“I’m not very good at dealing with shit.”
“But you are. Look at everything you’ve done for me.”
“That’s different. It’s?—”
“It’s being scared but embracing it and moving forward into unknown territory regardless. Will we always win? Absolutely not. But much like when you’re out on the ice, we’re a team. We do this together: the hard bits, the easy bits, and all the bits in between. We lean on each other when things get challenging, we talk things through, and we change up the play if necessary. Every day is a new start, another game where we can try to come out on top and?—”
Her words are abruptly cut off as my lips crash down on hers.
I don’t mean to, but hearing her talk my language pushed me over the edge I’ve been teetering on since stepping between her legs in her bedroom earlier.
Tucking my hand under her neck, I tilt her head up. Her lips part, and her tongue sneaks out, colliding with mine and turning the heat up on our kiss.
I lick into her mouth, drowning in her taste and the way she kisses me back as if she’s been dreaming about it every single night, as I have been.
Her hand grips my hip, holding me in place—as if I’m going anywhere. But it doesn’t last more than a few seconds before it slips upward, under my T-shirt, and her soft skin connects with mine.
I swear, every single muscle in my body tenses with her touch, and in shock, I pull back from her kiss.
“Bea,” I breathe, resting my head against hers.
She licks her swollen lips, her eyes searching mine.
No words are said out loud, but the silence between us screams, “We’re not done. That was nowhere near enough.”
“We should probably go,” Bea eventually whispers.
I close my eyes and suck in a long breath in the hope of calming myself down. Walking out of her bedroom with a raging boner earlier was one thing, but out into a waiting room full of expectant mothers is another entirely.
“I was going to take you for lunch, but all I really want to do is take you home and continue what we just started,” I confess, opening my eyes again and finding hers.
“I’d settle for takeout.”
The bagof sandwiches in my hand slips from my fingers and collides with the floor at the same time Bea’s back hits the wall, the front door falling closed beside us.
“Can’t wait any longer,” I tell her, a beat before my lips collide with hers.
Her gasp of shock rings through the air, but she doesn’t even try to stop me. Instead, her arms wrap around my shoulders, holding me close as I devour her.
Every tight muscle in my body begins to uncoil the longer our kiss goes on. I’ve been waiting for this since the moment she walked away from me in that club. I might not have known it then, but I do now.
Every second of every day since that night, I have been waiting for this woman.
I pin her to the wall with my hips, desperate for more, but also frantically trying to hold back. She might be meeting me step for step here, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to push her too hard.
“Fucking hell,” I groan as I kiss across her jaw and down her neck. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been, holding back these last few weeks?”
“Uh-huh.” She gasps, no doubt able to feel that hardness against her belly.
“You’ve been driving me crazy. Walking around here in that thin T-shirt, your legs on display. All I can think about is what’s beneath them.”
“Everett,” she gasps as I suck on the sensitive patch of skin beneath her ear.
Her fingers sink into my hair, holding tight and sending a shot of pain down my neck.
“You still haven’t done your hair,” she complains.
I still, a smile pulling at my lips. “Is that what you’re really thinking about right now?”
