We both stare after him, but I decide I’d rather not know.
“Ready to go, baby?” I ask Gray. She looks at me hesitantly, and I frown. “Something wrong?”
She glances at Sully and Dean, then looks back at me. “I need to tell you something before we go.”
“Okay. What is it?” She looks so serious, and now I’m nervous.
“Not here,” she says. She grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall until we get to the equipment room. I look behind to see Sully and Dean following at a safe distance.
“We’ll just be a minute,” I tell them as Gray drags me into the equipment room.
I’m not sure what to think. This room has some good memories, and my dick reacts accordingly as she turns to me, but the look on her face doesn’t suggest she has sex on her mind.
“I love you,” Gray says without preamble.
I blink. That was the last thing I expected her to say, and I have to reset my brain before her words sink in. Even so, my immediate reaction is, “…What?”
“I love you,” she repeats, a shy smile adorning her face. “I should’ve told you a long time ago, back when you first said it to me, but I was afraid. I wish my first time telling you wasn’t from the other side of the glass in front of all those people, but recent events made me realize I shouldn’t wait to express how I feel. Hence the reason I’m telling you again now rather than waiting for a more romantic moment.”
I pull her into what’s likely a bone-crunching hug. “Fuck, Gray. I love you too. I love you so much.”
My lips descend on hers again to kiss her deeply, and it’s nearly a minute before we pull apart.
Then something she said hits me. “What were you afraid of? I already told you I loved you. Did you not believe me?”
She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain,” she says. “I mean, you’re this big hockey star, and you’re so…” She lets her eyes run over my body quickly. “Pretty,” she decides on, making me almost laugh. “It’s like Barry said. I’m just regular, and I didn’t think-”
“He saidwhat?” I interrupt, red rage filling my mind at the thought of that incel motherfucker.
She looks taken aback at the ferocity of my question. “It…It’s nothing,” she says. “He was just saying guys like you get all the actresses and supermodels, so he was mad you were also taking the regular women like me, and-”
“Stop,” I interrupt her, closing my eyes against the desire to do violence in response to the utter fucking bullshit that jackass was filling her head with before I got there.
I open my eyes. “First of all, Gray, there’s nothing regular about you, and I’m surprised at you for letting that piece of shit convince you otherwise.”
Her mouth works as if she wants to argue, but it’s a second or twobefore she says, “He just meant…I mean…well, compared to your last girlfriend-”
I put a finger on her lips to make her stop talking, and I wish that fucker was here so I could beat the shit out of him all over again. Sully should’ve let me put him in a coma.
“You need to listen to me carefully,” I say, “because this is the last time we’re going to have this conversation. Understand?”
She nods, my finger still on her lips.
I push her back toward the wall until she’s pressed against it, and I grind my hips into hers so she can feel the erection straining against my pants. She groans.
“You are fucking gorgeous,” I whisper to her. “Grace couldn’t hold a candle to you.”
She opens her mouth, and I already hear the argument on her tongue, so I bring my lips down on hers to stopper the words before she can speak them. I kiss her until her body goes limp against me.
“Fuck, baby. Don’t you feel how God damn hard I am for you?” I ask. I push my groin into her, and she moans. “Grace never made me this hard. I’m fucking mad about you, Gray, and I don’t fall for just ‘regular’ women. You’re not just gorgeous. You’re smart and fierce and brave, and if I could spend the rest of my life just breathing the same air you breathe, I’d be a happy man.”
A small breath punches out of her. “Alright,” she says.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “I’m not sure you’ve gotten the message yet, so I think I have to take you home, strap you to the bed, and make you come until you understand.”
“I…,” she starts, then trails off.
I smile. She wants to argue that she understands, but she doesn’t want to take being tied to the bed and given multiple orgasms off the table.
