Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
GUNNER
I can tell she’s been crying, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t twist my insides into knots. Penny is one of the strongest women I know, and while I don’t entirely understand it, her appearance and reputation are very important to her. She always comes off as completely in control, and losing ourselves to our desires in a closet during a work function is hardly in control.
She wraps her arms across her front, each hand clutching the opposite arm as if she’s holding herself together. “What are you doing here?” she questions before releasing a long, low sigh.
“I came to see you.”
“Why?”
I drag my fingers through my hair and blow out a breath of air. “Fuck if I know.”
It’s humorous, really, how two people with very little emotional maturity can fall for one another. I don’t know much, but it’s clear that we’re both royally screwed up when it comes to intimacy and relationships.
Her posture sags before she gives a defeated shake of her head and slumps down onto the sofa.
“I guess I wanted to see you.” I lean against a wall, opposite the sofa. “A few of the guys know, but I guarantee they won’t speak of it again. Your job is safe, and your reputation is fine.”
She snorts. “My reputation is so not fine. No…that’s pretty much shot.”
“You’re worried about being judged by a handful of hockey players? You’ve worked with us. We have no room to judge you. Why does it matter what anyone thinks, anyway?”
“I don’t know. It just does.” She shakes her head.
As I take her in now, the realization of my feelings hits hard. I’m obsessed with this woman. That reality is undeniable. It’s more than being insanely attracted to her. It’s as if we have this invisible connection, a pull toward one another that’s always been there. Unhealed traumas morphed this unearthly pull into something else—hatred or, at the very least, annoyance. Yet I can no longer stick my head in the sand and pretend that’s all it is. The pair of us is broken. There’s no question about that. Yet I can’t help but feel that together, maybe we can be whole.
These ideas in my head sound cheesy even to me. Perhaps I’ll never have the courage to voice them out loud, but I feel them, nonetheless, and something inside me demands that I honor them.
I approach the sofa and extend my hand. “Come here.”
Her brows furrow as her big brown eyes dart from my hand to my face with uncertainty.
“I don’t bite.”
She forces a laugh. “I doubt that.” But she takes my hand, and I pull her up.
I thread my fingers through her thick curls, tilting her face toward mine. “I want you… and not in the way I’ve had you but in all the ways I haven’t.”
Pulling her head back slightly, she swallows hard. “What do you…?” Her words are soft as her voice trails off.
Lifting my shoulders, I shrug. “I’m not sure what that entails, I only know that I lied to you. I think about Vancouver all the fucking time. Yet the truth is, I thought about you long before then. I’m not good at this. I have no idea where to start or what to do, but I know I want you.”
Dead. Fucking. Silence.
If she wasn’t blinking, I’d question whether she was still breathing. My heart races inside my chest. I pull my hands from her hair and drop them at my sides. My breath is shallow, and my mind becomes fuzzy. I’m stuck in this place of uncertainty. Is this a rejection?
Finally, she dips her chin in a nod and says, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
The corners of her mouth tilt up in a slight grin. “I think it’s crazy. We’re probably the two people least equipped to be in a relationship…” She quirks a brow. “You are asking me to be in a relationship, right?”
“I guess.”
“You guess?” she scoffs. “This is serious, Gunner. You need to know.”
I throw my hands up. “Cut me some slack, Penny. I’ve never done this. I don’t do labels. All I know is I want you.”
“Only me?”
“Only you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” We’ve regressed to speaking like cave people. At this point, I think it’d be more clear if I just threw her ass over my shoulder, took her to the bedroom, and sealed the deal. This back-and-forth is giving me a headache. “So… what do we do now?”
After a beat, she says, “Let’s nap.”
“Nap?”
“It’s been an exhausting month.” She takes my hand and leads me to her bedroom. “I’m emotionally spent. Aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Maybe nap is code for the fun stuff. Regardless, I’m in.
Penny pulls back the covers and climbs onto her bed, leaving a space for me behind her. She faces away from me. With the blanket on us, I lie against her back, wrapping my arm around her waist. We lie in this position, and I wait, allowing her to take the lead. Only, after a few minutes, her breathing shallows, and I realize that nap wasn’t code for anything.
This is new.
I can’t say I hate it.
Penny’s body is warm against mine. The soft rise and fall of her chest creates a soothing cadence. The scent of her shampoo, a sultry fruity mixture, wafts through the air along with hints of cinnamon coming from somewhere else in the room. It’s all—pleasant and strange.
Long minutes are spent trying to figure it all out and rationalize the situation, but eventually I realize that it doesn’t matter. I’m here. With her. Labels, midday naps, and spooning aside—that feels right.
The dream was forgotten as soon as my mind awakened, but it was a good one, and my sense of happiness remains. It’s a stark contrast to the nightmares that usually plague my sleep. Sweet and spicy hit my senses, and my eyelids pop open.
Penny is turned toward me now, awake and staring directly at me. “That was a good nap, huh?”
“Uh, yeah.” I stretch my arms out over my head and move my neck to the side. The familiar cracks of my spine sound.
“Are you still in the same place you were before we fell asleep?” She keeps her voice steady. A bit of work Penny comes through, and I know she’s putting on some of her armor to ward off disappointment.
I swipe a lock of her hair behind her ear. It’s possibly the first time I’ve ever completed that motion with a woman in my life, and it’s oddly satisfying. “If you’re referring to the place where I only want to be with you. Then yes.”
She smiles, a genuine, beautiful smile. “Good. I was thinking we should take a hot bath, get comfy clothes on, order takeout, and talk.”
“Is any of that code for sex? I thought maybe napping was code for sex, but I was wrong about that. So just so I know what to expect… what should I expect?”
“You can pretty much take what I say at face value.”
“So we’re together, alone, and in an actual decent bed, but there will be no sex?”
She nods. “Correct.”
“I’m liking this dating stuff already.”
She chuckles. “Who knew Gunner Dreven could make a joke.”
“That wasn’t a joke,” I deadpan, which elicits another laugh from Penny.
“I just think we should get to know each other. We already know that we have insane chemistry in the sex department. We’ll have no problems there. But neither of us are relationship people, and if we’re really going to do this, we should see if we actually like each other or are compatible in other ways. If we don’t, we’re just wasting our time.”
“Sex with you is never a waste of time.”
“Yeah, but a relationship would be. Being together impacts a lot of things for us. It’s going to change the dynamic at work. We need to make sure that we really want to do this… whatever this is.”`
“Work won’t change. I’ll do my thing, and you’ll do yours, as always. I am nothing like Beckett or Cade, for that matter.” I think of my teammates, the two starting forwards, and how they turned into lovesick saps following their girls around. They practically have hearts pop out of their eyes when they see their wives. “I don’t do relationships, let alone ones with PDA at work.”
“Works for me,” she says.
“Good. I want to keep us between us, if that makes sense?”
She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, and it takes all my willpower not to lean in for a kiss. “You want to keep the fact that we’re seeing one another a secret?”
“No.” I place my hand on her hip. “It’s not that. I don’t care if people know. But when we’re together, I want it to be just us without all the outside noise.”
She raises a brow. “That only works if you can refrain from random quickies in the storage closet.”
“I have control.”
“Well, you didn’t show any today.”
“I showed as much as you did.”
She puckers her lips. “That’s fair.” Backing away, she climbs out of the other side of the bed and makes her way to the connected bathroom. “I’m going to run a bath. You can join me if you want.”
I don’t remember a time when I chose a bath over a shower in my adult life, but if it involves a naked Penny, I’m in.