But she’s here right now, her breathing slow and steady against my chest and I tighten my arms around her until she lets out a surprised little squeak and I loosen them immediately. She reaches up and runs her fingers through my hair, pressing her body closer to mine.
“Don’t let go, I like how tight you hold onto me.” She mumbles.
Her breathing slows again and I think she’s maybe fallen back to sleep but she lifts her head and I jerk my gaze to the ceiling.
“Were you watching me?”
“No.”
She laughs and presses a kiss to my chest and I’m instantly, painfully hard.
“Okay, for a while,” I admit. “Your hair was in my mouth.”
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. She runs her hand down my chest, letting her nails scrape lightly along my skin. “Why don’t you have any tattoos?”
I shrug. It’s never occurred to me. Money spent on ink is money I could’ve spent on ice time and my brain has never thought past that.
“We should get matching tattoos.”
“That’s a little insane and probably something you’d regret.”
“When you win the Cup we’ll do it.” She says it like it’s decided, like last night when I told her what I wanted most in the world and she just nodded and saidI can see it someday. Game seven. Tied score. You in net.
“Do your parents think you’re at Kara’s?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Does Kara know you’re not?”
“Obviously.”
She planned this. That thought has been circling in my head since I woke up. The cover story, Kara knowing, showing up last night like she’d already decided where she was going to wake up and just didn’t tell me. She wanted to be here badly enough to build a strategy around it. I’ve been turning that over and over and I still don’t know if I understand.
“Didn’t you want me to stay over at some point?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “I just didn’t know how to ask without making it weird.”
She starts to say something and then stops. Her hand runs down my chest slowly, past my ribs, and she pauses just above the waistband of my boxers and glances down.
“ZACH!”
“I can’t help it. You’re half naked in my bed.”
She looks at me. The sleep is completely gone from her eyes now. “What should we do about that?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Her fingers slip under the waistband and she tugs them down slowly, just enough, and the elastic catches and snaps back against my stomach and she giggles, this bright startled sound that somehow makes everything worse and better at the same time.
Then her hand is on me. Warm and hesitant at first, then firmer as she wraps around the base. She leans down and her hair falls forward and brushes across my stomach and I watch the redof it against my skin and she hesitates for one second before she kisses the tip.
I blow out a breath. Everything in me wants to move but I don’t.
She looks up. Cheeks pink, eyes wide, checking if this is okay even though she started it. She does it again. Braver. Her tongue against the underside, tentative, figuring it out. “Is this... am I doing this right?”
“God, yes.” I swallow. “Keep going. Please.”
She nods once and sinks down farther. Just enough that the heat of her mouth is everywhere, her hand gripping me, stroking what she can’t reach. I thread my fingers into her hair without thinking about it. She pauses and lifts her head. “You can pull a little. If you want.”
“Jesus Christ, Mackie.” But I tighten my grip, just enough to guide her, and she lets out a tiny surprised sound and hums around me, bolder now, following the pressure of my hand.
