18. Christopher
Ipull up to the airport and get out of my truck, grabbing my overnight bag. “Did you pack a hat?” Cole asks when he gets out of his own truck beside me.
“I did not. Why?” I shut the door and lock the truck before turning to walk to the plane on the tarmac. The stainless-steel stairs are out, and a couple of players are already here and walking up toward the door.
“I think it’s snowing there,” he states as we walk side by side to the plane.
“In Buffalo?” I ask, shocked.
“That’s what I just saw.” Cole holds up his iPhone. “It’s also cold AF.”
I let him walk up the steps before me, grabbing an empty row and putting my bag in the overhead bin. We are on our way to Buffalo for a game tomorrow. “It’s snowing in Buffalo.”
“It’s not that bad,” someone says as I take off my cashmere coat and toss it on the seat next to me. Chatter happens around me as everyone gets situated for the fifty-minute flight. When we land, it is in fact snowing.
The wind blows the snow as we step off and head to the heated bus that is waiting for us. I’m getting my key in the hotel lobby when my phone rings in the inside pocket of my jacket. Pulling it out, I see Dakota is FaceTiming me. I’m about to answer it when it stops, and only when I scan my hotel key on the door and step in do I call her back.
When I showed up at her house, I expected her to tell me she was busy and didn’t have the time. What I wasn’t ready for was her telling me that we should forget whatever happened. There was no way in fuck I was going to forget what we did. Not a chance in hell. I also never expected the girls to invite me in. Was it a cheap shot to just go in? You bet your ass. But there is no place I want to be these days other than with her and the girls. I know there is something else there I have to talk about. I know I’m treading on ice so thin that it’s cracking and my foot is already in the water. I know that everything in my head tells me it’s wrong, yet my heart tells me a different story. A story I’m not sure I’m ready for.
The sound of the ringing fills my room as I shrug off my jacket. I see that she connected and I’m expecting to see her face, but instead it’s Rain who comes on the screen. “Hey there.” I smile at her.
“Uncle Christopher,” she says, her smile so big that her eyes light up, “guess what?”
“Ummm, you got a hundred on your spelling test?” I guess the first thing that comes to my mind.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I scored three goals today.”
I gasp, “You what?”
“We had a hockey practice today,” she starts, “and at the end, we had a little game, and I scored three goals.”
“That’s a hat trick.” I sit on the bed, looking at her, and my chest fills with pride. I honestly have never felt this feeling in my life. I know I feel pride for my nieces and my nephews, but this one, this one just feels like my chest is going to explode. “Did Mom throw a hat on the ice?”
She giggles and looks up at Koda. “She didn’t.”
“I didn’t have a hat.” I hear her voice, and another thing happens, but that is more south. Just her voice and a little laugh, and my body suddenly awakens.
“I’ll be there for Saturday practice. We can go out after and celebrate,” I say, and she looks up at her mom.
“We are going to celebrate,” she tells her even though I know she can hear. “Bye, Uncle Christopher,” she says and then hands the phone to her mom. “Here.”
“I want to talk to Uncle Chrissy,” Luna whines.
“Here you go.” Koda hands her the phone.
“Hey, princess,” I greet her when she comes onto the screen, “how was hockey?”
“I didn’t fall,” she states proudly, “not even once.”
“Look at you, you’re a superstar.” She nods, agreeing with me. “You get extra chocolate chips on Saturday.”
She gasps, turning to Koda. “I’m getting all the chocolate on Saturday.” I can’t help but laugh at how different the story can change from me to her.
“Is that so?” Koda says as Luna hands her the phone.
“Hi,” she says, looking at the screen, “sorry about calling, but Rain had to talk to you.”
“You never have to be sorry about calling me. How are you?” Besides looking gorgeous, I don’t add.
“Good,” she replies, “I’m about to start dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll let you get on that. Can you call me later?” I stare at her to see her reaction, knowing she won’t want to. “I have something to tell you.” The back of my neck gets hot. “It’s important.” I’m really throwing everything out there for her.
“I have some work to do after the kids go down.” She tries to come up with an excuse.
“It won’t take long, I promise.”
“Fine.” She finally gives in, and I know she’s just doing it to get it over with. “I’ll call you when the girls go down.”
“Talk to you then,” I reply, wanting to say a lot more, but I have to tread lightly because she already has one foot out the door and the second is very close to following it.
“Bye.” She hangs up without a second thought.
I get a text from Cole right after I hang up.
Cole: Dinner downstairs in the restaurant, no one wants to go out in the snow.
Me: Sounds good. What time?
Cole: Thirty.
I look at the clock and see that it’s going to be five thirty, so it gives me enough time to go downstairs, have dinner, and get back to my room in time for her to call me, knowing the girls go to bed at seven thirty.
Me: Meet you down there.
I toss the phone aside and take off my suit jacket and hang it up, since I’m wearing it for the game tomorrow. The same with the pants as I slide into my tracksuit and running shoes, making it downstairs in twenty minutes.
A couple of the guys are shooting the shit when I pull out a chair and sit down. Dinner is a bit of chaos since they weren’t expecting the team to be eating in the dining room. I make it back upstairs by seven and decide to take a quick shower while I wait for her.
Sliding into a pair of white boxers, I slip into bed and turn on the television while I wait for her to call me. I’m giving her until eight thirty before I cave and call her.
I flick through the channels, my head trying not to go crazy with what I’m going to say to her. At seven fifty-seven the phone rings, and I swear my hand flies out so fast I’m surprise that I don’t drop the phone.
I press the green button, putting it on speaker. “Why didn’t you FaceTime me?”
“I don’t know, you said to call you.” I press the camera button. “Are you FaceTiming me?”
“Yes,” I answer as I see the little white words telling me it’s connecting.
I see that she’s sitting in her bed with her hair tied on top of her head. “Are you in bed?” I ask right away.
“Yes, I—” she stumbles with her words.
“You lied to me.” I can’t help but laugh at her nervousness.
“I did not lie to you,” she snaps, “I have work to do. I’m going to do it after this phone call.”
“I call bullshit.” Which earns me a glare. “You tried to get out of talking to me, so you lied and said you had to work.”
“Again, didn’t lie,” she hisses. “Is this what you had to talk to me about that was so urgent?”
“No.” I snicker. “But it’s fun when you get mad.”
She pffts out. “Now that we’ve got you annoying me out of the way, we can get on with whatever it is you have to say so I can get to doing what I need to do.”
“We need to discuss what you said yesterday,” I tell her. I can see her walls come up but I’m ready to knock them down. “I think you misinterpreted what I was saying.”
“I don’t think anything at all,” she quickly adds in, “and I don’t think we really need to talk about this.”
“Then you are shit out of luck.” I sit up and see that her eyes go from my face to my chest, her cheeks getting a light pink, and I love that I have this effect on her. “Because there are a couple of things that have to be said, and I’m going to say them.”
“I don’t want you to say them.” She takes a deep breath in. “I don’t think we should go there.”
“Too bad.” I shake my head. “You want to forget that it happened?”
“Yes,” she replies without even thinking about it.
“So you didn’t want me to kiss you?” I ask, swallowing down, hoping like fuck she is honest with me. “Because I’m going to be very honest. If you didn’t want me to kiss you and then I kissed you, I’m…” I feel sick to my stomach. “Jesus, I’m not that guy to take advantage of you or anyone.”
“Christopher,” she says softly, “that’s not at all what I meant. You didn’t take advantage of me; you would never do that.”
“Listen, I don’t know what the right and wrong thing is to do right now,” I admit what is on my mind. “I have never been here, but I know a couple of things.” I watch her face as I talk. “And I’m going to say them and then you can do what you want with them.”
“Okay,” she agrees softly.
“There is nothing I wanted more in my life than to kiss you the other night. I’ve wanted nothing more than to kiss you for the last two fucking months, or maybe it’s been longer, I don’t know. But I knew if I didn’t kiss you when I did, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.” Her mouth opens in shock. “The only reason I told you I was sorry was because I thought you regretted it.”
“I didn’t regret it,” she finally says, her voice in a whisper.
“You didn’t even look at me the rest of the night.” I can’t help that my voice cracks. “You avoided looking at me and refused to let me drive you home. It killed me that I had one of the best kisses of my life and then thought you didn’t want it.”
“Christopher, I was so embarrassed.”
“What?” I snap. “For what?”
“Good God, I let you go down on me in a dark doorway,” she croaks out. “What the fuck was I thinking?”
“Are you asking me?” I smile at her. “Because not going to lie, baby, if you would have dropped to your knees, I would not have said no, so there is that.”
“What?” It’s her turn to ask me.
“Baby, I want to touch you all the fucking time,” I admit. “I want to kiss the shit out of you. I want to hold your hand and then kiss your fingertips. I want to worship your whole fucking body, like literally inch by fucking inch.” I can see it in her eyes that she wants the same thing I want. “I lost total control the other night, and for that, I’m sorry also. I should have protected you. I can’t even think about what would have happened if someone saw you in that state.” I shake my head, my blood boiling. “No one gets to see you like that but me. That’s mine, and it’s yours. I was so fucking far gone for you, I didn’t even think twice.”
“You wanted me that bad?”
“Fuck, I want you that bad,” I admit. “Like right now, my cock is so hard it hurts.” She gasps. “A little TMI but”—I put my head back—“it’s like a constant state when I’m next to you or I see you.”
“I’ve never done that before.” She takes a big exhale. “I’ve never, ever wanted to be touched so bad in my life. The minute you kissed me, it was like I forgot everything. My name, where I was, what I was doing. The only thing I wanted was to be closer to you.”
“You can’t say things like that to me when I’m here and you’re there.”
“Why not?” She laughs for the first time tonight, and my cock gets even harder.
“Because I can’t touch you,” I admit. “The things I would do to you.”
“Really?” She smirks. “Care to tell me?” She giggles and then hides her face.
“Don’t do that. Don’t hide from me.”
“This is all very new to me,” she admits.
“We are both in uncharted territory.” I smirk. “And there is no one else I want to be uncharted with than you.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Same.” Finally admitting it makes me want to go and shout it from the rooftops.
“I’m really fucking happy you called me back tonight,” I say softly.
“I’m really fucking happy that I did,” she counters, and all I can think of is the next time I see her and the kiss I’m going to lay on her.