“We don’t have to talk about work right now.”
“Okay. But we have all afternoon. All night. All week. We can talk about anything and everything. I want that with you, Frankie. I could listen to you talk forever. But if you want to talk about something else, that’s okay.”
She kisses my chest, then props her chin on her hand. “I actually wanted to talk about the condoms.”
“Yeah?” My pulse jacks up. “Do you want to ditch them in the summer? I was just following your lead.”
She blushes. “I think…if you’re moving here, then it might be better if I got on birth control, yeah. Because we slipped a couple of times when you were here last time, and…”
Fuck. Yeah, we didn’t talk about that. But it’s good to talk now. “And since I just fucked you like a man possessed, you want to make sure I won’t slip this time? I won’t, Frankie. That was…I think I was just so fucking relieved to have you in my arms again. But I wasn’t thinking. It was hot as hell being bare inside you and I’ll always pull out, but I want you to be comfortable. So I promise we’ll use condoms every time. And if you want to get on something for the summer, that will be…” I roll her onto her back and nudge her with my erection. “Very hot.”
“I want to be bare together, too.” Her breath hitches as she reaches for a condom and rolls it onto me. “In the summer, you’ll be able to just sink inside me…”
She notches me at her entrance.
I push inside.
Chasing that ache deep inside her.
Pretending that I’m bare, that I’m going to fill her up to overflowing this time. And this time, there’s no hurry, this time it’s slow and sexy in yet another new way. We’re sharing a fantasy of the months to come, and the life we’re going to share.
CHAPTER 44
FRANKIE
Logan can’t stop touching me and I love it. It’s so indulgent and I don’t care. We stay in bed all afternoon, only getting dressed when we go outside to take a walk before sunset, because I do have some houses I want to show him.
There’s an open house for one, and the other we just walk past, because I can tell him it’s very similar to the other house on the inside. They’re both nice, but neither seems to excite him.
“What do you love about your house in Buffalo?”
He shrugs. “I have a really nice couch. And a good gym set up. That’ll be important here, too, although I bet I can find—” He cuts himself off as we walk past a twenty-four hour gym. “I mean, that’s an option right there.”
Next door is a bike rental stall, so we grab two bikes and turn around, heading in the other direction so I can show him the historical canals district, one of my favorite parts of the city.
And even though I bought some food for the apartment, we end up going out for dinner, in the name of neighborhood research. We get amazing salads, and we entertain each other by doing dramatic readings of these overly romantic sayings that decorate the menu.
“Find someone who wants to make poetry with your heart,”I say, giggling.
“Be the butterflies in your lover’s soul,” he adds.
We both laugh. And as Logan promised, we talk and talk and talk. About anything and everything, as we finish eating, and then slowly push our bikes into the canal district.
“How long have you had a beard?” I ask when we stop on a little bridge over one of the canals not far from the restaurant.
He crowds me against the railing and I reach up to tug on the short strands of hair along his jaw. “A few years.” He clears his throat, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“You know about the tradition of growing a playoff beard?”
“Yes.”
“This is, uh, my never-going-to-make-the-playoffs beard. I grew it one summer, and just didn’t shave it off again.” He meets my gaze. “I’m pretty sure I’m cursed.”
“What?” I shake my head. “You’re so confident about hockey.”
His chest heaves with a deep breath. “Yeah. It’s hard to explain.”
