He hummed and pulled me close, kissing along my shoulder. “No.”
I twisted my face back over my shoulder. “What? You didn’t take the opportunity to watch while I fucked your ass?”
Alexio snorted a laugh and bit me gently before soothing the mark with a kiss. “The lights are off.”
I froze. “Shiiiiit. Did I forget to turn them on again?”
His lips moved to my neck. “Yes. But I didn’t mind. I could have turned them on if I wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you? Babe, you can see. You should, you know, do that.”
He sighed and began to wash himself, his movements gently grazing me as he soaped up. “Sometimes it feels nice to step into your world. I know it’s not the same. I know it’s…like, cosplaying, I guess?”
I shook my head, then realized he probably still couldn’t see me. Fuck, he was showering in the dark. “Baby, I know you don’t mean it like that. And that’s…that’s actually kind of touching.” I wasn’t lying. More than one of my former girlfriends wanted to fuck blindfolded, but it always felt like a gimmick.
Like a fetish.
With Alexio, it didn’t.
It was like he really did want to have me on even footing. To feel. To let touch take us to places that we couldn’t go otherwise.
“I want to be less afraid of it too,” he admitted.
He was healed, but I knew that his injury had left a scar, which wouldn’t go away easily. Or maybe at all.
I pulled him close and kissed him again. “I’m so in love with you. Like,soin love.”
He cupped my cheek and kissed me back even harder. “I love you too.”
The sex took the edge off until we got in the car, and then I started to panic. The barbeque had been delayed several times by everyone’s schedules. Bodie’s team made it to the last round of playoffs and then lost, which had him in a small spiral for a few weeks. Alexio and Nikos’s mom got delayed for a few extra weeks, and Alexio’s headaches had been bad for a while, so a big group get-together had been too much.
But eventually, three weeks before preseason began, things started to come together. It was warm, and the sun was out, though it had been raining off and on most of the day. And I was about to meet my future in-laws.
So to speak.
We hadn’t made an engagement official, but Caleb was going to be at the dinner tonight, so I knew I had to talk to him. I had to attempt to fix whatever rift had sprung up between us. Micah was still acting weird, but I had to accept he’d speak to me when he was ready.
And right now, I just wanted to focus on being in love.
“Did you hear from Vanya?” I asked as Alexio pulled up to the curb near Boden and Hugo’s.
“Yeah. His plane got in last night. I think he’s actually here. I see his car.”
That made me feel better. If things went south with Alexio’s mom, at the very least, Vanya would have my back.
“My love?”
I stopped with my hand halfway to the door handle. “Alexio?”
He laughed softly. “I like the way you say my name.” He brushed a touch over my temple. It was expected, so it didn’t startle me. “You look like you’re panicking.”
“Yeah. A bit. If your mom and sister-in-law don’t like me?—”
“They will like you. They’ve been obsessed with meeting you for a long, long time. But if they didn’t, it wouldn’t change anything. I didn’t fall in love with you because I thought they’d approve. I fell in love with you because?—”
“I’m a mouthy little goblin who doesn’t know when to quit?”
He pulled me close, gripped my chin, and kissed the shit out of me. “Amongst so many other things. Also, your hot ass, and those freaky, flexible goalie hips, and the goblin porn you send your friends…”
