Chapter 26
Life and Love
Lenzin
"I'm just saying, if you feel tired, we don't have to—"
Hildy cuts me off, her voice a notch lower, eyes dark with a chemical hunger I haven't seen since last summer. "Pregnancy hormones, and your hockey ass… and your words, dictate otherwise."
She grins, actually grins, and then she leans in, grabs two handfuls of my shirt, and yanks me forward.
My pulse surges. I laugh as I catch my balance with one hand braced on the wall behind her and the other sliding automatically to her hip, the familiar landscape of that body mapped in every nerve.
She presses into me, never shy, not the first night and not now, confidently.
I lean down, our foreheads close enough that I smell the faintest citrus from her shampoo, and she meets me halfway.
The kiss starts soft and slides instantly into reckless.
There's a new kind of urgency here, not the recklessness of two people who met at a lecture and not enough time, a chance meeting, but something untamed, like the desire in her is explosive to be diffused or to lie wanting underneath.
She fits her mouth to mine with an addictive hunger, making me bite back a groan.
My hands move up, careful and reverent at first, because I can't stop thinking about what's new—her stomach, the faintest soft pulse under my palm, the thing that is us and not us, and for a second, I'm too aware, too outside myself.
But she nips at my bottom lip, hard enough to taste copper, and drags me back in.
I let my hands trail down her arms, mapping the shiver along her skin, and when I reach her wrists, I pin them gently to the wall.
She laughs—short, involuntary—and the sound vibrates through both of us. "You really think you can hold me?" she teases, voice going raspy.
"I'm hoping to," I say, and mean it.
I let her wrists go, because I never actually want to keep her anywhere she doesn't want to be, and the second I do, she wraps her arms around my neck, pulls me in, and stands on tiptoe.
I bend to accommodate her, hands now sliding down, mapping the new and the remembered.
Her hips, still strong as hell, and her ass, which I always loved, but now fits perfectly into the spread of my hands.
I squeeze hard, and she yelps into my mouth.
I use the leverage to pick her up, just an inch, but enough for her to get the idea.
She wraps her legs around my waist, locking herself in place, and for a second, the only thing that exists is her thighs, the arch of her back, the heat radiating through every inch of clothing between us.
I stagger us backwards, one step at a time, toward her bedroom, and she's laughing again, not because it's funny but because it's good, and real, and she's allowing herself to want things.
She bites my ear. "Watch the wall."
"Not sorry," I mutter, then crash us gently, deliberately, into the doorframe. She grabs the handle and twists, and we spill into the darkened room, still grappling with the kind of coordination that only comes from practice, and I plan to practice this a lot more now.
Inside, I set her down, but she doesn't let go.
Instead, she rolls her hips so that even through my sweats and her pajama pants, I feel the unmistakable heat of her.
She kisses me, messy and insistent, and then—because this is Hildy—she takes my face in her hands, stills me for a second, and looks me dead in the eyes.
"Are you okay?" she whispers, voice so soft I almost don't hear it.
"I'm good.”
She nods, satisfied, and then pushes me—literally shoves me—so I'm sitting on the edge of her bed.
She straddles me, hands at my shoulders, and for a second, we just breathe the same air.
She looks at me like nobody ever has, like she's memorizing the script of my face before it can change again.
Then, with a slow grin, she slips her hands under my shirt and drags it up, exposing bare skin to the cool air of the room.
She traces my abs, my ribs, the scar from the old collarbone break, and then leans in and kisses the hollow of my throat.
I wrap my arms around her and hook my fingers into the waistband of her pants, but she catches my hands, pins them to the mattress, and leans down, pressing me to the mattress.
Her stunning red hair falls around us, a curtain, and in this small universe she has made, nothing exists but her. She grinds against me, slow at first, then faster, and I can feel her heartbeat through both our shirts.
She slides her hands up my arms, over my shoulders, threading them into my hair. "Take them off.”
I do, tee gone, tossed somewhere off to the side. She follows, peeling her shirt up and over her head, revealing a bra overfilling with her ever-growing tits. I stare, because I can't help it, and she shakes her head like I'm the dumbest man alive.
She takes my hands, brings them to her chest. Her breath catches, and I feel her shiver. "You can," she says, as if I'd ever need permission. I unhook the bra, slow and careful, and she lets it drop. Her nipples are hard, the skin pink and sensitive, and I want to taste them.
But she doesn't give me the chance. She slides down and starts peeling my sweats off, exposing the truth of how much I want her.
She rakes her gaze over me, and for a second, her eyes go glassy. She blinks, then laughs again, but it's softer, almost bashful. "You are truly beautiful, everywhere."
She kisses me, soft and slow this time, and I let her set the pace. Her hands roam, mapping my chest, my sides, then lower, and when she finally wraps her hand around me, I almost black out from the sensation.
She lifts herself up and lines us together, and I realize she's somehow managed to get her leggings off without me noticing. It shouldn't be possible, but with Hildy, my love and lover.
The first second inside her is like home. We both gasp, clutching at each other, and for a beat, I just hold her there, letting her set the rhythm.
We're both trembling a little, both pretending we aren't, both desperate to hold onto this as long as possible.
Then, she rides me hard, then slow, then hard again, and every time I start to get ahead of myself, she slaps my chest or bites my shoulder, and I laugh, helpless, because she's the only person who can do this to me.
She rides me hard enough that I have to dig my hands into her hips to ground myself, but she likes that, too—grinds her teeth and shudders when I leave finger marks, then leans down and kisses away the apology before I can even form one.
Her hair fans around us, sweat sticking it to her forehead and my neck, and the smell of us together fills up the room, dense and sweet and a little wild.
The first time she comes, it’s all tension and shiver, a sudden tensing that makes her nails rake down my ribs.
The second, she’s loud about it—throws her head back and swears at the ceiling, then collapses forward, hands on either side of my face, foreheads pressed together like we’re sharing the same lungful of air.
It takes longer for me, because I’m trying to make it last, trying not to fuck this up with my usual speed and need, but that’s the problem with Hildy: the better you try to be for her, the more she wants to break me.
When I finally lose it, she rides it out, snapping her hips with a final, savage twist that knocks every last rational thought from my skull.
We collapse after that, both of us, like runners at a finish line—sweaty, fucked-out, still clutching at each other as if we might float away otherwise.
She rolls off and flops her arm across my chest, palm flat over my pounding heart, and I drag in air, lungs burning, like I just skated a triple overtime.
After, we collapse into a tangle of limbs and sweat and bedsheets, breathing in stereo.
She lays her head on my chest and traces shapes on my stomach. "You okay?" she asks again, quieter this time.
"Yeah," I say, and when I run my hand down her back, she melts against me, like all the fight has gone out of her, and all that's left is this.
We're still like that when the sun starts to creep through the blinds, lighting the room in strips of orange and gold. I shift beneath her, trying not to wake her, but she stirs anyway.
"You sleep?" I ask.
She makes a noise, then pulls my hand tighter around her. "Don't move. Stay.”
“Never leaving,” I whisper against her hair, then even lower. “I love you, Hildy Sullivan.”
Her whisper is even quieter, like the wind, but I hear it, “I love you, too.”
We lie there for a long time after the words “I love you.”
Hildy is half draped over me, hair a copper spill across my shoulder and chest. I just watch the light catch in it.
She said it. Not in the heat of the moment. Not in fear. Not because she felt cornered. She said it because she meant it.
When she finally slips back to sleep, I ease out from under her carefully. She makes a small sound of protest but doesn’t wake fully. I pull the sheet back up over her shoulder and stand there for a second longer than necessary.
My girls.
The kitchen is quiet when I step into it. I start with coffee first, decaf of course. Then eggs. Toast. I slice fruit the way Lucy likes, small and neat. I even attempt pancakes, which I do not normally do, but today is their first day of school, and it feels like a pancake day.
Lucy comes padding down the hall in socks, hair wild again from sleep despite yesterday’s polish.
“Daddy,” she says, serious already. “Today is the day.”
“It is,” I agree, crouching to her level. “You ready?”
She nods, then pauses. “Will Mommy cry?”
I huff out a breath. “Probably.”
She considers that. “It’s okay. I’ll be brave for her.”
Hildy appears a few minutes later, wrapped in one of my shirts, hair loose and shining from yesterday’s treatment. She looks… soft, but also nervous.
“Breakfast is ready for my girls.”
Breakfast is louder than usual. Lucy talks nonstop about colors and letters and how she is “basically five and a half.” Hildy smiles, nods, laughs at the right moments, but I see the tightness around her eyes.
After breakfast, I have an idea. “Lucy, we’d like to mark your height before you leave for school, so that each year we can see how you’ve grown.”
She grins and does a little hop, “I’m gonna grow so big.”
When we walk out of the house, Scotti is already waiting out front. I open the door for the girls and slide in behind them.
“You have practice.”
“I’ll ride with you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you are.”
She narrows her eyes at me.
Lucy is looking in her backpack, oblivious.
Scotti glances at me in the rearview mirror like she’s watching a match she does not want to referee.
“I just want to be there,” I say more quietly, so Lucy cannot hear. “For both of you.”
Hildy’s chin lifts slightly. “Lenzin, I’m okay.”
And there it is, that independence.
I force myself to soften.
“I’m not questioning that,” I say.
“Then don’t make it look like you are.”
It hits harder than it should. Because she is right. Because I have a habit of stepping in before I am asked.
I lean back in the seat. “Okay. You lead.”
Her shoulders ease just slightly.
We pull up to The Bears daycare and early learning center drop off early.
Lucy grips both our hands as we walk toward the door. “I need to take photos of you and Mom, and then just you.”
“And you?” she asks.
I glance at Hildy, who smiles, “Of course.
“This is it,” Lucy whispers like she is entering a championship arena as I swipe and open the first set of doors.
“It’s going to be amazing.” Hildy smiles as we continue.
Once inside, her teacher squats down, with a warm smile and a steady voice, “We are so excited to have you join us.”
Lucy looks up at Hildy first.
Hildy brushes her hair back. “You’re going to love it.”
Lucy hesitates one second longer, then lets go of her hand, and then gives me the same look.
Fuck, this sucks. “See you at the end of the day, my little scholar.”
Hildy keeps smiling until Lucy disappears into the classroom, and I attempt to follow suit.
The second the door shuts, her composure cracks. Not dramatically. Just a blink too long. A breath too sharp.
“She’s ready,” I say quietly.
“I know.”
“She’s strong.”
“I know.”
Her voice wobbles anyway.
I touch her hand. “You did that. You made her that way in just a few weeks. She’s going to be brilliant as well as happy, Hildy.”
She exhales slowly, nodding.
I walk her out to where Scotti is waiting, “How opposed are you to me riding with you so I can get—"
Rolling her eyes, she cuts me off. “Game tonight.” She says it lightly, like everything is normal.
“Home before and after,” I confirm.
She pushes up on her toes and kisses me on the cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I answer.
I carry that into practice, and when we head into the locker room to change for PT, my phone buzzes in my locker.
It’s Hugo Vale, a lawyer who deals with family matters, one I paid a very large amount to help me figure out how to fast-track this.
We scheduled a meeting today, before pickup.
“Everything good?” Kilovac asks.
“I hope so. You good?”
“I saw who it was.” He huffs.
“Intrusive.” I huff.
“Then fucking talk to me, man.” He grumbles, closing his locker.
“Like you did me?”
“Fair,” he sighs, “But still.”
“Better you don’t know, makes you less culpable.”
“You plan on committing a crime?” he asks.
“Hell no, I’d invite you in on that,” I chuckle.