She pulls back slightly, like the question caught her off guard. “I don’t - I just - I thought it was something to hold onto. Something to remind me that I’m not the first person to fight this fight.”
“That’s good.” I nod slowly. “But that’s not what I asked.”
“You think I should do something,” she says.
“I think you already have. You won a championship.” I shrug. “Maybe that’s enough. Or maybe-” I pause. “Maybe you’re the one who gets to tell the story. Not them.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. The wind moves through the parking lot, and she shivers.
I kiss her neck - just below her ear, where her pulse is racing. She makes a sound, low and surprised.
“Your apartment,” she says. “It’s close, isn’t it?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Then stop talking.”
She kisses me hard, pulls back, and starts walking toward the parking lot.
I follow.
The door to my apartment closes behind us and she’s on me before I can turn the lock.
Her hands are under my hoodie, pushing it up, her mouth on my jaw, my throat, the spot where my shoulder meets my neck.
“You said you were over it,” she murmurs against my collarbone.
“I’ll never be over this.”
Her laugh vibrates against my chest.
I get the hoodie off, get her hoodie off, and then her shirt is gone too, and she’s standing in the dim light of my living room in just her bra and jeans, and I forget how to breathe.
She’s still got some bruises, but they’re fading now. She has the lean muscle of someone who’s spent her life on the ice.
I trace the edge of a bruise with my thumb. She shivers.
“You’re staring,” she says.
She pulls me down to her, and I kiss her. Deep and slow and thorough. She tastes like the cold night air, like the coffee she had before the game, like something I want to keep tasting.
My hands find the clasp of her jeans. She arches into me, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
“Bedroom,” she says. “Now.”
The bed is unmade, the sheets cold, but she doesn’t seem to care. She pulls me down on top of her, her legs wrapping around my waist, her mouth finding mine again.
I kiss my way down her throat, her collarbone, the space between her breasts. She’s making sounds now - small, breathless, the kind of sounds I’ve been thinking about for weeks.
“Zane-”
“I’ve got you.”
I take my time. There’s no rush. Not tonight. Tonight, we have this. Tonight, there’s no games and no secrets.
When I finally move inside her, she gasps, her back arching, her nails digging into my shoulders.
“Look at me,” I say.
