Chapter 29
Teddy
I was floating, my throat hoarse from screaming Connor’s name. Something I never thought I’d do, but here we were.
My legs felt boneless beneath me, like they’d forgotten what they were for, and I had to brace a hand against the wall just to stay upright. My heart beat wildly, still trying to catch up, and my skin felt too sensitive for air, for fabric, for the way he was still so close.
Connor got to his feet slowly, pulling up my jeans, kissing my hip once before covering them with the fabric.
His hands came to my hips, solid and reliable, while my body settled back into itself.
I swallowed hard, my chest lifting too fast, then finally forced myself to look at him… And he was smiling at me.
Not smug. Not smug at all. But it was wide and a little giddy, like he was as undone as I was, like he couldn’t quite believe we’d just crossed whatever line that was either.
“What?” I managed, my voice wrecked.
He didn’t answer. He just shifted his grip and scooped me up like I weighed nothing.
I yelped, wrapping my arms around his neck on instinct. “Connor—What are you doing?”
He laughed, low and easy, as he strutted with me in his arms into my living area.
“Well,” he said, adjusting his hold like this was always the plan, “you talked up this couch of yours in the car. Figured I’d like to sit on it with you.
Maybe watch TV. Talk. Whatever.” His eyes flicked to mine, expression softening.
“But I’m not letting you spiral about what we just did. ”
Heat still buzzing under my skin, I searched his face. “Oh.” I hesitated, then added, quieter, “Don’t you”—I looked down at his jeans, at the outline of his cock, straining underneath the zipper—“want anything from me?”
Maybe he didn’t want me like that after all.
His steps slowed as he looked at me again as we approached my couch, really looked at me, like he was clocking every flicker of doubt before tucking it away.
“Hey,” he said gently. “That’s not what this is.”
He lowered me onto the couch with care, then crouched in front of me so we were eye level. His hands stayed on my knees, thumbs brushing small, grounding circles.
“I want you,” he said easily, like it was obvious. “But I didn’t do that because I expected anything back. I did it because I wanted to. Because you wanted it. We can keep this as casual as you need it to be.”
My chest tightened, in a good way, a scary way because it felt like he understood that it could be difficult for this to be public.
“I just—” I started, then stopped, huffing out a quiet laugh. “I don’t usually let people do things for me.”
His mouth tilted. “That’s no way to live.”
Leaning in, he pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, then another to the corner of my mouth, unhurried and warm as he sat next to me. “You don’t owe me anything, Teddy.”
I studied him, searching for the catch, for the shift, for the moment he pulled away.
It didn’t come. “And you’re sure you’re okay keeping this quiet for now? You understand why, right?”
He nudged his shoulder against my thigh and settled back, stretching out along the couch like he belonged there. “I understand why, and I still want you. Now,” he said, patting the small space between us, “come here. Before you overthink yourself into a full spiral.”
I snorted. “You’re very bossy for someone who just said I didn’t owe him anything.”
“Occupational hazard,” he replied. “Captain and all.”
I shook my head, smiling, and slid closer. When my fingers found his hair and raked through it without thinking, he hummed low in his throat, eyes closing for half a second, head tipping in my hands. He became putty.
“That feels so fucking good,” he growled.
The sound sent a surprise thrill through me. I felt a sense of power, maybe. Or trust. I let my fingers sink a little deeper, scratching lightly at his scalp, and he exhaled like I’d taken something heavy off his shoulders.
“Yeah?” I murmured, unable to keep the smile out of my voice.
“Mm.” Eyes still closed, his head rested fully in my hands now. “You have no idea.”
I did, though. Or I was starting to. The sight of him like this—relaxed, pliant, letting himself be held—did something to me that felt just as intimate as anything that had come before. I kept touching him, slow and absent, tracing patterns I didn’t need to think about.
He opened his eyes again, gaze steady and warm as it met mine. I could’ve drowned in his eyes, I thought. I was sex drunk on him.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, dropping my hands from his hair, wondering if I should be a better host.
“I just had the best snack I’ve ever tasted,” he said, completely unbothered. “I think I’m good.”
He winked at me, and it was devastatingly charming.
I groaned, dropping my head back against the couch. “You are a diabolical human.”
He laughed and shifted closer until his shoulder bumped mine. “You invited me up here,” he pointed out. “This is on you.”
I glanced at him sideways and realized my smile was permanent today. “So you’re not even a little hungry?”
“Give it time,” he said lightly, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. “Right now, though? I’m good right here. You can keep petting me.”
A bark of laughter exploded at the notion of me petting him like an animal. “You’re not an animal.”
“Oh, sunshine, you have no idea.” He leaned in pressing a chaste kiss to my lips full of promise. “But you will.”
I wanted to. I wanted more. And that was scary because I’d never felt like this, the need, want, desire for another person that might not be temporary.
The TV flickered to life, and he immediately put on ESPN. March Madness was on, showing highlights from sports in season.
“The Valkyries are featured here, right?” he said after a while of watching highlights from NHL and NBA.
“For the first time at our game, yeah. There was a small feature.”
He glanced back at the screen, then at me. “You didn’t get coverage before the professional teams were announced?”
“No. It was always local. Regional, at best. Community sports segments, weekend roundups. If people wanted to watch us live, it was usually through the Women’s Sports Channel streams, not anything national.”
“That’s wild.” His gaze stayed on me, eyebrows drawing together like he was recalibrating something he’d taken for granted.
“It’s just how it was,” I replied. “Women’s rugby didn’t exist to them outside of a niche. We had fans, we had numbers, but nothing that felt… official.” I shrugged, my shoulder grazing his arm. “This last week was the first time we crossed that line.”
He moved, and for a second, I tensed, but then one arm draped along the back of the seat behind me, his fingers grazing my shoulder once, absentmindedly, like he hadn’t thought about it at all. Or like he had. “And that matters.”
“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat, leaning into his touch. “It really does.”
I gestured toward the TV, where another highlight reel rolled past us without pause.
“Even a small segment. A mention. A graphic on a screen like that—it tells people we’re real.
That we’re worth watching. It helps with sponsors, with broadcasting, with kids seeing us and thinking maybe that could be them someday. ”
He reached for my hand, keeping one wrapped around me and one holding me. It felt way too good. “That’s huge, Teddy.”
“It is,” I agreed, letting myself sit in that truth for once as I realized that so much of our hard work was beginning to pay off. “At least, it’s a step in the right direction. And we don’t get many of those without fighting for them.”
Connor watched the screen for a second, picking at a thread on his pants leg. “Did… Did your dad see your first game?”
I stilled, taking in the question. When I thought about it, I could only answer honestly.
“I actually don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s currently deployed, so I doubt it.”
“He’s missed a lot of games?”
“All of them,” I said, though there was no bitterness in my tone, just the truth of it. “He doesn’t really agree with my career choice. Natalie was the one who believed in me enough to pursue this.”
He hummed softly beside me, his hand finding purchase on my knee. “Was Natalie the one who took you to your first rugby game?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling faintly. “She drove me to every training session, every match. Yelled louder than anyone else on the sideline.”
“That’s good,” he said, mouth lifting. “Everyone should have someone like that.”
I tipped my head toward him, wanting to know more about him, too. “Did you?”
A sheepish smile crossed his face as he glanced down at his hand resting on my leg. “My whole family. My grandad, especially.”
“The famous Daniel O’Riley?” I remembered him; he was a legend in Irish rugby.
“The very one,” Connor said, but his smile faltered. “It’s a lot of pressure, though, to live up to him.”
“And you feel like you have to?” I asked, wondering how long he’d been holding on to that pressure of expectation.
“When your last name is already written into sport, it’s hard not to feel like you’re supposed to carry it forward.” His gaze lifted back to mine then, and I saw the honesty in his eyes, the emotion tied to his family too.
“But you’re doing that.”
Connor shook his head, a small huff leaving him. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just trying not to be the one who drops it.”
I frowned at that. “You’re the captain of your team. You’ve already built something that’s yours.”
“Is it really mine?”
I tried to understand how someone who was so confident, on and off the pitch, could still carry doubt like that. It peeled back another layer of him.
“Your grandad might’ve opened the door, but you’re the one walking through it. You make choices, lead the team, and take the next steps in your career. No one else can do that for you.”
He watched me closely, his dark eyes assessing, thinking. There was something going on up there I didn’t know yet. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Someday, someone will be saying Teddy Sloane was the legend they want to live up to.”
I laughed in my throat. “Imagine that.”
“It’s gonna happen, sunshine.”
The TV kept playing, but neither of us looked at it anymore.
I could blame it on gravity, the way my body curled into his, the way my head came to rest above his steady, calming heartbeat. But it wasn’t. It was a choice when his arm moved around me, pulling me closer. It was a choice when I stayed.
I remember thinking, vaguely, that this should be strange.
Connor, me, doing what we did. The fact that we’d spent so long at odds with one another.
And somehow, it didn’t. We weren’t those people anymore.
We had grown up, and this was nice, having someone here.
I didn’t want to untangle myself for once, so I didn’t.