Jacks.
In my bed.
In my arms.
The realization arrived quietly, without the panic I might have expected even a week ago. There was no jolt of alarm or oh-God-what-have-I-done spiral, only a slow, warming awareness that spread through my chest like the first sip of coffee on a chilly morning.
He was still asleep.
I could tell by his deep and even breathing. There was the faintest hint of a whistle on each exhale that I was absolutely going to tease him about later. His back was pressed against my chest, his body curved into mine with a trust that made something ache behind my ribs. My right arm was draped over his waist, our fingers still loosely laced together where they’d been when we’d fallen asleep.
My left arm, however, was in trouble.
Pinned beneath him, it was wedged between his torso and the mattress at an angle that had been comfortable seven hours ago but had since devolved into a medical emergency. The tingling had passed the pins-and-needles stage and entered full dead-limb territory.
I couldn’t feel my fingers.
I wasn’t sure I still had fingers.
Slowly, gently, millimeter by millimeter, I attempted to slide my arm out from under one hundred and ninety pounds of sleeping former linebacker.
He didn’t budge.
The man slept like a boulder.
A warm, coconut-scented boulder with exceptional hair and zero regard for my circulatory system.
I tried again, shifting my shoulder, testing for any gap between his body and the mattress.
Nothing.
Jacks made a contented hum that vibrated through his back and into my chest.
Great.
My arm was going to fall off.
This was how it ended—not a career-ending injury on the ice, but death by snuggling. The headline would read: “NHL Captain Loses Arm to Cuddling Incident. Teammates Unsurprised.”
Resigned to my career’s embarrassing fate, I surrendered.
The arm was a lost cause.
I’d deal with the consequences when he woke up.
For now, I had more important things to focus on.
Like his hair.
It was everywhere, a chaos of curls fanned across the pillow, tickling my nose and brushing my chin. I’d never been this close to it for this long, and the texture fascinated me. Each curl had its own personality, its own direction, its own stubborn refusal to cooperate with gravity or common sense.
I buried my nose deeper and breathed in.
Coconut and cedar and something that was all Jacks. The combination was intoxicating in a way I hadn’t known hair could be. With women, I’d noticed perfume, appreciated it, and moved on. This was different. I wanted toliveinside this smell. Iwanted to bottle it and carry it onto the ice with me like some kind of aromatic good luck charm.
I nuzzled further into his curls, letting them tickle my nose, my lips, and the skin beneath my eyes. One particularly ambitious curl had coiled itself around my earlobe like it was staking a claim.
I smiled against his scalp.
