Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Ky
“You mad?” I ask quietly as we push into Colt’s hotel room.
“Mad?” He catches the door before it can slam. “What could I possibly be mad about?”
“That I conspired with Blake for one?” I deliberately look away from the bed and walk over to the desk shoved in one corner, perching on the edge of it. “That I showed up without a word for another and crashed your charity event.”
He flicks the lock and leans back against the door. “You talked to Blake.”
I still.
Because I can’t get a read on his tone.
“Um, yeah.”
“And you showed up for me today because he told you about our parents.”
It’s impossible to hold back my wince.
What Blake had told me…it wasn’t pretty.
So even though their parents not showing up (and stranding Blake, who can’t drive) would have been evidence enough for me to immediately dislike them—family shows up for family, always—what Blake had told me about how they treat Colt day in and out…
That had tipped the scales.
Colt—sweet, understanding, protective Colt who demurs the worth of his autograph but spares a few minutes for a sick kid. Colt who touches me with softness and treats me with kindness…
Colt who spent two years waiting for me…
Well, it was nothing to catch a flight.
Now, of course, I’m here in his hotel room.
Which is…scary, even though I don’t want it to be.
“Here,” he says quietly.
I blink at the little envelope he slides onto the desk near my hip. “What’s that?”
“The key to this room.” He moves to his bag. “Lake says I can bunk with him tonight.”
Just when I thought the man couldn’t dig himself any deeper into my heart, the small gesture fills me with a tenderness that threatens to undo me and I have to blink back tears, especially when he moves to his suitcase, folds it closed and starts to do up the zipper.
“I’ll just grab my stuff from the bathroom and get out of your hair—”
I snag his wrist as he starts to walk by me, suitcase in tow.
“Baby?” he asks softly, cupping my jaw with his free hand.
“Stay?”
A shake of his head. “You’re not ready.”
“I think I’m the one who gets to decide that.”
“I think you’re right.” He flips his hand over in mine, brushing his fingertips over the inside of my wrist. “But I also know that—for me—I need to make sure we don’t go too fast.”
I should let him go.
I know I should.
But I just…can’t make my fingers release him.
“Can we play it by ear?” I say. “Start by ordering room service and watching a movie and talking?”
His eyes come to mine, hold, and I know I’m not wrong when I see the need rippling through the deep brown depths.
Especially when his words, warm and raspy, stroking up my thighs, confirm it.
“You think we’d just talk?”
I shiver.
No, I don’t think that.
But I also can’t think about that.
I just need one step at a time. More time with him. More time getting comfortable. More time understanding the little idiosyncrasies that make him tick. More time finding my way back into myself.
Because when I’m with him, I do.
Feel like me.
Me.
Slowly, slowly inching my way back to me.
“Maybe not,” I admit. “But I also know that I’m greedy.”
His fingers flex. “Greedy?” It’s raspier, those phantom strokes brushing higher, higher.
“Yeah.” I shift closer. “Greedy for more of you.”
Heat in his eyes, but the brush of his fingers over my skin is still gentle.
“Tell me about your parents.”
He stills for a heartbeat then reaches over me and snags the room service menu. “We should order dinner before it gets too late.”
My stomach growls, as though it was just waiting for the opportunity to remind me that I didn’t eat much, well not really anything since Blake called and I hightailed my butt to the airport.
There was food at the fundraiser, of course, but it was the type of finger food that pairs well with alcohol—small, fussy and not filling…so all those donors get tipsy and give more money.
It’s a perfect circle.
But it won’t distract me from the truth.
“You’re good at it, aren’t you?”
His big body goes stiff. “At eating?” His mouth kicks up, but his eyes dodge mine. “Absolutely.”
“At hiding what you really want. What you really need.”
His hand drops from mine and he steps back.
“But it’s okay,” I tell him, snagging his wrist again. “You don’t have to talk about it.” I stretch up, press my lips to his jaw. “We can go slow with that too.”
A jerk, then his hand settles on my hip. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
There is.
But not tonight.
It’s in the lines of his body, in the concern in Blake’s voice and what he shared with me about how their parents treat Colt.
It’s in the reality that their parents haven’t come to one team event since he’s been on the roster of the Sierra, even though they live just a short plane ride away.
That they didn’t even deign to come to the charity fundraiser he organized for the hospital that saved his brother’s life more than once.
And they didn’t tell Colt they weren’t coming.
A lot.
All of that is a lot.
But we don’t have to talk about it tonight.
“I want dessert,” I say. “And pasta.”
Relief shudders through him and he relaxes, handing me the room service menu. “Well then, you’d better get on ordering.”
I open the cover, start flicking through the pages.
“What are you going to have? Something boring like rice and chicken breasts?”
His laugh is low and sexy. “I was thinking more like steak and mashed potatoes.”
“Oh, man, really living the life.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes are gentle when he says, “Yeah, I think I finally am.”
My heart starts thudding in my chest, hard and fast and somehow…soft.
For this man.
I stretch up and kiss him again, something softening further in me when the hand on my hip tightens, drawing me flush against him, when his other hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back, deepening the contact, giving me a taste—just a taste—of the fury of his need.
A fury that doesn’t scare me.
Eventually, he pulls back and we’re both breathing hard.
So hard that it takes me a minute to catch my breath.
But I do.
And because I’m me, because I’m finding my way back to the me that I used to be, the me I can be with him, right on the heels of sucking wind, I say,
“Then you’re definitely getting dessert.”