Chapter Thirty #3
Matvei lifted her against him. Tessa wrapped both arms around his neck, but he did not carry her upstairs immediately. He held her near the door while their mouths moved slowly together, allowing the confession to settle into every place they touched.
The food waited in the kitchen.
Neither noticed until her stomach made a quiet sound between them.
Matvei drew back.
“You did not eat.”
“I was filing.”
“I know.”
“You always know.”
“Yes.”
He led her toward the kitchen.
They ate takeout at the island because neither had the energy to set the table. Tessa sat in her usual place while Matvei stood across from her, one hip against the counter.
The domestic familiarity returned almost immediately.
She stole vegetables from his container. He moved the rice she left behind toward her side. She asked about his hip. He asked how much she had slept during the series.
Neither liked the other’s answer.
The Cup Final entered the conversation only briefly.
Seattle had not yet won the West, though it led late in Game 7 while they ate. Matvei refused to watch.
“You do not want to know who you’re playing?” Tessa asked.
“I know later.”
“That is an unusual level of patience from you.”
“I learn.”
“From romantic comedies?”
“No.”
“You have not watched one in weeks.”
“Playoffs.”
“They still exist during the playoffs.”
“No.”
Tessa smiled into her food.
The final score appeared on her phone shortly afterward.
Seattle had won.
She turned the screen toward him.
Matvei looked once.
Then placed the phone facedown.
“Seattle,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Four.”
The number entered the room.
Four wins.
Tessa reached across the island and took his hand.
“You can do it.”
Matvei held her fingers.
“We can.”
She understood that he meant the team.
He also meant something else.
The season had stopped being only his months earlier.
Her stories moved beside it. Her deadlines followed every game. Her private life waited inside the same results she covered publicly.
They would reach the end together, even if nobody else knew.
After dinner, Tessa closed the containers while Matvei washed the few dishes they used.
She leaned against the counter watching him.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That is something.”
She smiled.
“I like you in your kitchen.”
“You see before.”
“I know.”
“I am same.”
“No.”
Matvei turned off the water.
Tessa moved closer.
“You’re someone who loves me now.”
“I love before.”
The admission surprised both of them.
Tessa stopped.
“How long?”
Matvei considered it.
He did not know the exact moment.
Perhaps Helsinki, when she waited outside the arena and looked at him like the game mattered without allowing it to define him.
Perhaps the hotel room. Perhaps Halifax, when she wrote the truth about Atlanta and he did not need to inspect it for cruelty.
Perhaps her birthday, when she danced badly with him between empty tables.
“Long,” he said.
“That is very specific.”
“Yes.”
She placed one hand against his chest.
“I think I knew at The Press Gang.”
“The dance?”
“Maybe.”
“You laugh.”
“You were counting.”
“Needed.”
“You were terrible.”
“You love.”
“I do.”
The words still changed her expression.
Matvei bent and kissed her.
This kiss remained softer.
Tessa’s hand rested over his heartbeat while his mouth moved against hers with no urgency to prove anything. They had spent weeks living inside clocks. Shift lengths. Game times. Flight schedules. Deadlines. Series counts.
Now the house contained no clock that mattered.
Matvei kissed her until her breathing changed, then stopped long enough to ask, “Upstairs?”
Tessa nodded.
“Yes.”
He took her hand.
They walked.
The bedroom looked exactly as they had left it weeks earlier.
Tessa’s clothing remained inside the drawer. Her charger waited beside the bed. A paperback she had started and never finished lay facedown on the nightstand beside Matvei’s.
She noticed it.
“You left my page.”
“Yes.”
“You did not move it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Matvei looked at her.
“Yours.”
The answer quieted her.
He touched the bottom of her shirt and waited.
Tessa lifted her arms.
Matvei removed it slowly.
There was no rush now. No hotel departure waiting in the morning, no game the following night and no fear that stopping would cause the moment to disappear.
He kissed each newly exposed place as he uncovered it.
Her shoulder.
The curve beneath her ear.
The center of her chest after the last layer fell away.
Tessa’s hands moved over him with the same care, opening his shirt one button at a time. She pushed it from his shoulders and ran her palms across his chest as though relearning something familiar.
Matvei watched her face.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She touched the scar along his jaw.
“I love you.”
The words entered him differently from the first answer downstairs.
Matvei closed his hand around hers and kissed the center of her palm.
“I love you.”
He drew her toward the bed.
They undressed one another without laughter this time, though neither felt solemn. The intimacy carried too much tenderness for performance. Tessa leaned into every touch. Matvei gave her time to guide him closer or ask him to slow.
She never asked him to stop.
When they lay together, the rest of the house seemed to fall away.
Matvei kissed her for a long time before moving lower, following the lines of her body with his mouth and hands. Tessa’s breathing filled the room. Her fingers tightened around his shoulders, then relaxed when he slowed again.
He wanted to remember every part of her.
Not because the Final might change anything.
Because love had changed the way he understood what he already knew.
Tessa touched him with the same patience, drawing quiet sounds he no longer tried to hide. They remained close, exchanging whispered questions and answers that mattered more than urgency.
Yes.
There.
Stay.
Matvei moved slowly enough to watch her expression change. Tessa held his face between her hands and kept their eyes connected.
The closeness nearly overwhelmed him.
He had always understood desire as something physical. Pressure, heat and the loss of restraint. This felt different. The pleasure remained, but something larger moved beneath it, making each kiss and breath feel less like taking and more like being allowed closer.
Tessa whispered his name.
Matvei kissed her.
“I love you,” he said again.
Her arms tightened around him.
“I love you too.”
They moved together without rushing toward the end. When either lost the rhythm, they found it again. Tessa laughed once when their knees collided beneath the blankets, and Matvei laughed with her, the sound unfamiliar inside such a moment but right.
The laughter softened into another kiss.
Matvei held her through every change in her breathing, slowing when she needed and following when she drew him closer. Tessa’s body tightened against his. Her face turned toward his neck, and the sound she made there carried trust more than urgency.
He remained with her until the tension passed.
Then she touched his face and pulled him back toward her.
Matvei followed.
His control lasted only a little longer.
Tessa held him as he let go, one hand against the back of his neck and the other pressed over his heart.
Afterward, neither moved far.
Matvei rested beside her with one arm around her waist. Tessa curled against his chest, her leg crossing carefully over his.
The hip did not hurt.
Nothing did.
For several minutes, the only sound came from their breathing and the faint hum of the house.
Tessa traced a slow circle against his skin.
“So,” she whispered.
Matvei looked down.
“What?”
“We love each other.”
“Yes.”
“That seems significant.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any more analysis?”
“No.”
“That is unlike you.”
Matvei considered it.
“Good movie.”
Tessa laughed into his chest.
He smiled and drew the blankets higher around her.
“You stay tomorrow?” he asked.
“I have work.”
“Here.”
“I need clothes.”
“You have.”
“Not work clothes.”
“We get.”
“You have practice.”
“Afternoon.”
Tessa lifted her head and smiled.
“I can stay in the morning.”
Matvei’s arm tightened around her.
“Good.”
Tessa rested her cheek against his chest again.
Matvei looked toward the ceiling.
Four wins waited.
Seattle waited.
The largest games of his life waited.
For the first time since the playoffs began, he did not feel compelled to move toward them immediately.
Tessa’s breathing slowed. Her hand remained over his heart.
Matvei closed his eyes.
He loved her.
She loved him.
The words had changed nothing about the difficulty waiting beyond the room.