Chapter 23 #2
“That’s right. Mine to take care of. Mine to make feel good.” I pick up the pace, feeling her tighten around me. “You’re going to come for me again, aren’t you? Going to be such a good girl and come on my cock.”
The words wrap around us both, driving her faster as she tightens around me, as pleasure builds and builds.
“Come on, baby,” I coax, one hand sliding between us to find her clit. “Show me how good I make you feel. That’s it—just like that. Perfect girl. Sexy as fuck, god damn it, you’re going to make me come too, holy fuck—”
When she finally tips over the edge, it’s with my name on her lips and her hand tangled in my hair, a tiny woman pinning me down as I thrust roughly into her from below. The feeling of her coming apart pushes me over too. Pouring everything I have into her as I shudder and shake.
She collapses on top of me, trembling and sweat-slicked.
I trail my fingers up her damp spine, loving the soft weight of her on top of me, my whole body wrung out and sated, at least for the moment.
I don’t want to move. Don’t want to pull out and break this connection. I just want to stay joined, our breathes synching up as they slow. In and out, in and out.
I’ve never felt this close to another person in my entire life.
Pressing my face into her hair, I fight back a wave of unexpected emotion. Fuck.
“We should…” She kisses my chest. “The condom?”
“Yeah.” I drag in a breath and reach for the base of my cock as she slides off.
“There’s a washroom across the hall,” she says.
Matter of fact. Not consumed by rioting feelings the way I am.
I nod and swing my legs off the bed, pausing only long enough to double check that her roommates aren’t going to come back and catch me naked in the hallway.
When I return, she’s curled up under the blankets, one side turned down in a clear invitation to slide in next to her.
She fits against me perfectly, her head tucked under my chin, her leg hooking over mine.
For a few minutes, we just breathe together again. I trace the stethoscope tattoo on her bare shoulder, and she draws lazy circles on my chest.
Then out of nowhere, Frankie murmurs, “So, a family wedding, huh?”
Mentally, I do a fist pump. That means she’s in. “Do you think you can get the time off?”
“Yes, probably. I’ll put in a request as soon as I get matched. It might just be for the weekend.”
“We can make just the weekend work. That might be long enough for a first visit, anyway. They’re overwhelming, but I hope they’ll grow on you, since they’re going to be your family, too.”
She goes still against me, and I realize what I’ve said. Family. For someone who’s been let down by hers as many times as Frankie has, that word probably carries a lot of weight. For her, family has been a lot of work with very little reward.
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” she whispers.
I tip her chin up so I can see her face.
“It’s okay,” she says, her voice stronger. And her gaze doesn’t waver. “I’m fine.”
“I know you are.” I brush a soft kiss on her mouth.
“I bet you all go skating together. Very wholesome.”
I laugh. “Of course we do. I’ll take you skating any time.”
“I’m not sure I remember how. I don’t remember the last time I laced up. Probably before I was a teenager.”
“I’d love to teach you again.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Then there’s a pause, and she doesn’t look away, but there’s a tension in that pause, like she’s building a tiny wall to hide behind.
“It wasn’t really my thing. I just wanted to read books, and my mom didn’t want to take me.
It would have been my mom who took me, you know?
She likes hockey, but she likes it in the fancy facility, WAGs get all the attention kind of way. Not a community rink kind of way.”
I frown. I’ve met her mother a few times, and WAGs get all the attention isn’t my perception of Melissa Wilson. But to be fair to Frankie, she maybe doesn’t seem like the type of woman to take her daughter skating, either. She’s more delicate than her daughter in every way.
“That’s a shame, I’m sorry.” And I’m really fucking sorry that Wilson didn’t take her skating himself.
“I love a community rink. I’ll find us a good one in the summer.
” I pull her closer. “Listen, I know I said this earlier, but I want to be really clear about something. When I come here this summer—and I am coming here, so the house hunting is a real priority, or Sloane and Liz are going to see me striding ass naked to the bathroom a heck of a lot—I’m going to have time for you. Real time.”
Her breath catches.
“I do need to train,” I continue. “But that’s a few hours a day, while you’re working. Every night, I’m yours. And I won’t mind if you’re busy, or if you have to work overnight, whatever the residency requires.”
She’s crying now, silent tears that I can feel against my chest.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask, concerned.
“No.” She shakes her head. “You said something very right. I just—” Her voice breaks. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.”
I hold her tighter, letting her cry it out. Letting her release whatever she’s been holding onto for all these years.
“Summer was supposed to be my favorite time,” she says eventually, her voice muffled against my chest. “When Dad would finally be home. But then he’d be running camps, or coaching somewhere, or doing clinics. Always hockey. Always something else more important than just... being with us.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “That must have been really hard.”
“It was what it was.” She wipes her eyes with the corner of the sheet. “I learned not to expect too much.”
“Well, you can expect a lot from me.” I kiss her forehead and choose my next words very fucking carefully. “I’m not going to be like your dad. Yeah, I’ll work out. I’ll skate. But you’re my priority. You and me, building this life together.”
She studies my face for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Okay.”
I pull her back against my chest, cradling her close. “One day at a time, Frankie. We’ll figure this out together.”
After a while, she says, “Tell me more about your family. I want to know who I’m going to meet.”
So I tell her about Emery being pregnant by a fellow hockey player, and how chill my family is being about that baby arriving before their wedding.
I tell her about Camden’s failed marriages, and how his third marriage has taken us all by surprise, and how Wyatt and Forrest are still bachelors, but I thought I was going to be single forever, and here we are.
“So maybe they’re next, you never know,” I murmur.
As I talk, I feel Frankie relax against me.
I tell her about our parents, and summers in Two Harbors. I tell her about how fun it is to play a game against one of my brothers, or my soon-to-be brother-in-law, who is coming to my barn soon after we get home for the Hamilton-Buffalo QEW match up.
“What’s a QEW?” she mumbles, fighting to keep her eyes open.
“It’s the name of the highway between Hamilton and Buffalo. The Queen Elizabeth Way.”
“That’s fancy.”
“It’s just a freeway.”
“Still. Pretty name.” She yawns and snuggles in closer.
“You had a long day,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Sleep, baby. I’ve got you.”
“I could get used to this,” she murmurs drowsily.
Everything in me wants to shout yes, please, get used to this, let me give you this every night.
Instead, I just kiss the top of her head, my hand stroking up and down her spine, and I keep my fierce I love you so fucking much on the inside as she falls asleep in my arms.
Once she’s gone completely soft against me, I reach for the lamp on her bedside table, but pause when I recognize the book on the far side of the light.
Frankie’s copy of The Mist At Dawn’s Edge is well-read, the spine creased in many places, and colorful tabs peek out from between the pages here and there, marking her favorite spots. Moving slowly so I don’t disturb her, I reach for it and start reading.
It’s fun to see what she’s highlighted and left little doodle hearts on.
I flip back to chapter thirteen, to see if she highlighted the part where the big badass assassin guy throws the fiery little fae main character over his shoulder because she wouldn’t listen to him.
That was my favorite part, anyway.
But what Frankie liked best was apparently two lines after that.
I don’t have a chance against him right now. He’s bigger than me, and more dangerous in many ways. But I know how he looks at my mouth, and given the first chance, I will kiss him just to even the odds between us.
I won’t like it, of course.
Laughing under my breath, I flip the page, and read the kiss every reader of the book—including me—was gagging for at this point.
The fiery fae likes it more than she could imagine, and it makes her so spitting mad.
Reminds me of someone else I know, although Frankie doesn’t have that much fight in her. She’s a lover, through and through. She just had to learn how to be a fighter to protect her heart, because she was hurt by those closest to her.
That won’t ever be me.
I read another chapter before setting her book back in its spot and turning out the light. Morning will come before we know it, and I’ll need to leave my wife. I have to bank every second of having her in my arms before then.