Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
NASH
I have no idea what’s gotten into me. Nine years of friendship and all of a sudden, I don’t know how to act around this man.
It’s like I closed my eyes when the referee blew the whistle on the last point of the game, and when I opened them, I saw everything clearly.
Gone was the friend whom I’d toss popcorn at during a movie, and in its place was a man I’d love to toss my panties at.
He’s always been there, big and fit and sexy, but when the confetti fell, I looked at him and realized this was never fake to me.
The flight attendant moves on to the next row and I stuff the ruined napkins in the seat pocket in front of me. “Sorry about that.”
“Nash,” he says, and it’s like he’s calling me to look at his eyes and see the need there. “What are you doing to me?”
Our heads are so close I can feel the whisper of his breath move my hair as he speaks. Just the stupid little armrest between us. With the cabin lights so dimmed and the whole plane near silent, aside from the steady rhythm of the engines, it’s like we’re the only people here. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t keep resisting you like this. Watching you tonight…touching me like this,” his breath is a heavy whoosh as he struggles to find words. “I want things I know I can’t have.”
“What makes you think I don’t want the same?” The words tumble out of me. The air around us bends and constricts as we take each other in. On the precipice of making a leap we’ve both been avoiding for five years since the kiss that changed my life.
Are we about to have this much-needed conversation at thirty-thousand feet? I look at Wyatt’s lips—warm and welcoming—then back to his eyes, which are as blue as the sky was when I got up this morning.
I think we are.
“When you kissed me–”
“Nash, we don’t have to do this.” The look in his eyes is pleading, like he can’t stand to hear what I’m about to say.
“Wyatt…we do need to do this. When you kissed me, it was the best kiss of my life. I laid awake all night thinking about it. Replaying it over and over in my head. Thinking about the way you felt, the warmth soaking through your shirt into my hands on your chest. I woke up the next morning, exhausted already and facing a twenty-one-hour travel day. I figured you’d be at my door the next morning, but you weren’t.
I figured you’d call when I landed in Rome, but you didn’t.
After a week went by and you never mentioned the kiss, I shoved all my feelings down.
I put them away so that we could continue to have this friendship, a friendship that means everything to me.
And that’s where it’s been ever since.” I put my hand in his where it rests on his leg. “Until tonight.”
I watch his throat as he swallows. “Why tonight?”
“Because now I’m in the business of taking whatever I want.” I look at our intertwined hands. “As long as you want that too.”
He squeezes my fingers, bringing my gaze back to him. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“It is?”
He nods. “I had feelings for you before that kiss. I felt like I had to do it before you left because what if you never came back and I never got to experience the feeling of your lips? That would haunt me more than any playoff loss.”
I poke an accusing finger at him. “You left me high and dry after that kiss.”
“I thought you didn’t want me,” he confesses, his voice choked and raw.
“When you still got on that plane and left, when you didn’t text me that you landed safely, I thought to myself that’s it.
I’ve lost her. I put it all out there and she didn’t feel the same, and now she’s on another continent.
” He pauses, collecting himself. “Until you called. Do you remember?”
Of course, I remember. It was the first night I truly felt so homesick that I might vomit. I desperately needed to hear a voice from home, so I dialed his number. “I do.”
“Then I knew that our friendship wasn’t ruined.
It was just the same as it had been…with no chance at ever being more.
When I came to Houston, I was not in my right mind.
I was not ready to be here—the place you love.
I hated my prove-it contract. I missed Wisconsin.
I never bought a house because I’m not committed to staying here, and I think you know that.
I still don’t have a signed deal with the Hurricanes.
I could be a free agent in two months, forced to try out for any team that will take me.
” His jaw is so tense with those words, like being a free agent is a fate worse than death.
“We have some time,” I start.
“If I can go back to Wisconsin, I will. So I can’t offer you what you deserve knowing I could take off any day.”
“But Jared Clark is still there.”
“For now. They drafted a new quarterback, so who knows how long he will last with his replacement on the bench next to him.”
“That’s a crazy thing to be betting on.”
He raises one eyebrow at me. “Crazier than betting on an unproven league?”
“I guess you have a point.” I bite my lip. “So, now what?”
“We both feel something, and we’re both in the off season. Let’s enjoy it. At least for a little while. I could be gone tomorrow, but I could also get hit by a bus tomorrow. And I would live in purgatory forever if I died without ever having you.”
“I want that. I don’t want to wait any more.” I pick up my hand, taking his with me, and move them to my lap. I lean over and take the sweatshirt from his lap and put it over our hands, covering us from any peering eyes.
Wyatt’s mouth is agape when he looks at me. “Here?”
A smirk etches across my lips, teasing and cocky at once. “To start.”
“What about your teammates?” Besides the seat occupied by the gentleman I switched with, we’re surrounded by Moons players.
I peek over the seat in front of me where Simin and Daly are crashed out. It seems we’re the only ones who were able to fight the adrenaline crash. “They’re all asleep. No one even knows.” I peek over the seat in front of me, looking at the door to the restrooms. “We could join the mile high club?”
Wyatt looks like he’s desperate enough to consider it, but he says, “There’s no way we will both fit in that tiny ass bathroom.”
I sigh dramatically. “You’re right. I guess we’ll just have to sit here and wait. Maybe look out the window.”
“Or…” He starts as his hand leaves mine and touches my lower stomach, making my muscles twitch.
I’ve never fooled around on an airplane before.
The closest I’ve been to public stuff is in the very back of a dark movie theater, but I’m burning up for him, and I need him to take just the edge off right now until we can get home.
And if the possibility of getting caught makes it even hotter, so what?
Home. It’s a different place to me than him. We might be incompatible because of that, but that’s future Nash’s problem.
I suck in a sharp breath as Wyatt’s knuckles pass over the peak of my thighs.
I close my eyes and let the feeling of his fingers brushing against my skin wash over me.
It could be five seconds or five hours of this, I’m not sure.
I could do it all night. But I’m hit with a stark reminder of where we are when the captain’s voice comes over the loudspeaker.
“We are starting our descent into Houston. We will be arriving at terminal B.”
I reopen my eyes and see Wyatt studying my face. With one strong movement, he cups my pussy in his huge palm and lets his eyes linger on mine, full of promise.
My legs react like that of a baby giraffe when we stand as the plane arrives at the gate. I try and keep my face from burning as I sling my backpack over my shoulder. I have to get off this plane and into this man’s bed right now.
I’ve waited nine years for this and I’m not quite sure that I can wait another five seconds.