Chapter 26 #3
My brows climb. “As long as the chocolate is drizzled on your body, this thigh tickler is definitely in.”
Tanner and I visit Vi and Hayden at the hospital the next day.
I was warned by Tanner that the baby was beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for her hair.
Adrienne, or Rocky, as all the Harris Brothers have apparently taken to calling her, is simply magic.
I couldn’t stop touching her feathery hair as I held her for nearly an hour in their hospital suite.
When Tanner held her, however, it was less dreamlike.
I could hardly stop laughing as he awkwardly tried to find a position to rest his arm.
I kept picking at him to adjust her so her head wasn’t sagging back, and he just snapped back at me like he knew how to figure it out because he wasn’t a moron.
So I asked him if he was sure about that because I seem to remember him naked on a street corner only a month ago.
That escalated into a quarrel of epic proportions.
Since he had Rocky in his arms, we weren’t flat out screaming at each other like we wanted to. We were talking in slow, saccharinely sweet voices and smiling bright white teeth as we calmly called each other a knobhead spunk bubble and a nagging know-it-all cow.
Vi and Hayden didn’t know what to say, except for, “Thank God Adrienne can’t understand words yet.”
Afterwards, in the hospital parking lot, Tanner leaned across the console of my car, grabbed my face in his hands, and kissed me with an aggression that revved more than my car engine.
When he pulled away and said, “You looked absolutely beautiful holding my niece,” I think I died a thousand deaths.
Indie had warned me about on-season footballers and off-season footballers being so different, but what I witnessed the next week with Tanner is not at all what I expected.
Originally, I thought he might pull away once he started attending practices again, requiring some space to help get back into his routine and focus. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
After his first practice back, he showed up at my door, smelly kit and all, and asked me if I wanted a shower, a forking, and then a spooning. We ended up spending every night together after that.
But things aren’t exactly like they were before. Tanner is still goofy and he’s still Tanner, crude jokes and all, but he’s more…intense. More focused. Even in the bedroom.
We no longer just have sex. We create movement. We connect on a different level that’s so much more…soulful. The way he looks at me and the things he says while inside of me have given me the most powerful orgasms of my entire life.
So I have to say, I’m a massive fan of On-Season Tanner.
A few days into practice, after a particularly incredible session of love-making, Tanner spoons me and begins opening up as if the words have been aching to come out.
“Did you know Camden and I had our own secret language growing up?” he asks, his voice husky as he adjusts me so his left arm is tucked under me like a pillow. His right arm snakes around the dip of my waist and he pulls the back of my naked body flush against the front of his.
“Like cryptophasia?” I ask.
“Crypto what?” he asks, his breath puffing against the hair on my head.
“Cryptophasia is a language developed by twins that only they can understand,” I answer.
“Well, yeah then, I guess that’s what we had. Didn’t know there was a medical fucking term for it.”
I smile and bite my lip. A heavy silence stretches out and I can tell he wants to say more so I add, “I’m sure that meant you two were very close.”
He exhales and drops a soft kiss to my hair. “We were, are I mean. We still are, but we’re not. It’s…different now that he’s not on the pitch with me anymore.”
My brows knit as he continues.
“I think being twins put us at a huge advantage in a match. Communication was instinctual. Effortless, like breathing. Have you ever noticed how we always stand on the same side of each other?”
“No,” I reply, a bit fascinated.
“Yeah, not just on the pitch either. It’s everywhere we go. Cam is always on my right side. It’s bizarre. We don’t even mean to do it, but we have a constant awareness of each other.”
“That’s incredible.”
“So we’ve had this our whole lives. Then when he left for Arsenal and I went to Tower Park without him…it felt like…one of my lungs was missing.”
My heart clenches at the vulnerability in his words. “I’m sure you miss him.”
“But I’m also so fucking proud of him I could burst. He’s acing it with Arsenal, and watching him out there is incredible.” He pauses for a beat before adding, “But is it completely selfish of me to want him back by my side?”
“Not at all,” I answer and scrunch into him while dropping a kiss on his forearm. “I understand it. I felt similar when Indie left The Royal London Hospital.”
Indie and I had been beside each other since med school, but as our interests became more focused, it pulled us further apart professionally.
Then she started getting serious with Camden and things continued to change.
We probably had an easier time of it than Tanner and Camden because we’re used to being on our own more than they are.
We didn’t grow up like the Harris family and we certainly never shared a womb. But she’s still my version of family.
“If I wouldn’t have had my fellowship with Dr. Miller coming up, I think I would have been completely gutted to lose Indie.”
His grip on me tightens. “It’s like having a security blanket taken away.”
I half smile. “Exactly.”
He kisses me and sighs, “I’m finally starting to see myself without Cam. I need my team to see that, too.”
“They will,” I reply. “You’re a hard one to miss, Tanner Harris. And you may have lost a teammate, but you haven’t lost Cam. You’re biological brothers. Nothing will ever change that.”
He pulls in a large breath and I feel his chest rise against my back.
When he exhales, his muscles soften and his body relaxes into me as if he’s unloaded the world off his shoulders.
He nuzzles his chin into my hair and whispers, “I…” He pauses as he searches for his words. “I need to be inside you again.”
My brows lift. “Oh, I suppose I could withstand another mind-shattering orgasm.”
He kisses my giggles away and makes love to me like I never knew he could.