37. Xavi
Chapter 37
Xavi
T he smell of bacon cooking in the pan mixed with something sweeter — her. Always her.
She stood at the stove, barefoot in one of my black t-shirts and nothing else, the fabric hanging loose around her frame. Her hair fell around her shoulders and face in waves that she hadn’t bothered to try to tame, the morning light bouncing off it and reflecting the deep reds and browns. She’d caught me staring twice already, but I didn’t care. I’d let her catch me a million times.
Her fingers trembled a little when she reached for the spatula, and my chest tightened.
“You okay?” I asked softly, hitting the brew button on the espresso machine. I wasn’t far, a couple of feet at most, close enough to grab her if I needed to.
She hesitated, swallowing, but gave me a small smile. “I think so. I’m just… I don’t know. I keep thinking I’ll look up and Elliot will be watching from outside. I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not.” I moved to her, my hand curling gently around her hip, my fingers brushing the side of the barely-there bump. “It’s not stupid, Annie. He followed Colton. He knows where we live. That’s real.”
I watched her grip tighten around the handle so hard her knuckles started to go white, and I gently pried it from her hand.
“Let me, baby.”
Almost reluctantly, she let go, letting me take it from her. She backed away from the stove slowly, shifting to the counter just beside it, and hauled herself up onto it, her legs swinging against the cabinets. I flipped the bacon, then the eggs, keeping it all moving so she didn’t have to.
“If it wasn’t a serious concern, I would have forced myself to go to practice. You’re not crazy for being freaked out by it. I am, too,” I said softly. “But Cole and and Colton are fucking terrible at faking being sick and I throw the meanest punch, so here I am.”
I shot her a little smirk.
“But mostly… I wanted to stay. I needed to stay. Haven’t had some time alone with you in days.”
She watched me closely, her gaze a little sullen. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That’s mostly my fault.”
I quirked a brow at her.
“We were supposed to watch that movie the other night,” she reminded me, her brows furrowing as she tried to remember the name of it. “The one where Brad Pitt starts a badly managed gym in his basement.”
I snorted. “Fight Club.”
“Yeah, that one,” she said, her lower lip jutting out a little. “I fell asleep on you before we could even get past the opening.”
I set the spatula down and moved the pan off the stove, setting it aside so I could pay her attention. I didn’t care if it fucked up breakfast. “Annie. Baby. No,” I chuckled, leaning one hip on the counter beside the stove. “I’d rewatch the same three minutes of that movie a thousand times if it meant you’d keep falling asleep on my chest.”
Her lips quirked up at the edges.
I swallowed, watching the way her stupidly intoxicating eyes started to get a little more life in them. “I didn’t think I could do this, you know,” I said softly, my voice steady but low. “Not at first, at least. Sharing you. I know I can be possessive, I know I fall hard and fast and shit gets messy in my head. It always has. I thought I’d hate watching someone else kiss you. Touch you. I was convinced it’d make me lose my mind.”
She blinked at me. “Really? You hid it so well.”
I rolled my eyes. “Such a smartass. Can’t even let me finish my little speech.”
“Oh, it’s a speech?” Her grin spread wider, the worry of a few seconds ago slipping away into something playful. “Can I guess what you’ll say at the end of it?”
My cheeks heated. “Am I that obvious?” I asked, stepping closer, slotting myself between her knees on the counter. I grasped her gently with my hands on either side of her waist, pulling her forward just a hair, just enough to be a little closer.
Her hand came up to the side of my neck, cupping it softly. “Obvious? Maybe. But I like where it’s going,” she said, her thumb dragging back and forth across my skin. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, quieter, almost a whispered challenge. “Don’t mess it up now.”
I blinked at her, caught so completely off guard by her casualness, my face burning a little hotter. “You little shit,” I chuckled, shoving down the embarrassment creeping up my spine. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her even further forward, enough that she was practically flush against me. “Here I was, about to tell you all about how every time I see you with them, see how happy you are, I don’t feel jealous. I was going to tell you that I feel grateful. That it feels like the universe took this impossible, unfair thing and made it work just for us, like you made it work. But you just have to push my buttons.”
Her eyelids lowered just a tad, her face just barely far enough from mine to be able to focus her eyes on me. “See, now I’m glad you didn’t get to say that the way you normally would. With my hormones running wild, I would have ended up crying on you before you even got to?—”
“I’m in love with you,” I said quickly, cutting her off. No fireworks, no buildup like I’d intended, just the truth, bare and raw from sitting in my throat for weeks. Months. It felt like a weight had been ripped off my shoulders.
And I couldn’t help myself from giving her a taste of her own medicine and flustering her instead.
“I’m so stupidly in love with you, Annie. I think I was from the moment you played that song to us in LA. Maybe earlier. Maybe before I even touched you.”
Her lower lip quivered, her eyes trained on me, turning glassier rapidly by the second. “You absolute dick,” she whispered, a breathy little laugh undermining her. “You couldn’t even let me finish being annoying.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, trying to hide the way my cheeks were pulling apart with a grin. “No,” I chuckled. “I couldn’t.”
She leaned forward, her lips pressing against mine, her heart beating hard enough that I could feel it against my chest. But she pulled back before I could even deepen it. “I was waiting for you to say it,” she breathed. “I didn’t feel right saying it back to any of you until you’d all said it. I didn’t want to leave anyone out.”
My brows furrowed. “What do you?—?”
She retreated just enough to look at me, reading the confusion etched into my features, before she let out another full laugh. “Oh, no, you didn’t know, did you?”
“Didn’t know what?”
She gasped in a breath between giggles. “Xav, you’re the last one.”
My eyes went wide. “You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying.”
She shook her head, the tears overflowing but her laugh just radiating through the room. “I’m not,” she grinned. “Cole said it the night he came to my apartment. Weeks ago. And Colton said it that night at Smokey’s, like a week later.”
I stared at her in utter shock for a second, trying to process, then let my head fall forward onto her shoulder, her laughter bleeding into me and making my own come out. “I’m gonna fight them. Both of them, on sight. How dare they not tell me and leave me for last. I thought I was being fast!”
She cackled, her hand pushing up into my hair, stroking gently against the back of my skull. “Cole literally said we love you earlier. Did you think he meant it in a friend way or…?”
“I don’t know!” I laughed against her neck. “God, no wonder you looked at me like that when I tried to start my stupid, romantic speech. You were probably like, finally, my patience has paid off. ”
She snorted and pulled back a little, forcing my head out from the crook of her neck, her hands shifting and cupping my face. “Maybe a little, yeah,” she grinned. “But I can at least give you the honor of being the first one to hear it back.”
My heart skipped a beat as she brought herself back into me, her lips pressing against mine in a way that sucked the air from my lungs. Her fingers twitched against my cheeks, her smaller body tucked fully against mine, her legs tightening around my hips?—
She parted for just a terrifying, baited second, the silence oppressive, the weight of it hanging in the air. Just long enough to test my patience. Just long enough to almost beg for it.
“I love you, too,” she murmured, her breath hot against my lips, and I nearly lost my goddamn mind. For the first time, it genuinely felt like someone meant it .
A strangled little sob of relief leaked from me as I gripped her around her back, my hand fisting the fabric of my shirt around her body. My other came up around the back of her neck, cradling it like she was made of glass, before I kissed her like she was anything but.
My eyes burned even with them closed, the sting only worsening with every move of my lips. I gently coaxed her head to tilt, deepening the kiss as quickly as I could. I didn’t care about breakfast anymore, didn’t care about anything except her I love you, too playing on repeat in my mind. I wanted to absorb it into my goddamn bloodstream and never let it go.
“You can’t leave again, now,” I rasped against her lips, my grip on the back of her neck tightening. “You can’t run away after saying that.”
She moved her hands down the sides of my throat, her fingers tightening on the collar of my t-shirt. “I know,” she breathed.
I kissed the side of her lips, her cheek, moving down her jaw and to her neck, my hand pulling at the shirt around her until it slid out from under her ass and moved freely in my grasp. I tugged it up, her bare lower body against the cool countertop. “I almost lost my mind,” I admitted, my teeth nipping gently at her throat. “I can’t do it again, baby. I can’t. You cracked my chest open and made yourself a home inside me. I don’t think I know how to function without you anymore.”
Her breathing stuttered as I pushed her shirt up more, up over one of her breasts, the fabric tangling in my hand. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why not?” I murmured. I let my hand fall from the back of her neck, dragging it up and down her side instead, my touch light enough to tease and make her gasp. “It’s the truth. You want me to lie to you?”
She swallowed, her throat working beneath my mouth. “No. No, I don’t.”
I pulled back just enough to get her— my— shirt up and off her, tossing it onto the floor, and pulled mine off as well, muttering another, “I love you.” I wanted her skin against mine, wanted to feel the heat of her body, wanted to memorize the way this felt right now , watched to burn it into my brain so I couldn’t forget it.
She loved me. She was pregnant with our kid, no matter whose it was, it didn’t matter. She was mine, ours , and somehow, that was more than enough, more than I could ever want.
But I needed more.
I crashed my mouth into hers again, needier, greedier . It wasn’t gentle, wasn’t clean. It was teeth and tongues and grunts and sighs, and from the way her thighs tried to coax my joggers down, I could tell she was just as desperate for touch as I was.
Blood pooled in my cock just from the way her body molded to mine, and I was already aching for her, already hard as steel by the time the waistband slipped down enough to set me free. “Need you,” I said into her mouth. “Need you right fucking now.”
My hand moved down her body to her leg, my fingers digging into her flesh. I wasn’t being soft right now, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be — not when she’d said it back. Not when everything I wanted was right in front of me.
She nodded into the kiss as I positioned myself at her entrance, the tip of my cock dampening instantly from just how wet she was, and a second later I was burying myself in her, letting her tight warmth envelop me, head spinning from the feel of her alone. She’d ruined me. She’d ruined me the first night, when she’d looked at me like I could fix something, and just kept ruining me over and over again.
I couldn’t focus on the kiss as I bottomed out. It was too much. She was too much.
Her little moan only made it so much worse.
“Say it again,” I rasped, keeping my hips perfectly still, letting her just feel me inside of her. Her walls clenched around me, rippling like I’d said something sinful, but all I was doing was begging.
Her mouth parted on a breath. “I love you.”
My forehead tipped forward against hers, and I gave her everything I had in an instant.
My hips moved quickly, desperately, like they could keep her like this if they just hit the right spot at the right speed and the right force, like they could keep her trapped here with me forever.
I moved my hand, dragging it over her thigh and down between them, my thumb ghosting over her clit so lightly it made her whimper. Her fingers knotted in my hair, her breaths barely more than gasps, her body taking, taking, taking , and all I could do was give , losing myself in her, in the way she sounded as I gave her more pressure, more force, more of me.
“I love you— god, I love you, I can’t—I can’t even think straight,” I rasped, the words tumbling out of me too quickly to be cohesive, to make sense. “You—fuck, you wreck me, baby. I swear, every time I touch you, it gets worse, this… need , this?—”
One of her hands slid around the back of my shoulders, her nails digging in on a gasping moan. Her other, though, cupped my cheek, spreading a bit of wetness beneath my eye. My cheeks heated immediately — I hadn’t even realized a tear had escaped. I was too caught up in her, in this.
“I love you so much it hurts,” I croaked, pressing my mouth to hers to shut myself up.
I could feel her lower lip trembling in the kiss, could feel the shake in her chest as she gasped in breaths. Her body tried to move against mine, hindered by the counter and the way I held her to me, but I didn’t care — I just wanted to feel her around me, just wanted to drive into her over and over until I had nothing left, and make her feel as good as I possibly could.
Her mouth struggled to keep up with mine, her walls tightening a fraction to impossible levels, and I knew her well enough to know exactly how close she was. I broke from her mouth, tucking her instead into my neck and chest, keeping my pace as best as I could as I started to truly lose myself in the feel of her. “Fuck, you’re close, I can feel it,” I groaned, her little whimpers and moans only fueling my fire.
Her muscles started to tense, her walls bearing down further, so clenched I had to fight to keep thrusting into her.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmured into her ear, wincing as she tightened again, my cock squeezed so hard I worried I’d come right then and there. “Show me how good it feels, how good I make you feel.”
She muffled her sounds with my skin as she finally broke, her body shaking and trembling, her nails digging into me so hard that I genuinely wondered if she was trying to draw blood. I picked up my pace a little, drawing out her tapering climax, my touch at her clit a little gentler, a little slower.
“Oh my god,” she rasped, pulling her head from my chest, her breathing ragged and hair a mess. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, her body still shaking, her mouth parted. I let my fingers leave her clit, bracing myself instead on the cabinet behind her, not giving two shits if I was leaving a trace of her on them, and let myself finally build.
Pressure raised in my already achingly hard cock, and I kissed her again, desperate for more of her, desperate to drink her in by any means necessary. I could barely handle the kiss, could barely think — but then she was whispering a choked I love you against my lips, and I shattered before I could take a single breath.
Pleasure screamed through my system, my knees nearly buckling from it, and I came on a gasping groan, my forehead dropping to hers as I lost control of the kiss. She loved me. She loved me, loved all of us.
This was what I wanted forever. This and nothing else. Just her, the guys, and the little person growing inside of her that I was so fucking excited to call mine.
————
Annie didn’t bother to put my shirt back on her body while she ate.
She sat at the breakfast bar, naked and a mess, looking like a goddamn goddess as she stabbed her egg with a fork.
“It should be illegal for you to look that tempting when you’ve already drained me,” I murmured on a chuckle, dipping the edge of my toast in the yolk of my egg and taking a bite.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to put on a shirt, Xav?” she grinned, popping a bit of egg into her mouth and taking her sweet time dragging the fork out of her mouth.
“Absolutely not—” Annie’s phone went off on the counter beside me, and I stared at the string of numbers not associated with a contact. My brow furrowed.
“Probably Elliot.” Her eyes rolled, but I could see the shift in her, could see her body become a little more tense and her eyes dart to the window behind me that looked over the front yard. I probably should have closed the blinds.
I stared at it as it rang out, her ringtone playing softly. “Can I answer it?”
She froze, staring right at me. “Why?”
“To tell him to fuck off.”
She snorted. “You know what? Go ahead.”
I grabbed her phone, hitting the green button, and raised the phone to my ear in one quick action, my thoughts already crafting the perfect insults I could throw at him, the same way it did when I was on the ice about to chirp another player’s ear off. “Hello?”
“Hi! Is Annie Brent there?”
My brow furrowed. It wasn’t Elliot — it was definitely a woman. “Can I ask who’s calling?”
Annie’s head tilted as she swallowed. “Who is it?”
“Erin Stewart,” the woman said. “I run Freebird downtown. I was hoping to talk to her about setting up a gig.”
I nearly choked on the bit of bacon I was chewing. “One second,” I coughed, practically sprinting around the side of the counter to pass the phone to Annie.
“Who…?” Annie asked, reaching out hesitantly to take it, her eyes wide as she stared at me hacking up my bacon.
“Freebird,” I choked.
She nearly dropped the phone as she scrambled to take it from my hand. Her body slid off the chair immediately, already pacing, naked as the day she was born. “Hi, this is Annie?”
I moved to the window behind us and pulled the blinds, my heart thudding in my chest. I didn’t know a damn thing about Freebird, but Annie needed whatever this was, needed someone to want her to perform at their venue, needed the boost to her confidence. She hadn’t played a single venue since that first night at Smokey’s, and I knew she’d been itching to.
I listened to Annie’s uh-huh ’s, her hmm ’s, her okay ’s, but it was when a grin started creeping across her cheeks that I felt my chest tighten just from the sight.
“Yeah, I’d love that,” Annie said. “Pencil me in. I’ll be there. Thank you so much!”
She hung up the phone and set it back down on the counter, her eyes wide as she stared at it, her chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths. “Annie?” I asked.
She blinked and turned to me. “Please tell me you don’t have a game next Saturday.”
My lips quirked upward. “We don’t.”
Annie launched herself at me, her arms flying around my neck, her body lifting off the ground, and I caught her on a bark of laughter, holding her tight to my chest. “You have no idea how big this is!”
I slid my hands down over her ass to her bare thighs, hiking them up around my waist. “Oh yeah? Tell me everything,” I grinned.
“Paid, for one. And Freebird is, like, massive . Not in size, but notoriety. A lot of artists have been picked up there, Xav, like, so many . And they livestream shows on their socials!” Her arms tightened around my neck, but she pulled her head back, looking up at me and blinking too fast with glassy eyes. “And it’s a Saturday . That’s huge.”
“Are you kidding?” I laughed, hugging her tighter, my chest aching with pride. “That’s amazing. That’s—fuck, that’s better than amazing, that’s everything. You’re gonna own that stage, baby.”
I pressed my forehead against hers as she laughed, her voice choking with excitement and tears and the whirlwind of emotion she had to be feeling.
“You deserve this. You do. God, you do.” I glanced at the clock on the stove, only the slightest bit deflated that Cole and Colton wouldn’t be off the ice just yet. “We can call the guys in a bit and tell them. They’re going to lose their minds. I’m losing my mind.”
She grinned, her teeth raking over her lower lip. “Thank god you answered my phone.”