Page 89 of Her Player

“I love you, I love you. Rhett. Oh fuck. I love you so much.”

I chanted it like a prayer. Like I begged any god listening to grant me one last wish. Maybe I was slow on the uptick. Maybe I was too late. But maybe, just maybe…

He stopped moving.

Just for a second. His whole body went still against mine, his forehead pressing into the back of my neck, his breath coming out long and slow. His hands loosened their grip on my hips. Like something in him needed a moment that his body took without asking.

Then his mouth found my ear.

“Goddamn it, Victoria,” he muttered as he slammed his cock back into my body and held himself there. “You feel just like home.”

His growls and his groans sent goosebumps flying across my skin. It felt like a wild beast rutting into me, and it only served to make my pussy clench tighter around him. Threads of hot arousal shot from the tip of his cock, splattering against my walls and filling me until the pounding of my pussy caused me to leak all over the comforter.

Rhett was quickly to react, keeping his cock sheathed within me as he pulled me up and over his body, rolling me to the other side of the bed. Moving me out of the wet spot as he hiked my leg over his hip, our heads sharing a pillow.

He continued to lay there, his cock still rock-hard within my body.

“Hey,” I whispered.

He pressed his lips to my temple and held them there. “Did you mean it?”

I knew exactly what he meant, and my eyes found his. “When I saw you not moving on that ice, I thought…”

I thought of Ryan. I thought of the last condition I saw him in, pale and dead. His body, covered with a sheet and nothing else.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Rhett asked.

My eyes focused back on him. My voice was hoarse, but I cleared it to try and make things better.

It didn’t work. “Sorry, I just… I saw you not moving on that ice, and I thought… I thought… what if I never see his eyes again?”

He scooted a bit closer, inching his cock further into my body. I groaned softly, the intrusion both painful and more delightful than anything I could have ever imagined. I missed this, the feeling of being full. The feeling of giving myself over to someone else. The feeling that, if I fell, there would be someone to catch me.

How the hell had it taken me so long to see what was right in front of me?

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“What for?” he asked, his hot breath pulsing against my face.

I shook my head softly. “I don’t know. For… being difficult. For… always looking the other way. For always being so fucking scared. For⁠—”

He captured my lips with his in the softest kiss. I moaned softly as I felt his cock jump against my walls. My God, was he ever going to go soft?

Not that I was complaining or anything.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he muttered as he pulled back, gazing deeply into my eyes. “If anything, you should thank yourself.”

I blinked. “What?”

He ran his thumb along my cheek. “You heard me. You should thank yourself, Victoria. Cherish yourself. Praise yourself. Because without you, this team would have never survived. Your daughter would have never grown into the woman she is now without you, despite what you two suffered as a family. You’re the reason this happened. You’re the reason you have this life. This daughter. This team. Your career. Thank yourself, Victoria.”

I blinked. “You can’t be serious.”

His ice blue stare grew cold as he gripped my chin, forcing me to not look away. “I said thank yourself. Now.”

Before I knew up from down, he rolled over, taking my body with him. I squealed as I clung to him, wrapping my arms and legs around his body. Somehow he maneuvered us without his cock ever leaving between my legs. I was stunned at his agility, but then again, he was a hockey player.

He walked us into my bathroom before he pulled me off his cock, and the loss of him made me whimper. I felt our intermingled juices dripping down my thighs as he whipped me around, making me face the bathroom mirror as he bent me over the edge of the countertop. He pulled my hips toward him. He reached down and quickly reinserted himself. I groaned as my head fell back, but his hand quickly gripped my hair, forcing my head forward a bit.