve was naked on their kitchen counter and Riley was kneeling on their kitchen floor.

“No hotel walls,” Riley said against Eve’s thigh. “No teammates next door. You can be as loud as you want. In our apartment. So be loud.”

She put her mouth on Eve and Eve was loud.

Full-volume, unfiltered, I own this space and no one can hear me except the woman between my legs loud. Riley worked her with devoted precision — tongue flat and firm, then circling, reading every gasp. She gripped Eve’s thighs, held her open, pinned her to the counter while her mouth did the work.

She slid two fingers inside her. Curled. Found the spot. Eve’s abs contracted and her thighs clamped around Riley’s head and she came with a sound that ricocheted off the kitchen walls of their apartment — sharp, raw, part scream, part Riley’s name broken into syllables that didn’t reassemble into language.

“That’s one room,” Riley said, standing.

Eve laughed, breathless and wrecked. “Bedroom. The mattress is still in plastic.”

They wrestled the plastic off the mattress. It produced more physical comedy than any sexual encounter should begin with — Riley got tangled in a sheet of wrap and spun in a circle, Eve laughed so hard she collapsed on the bare mattress, and at one point Riley was wearing the plastic like a cape and flexing like a superhero.

By the time the sheets were on — Eve’s sheets, white, high thread count, fitted corners that actually fit — the laughter had transmuted into something warmer.

Eve sat on the edge of the bed. Looked up at Riley. Reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out a length of fabric. Dark green silk. A scarf.

Riley’s pulse spiked. “Is that—”

“I bought it three weeks ago.” Eve stood. Let the silk slide through her fingers. “Lie down.”

Every instinct Riley had fired at once — the control instinct, the performance instinct, the I’ll lead so you don’t see how scared I am instinct.

She lay down.

Eve climbed over her. Straddled her hips. Took Riley’s wrists and looped the scarf through the headboard slats. Not tight. A symbol more than a restraint.

“Is this okay?”

“This is so far past okay I need a new language.”

Eve undressed Riley slowly. Then sat back and looked — face to feet and back. The reverence and hunger in her gaze made Riley’s clit throb.

“You’re beautiful,” Eve said.

“You always say that.”

“I always mean it.” Eve kissed Riley’s sternum. “And I’m going to keep saying it until you believe it all the way through.”

She kissed her way down. Throat. Collarbone. Each breast — slow circles that made Riley arch off the mattress. Ribs. Stomach. The tattoo traced with her tongue. Her mom’s initials kissed with the tenderness that always made Riley’s vision blur.

She went lower. Kissed Riley’s hip. The crease of her thigh. Then back up — painfully slow, approaching but never arriving.

“Eve—”

“Not yet.”

She edged her. Three times. The first: tongue on Riley’s clit, building the orgasm layer by layer — then pulling away at the crest. Riley cursed and writhed and begged. The second: fingers inside her, two then three, while Eve’s thumb circled her clit — building faster, then stilling completely, holding Riley at the peak without pushing her over. The third: mouth and fingers together, bringing Riley to the very edge — and holding her there. Five seconds. Ten. An eternity of almost.

“Eve — fuck, please — I can’t — please let me come—”

Riley Smith. Begging. In their bed, in their apartment. The tough girl handing over every last scrap of control.

“You can come,” Eve whispered. “Let go, baby. I’ve got you.”

She sealed her mouth over Riley’s clit and sucked, and her fingers curled, and the orgasm detonated with a force that made Riley’s entire body seize. She came screaming — the sound enormous in the empty apartment — and the orgasm went on and on, wave after wave.

Eve untied the scarf immediately. Gathered Riley against her. Kissed her wrists where the silk had been.

“I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Riley curled into her, shaking. “You’re evil.”

“I’m strategic.”

“Three times. You edged me three times.”

“I’m going to need a minute.”

“Take as long as you need.”

“And then I’m getting revenge.”

“I was counting on it.”

Riley took seven minutes. Then she flipped Eve beneath her — fast, smooth — and the laugh died in Eve’s throat when Riley pinned her wrists above her head and looked down at her with an expression that made the laughter irrelevant.

“My turn.”

She kissed Eve’s neck, her shoulder, then worked down her spine — she’d rolled Eve onto her stomach, face down on the new sheets. Vertebra by vertebra, her mouth warm and deliberate.

Eve couldn’t see Riley. Face down, her cheek against the pillow. She had to trust entirely by sound, by touch.

Riley positioned her — hips tilted up, knees apart — and slid two fingers inside from behind. The angle was different — deeper, the pressure immediate and intense. She curled her fingers and started a slow, deep rhythm while her other hand slid around Eve’s hip and found her clit.

“Oh — fuck — Riley—”

Riley’s mouth was at Eve’s ear, her body draped over Eve’s back. “This is our bed. Our room. Every morning I’m going to wake up here with you and right now I’m going to make you come in it so hard that every time you lie down on these sheets you remember exactly what it felt like.”

“Riley — I’m close—”

“Come for me. In our bed. In our home.”

Eve bit the pillow and came. Muffled, deep, her whole body clenching — around Riley’s fingers, against Riley’s chest, into the mattress that was theirs. Riley held her through every tremor.

They lay tangled in the ruined sheets. The afternoon light was fading. The apartment was quiet. The dinosaur watering can sat on its shelf by the window, catching the last of the light.

“We should name the apartment,” Eve murmured.

“People don’t name apartments.”

“We name everything. We named my watering can.”

“You named the watering can. I objected.”

“His name is Gerald and he’s part of the family.”

“I’m not calling a dinosaur watering can Gerald.”

“You already did. Just now. He heard you. He’s imprinted.”

Riley tipped her head back and laughed. The real one — the full, loud, startled laugh that echoed through their apartment. Bouncing off walls Eve would fill with plants and books, off the kitchen counter where Riley had made her come, off the bedroom ceiling where the last light was playing.

“Gerald it is,” Riley said.

Eve smiled against her chest. The small one. The private one. The one that had been Riley’s since October.

Riley pressed her lips to Eve’s hair. Closed her eyes.

She’s the softest thing I’ve ever held and the strongest thing I’ve ever known. She’s my home. Every version. Every morning. Every heartbeat. Mine.

Outside, the pizza arrived. Dani texted seventeen times. Jordan sent a single message: Shelves need 40 more minutes. Don’t be naked when I come back.

They were naked when Jordan came back.

Jordan built the shelves anyway.