Chapter 22 - Dani #2
The wave broke fast, tearing me apart. I screamed his name, thighs clamping tight around his head, drowning him in water and pussy juices as the orgasm ripped through me, sharp and devastating.
He held me there, drinking me down until I was nothing but shaking limbs and shattered breath.
It was too much and still not enough, and I never wanted it to end.
When he finally pulled back, his lips and beard glistened with me, and the sight nearly made me come undone all over again. He didn’t look smug, didn’t even look satisfied—he looked fucking ravenous. Like he’d barely gotten a taste and now he wanted the whole fucking meal.
“Holy shit.” I gasped, chest heaving, legs trembling.
He rose to his feet in one smooth motion, towering over me, water dripping down the ridges of his body. And then his mouth was on mine, his tongue pushing between my lips so I could taste myself on him while his cock, hot and thick, pressed against my thigh.
Eventually, when we both came up for air, my eyes caught on something that broke me wide open in a completely different way. Brooks’s glasses, crooked from our kisses, had completely fogged over, steam clouding the lenses. The laugh burst out of me before I could stop it.
He froze, confusion flickering across his face. “Huh, that’s not usually the response I get.”
I pointed, still giggling so hard my stomach ached. “Your glasses. You look like you just tried to run a marathon in a sauna.”
He reached up, tugged them off, and squinted at me through the steam, one brow arched. And just as I slipped my hand down his body, tracing my fingers along his abs—
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Five more minutes, Dani,” Jared’s voice bellowed through the bathroom door. “You’re using up all the hot water.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, giggling helplessly while Brooks scowled in a way that only made me laugh harder.
“Fucking Christ.” He groaned through gritted teeth.
I couldn’t stop laughing, even as Brooks scrubbed a hand over his face like he was about to murder Pink through the door. He kissed my forehead instead, muttering a string of curses under his breath.
“Next time, my place,” he grumbled, rinsing off the last of the shaving cream from my legs. “No roommates. No interruptions.”
I winced, still smiling. “Sorry.”
His hands slid down my calves one more time, slow and deliberate, like he couldn’t quite stop touching me. “Don’t apologize, kitten. I’m going to be tasting you on my lips for days.”
I bit back another giggle, cheeks aching from how hard I was smiling. God, he was sulking like a thwarted caveman, all broad shoulders and scowl, and for some reason, that was stupidly hot.
We scrambled out of the shower, both of us laughing under our breaths like guilty teenagers caught making out under the bleachers. Brooks wrapped a towel around my shoulders and then grabbed another for himself.
“I should go, kitten. Early flight tomorrow.”
The words deflated me, though I tried to hide it. “Okay.”
“I’ll text you when I land.” He brushed his knuckles down my cheek, eyes warm despite the scowl still tugging at his mouth. “Or when I figure out how to save the sourdough. Whichever comes first.”
Later that night, I lay staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles above me. The bed felt too big, the silence too sharp. I reached for the other side of the mattress before I could stop myself, my fingers brushing cool fabric where Brooks’s warmth should’ve been.
I hated how much I missed him already. Which was ridiculous because I’d always loved sleeping alone.
Probably a byproduct of being an only child—my space was my space, and God help anyone who tried to share it.
I used to roll my eyes at people who complained they couldn’t sleep without their partner beside them. Needy, I’d thought. Codependent.
And now here I was, staring at the empty pillow next to me and wishing it were dented by his broad shoulders, his steady breathing filling the room.
As it turned out, once I’d had Brooks’s arms wrapped around me, his chest warm against my back, his low murmurs pulling me under, it was impossible to go back to empty sheets.
He left for Miami tomorrow. Normally, I traveled with the team, but this time around, Clarke was running the show while I stayed behind. It was a test run for when I went on parental leave in October. I should’ve been grateful for the break, but instead all it did was make me restless.
No sidelong glances across the dugout, no stolen kisses between stadium tunnels, no cuddling during the bus rides that typically made me nauseous, but which had become somewhat comforting when I spent them next to Brooks.
This time, it was just me, alone, wishing he were here.
I curled tighter under the covers, pressing my face into the bougie Tempur-Pedic pillow he kept at my place, breathing in what was left of him.
The team would be back in ten days, just in time for the big Father’s Day game.
And sure, that wasn’t long, but tonight it stretched out ahead of me, endless and heavy.
Lying there in the quiet, watching the fan blades turn, feeling that ache hollow out my chest, I realized something else that made my pulse trip.
I didn’t want to keep us quiet anymore.
The team already knew. All of my friends did, too. Hell, anyone with eyes could probably figure it out pretty easily.
But I wanted more.
I wanted to be public.
To stand next to Brooks, not just behind him. To let the world see that he was mine and I was his, no shame, no hiding.
For the first time, I wasn’t scared of that truth. I was ready to show Brooks that I was all in. The only question that kept me awake, long after the sheets cooled, was how.