Chapter 14
Anya
Foggy awareness lifts me from my deep sleep. I’ve always slept well after a good game but not usually that well. I don’t even remember—
I still.
My body is heavy. I haven’t even opened my eyes yet, but I can’t move my arms. And is that . . . is someone breathing in my ear?
Shit. Shit. Shit. Please be Kodi.
The moment I think his name, flashes from the night strobe through my mind like an ancient projector popping between old images with fuzzy edges.
Kodi.
I love Kodi.
Releasing a sleepy sigh of relief, I slowly open my eyes but there’s not much to see. A medium-sized window with blinds, no curtains, and nothing else hanging on the beige wall. My eyes venture to scan the rest of the space coming up pretty empty. Everything is clean and . . . empty.
He makes a sleepy noise behind me, and I want to see his face.
I wriggle in his hold, turning my body slowly until I’m finally facing him.
My breath catches, completely unprepared for the calmness of his features in sleep.
His smile lines and animated eyebrows are nowhere to be seen, and while I love them, seeing him like this, adds another stitch, healing the fissures in my heart further.
Testing my limits, I squirm a bit to free one of my arms. I almost regret it instantly because it’s so cold in here outside of his warm embrace.
Ignoring the cold, I run my fingertips along his hairline, tracing his features.
His strong jaw to his dimpled chin. His high cheekbones and the slope of his nose.
The ridge of his eyebrows to his full lips.
Women all over the world pay obscene amounts of money for the eyelashes currently resting on his cheek.
“Don’t stop.” His sleepy grumble startles me.
“Good morning,” I giggle.
“Good morning, beautiful.” He stretches and every muscle in his torso ripples and flexes, immediately reminding me where my thoughts were headed last night before my grand revelation, then rapid descent into unconsciousness.
“Thank you for taking care of me in all my drunken wonder last night,” I offer sheepishly.
Stretching complete, he wraps me back into a big bear hug, resting his face in the crook of my neck. “It was my absolute honor and privilege.” He mumbles against my skin, and I feel it all the way to where I can now sense my heartbeat in my core.
Snuggling into his embrace, I allow my fingers to trail across his thick forearms, thinking far too hard for it being this early in the morning. Once more blaming last night’s alcohol, I decide to be brave and crazy and go for what I want. Kodi.
Adding to my light touch on his arms, I arch my back, pressing my hips against his, earning a long groan from the gorgeous man wrapped around me. “Mmmhhhmm, you’re killing me gorgeous,” he growls and nips at my ear.
Squeaking a small moan, I roll my arched hips against his hardening length when suddenly he’s leaping off the bed.
His shorts are tented, and judging from what I can see, he’s more than well endowed.
I can’t help the sudden increase in my saliva, and it takes a conscious effort to keep from drooling at the sight.
“What do you want?” His husky voice asks, sounding slightly pained.
“I . . . what?” What does he mean? “Is this a trick question?”
He shakes his head, a wary smile playing on his face. “I need you, right now, so fucking bad it hurts,” he says gesturing to his needy appendage. “But I have to know you’re all in before I have you.” I search the look in his wide eyes, begging me to understand.
I’m trying, but the sting of rejection takes my breath.
“Oh, I-I . . . you don’t want me?” I don’t think that’s what he was saying, but it’s all I can process right now.
That I thought I was making my intentions clear with the man I drunkenly realized I’m falling in love with . . . but he’s rejecting me.
He falls to his knees in front of me where I’ve dropped my face in my hands. “Shit, no, that’s not what I mean at all, Anya. I’m fucking obsessed with you. I just . . . fuck! This is all coming out wrong. I don’t want to scare you off, but you’re it.”
If I thought I wasn’t making sense, he’s doing an even worse job. “I don’t understand,” I whisper, trying to hide the fact that I’m nearly in tears.
“I need you to be sure because once I have you, and you have me, that’s it. Forever. You’re my end game.”
Tears well in my eyes for a new reason and I drop to the floor beside him. “I think you’re mine too,” I whisper, completely floored by the fact that I let myself say that out loud into the universe, but I’m not done yet. “I realized last night that I think . . .”
So many emotions are whirring within me, and I fear that if I don’t let them out, I’ll implode. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Kodi.”
“Really?” he breathes.
“Really, really.” I promise.
“Waahoooo!” he whoops loud and swoops me into his arms, spinning me around the room like he likes to do, eliciting an unexpected giggle to bubble past my lips.
“You know I wasn’t just saying all that, right?
I’m not trying to trick you into loving me.
” He stills and sets me on my feet with a line creasing his forehead, like he’s worried I was just saying what he wanted to hear.
Stepping away from him with his shirt in my grasp, I pull him toward the bed.
Once he’s standing where I want him, I step onto the bed where I can look him dead in his big black eyes.
Placing a hand on either side of his face, so he can’t look away from me, I admit, “I love you, Kodiak Northerly. Obviously not because of football or because you want me to. Honestly, I don’t think I really had a choice. Please let me love you.”
For what’s probably only a second, but feels like a lifetime, his eyes widen then volley between mine before his lips crash against me.
In the frenzy of need and the tingles I feel when his skin touches mine, we collapse back onto his bed. We break apart long enough for him to pull my jersey over my head, exposing my chest to him. He comes back in for a feverish kiss before pulling away and making a beeline for my breasts.
“Fucking made for me.” He growls as he leans into me just before taking my nipple in his mouth. My back arches off the bed, a ridiculous sound of pleasure leaves my lips, and I could nearly come from just the way his mouth feels on me, right now.
“Kodi,” I moan and wriggle beneath him. As good as this feels, it’s not what I need. The way my body is burning, it’s a need that requires his direct attention.
Pulling away from my chest, he leaves a trail of kisses down my stomach. My muscles flex beneath him, and a sudden wave of insecurity comes over me.
I’ve been with a few men in my past that didn’t like my muscles and felt the need to tell me after they’d gotten what they wanted from me.
“You’re pretty but you’d be even prettier without all those muscles.
” “Women should be small and soft, not hard like this.” Or my all-time favorite “Sweet pussy, but I prefer women with less muscle mass than me.”
“Where’d you go?” Kodi’s soft voice is laced with concern when he pulls me from my thoughts.
Not wanting to know, but needing to, I refuse to look at him when I ask, “Do my muscles bother you? You know, because I’m stronger than women are supposed to be.”
He laughs but immediately stops when he realizes I’m serious. “You’re kidding, right?” His voice full of disbelief, his jaw literally hanging open.
I move to cover myself, which doesn’t actually help because that makes the muscles in my arms and shoulders bulge.
“Seriously, Anya. You’re fucking perfect. I love your muscles and that you’re strong enough that I don’t have to worry about hurting you.” He shakes his head while he laughs, saying something under his breath that I don’t catch.
“You’re sure you’re not just saying that?” I ask, still not completely convinced.
He rises to his full height, standing in front of me as I lie awkwardly on the bed, having ruined the moment. He stares at me, then down at his still very hard cock, then back at me, raising one eyebrow.
Planting his hands on his hips, asking, “Does it look like there’s anything about you that I don’t like?”
I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks, “Well, no, but—”
“No.” he shakes his head. “No, buts.”
His fingers tap where his hands are still propped on his hips.
“I think . . .” He seems to be at war with himself over something. “There’s something I need to tell you, but it’s easier if I show you.” Now he’s the one that looks insecure, and that almost worries me more.