Chapter 19 #2
They spent the rest of that day together, and for the first time in his life, he felt whole.
When Sunday night rolled around and she was edging toward the door, obviously anxious to leave, he took her home.
There, he weaseled his way into spending the night.
And the nights that followed. He was proving to be a skilled weaseler.
Her place was tiny and farther from the arena, but neither mattered as long as he got to fall asleep with her cradled in his arms and wake up with the scent of her skin and her hair in his nose—not that they got much sleep.
Eventually, he coaxed her into staying over at his place.
The argument that won her over? He had better rehab equipment.
Now she could keep a very close eye on his routine, which she seemed way more concerned about than she needed to be.
She kept imagining the ankle was more swollen than it actually was, and she worried about his range of motion.
Wasn’t that normal? She wouldn’t answer him directly when he asked, so he let it drop and mostly kept a tight rein on his panic over his progress.
When she wasn’t working and he wasn’t rehabbing, when they weren’t spending time at the shelter or doing the everyday things most couples did, he remained distracted by acquainting himself with every square inch of her body, using his hands and mouth, learning how to make her wriggle and moan, how to make her shoot off like a rocket, and the best discovery: how to drive her into such a frenzy she screamed out his name.
God, he loved that!
When they reversed roles and she moved over his body, he struggled to school his muscles and fight the ever-soaring urge to cut her erotic explorations short and take her hard and fast. An annoying gap grew between the things he wanted to do to her and the things his ankle would allow him to do, but that would soon change. Of course it would.
The more they made love, the more insatiable he grew.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Her face filled his mind when he was away from her, and he carried her scent on him as though she’d marked him.
He couldn’t wait to be with her, and it wasn’t only about the sex, which was so mind-blowing he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to think straight again.
Thoughts of her, of them, occupied every corner of his conscious mind.
At night, if he wasn’t touching her or moving inside her, he was dreaming of her.
She was the air he breathed. He couldn’t remember being so consumed by anyone or anything before, and the sensation patched holes in his psyche with unadulterated joy. It also terrified the hell out of him.
What if she didn’t share the depth of his feelings?
What if she put the brakes on this thing they were falling into?
He wasn’t sure what to label it, but he sure as hell liked it, whatever it was.
But what if she wasn’t taking the same ride he was on?
She hadn’t brought up her job as often lately, but then, he only saw her professionally at the clinic three days a week for a half hour, where their relationship was cordial and cool—the way it had begun, minus the icy stares and pointed barbs.
When he got her alone, his mouth was on hers so fast she didn’t get a chance to speak.
Was she still worried about losing her job? Yeah, the undercurrent was still there. At the clinic, her eyes darted everywhere, and she seemed afraid to touch him, even for therapy, which sucked.
He got that she was worried about losing her job, but she was a dynamite therapist. She could work anywhere.
And while he wanted her to be happy, it boiled down to one truth for him: He wanted her with him.
Period. When and how that had happened, he didn’t have a clue.
It seemed to have been blossoming for a long time, and yet it also seemed to have struck like a bolt from the sky.
Electric, sizzling, and everywhere all at once.
He wasn’t the type to let his libido run his life or make promises.
He also wasn’t normally the type who needed sex twenty-four-seven like he did whenever he thought about Angie or she was in his line of sight.
She stirred things in him he’d never known were there, and while his lack of control terrified him, he loved it in equal measure.
There was a permanence to how he felt, and he wanted to nurture that feeling and watch it bloom into the kind of commitment he saw among his teammates.
It was possible he loved her, and not the way he used to love her. Sure, she was his friend, but she was so much more, and he dreamed of a future where she played a starring role—not only in his bed.
The territory he found himself skating through was dangerous, a thin layer of ice with the potential for so many cracks he’d never escape them all.
The day was coming when he wouldn’t be able to hold back confessing these roiling emotions to her, but he wasn’t sure how to do it without scaring her off. He needed more time. Time to drag her along with him, convince her that she belonged with him. To him.
When he paused from his Angie daydreaming long enough to actually register a worry, it centered around his status with the team.
He marinated in a limbo he couldn’t shake.
Not quite good enough to play, not injured enough to be on injured reserve, and not really part of the team.
The Blizzard had swept their opponent in the first round of playoffs, and he hadn’t been part of the excitement on the ice, the locker room banter, or the bonding on the road.
They were moving on to round two without him.
His piece of the playoff bonus pie shrank every day he wasn’t out there. At least he wasn’t on the IR, so there was hope they’d insert him back in the lineup. But when? Where? Toby was killing it in Sam’s place, and no coach would want to mess with the chemistry when things were clicking.
The season was coming to an end, whether he was part of it or not. His time with Angie was also sifting like sand in an hourglass—and he didn’t know what to do about it.