Chapter 24
Grant
My drive home from the arena is the first chance I get to sit with my thoughts without any other noise or distractions, so it’s become an important part of my own post-game analysis.
I’ll still watch every minute of footage from multiple camera angles over the next few days, but there’s nothing that compares with this quiet time alone, while everything is still fresh in my mind.
Like that shot in the second period. My positioning was good, but I hesitated for just a moment before committing. It worked out in my favor this time, but that half-second of hesitation would’ve cost me against a better shooter.
Then I had another stroke of blind luck in the third, when I was too fucking slow to bring my hand up. I somehow still deflected the shot with my shoulder, but it wasn’t pretty.
And lucky saves aren’t good enough. I can’t count on luck to win championships.
I make a few more mental notes as I drive. Tomorrow’s practice needs to focus on reaction time. More drills. More reps. I already have good reflexes—great ones, most people would say—but that doesn’t give me an excuse to start slacking now.
The gate to the neighborhood opens and I pull through, still organizing my thoughts until my house comes into view. It’s a hulking mass in the darkness, and it never occurred to me how lonely and desolate the place looks with only the single porch light that I insist stays on while I’m gone.
Heather’s car isn’t in the driveway, which means she must still be out enjoying her night of freedom while April is with Margo.
Good for her. She deserves a break more than anyone I know.
I pull into the garage and cut the engine, then grab my gear bag and gingerly climb down from the cab of my truck. My muscles are still sore from the game, but winning more than makes up for the dull ache that I’ll probably be feeling until sometime tomorrow morning.
My brain is already two steps ahead as I walk from the garage to the kitchen, already thinking about the electrolytes I need to replenish and how I should probably take an ice bath before—
“Holy shit.” I stop in my tracks and my mouth falls open as I try to think of something better to say, but nothing is coming to mind.
Because Heather is standing in the doorway directly across from me that leads from the kitchen to the living room. She’s wearing a black dress I’ve never seen before that hugs her curves, stops mid-thigh, and makes every part of my aching body come alive.
She’s wearing her hair down tonight, and her makeup is a little heavier than usual around her eyes, but that only makes them more noticeable in the dim lamplight.
But it’s not just the way she looks, and she looks fucking gorgeous. It’s the energy I can feel all the way across the room. The way she’s standing perfectly still and watching me with an expression that’s so intense it would probably take my breath away if I wasn’t already about to hyperventilate.
Every thought I was having about hockey—about those drills and that moment of hesitation in the second period, about angles and positioning and reaction time—is gone in the blink of an eye.
All that’s left is her.
“I didn’t think anyone else was here,” I say, clearing my throat to get the words out. Seeing her like this has made my throat go dry, and I’ve given up on hiding it or trying to play it cool.
I’m pretty sure those options were never on the table to begin with.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she says without fully acknowledging that I spoke at all. “I want it to be you. Only you.”
I don’t have any idea what she means, but every instinct in my body is telling me to get my ass across this fucking room and take her into my arms. Thankfully, there’s still enough blood flow to my brain to keep me from doing anything that impulsive.
For now, at least.
“What do you mean?” I ask, not fully trusting those same instincts that have gotten me so far in every other aspect of my life. “Only me?”
She takes a step forward and starts to reach out toward me before dropping her hand back to her side.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about everything that’s happened between us.
In the sauna. Then in that hallway. Then the arena.
And at The Hideout.” She exhales and swallows hard, and I can see how difficult this is for her.
She has almost as much trouble opening up and being vulnerable as I do, although for completely different reasons.
“Every time I close my eyes and try to focus on something else, you’re there. ”
Another step forward.
“I’ve been stuck, Grant. Stuck in this body I barely recognize, and so numb that I just go through the motions day after day. I’ve been like this for so many years that I forgot what it felt like to actually feel anything.”
Her voice is trembling—hell, her whole body seems to be trembling now—and I want to help. I want to tell her I’ve been having similar thoughts, that she isn’t alone in this… whatever this is.
“Heather—”
But she shakes her head and holds up a hand to cut me off.
“Let me finish. Please. If I don’t get everything out right now, I don’t think I ever will.
I forgot what it felt like until you came along.
Now, suddenly, I’m starting to wake up again.
My body is remembering what it’s like to feel and to live, and I want…
” She pauses again, and looks down at the floor for a moment before meeting my gaze once more.
“I want you to help me. I want you to make my body come alive again.”
She’s saying everything I want to hear, and I have to clench and unclench my hands just to keep from reaching out and pulling her close to me without another thought.
But there’s something about this whole conversation that feels a little off.
Actually, no. This is a whole hell of a lot different from anything she’s ever said to me.
And now that I’m looking closer and replaying the last few minutes back in my head, it’s impossible not to notice the slight flush in her cheeks, and the way her words are a little too free and loose.
She isn’t slurring her speech or weaving on her feet, but I know she’s been drinking. Even without smelling the faint hint of wine that’s still on her breath, I know it because I know her, and this is exactly the kind of conversation I’d expect only after her inhibitions have been lowered.
By a lot.
There’s a lot of liquid courage at play right now, and the way she’s laying herself bare to me makes me wonder how much she would’ve held back if we’d had this conversation when she was completely sober.
She says she wants me, and maybe she does. God knows I want her, and it’s killing me to keep my hands to myself while she’s standing here looking so fucking sexy and vulnerable.
But I can’t take a chance on something she might regret in the morning.
“I touched myself again.” Heather’s confession comes out in a rush.
“Thinking about the way you looked at me when I came. About how you told me not to stop.” Her cheeks flush deeper, but she doesn’t look away.
“It’s like a switch flipped inside me, and now I can’t shut it off. I’ve tried—believe me, I’ve tried.”
She takes another step closer, and now she really is within arm’s reach. Dammit. “But I finally realized tonight that I don’t want to shut it off. I want you, Grant. I can’t stop thinking about your hands, your mouth, the way you’d feel inside me. I need you. Please.”
There’s so much pent-up desperation in the last word that it sends a jolt right to my gut.
I need to touch her as badly as she says she needs me.
Even if I don’t dare to say the words out loud, my muscles are tight, my heart is beating out of my chest, and my cock is so fucking hard that it’s starting to ache.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I say, because I have to say something after the way she’s just poured her heart out to me. “I had no idea. Things have been so fucking weird and awkward between us lately.”
“Things don’t have to be weird anymore.” She places a hand on my chest and goes up on her tiptoes, leaning in until I can feel her lips against mine. Her lips are so damn soft that I lose myself in the moment, grabbing her hips and pulling her closer until my shaft is trapped between us.
But the way she’s still trembling and the taste of wine on her lips bring reality crashing back down around me. I can’t do it. Not like this.
I break away from the kiss and move one of my hands to her cheek, gently gripping her jaw and tilting her face up so she has to look at me.
“How much have you had to drink?”
A range of reactions—offended, defensive, annoyed—flashes across her face in the space of two seconds, but she doesn’t deny that she’s been drinking.
“I don’t know. I went out and had a few glasses of wine, so I took a cab home. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I stand by everything I just said.”
She still looks so alluring, even self-righteous and indignant, that it’s hard as hell to stick to my guns. I’m so tempted to throw caution to the wind and kiss her again, but I’ve never been that guy and I’m not going to start now.
Even though I know she isn’t going to thank me for this decision tonight, I have to trust that she’ll appreciate it more in the morning.
Without waiting another minute to second-guess myself, I scoop her up into my arms, with one hand under her knees and the other supporting her back.
She gasps and instinctively grabs my shoulders, bringing her face right back in line with mine.
“Grant, what the hell? What are you doing?”
There’s that flash of irritation again, but she isn’t trying to fight me.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
“Um, what? I mean, okay? It’s just, you made it seem like that wasn’t going to happen tonight.”
I offer what I hope is a sympathetic look. I can’t quite muster a smile, but I don’t want her to think I’m fucking with her head. That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid, in fact.
“Putting you in bed,” I amend. “I’m going to get you some water and aspirin and let you sleep off the wine.
” I pause a few moments while I navigate the stairs.
She isn’t even close to being heavy, but I don’t have a lot of practice carrying someone like this, and the last thing I want is to accidentally hit her head or feet against the banister.
“Anyway, we’re not going to do anything else until I know you’re completely sober. ”
We get to the top of the stairs and I push open the door to her room, then set her down on the edge of her bed as gently as I can.
I have to take a step back, because being this close to her is too fucking dangerous.
Especially while I’m still hard as a fucking rock after just having her in my arms.
“Will you at least stay with me?” she asks. “Lie here next to me, even if we don’t do anything else?”
I can’t tell if she’s trying to test my resolve or if she really wants me to die from blue balls. But I’ve turned her down too many times tonight already, and I’m not sure I have it in me to keep denying her.
“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” I offer, forcing my mind and my body back onto the same page. “And in the morning, you’re going to tell me all of this again. If you still want it, I mean. You’re going to say it all in the light of day, when you’re sober and clearheaded and sure.”
She looks defiant for a moment, then exhales and nods. “And then what?”
I let my eyes roam over her one more time, and there’s no question what I’ll be thinking about for the next several hours. When I answer, it’s the pure, unfiltered truth.
“And then I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk.”