Chapter 20
Twenty
Cassie woke to the lingering smell of cologne and the weight of an arm draped across her waist. For a second she forgot where she was.
Then Luke shifted behind her, breathing against her hair, and memory flooded back.
She smiled into the pillow, savoring the moment before reality intruded.
Outside the curtains, the Columbus skyline was tinged with early light and the faint sound of garbage trucks.
She rolled over carefully to face him. His hair was a tousled curtain around his face, his lashes fanned dark against his cheeks.
He looked younger in sleep, the strain he usually carried smoothed away.
Cassie lifted her hand to push back a strand of hair and froze.
Were they really going to do this? Was there a future for them beyond the cocoon of this hotel room? The question lodged in her throat.
Luke’s deep brown eyes fluttered open. A slow smile spread across his face when he saw her. “Morning,” he said, voice scratchy from sleep.
“Morning,” she whispered. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Sore,” he admitted, flexing it gently. “But last night was worth it.” He winced as he moved, but the grin never left his face.
Cassie blushed, the memory of his hands on her skin sending a fresh wave of warmth through her. “We need to talk about…this,” she said, gesturing between them. “We really can’t let anyone find out.” She chewed her bottom lip, the weight of their secret pressing down on her.
Luke sobered. “I know. We’ll be careful. You do your job. I’ll do mine. No hallway chats, no public coffee dates. Just texts and secret meetings until the season’s done.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “I don’t want to jeopardize what you’ve built.”
“And after?” she asked, searching his eyes. She needed to know this wasn’t just a fling born of tension and proximity.
“We figure it out,” he replied, squeezing her hand. “I’ve never felt like this. I’m willing to be patient.”
Cassie believed him. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Okay. We keep it quiet. But I’m not sorry.”
“Me neither,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again before he pulled her on top of him.
She straddled his hips, letting him slip inside of her.
They made slow, lazy love, this time unhurried, memorizing each other all over again.
There was laughter when Luke tried to flip his hair and accidentally whipped her nose, and quiet when they simply lay together, her head on his chest.
Luke rose from the bed, stepping into the bathroom and turning on the shower. After the steam from the hot water filled the room, Cassie joined him, and he pulled her into the shower with him.
Luke adjusted the showerhead, and they stepped closer to share the stream.
He reached for the shampoo and worked it through her hair, his fingers lingering at her nape as she tilted her head back and met his eyes through the water.
She lathered soap between her hands and traced it across his chest and shoulders, her palms sliding over slick skin, pausing when he sucked in a breath at a tender spot.
They took turns washing each other, exchanging quiet looks and small, deliberate touches that conveyed care rather than urgency, allowing the shared closeness to settle over them like the steam curling in the air.
They stepped out of the shower onto the bath mat, water dripping onto the tile, and Luke reached for a towel, wrapping it around Cassie’s shoulders first. He dried her carefully, hands firm but unhurried, brushing the towel along her arms and down her back before she took it from him and did the same, pressing the fabric against his chest and shoulders, careful again with the injured side.
The sun was only just starting to rise, but they both knew that Cassie needed to get back to her own room before Luke’s teammates in the neighboring rooms started to stir and meander into the halls.
They dressed in quiet efficiency—jeans, sweaters, socks pulled on one at a time.
At the door, Cassie hesitated, then leaned up into him, and he bent easily to meet her.
The kiss was slow and lingering, a promise more than a goodbye.
Luke stood alone in the quiet of the room after she left, the sheets still warm, the air still faintly altered by her presence.
There was a strange, steady calm, threaded with fear.
He replayed the look on her face when they’d finally stopped pretending—how certain she’d been, how deliberate.
It hit him that this hadn’t been a lapse or a mistake.
He felt protective in a way that surprised him, already cataloging what he would do differently now.
For the first time since he’d signed in Pittsburgh, hockey wasn’t the only thing shaping his decisions.
That realization settled heavy and right in his chest.
Back in her hotel room, Cassie sat on the edge of the bed without turning on the lights, her pulse still uneven.
She felt untethered and sharply awake, the way she did after filing a story she knew would matter.
What frightened her wasn’t that she’d crossed a line, it was how clearly she’d seen it, stepped over it, and not wanted to step back.
She thought of her career in clean, linear terms, the way she always had, and understood that something irreversible had shifted.
Not ruined. Changed. She lay back and stared at the ceiling as the city woke beneath her window, a knot of exhilaration and dread tightening together.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t something she could file and move on from.
And that, more than anything, made it feel real.
At practice the next day back in Pittsburgh, she wore her professional mask.
She interviewed the coach, updated fans on Luke’s injury, and typed her game story without mentioning anything that had happened behind closed doors.
Luke returned to practice a few weeks later, and in public they were cordial, distant.
In private, their phones buzzed with inside jokes and stolen moments.
They deleted messages as quickly as they sent them, saving screen shots only in their minds.