He lets out a ragged breath. “Please tell me anyway.”
My hand lands on his cheek, featherlight, allowing him to break this spell if he wants. “You’re the person I want to be around. Not some guy downstairs. Not anyone else.You.”
Zach’s hand covers mine as his eyes search my face, as if I didn’t deliver him a blinking red sign pointing straight to my mouth.Zach Briggs needed here.
But he’s wavering, probably for the same reasons I stopped myself from confessing how I felt sooner. His captain is my brother. Dating me will upset his friend and teammate. Attempting to cross the line from friends to something more without knowing how the other person feels is fucking terrifying.
“I want your friend to like me because I want you, Zach.”
I might combust if he doesn’t kiss me. This man who brought a long-dormant part of me alive, who’s supported me while keeping my secret, who pushes me to be the best version of myself, who said the words I’ve only dreamed someone would ever think about me.
His hand lands on my hip, gripping it tight. “Fuck it.”
“It’s about damn time,” I gasp, the words barely leaving my lips before they’re covered by Zach’s insistent mouth.
He kisses the way he does everything—at a thousand miles per hour—and it’s exactly what I need. My arms wrap around his neck, and I’m pulling him closer, needing the weight of his body against mine. His hands land on bare skin at the small of my back, sending a delicious zing up my spine.
I can’t think. I can’t think. I can’t think.
Every movement happens on instinct—a soft moan escaping when our lips meet, my tongue begging for entrance to his mouth, his hands slipping beneath my shirt, his fingertips skimming bare skin.
“Zach,” I murmur, and he pulls me closer, his erection pushing into my abdomen. I break our kiss, raking my teeth across his bottom lip. He shudders, and damn, I want to encapsulate this moment in a snow globe, to set it beside my bed and shake it every night to relive this perfection.
“You want me too.”
His head drops back with a slight groan. “You’re joking, right?”
“You didn't make a move, so I wasn’t sure—”
“You are so far out of my league, Finley.” The intensity in his dreamy brown eyes makes me gulp. “I like you. I like our friendship. I didn’t want to mess it up. Or all of this”— he points a finger up and twirls it around to indicate my family and living situation—“for you. I know there’s something you’re not telling me, and I don’t want to complicate whatever is going on—”
My fingers trail along his abdomen, toying with the waistband of his pants. “I don’t want to think about any of that right now.”
“Please don’t use me only as a way to forget. I can’t take it.”
I lay his hand flat on my chest, over my heart, beating like a drum during a solo in a rock song. For him. “This is for you.”
Zach’s breath catches, and I bask in it, more confirmation I unravel him.
“If we weren’t in a hallway where we could be caught,” I say, “I’d show you how much I want you.”
I guide his hand south, his fingers grazing my abdomen before I settle them above my waistband. I need Zach to relieve me of the thunderous throb between my legs.
“But because I can’t, I’ll settle for letting you know that when youheardme earlier this week…” I swallow hard before continuing. “I was thinking about you.”
“Fuck, Finley,” Zach mutters before he crashes his mouth onto mine again, the momentum pushing me against my closed door so hard, I'm surprised it remains standing.
I’m fumbling for the knob when I hear Gemma’s voice. “Finley! Where’s my birthday girl?”
Zach pulls away, his eyes glazed with lust. “It’s your birthday?”
“Mm-hmm” is all I can manage.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” This man plays professional hockey, trains intensely to bust his ass at breakneck speed on the ice for forty seconds at a time, and he’s not able to speak without breathing hard right now. Because ofme. “I didn’t get you a gift.”
I lean my forehead against his. “This is what I would’ve asked for.”
Zach kisses me again, once, slowly, his tongue working against mine in a way that has me pinching my legs together.
