A sob bursts free from her as I inch closer, reaching up and gently pulling her hands away.
Tears stream down her cheeks, and she keeps her gaze on my chest, avoiding my gaze.
Stroking the backs of her hands, I bend at my knees, bringing myself down to her eye level. “Hey, look at me.”
She hesitates for a moment before meeting my stare, her bottom lip quivering.
“I know I might be biased when it comes to Cole. But as your friend, I also know that you deserve so much better than what he’s given you and could give you. You deserve every single thing you want out of life, Lainey, and he is not good enough to be by your side.”
I take a shaky breath, a lump forming in my throat as she stares at me intently, hanging on to every word. “I want you to be happy, and whatever it takes to fulfill that part of you, I support … except for him. I think you made the right decision, love.”
I emphasize my next breath, and she does it with me, her shoulders relaxing.
With every passing second, she calms. As if a light bulb goes off in her head, I watch her pupils dilate, and her tongue dart out to wet her lips.
She swallows hard, and my body tenses up—not because I don’t want the same thing she does right now, but because I don’t want us to have our first kiss not thirty seconds after we talked about her ex and their breakup.
Leaning forward, she rolls up onto the balls of her feet. My heart sinks because I know what I’m about to do and I know that she might hate me afterward for it.
“Lain,” I say, and she stops dead in her tracks.
Her eyes widen like she’s seen a ghost as they flick up to mine. “Oh God. Oh no, I’m sorry!”
Fuck. This is what I was scared of.
She tries to pull and turn away from me, but I grab her face and keep her in place.
“Stop. Don’t apologize.Pleasedon’t fucking apologize.”
Embarrassment paints her cheeks. “Jen?—”
“No,” I cut her off. Leaning forward, I kiss her forehead before rolling my against hers, my breath hitting her lips. “Don’t think for a second that I don’t want to kiss you absolutely senseless. I’ve been thinking about it my entire life. But we’re not doing that tonight. Not until you’re certain, without a shred of doubt, that I’m the last person you want toevertouch you.”
When she straightens up, her gaze follows mine.
She sucks in a quick breath, wetting her lips. “Okay.”
Kissing her face has done little to ease the tension between us, but I do my best to ignore it. “All right. Now, let’s eat some McDonald’s, watch a movie, and get some sleep.”
“Yeah.” She nods, shaking her head out ever so slightly, like she’s trying to shake off what just happened.
I release her face and walk back over to the kitchen counter, grabbing our food while she walks into the living room and drags a couple of suitcases out of our way.
I may have been the one to set the no-kiss rule for tonight, but that doesn’t mean that being this close to her and not touching her when Iknowshe wants me to won’t be pure agony.
CHAPTER 14
LAINEY
“I wantto curl up into a hole and die after last night.” I groan, tucking my knees into my chest as Morgan fails to fight back a chuckle.
“I bet it wasn’t that bad.” She tries to console me as she walks into the living room from the kitchen, coffees in hand.
Morgan came over with coffee and breakfast this morning so we could catch up after last night, which has been haunting me since I first woke up.
Jensen ended up sleeping on my couch, but he was gone when I came to. At least he let me know with a note on my counter that it was because he had early practice. I have a while before I have to be at the arena for game time tonight, and thank God for that because I’m not ready to face Jensen.
Usually, physical therapists for the team work off and on at the arena during game days, but since the Nighthawks have a trainer team that focuses more on injury prevention, they are often the ones to help pregame and respond to immediate injuries when they happen.
