Chapter 25
Twenty Five
Eloise
My knee is throbbing as I settle onto my couch, trying to think about how this was probably the first and shittiest game of my career with the Vortex and this doesn’t bode well for the rest of the year.
My apartment is still filled with boxes.
I was hoping to unpack a bit more, but I guess now with my knee all banged up and bruised, that’s not going to happen.
There're no fractures that Olivia could see in the x-ray, but there was so much swelling that she told me to take it easy and stay off the ice for a day or two before coming back in. She also said to rest at home so that I wouldn’t get jostled around.
I’m almost thankful that she said that because I doubt I’d want to be around a sullen team, with everyone eyeing me and my injury. If I were on the Chill, I’d probably still be going out to play, and then I’d be in more pain than I am now.
I’d seen a few players get told that during the game when I was still playing for them. I just wish I knew what the game ended as. Taylor looked so pissed when she was in the sin bin. I’m not really sure what she was in the bin for; I was still flat out on the ice when the refs whistled at her.
Someone is aggressively slapping on the door, jarring me out of my thoughts. I wait a moment to see if it was actually on another neighbour’s door instead of mine, but with each slap it’s louder and clearer that it’s my door that’s rattling.
Who would want to talk to me this badly at seven o’clock?
I shuffle over, blanket over my shoulders as I swing the door open, trying not to wince as the movement makes my knee twinge. I need to get more ice for this.
The hallway light spills in, and there’s Taylor, biting her lip, green eyes staring at me. It’s reminiscent of last night. Only this time, we know where we stand.
We know we want this.
As I register the game day fit that I watched her change out of earlier today, she surges forward, pulling at the neck of my old t-shirt and kissing me.
My brain stops as soon as her pillowy lips touch mine, making me gasp like I’ve suddenly come to life.
She thrusts her tongue into my mouth, invading my tastebuds with a minty freshness.
She must’ve brushed her teeth after the game.
Her hair is still damp from a post-game shower, and she certainly doesn’t smell like she’s come from the game.
In an effort to get closer to her, I take one hand and gently cup the back of her neck, while the other is pulling her hips closer to mine.
Her hands start to stitch themselves into place, giving me goosebumps as they hold me steady.
I let my hand play with her hair, teasingly pulling at a few strands, gently testing her, listening to the way her breath hitches as my other hand starts to rub circles into her hips.
She’s got these cute dress pants on that make her legs look long, and the vest she wears shows off her biceps.
The whole outfit is amazing, but the fact that her breasts could fall out because of how perfectly round they are and how flimsy this vest is makes me so wet.
I’m so desperate to pop the buttons open and see what I’m working with, but I told her we’re going slow.
I want her to be comfortable. I know what I like; she doesn’t.
But right now, she’s taking what she wants, and it’s so hot that I'm sure I’m about to combust. To stop myself from giving my new neighbours a show, and with our lips still attached, I pull us back so that the door closes.
To speed it along, I push her against it, letting it slam shut as I enjoy the way she seems to go boneless being pinned between me and the door.
Instead of letting me pull back to look at her, she wraps her hand around my ponytail, pulling my head back.
The prickles of pain in my scalp have me groaning and shuddering beneath her hands, letting her guide my head back as she trails her lips down my neck.
She’s the perfect height for this and nuzzles her head into the crux of my neck, her teeth grazing and pulling, each playing the perfect string of need and desire within me that has my body thrumming with need instead of the pain it was in before.
As she’s working her way through my neck, finding all the spots that will make my knees give out, I lodge my uninjured knee between her thighs, and make sure that we’re squaring our hips and she’s getting as much friction as she can.
She’s starting to hump my thigh, and the noises she makes have me wanting to swallow each one.
She pulls her head back from my neck and instead of letting me chase her lips to further the kiss, to make out until we’re a writhing mess against my door, her fingers are gently resting under my chin, tipping it to see her.
Her green eyes are feverish. Gone is the soft jade, replaced by a molten, electric look.
She seems like she’s gone through ten rounds in the ring.
I’m assuming that Ottawa had something to do with it, but the majority of it was wrestling with her self-confidence and this.
Grabbing what she wanted and not talking herself out of it.
She’s got a pink flush to her, the cheeks rosy, and her ears look like they’ve been burnt with how red they are. Her lips are swollen, and I’d like to bite them some more.
I’d also like to wrap my lips around her ear and neck, litter her with hickeys and have her explain to Brynn the next day what they’re from.
I make sure that we’re aligned, shifting ever so slightly so that every part of us is touching.
Her minty fresh breath is fanning across my cheek, and I feel like I’m seeing her in a new light. One that has potential.
That makes me want to see her again, and again, and again. In every light that I could see her in.
I want to be with her for the rest of my life. Despite the stress and grey hairs she’s going to cause me with her harebrained ideas and her catastrophic thinking.
“Hey,” she whispers, lips turning up with a smile, “I missed you.”
I laugh, swooping in to kiss her again. She groans against me before I pull back. “I missed you too.”
“You missed our celebrations.”
“You won?”
Her brow furrows for a moment. “We won.”
I pull back laughing, limping as I take her hand and guide her back to the couch she sat on two days ago. “We didn’t win, come on. I wasn’t even in the game for half of it.”
“Through no fault of your own,” she argues back. “I was the shitty teammate. I missed that she was going to run you over.”
My laugh turns into a groan as I lift my leg up to give it some rest. Her brows shift from confused to enraged as she sees the icepack on the coffee table. “What is it? How long are you out?” she asks.
“Olivia said it could just be a bruise or, worst case, a bone bruise, but it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks at most to heal up.
I’m on strict bed rest for a day to let the swelling go down.
” I point to the ice, which she places in my outstretched hand.
Her fingernails are painted berry pink today.
They look cute. They may be a bit long, but considering that’s going to be off the table for a while, I think we’ll be fine. We can talk about nail etiquette on a later day.
“Thank goodness,” she whispers, “but you still didn’t stay.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t going to be of use to you guys, and Olivia told me that I should go home and rest. I would have thought that she told Lawson.”
Taylor shifts her weight so that she’s sitting cock-eyed as best she can in those pants. They look like they’re about to rip at the seams where her thighs are forcing it to stretch. I bet the seat of them are also on their last few wishes. Her ass doesn’t quit.
I think I’d like to bite it when we get there.
Fuck, do I know where my vibrator is, because after everything tonight I think I’m going to need it.
Either I go analog tonight or I’m going to have to frantically look for it once she leaves.
“You should have stayed.”
“And watched you guys play a person down for the rest of the night? I bet Lawson is pissed.”
Her brow furrows. “Did your old coach make you play injured?”
I freeze, suddenly wanting her to leave, to get out from under the microscope. “Maybe, sometimes. But they were always small injuries. We were always going to survive them.”
“Did your team celebrate in the locker room after the game too?”
I shrug. “No, we were always in and out pretty quickly. Loitering wasn’t encouraged after games or practices. Some people may have been celebrating at a bar afterwards, but I wasn’t made aware of it.”
Taylor’s jaw drops, and her frustration twists into rage. “Well, that won’t fly here. We’re a team, a family. We win and lose as one.”
I tut. “It’s okay, Taylor, seriously. I was an expensive trade, and I left our first game in the preseason injured. I’d be pissed if I were Lawson or the GM. It’s a shitty situation, and I didn’t want to hear about how I ruined it for the team.”
She leans closer to me, crawling over my legs, hovering so that she’s not putting her weight on me, but so we can still look each other in the eyes. “Taylor, come on. It’s fine,” I say.
She’s adjusting herself so that she’s straddling my hips, but all I can focus on is how her green eyes are shifting, fluid with emotions that I can’t name. Her blond hair is ruffled, and her eyelashes are perfectly separated.
She looks like an angel.
I place a hand on her cheek, watching her eyelids flutter like butterflies as I rub a thumb across her cheekbone. “What did you do to get put in the sin bin?”
Her eyes peel open. “Checked the girl who took you down. It’s a bit of a blur, but I had her pinned against the boards, and we were cage to cage,” she says a bit lazily as I continue to rub her cheek.
I’m lucky that the t-shirt I’m wearing is baggy enough that she can’t see how hard my nipples suddenly are after hearing that. “You went to the sin bin because she body checked me?”