Tangling her strong legs with mine, Maddy flips us until she’s on top of me, sitting up with her knees straddling my hips. Her hair tumbles over her shoulders and her skin is flushed with exertion. A smile curves her lips, and her green eyes sparkle with fun. She is the most beautiful woman in the world, and for a second, I can’t breathe. Her fingers trace the lines of my abs, up my ribs and over my tattoo as if she’s mapping me, committing every inch of me to memory.
I like the idea of that.
“There is, in fact, not any other kind,” she says with a grin. “You were really prepared for this. For me being here, I mean.”
I hear the questions she doesn’t ask, and I take her hands, lacing our fingers together. “I’ve never brought anyone here. Ever,” I say seriously, trying to make her understand.
“By here, you mean…” She trails off, studying me.
“My house. My bed. My life. I haven’t been a monk,” I say with laugh when I see the surprise in her eyes. “I’ve…seen people in the years since Lainey died. Slept with a few, but never here. Not in my home. This is where I live with my kids. It’s our safest space, away from the fame and the insanity that comes with my job. It’s where we breathe and settle, and I never wanted to risk bringing anyone into it. I always worried about what the presence of someone new would do to our balance. The way we get through our days.”
“But you brought me here,” she says slowly, her eyes tracking around my room.
I squeeze her hands, waiting until she turns back to me. When she does, I sit up so we’re chest to chest, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other hand pushing her hair back behind her ear as I kiss her cheeks over the freckles I love so much. “You’re different,” I say simply. “You have been from the very first night.” I take a fortifying breath, deciding just to go for it. Laying a hand on her cheek, I keep her eyes on mine. “I’m going to say some things, and I hope they don’t send you running for the hills, okay?”
She smiles. “I don’t scare easily. And I’m a really slow runner. If I run, you could definitely catch me.” When she lays her hands on my chest, that contact gives me the courage I need to put it all out there.
“When Lainey died, I thought that was it for me. I thought the romantic part of my life was in the past because if I couldn’t have what I had with her, it didn’t seem worth the trouble. I had my kids and my job, and that felt like enough for me.” I stroke her cheek with my thumb, marveling a little at how exactly,perfectly right it feels to be opening up to her about this, even when we’re naked after taking each other utterly and completely apart. “But then I met you in a bar, and I realized it wasn’t that that part of my life was over. It was that I hadn’t met you yet.”
Maddy inhales deeply, her fingers pressing into my chest as her eyes swim with emotion. I lean in, pressing my forehead to hers briefly, giving her a soft kiss before sitting back. “I was waiting for you, Maddy. You make me feel things I didn’t know I could feel again. You make me want things. You make me want everything, but only if I get to have everything with you. I brought you here because there isn’t one single part of my life that I don’t want you in. I stocked my kitchen with your favorite snacks because I want you to have everything you want when you come here. When you’re with me, you’ll always have everything you want. Everything you need. I know we’re complicated. Between my kids and your job, there are so many reasons not to try. But god, Maddy, I really want to try. I want to try to figure out how we can be an us out in the world, in front of everyone. How to make sure you can keep doing the work you were born to do because fuck what anyone else says—women belong in professional sports.Youbelong in professional sports. I want to figure out how to be a dad to Riley and Ethan and how you and I can belong to each other. Because goddammit Maddy, I want you to be mine.” I bring my other hand up to cup her face, leaning in to kiss her again. “If that’s what you want.”
“I want,” Maddy says quietly, her hands sliding up to my neck.
The breath I let out is relief and joy and the bone deep knowledge that Maddy is the one. My heart. My soul. The second chance I never thought I would be lucky enough to find. My entire being settles at the determination in her tone, the emotions swimming in her gorgeous green eyes.
“I want that. Everything you said.” She lays one hand on my pounding heart. “All of it. The season,” she says. “Let’s finish out the season, and then we can decide what to do. How to tell Brianand the team and make it work so we can be together and also do what we love. It’s a tall order, but I want to make it work too, Cam.” This time she leans in to kiss me. “I really, really do.”
I slide my hands to the back of her head, tangling them in her hair and prolonging the kiss, my tongue licking inside her mouth, tasting her. Knowing that I will never, ever be able to get enough. Easing back slowly, I stroke her cheeks with my thumbs. “There she is,” I murmur, leaning up to kiss her forehead.
Maddy lets out a shaky breath, and as if she needs a minute, she glances away, her gaze tracking around my room like she’s seeing it for the first time. “Hey, what’s with all the candles?”
I look around, cataloguing the still lit candles burning on my nightstand. The ones spread over my dresser. Different colors and scents, all in glass jars of varying sizes. I shrug, feeling my cheeks heat. “I like them. I have them in my living room too, and some in the kitchen. Also, lamps. So many lamps. My days are hectic. There are always so many people and so much noise that when I come home, I’m so overstimulated that even having the overhead lights on sometimes feels like too much for my brain to handle. So instead, I turn on lamps and light candles, and even though I’m usually explaining to Ethan for the millionth time that he has to do his homework before he plays video games and Riley is singing showtunes in her room loud enough to wake the dead, it feels calmer.”
Maddy grins wide, smacking a kiss to my cheek. “That is so cute I could die, Cameron. The big, strong offensive lineman relaxing at night by the glow of candlelight. I love it so fucking much.”
I brush her hair back from her face, wondering how it’s possible that I can feel this much happiness all at once. “I’ve also been known to do a facemask with Riley when the mood strikes.”
She gasps. “I love a facemask. Especially the ones that look like animals. Because, like, who wouldn’t want to do skincare and look like a monkey at the same time?”
I grin back at her, my chest feeling light as air. “Anyone who doesn’t is just plain wrong. Want to eat all the snacks with me and do two a.m. facemasks by candlelight before I spread you back over this bed and eat your cunt until morning?” I lean down and kiss a path up her neck, sucking lightly on her pulse until she squirms in my lap. “You insulted my manhood with thatonly four orgasmswhen I once gave you six. It’s an honor thing now.”
Maddy laughs, and the sound is sunshine. “Well, far be it from me to get in the way of an honor thing. Snacks and candles and facemasks and all the orgasms sounds like the most perfect night ever.”
And with her next to me, it absolutely is.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MADDY
Cam
I wish you were here. Being on the road is never any fun without you.
Me
Tyler being annoying again?
Cam
