Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
RHETT
Carys leans against me instead of the window as we head back into town hours later, the sky and road equally dark.
I palm her thigh, my fingers just skating under the hem of her dress.
The quiet hum of the engine is the only noise.
It’s comfortable between us, the nervousness I’d felt fading as we ate.
I draw shapes on her leg as the road passes underneath us.
“Do you enjoy playing with your brother?” she asks just as the lights of Nashville come into view.
“Love it. He went for the draft two years before me, so we only got to play one year in college. But I loved that year, too.” I give her more than that, though.
That’s what the press always gets when they ask, and she’s way more important to me than the reporters.
I clear my throat. “We grew up playing. Most kids in New England do. You either do hockey or snowboarding, and I hated snowboarding. Mom couldn’t really afford two separate leagues, so she had us play on the same team for a lot of growing up. ”
She tilts her chin up, and I chance a glance toward her. The dash lights give off just enough light that I can see her eyebrows are furrowed and hers lips are pursed. That band of nerves tightens around my ribs.
“What’s wrong?”
Her voice is soft. “You haven’t mentioned your mom before.”
She tightens her hold on my elbow, her nails digging into my skin.
I haven’t? We’d talked about so much over the course of dinner. Music and Nashville. Where she wants to travel, the goals I still have for my career. Even the way she loves cheesecake but not most chocolate. Had Mom really not come up at all through that?
“Oh.”
“Will she come to one of the games?”
That same hollow ache opens just under my sternum when a reminder of her absence hits. “She passed away in a skiing accident the year after I was drafted.”
Carys tenses. I squeeze her leg in reassurance. “That’s why you missed those games right before the break,” she whispers. And then, even more quiet, “I’m so sorry.”
I start to shrug but stop when I remember she’s pressed against me. “She went to a lot of my games my rookie year. She split her time between here and LA with Paxton. She got to see us both win rookie of the year.”
“I’m glad,” she says after a minute. “I’m sure she was so proud of you.”
Even after four years, my throat closes at those words. The wound doesn’t really hurt anymore, not most of the time. But that knee jerk reaction still is there. I don’t think it’ll ever really go away, and I’m okay with that.
The car’s gps silently guides me toward Carys’s apartment, and I get off the highway to navigate the city streets instead.
“It’s hard to not have your mom at big events,” Carys says. “My experience is obviously different, but the hole is still there.”
This feels way too heavy for a first date, especially given how close we are to her place, but I can’t curb my blatant curiosity. I try and find a less offensive way to ask about her mom, why Ares was a single dad.
Eventually, I settle on, “What do you mean?”
“Well, my mom died when I was four. I don’t even really have memories of her, just the pictures Dad has. So the gap is… different, I guess. Most of the time I don’t notice it. But there are times when it feels like it’s been blown wide open and all I can see is that missing piece.”
I turn onto the sidestreet that hems in her high-rise apartment and pull into a metered parking spot along the curb. She clears her throat and changes the subject.
“Dinner was wonderful.”
I let the heaviness drop. I put the car into park and then tuck a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to mine.
Her lips are so damn soft. Every single time it’s a bit of a shock.
Her scent explodes around us, breaking through whatever lotion she still has on.
It’s pure instinct that has me adjusting my hold on her throat, moving until I’m palming her throat, my thumb and finger pressing just under her ears.
Her perfume grows stronger, so damn intense I’m not sure much else exists in the world outside this little bubble.
Just as I’m debating recreating that first fantasy I had—her straddling me in this car while I fuck her—despite Ashton’s clear warning, she calms the kiss and pulls away.
Her chest and cheeks are flushed a gorgeous dark red, her lips swollen and her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath.
Her lipstick is smudged. The sight of it makes my dick twitch.
I want to see it smudged all over my skin, too.
Lemongrass joins her orchid, twining together.
Her nostrils flair, a flash of renewed interest in her gaze.
Instead of kissing me, though, she whispers,“Thank you.”
“Do I get to take you out again then?” I ask.
She nods, smiling so damn bright. “You have a stretch of home games over Thanksgiving in another week or so, right?”
My body tightens at the thought of having her for so many days in a row. “Hell yeah, I do.”
She pulls away completely and grabs her purse.
Before she can get out of the car, I’m busting my ass to get her door open, quickly killing the engine.
No way am I letting her walk those thirty feet to her building’s entrance like I’m some rideshare driver.
She laces her hand with mine as soon as she’s stepped onto the curb, grabbing my elbow and tucking her body close into mine.
I keep my body relaxed, letting her scent mark me while also drawing tactile comfort from her Alpha.
It’s so smooth an action, I can’t be sure she’s aware it’s something she’s even doing.
The walk to the side entrance of her high-rise isn’t all that far, the street lights keeping the sidewalk well lit.
A few people walk by, but none bother to focus on either of us.
It’s late enough most people have already gone home or are out at one of the hundred places to spend a Wednesday night in Nashville.
Without a word, she untucks herself from my side, putting a few inches of space between our bodies. Some of her quiet comfort is replaced with a nearly unnoticeable anxiety. She hesitates just outside the door, her teeth denting her bottom lip.
“You all right?” I ask, squeezing her hand.
Fuck, does she think I’m going to expect to fuck her after tonight?
Because I don’t. Truly. No matter what my hard dick is craving or how insistent those desires to have her under me, my teeth cutting through her skin and binding her to me might be.
Ashton was right in reminding me to make sure I’ll have time to care for her afterward the way she’ll need.
And, fuck, I shouldn’t even be harboring a fantasy of bonding her, however fleeting.
That’s absolutely way too permanent for something so new, scent match or not.
Her cheeks flush, the dark pink highlighted by the yellow light of the walkway lamps like it’s an artificial recreation of the sunset from earlier.
God, she’s so fucking beautiful. It’s almost impossible to keep myself back, to keep from pressing her against the building and kissing her until her orchid scent is all I can smell and taste and feel again.
But, somehow, I manage it, even as my own lemongrass forms a curtain around us.
I force a hard swallow and run my thumb over the back of her hand.
She glances down at our entwined hands and then toward where my car is parked along the curb, the parking meter unpaid and forgotten.
“Do you want to come in?”
Her voice blends with the night, a soft croon, but there’s no missing the undercurrent to her question.
The flush spreads down her neck and onto her chest, disappearing under the dress’s neckline.
I want to follow that path with my tongue.
My dick is instantly hard all over again, pushing against the zipper of my slacks in silent demand.
Fuck, this shouldn’t happen tonight. Not when I can’t just be with her all day tomorrow to take care of her afterward. Not when I’ll have to leave her bed before the sun has even risen to get to morning skate on time.
Carys ducks her head and pulls her hand out of my grip.
As if my need to claim her, feel her come apart under my touch and my tongue and around my knot, isn’t enough, her worry about being too brazen cuts through me.
No way can she end tonight thinking she’s put me off because she was bold enough to ask for what she wants.
Or imply it, at least.
“I-It’s okay, you can say no,” she whispers. “That was probably way too forward. I’m so—”
Before she can continue on with that line of thinking, I grip her chin and pull her lips to mine, twisting us until her back hits the brick wall just beside the door.