But I don’t know if he wants me to hold on or let go, and my brain can’t form the words. Everything in me is becoming centered on how close I am to shooting off the edge—and that’swhat it feels like this time. As though something is building in me that’ll be truly explosive. And I want it so badly, but at the same time, I just want to stay in this moment. But I don’t know how much longer I can linger when my body is so primed, so ready.
“Can you?” I manage to ask.
“I’m just holding on for you, doc. Cause, fuck, you feel so good. I’m barely… I’m barely keeping it together.”
“I’m close.”
“Tell me.”
“Oh god,” I say, clinging onto him. “Oh god, Logan.” And I hear my breath hitch, the claim he made earlier, but I barely have time to register before I’m rocked with an orgasm so powerful that my hips kick off the mattress of their own volition, and I let out a cry of pure pleasure, hips rotating with the force of my orgasm.
Logan grips my ass and pushes deeper before burying his head in my neck and letting out a deep groan of satisfaction. “You’re incredible. You’re so fucking incredible. I’ll never get enough of this. Of you.”
When Logan comes out of the bathroom, he flips off the light and crawls into bed with me. He tucks me against him so my back is snug against his front. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmurs against my ear.
“I overreacted at the clinic earlier. I’m sorry.”
“No, I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t even know what I was trying to say.”
I rotate in his arms, even though it’s too dark for me to see him with the curtains firmly closed and all the lights out. It justfeels like I should be facing him, and I slide my hand along his bearded jaw, hoping maybe I can read something with my touch. The connectedness we just had, and the darkness now have given me the courage I lacked before.
“I want to be really clear. I’m with you because I want to be. That’s the truth. I want to be here right now. Even when I’m not with you, I want to be with you. Maybe I went to that first away game because Tamiko asked me, but I stayed because of you. I stayedforyou.”
Logan kisses my forehead and cups the back of my head, but he doesn’t interrupt me.
“And yes, I also like to be needed. But the best part about being with you is that I feel cared for and valued and protected.Youare my safe place. You understand that I want to feel needed, but you’d never wield that need like a weapon. You’re not going to take advantage of me, and that matters. A lot. More than you’ll ever know.” Tears pool at how true that is. Being with him is a sanctuary, and I want to be that for him too. With each other, we don’t have to have our guards up because we know the other person isn’t out to hurt or harm us. “If I haven’t been making you feel like I’m choosing you, then I’m sorry. So I want you to hear me when I say that even thoughyoumight needme, I’m in this bed with you right now because Iwantto be. Every road game I went to was because I wanted to be there. I see you, Logan Bishop. All of you, and I pick you. I’ve chosen you. Every day I choose you.”
“I love you.” His voice is gravely with emotion, and I wish I could see his face. “I fucking love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. My heart is going bananas in my chest right now that I just told you that.” He lets out a strained chuckle, and he’s taken my hand to press it against his chest. “Can you feel it? Worse than your hardest cardio set.”
I open my mouth, and he puts his other hand over it. I’m not even sure how he’s seeing me to know where my mouth is.
“If you’re going to say it back, don’t. Not right now. And if you’re not going to say it, I don’t need to know that. Say it when you feel it, so it’s not just in response to me saying it. I want to know in my gut that you really mean it—if you ever feel it.”
My heart is hammering, too, because I never let myself think about love with Logan. Not in a real and conscious way. Earlier, he said that marriage and kids are something he envisions as ten years from now, and my biological clock is telling me that I don’t want to wait that long. He’d still be a youngish dad, but I’d be an old mom, and I don’t want that.
“I promise that when I say it, you’ll know I mean it.”
How unfair would it be to say it when I already know our timelines don’t match? He’s exactly the man I need in my life right now, but that doesn’t change how far off our timing is. Maybe we’re only meant to heal each other so we can find whoever we’re supposed to spend forever with.
That thought doesn’t make me happy; it makes me so bitterly sad that tears spring to my eyes again. Seeing him with anyone else would be the deepest cut, one I don’t even know how or if I could heal.
Rather than giving into my misery, I tug Logan into another kiss, a kiss that’ll lead to more close contact, even if it’s not the kind of closeness he craves, the kind he deserves.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Logan
The team is struggling. I’m having the best season of my career—goals and assists in every game. But beyond the first line, which is one of the best in the league, we’ve got no depth. Before this season, the shallow talent pool was a problem. Everyone knew it. The reality has never been this stark. I could end up being the league’s top scorer, and my team might not even make the playoffs.
So when my agent calls to tell me he’s hearing rumblings of a trade, I’m not surprised. Dalton told me at the start of the season he didn’t think I belonged in Bellerive, and I’m sure my very public and much-loved relationship with Sawyer is a deep wound. Every time he sees pictures of her happy, I pray he feels like the loser he is. Being with Sawyer is the equivalent of winning the cup—a once in a lifetime chance. To squander that is the highest form of stupidity.
“Have you heard what teams the Bullets are talking to?” I ask with the phone pressed to my ear. Sawyer will be here soon to pick me up, and I don’t want her hearing any of this. Trade rumors happen, and until there’s a deal on the table, I’m not going to worry.
“You know all this, but you’re a high-value player. Without you, the Bullets have the cap room to go after a decent second or third line. That’s where they’re looking. They also need someone who’s good enough for your current line and doesn’t cost your price. I’d expect a deal with quite a few moving pieces.”
“Our record makes it so obvious that the team’s talent beyond the first line is almost zero. My line steps off the ice, and the opposition is scoring like it’s open fucking season.”
“Defense is definitely a weakness. And you’re right. The games have all been high scoring. In the Bullets’ favor when the first string is out, and not at all in your favor for every second your line sits on the bench.” He takes a deep breath as though bracing himself. “How much pushback are you going to give a trade? At the start of the season, I’d have said zero. But this thing with Sawyer Tucker seems to have legs. Would she move? Long-distance?”
