I should push him off.I should keep this locked down.I should remember the cameras, the headlines, the way the world loves to turn love into a punchline.
Instead I grab his shoulder pads and pull him back in.
Because I’m a goalie.
I can take a hit.
And I’m done letting anyone else decide what’s mine.
ChapterFifty-One
Alberto
The suite smells like cedar and aftershave and victory.
Cally’s already inside when I shut the door behind me, my back to the quiet click of it latching.He tosses his bag on the armchair, then turns to me.Slowly.Like a man who knows he’s about to ruin something—or maybe fix it.
His jacket’s already undone.The sleeves hang off his broad shoulders like the aftermath of a fight.The collar of his dress shirt is wrinkled, open, the top button undone like it couldn’t handle the press of him tonight.
Neither could I.
My body is thrumming.Tense from the game.From the adrenaline.From the press conference.From the kiss in the locker room that still feels like it’s printed across my mouth in bold, black ink.
I watch as he reaches up to loosen his tie.One slow tug.It slides through the collar with a soft hiss.I swallow.
“You good?”he asks.
I nod.Lie.My pulse is sprinting.My skin’s too tight.My heart’s trying to beat out every word I haven’t said.But I nod anyway.
Cally’s eyes drag over me, jaw tightening.
He walks toward me—not fast, not slow—with that captain’s focus like he’s reading my play before I even make it.
And still I can’t move.
He stops right in front of me.Close enough that I can smell his cologne under the sweat.Close enough to feel the heat rolling off him.
“You were amazing tonight,” I whisper, and my voice already breaks.“You didn’t just come out.You came home.”
Cally exhales, nose brushing mine.“Say that again.”
I lean in.“You’re mine.And I want to go home with you.”
His kiss this time is softer—gentler than the one in the locker room—but there’s nothing calm about the way his hands grab the lapels of my jacket and back me toward the bed.
When the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress, I reach between us and start unfastening the buttons on his shirt, one by one, careful and reverent.He does the same with mine.Stripping away the public armor.The layers we wear for the world.
I drop his shirt to the floor.
He shrugs out of it like he’s shedding something he doesn’t need anymore.
Then it’s just us.
I’m standing in front of him in nothing but my slacks, chest rising and falling too fast, nerves skittering under my skin like I’m still waiting for a whistle.His fingers hook into my belt loops, tugging me closer until my hips brush his.
“Still with me?”he asks.
I nod, though my throat feels tight.I don’t trust my voice yet.
