Chapter 23 The Walk of Shame （Eden）
THE WALK OF SHAME (EDEN)
Iwake drowning in him.
Not just in his scent, though it’s everywhere. Cedar and leather and the salty musk of what we did. But there’s something else too. It’s the way his presence has soaked into my skin, my lungs, the hollow spaces between my ribs where I’ve been empty for so long I’d forgotten what fullness felt like.
My thigh brushes the solid curve of his hip, and the contact sends electricity through pathways I thought were severed years ago. We’re both naked, though that’s the least vulnerable thing about this moment. It’s the way my body has molded to his in sleep, claiming space I have no right to occupy.
Our clothes lie scattered, evidence of a crime I’m only now remembering I committed. My sweater hangs defeated from the lamp. His shirt puddles near the door where I tore it from his shoulders. My bra dangles from the nightstand, a white flag of surrender.
I should be calculating exit strategies. Instead, I’m cataloging the weight of his breathing, the way his chest rises and falls in the rhythm I once knew by heart on summer mornings when I’d peek in the boys room and find him sleeping in his bunk.
The blush starts behind my sternum and spreads outward like spilled wine, not from shame but from the treacherous warmth of remembering.
How I’d arched beneath him, wordless and willing.
How I’d let him unravel every careful defense with nothing but the authority in his voice and the reverence in his hands.
The way he’d commanded and I’d obeyed should terrify me. It would have, before last night. But there’s a universe of difference between choice stolen in darkness and power willingly surrendered to hands that worship rather than take.
I’ve spent years armoring myself in competence, in the cool distance that keeps patients from becoming people, touch from becoming intimacy. Last night, he stripped all of it away. And I let him. Begged him.
I inch toward the edge of the mattress, sheet clutched, when his arm hooks around my waist with the casual possessiveness of ownership.
“Don’t.” The word rumbles against my spine, roughened by sleep but absolute in its certainty.
“I need to—”
“No.” He pulls me back against the furnace of his chest, and my bones go liquid. “You’re not running before I can memorize how you look in my bed.”
The casual certainty in his voice, as if my staying is inevitable, as if my wants and needs are secondary to his desire to keep me here, should infuriate me. Instead, it sends dangerous heat pooling low in my belly.
“If Coach sees—”
“I’ll handle him.” His mouth finds the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, pressing a kiss that’s half benediction, half brand. “But right now, the only thing that matters is you haven’t kissed me good morning yet.”
He shifts, rolling me beneath him with the fluid grace of someone who’s spent years reading bodies and anticipating movement.
The weight of him settles between my thighs, intimate and devastating, and I can feel how much he wants me.
The hard length of him against my hip, the restraint coiled in every muscle.
My body responds before my mind can interfere, hips tilting upward in invitation, and I watch a dangerous flicker in his eyes. For a heartbeat, I think he might take what I’m offering, push inside and claim me with the same ruthless tenderness he used to dismantle my defenses last night.
Instead, he goes still, reading the fear that must be written across my face.
“Not yet,” he murmurs, though his voice carries the rough edge of a man denying himself. “We have time, Trouble. All the time you need.”
The gentleness undoes me more than his dominance did. I want to trust it, trust him, trust this feeling that’s too large and bright for the careful life I’ve built. But wanting something and being brave enough to take it are different creatures entirely.
“Are you protected?” The question is soft, intimate, the kind of planning that speaks to futures neither of us has acknowledged yet.
“Yes.” The word escapes on a breath. “Implant.”
He nods, satisfaction warming his features, and presses his forehead to mine. “Good. When I finally have you, really have you, I want to feel every inch.”
The promise in his voice makes my chest tight with longing and terror in equal measure. Because I want it too, want him, want this intensity that makes everything else feel irrelevant and childish.
But wanting and having are separated by a chasm I’m not sure I’m brave enough to attempt.
What if I freeze? What if, no matter how he unravels me with his hands and his mouth, I can’t let go when he finally takes me?
What if I’m still not enough?
When he finally releases me, the cold air feels punishing.
He moves through his morning routine with the unconscious grace of an apex predator.
He pulls on sweats that cling to his thighs and a team shirt that stretches across shoulders built for bearing weight.
His hair sticks up in dark spikes that make him look younger, reminding me of the boy who used to steal my pancakes and call me Trouble as an endearment rather than accusation.
“Stay,” he says, lacing up his sneakers with economical movements. “Give it thirty minutes. Everyone will be downstairs by then.”
“And if someone notices?”
He straightens, those dark eyes holding mine with uncomfortable intensity. “Then they notice. We’re not children anymore, Eden. We don’t need permission to want each other.”
The certainty in his voice, the way he makes it sound simple when it’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever contemplated, leaves me speechless. He leans down, one hand braced beside my head, and presses a kiss to my temple that’s both a goodbye and promise.
“See you at morning skate, Trouble.”
And then he’s gone, taking all the air with him.
The hallway stretches before me like a gauntlet, each step on the industrial carpet a small testament to my poor professional judgment. My keycard trembles in my hand.
Three steps. Swipe. Safety.
The door across the hall opens with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.
Finn O’Reilly emerges. He’s all tousled hair and knowing eyes and that particular brand of Southern charm that probably got him out of detention and into sorority houses with equal efficiency. His coffee cup is raised in mock salute, his grin sharper than his skating.
“Well, well,” he drawls, the words dripping with honey and mischief. “Looks like somebody took their physical therapy real serious last night.”
My stomach performs complicated gymnastics. “O’Reilly.”
“Now don’t go lookin’ all panicked, sugar.
” His gaze slides over my rumpled clothes with the thoroughness of a medical examiner.
“I’m many things, but a snitch ain’t one of ‘em. ‘Sides, watching our boy Nate finally work up the stones to go after what he wants? That’s entertainment money can’t buy. ”
The casual way he reduces last night to conquest and distraction makes my ribs twist sharply. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” He takes a slow sip of coffee, studying me over the rim.
“Honey, I’ve seen that man demolish opposing teams without breakin’ a sweat, but you?
You make him look like he’s holdin’ lightning with bare hands.
” Before I can formulate a coherent comeback that doesn’t sound too defensive, he steps aside with an elaborate bow.
“Go on, Cinderella. Try not to leave any glass slippers lyin’ around. ”
I flee into my room as if something is chasing me, realizing that my carefully constructed professional identity just cracked down the middle.
The bus ride to morning skate becomes an exercise in psychological warfare disguised as team bonding.
Finn greets me with theatrical enthusiasm, his “Morning, sugar!” carrying enough volume to turn heads without crossing into obvious territory.
He settles into his seat with the satisfaction of a cat who’s discovered the canary’s hiding place, occasionally catching my eye to raise his coffee cup in a mock toast.
The rest of the players offer the polite, casual respect you’d expect for someone still new to the fold, but now I’m hyperaware of every glance, every pause in conversation when I pass. Are they looking at me differently, or is paranoia eating my perception?
Nate sits across the aisle, earbuds in, eyes closed, the picture of athletic focus. I catch the almost-smile playing at the corners of his mouth, the way his fingers tap against his thigh in rhythm with whatever song he’s listening to. He knows I’m watching him, and he enjoys it.
“Coach,” Finn calls out with deceptive casualness, “what’s the protocol for booking time with medical staff? Just curious if there’s a formal process or if it’s more...flexible.”
My chest constricts as every head on the bus turns toward Coach Novak, who furrows his brow with genuine confusion. “If you’re having issues, you go through Mercer or tell me directly. Carver’s here primarily for Russo’s rehabilitation, but she’ll work with anyone who needs treatment.”
“Special attention for our star goalie, huh?” Finn’s grin could cut a diamond. “Must be nice getting house calls.”
A few players chuckle, the joke sliding past them without catching. But I feel the barb land.
The weight of what I’ve risked slams into me with brutal clarity.
One whisper to the wrong person—that I’m compromising my professional judgment, that my treatments are clouded by personal involvement—and my credibility evaporates.
Worse, if Defenders management starts to believe it, the career I’m building could go up in smoke before it ever takes root.