Chapter 41 Colton
FORTY-ONE
COLTON
OCTOBER | COLUMBUS, OHIO
“I feel like I’m gonna puke, man. Are they about to bench me?”
Worse, did they know about my intentions to beat the shit out of Doyle at the Dallas game?
Leroy released a shallow sigh. “I think it’s gonna be fine.”
“Why the fuck else would we have us come here after a road trip? I just want to go home.”
“You and me both.” He stopped outside the locker room door, examined the ground, then bent and picked his badge up off the floor. “Alright, well, good luck.”
My stomach bottomed out even more. “Wait, you’re not . . . in the meeting?”
“Just go in,” he urged me. “Have fun. Don’t say I never do anything nice for you.”
“What?”
“Bye, Cap,” he threw over his shoulder as he took off down the hall.
With my heart in my throat, I opened the door.
The locker room was empty, except for one person.
One very important, very beautiful person.
One very important, very beautiful person, wearing what appeared to be my jersey.
Only my jersey.
“Violet,” I breathed, then jumped to take off my jacket. “Hey. I missed you so much. What are you doing here? I have a meeting. You can’t be like that.”
“Happy Halloween, Cap.” Violet squirmed where she sat at the edge of my locker, legs crossed. Her hair tumbled over half her face but allowed me to see her mischievous grin.
I swallowed hard and clenched my jaw, fighting for composure. “Happy Halloween, baby.” I rushed across the room to her, throwing the jacket across her lap. “You look fucking gorgeous, but you can’t be like that in here.”
She smirked. “You don’t have a meeting.”
“But, wait. Is that why . . . Leroy?”
Vi grinned and bit her lower lip. “Did me a very big favor. Well, I think Mara made him. Jeanine and Mara helped too.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, he’s an asshole. She’d have to make him.” I let my eyes drift from her head to her toes. “You look incredible.”
“Thanks.” She tossed my jacket to the floor behind me. “Jeanine went to get your jersey from the pro shop, and Mara brought me Jack’s badge. I believe she called it ‘kinky karma.’”
My lips fell open. Indeed, I had helped Mara get into the locker room for similar purposes at one point.
“Are you off work?” I asked. For whatever reason, my brain couldn’t process any of this.
“I got sent home early,” she said. “We got our IRB approval today.”
I gasped, pulled her to stand, and swept her into my arms. “Oh my god, Vi. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Violet’s smug smile up at me could have broken me. “I think the perfect way to celebrate is for the ice girl to finally spend some time with her brother’s best friend.”
“No shit?” I walked her backward until her knees bent at the edge of my locker. Then I sank to my knees, took hers into my hands, and spread them to either side of my torso. I slid between them and brushed a piece of her luscious hair behind her ear. “Hey, ice girl.”
“Hey, Cap.”
I leaned in to drop a soft kiss on her lips. My fingertips traced the sides of her smooth thighs. “You’re sure we’re alone?”
“Per Mara’s contact on the kitchen staff, no one is due to be in here.”
“Good,” I growled. I reached behind Vi, gathered her ass in my hands, and scooted her to the edge of my bench. “Fuckin’ missed you.”
Violet tipped her head back as I feasted on her neck, gasping and rolling her hips against me. I raked my hand into her hair, took a fistful of it, and angled her head back further. “Needed your hockey captain, huh? Needed me to come home and give it to you right?”
“Yes,” she moaned into my ear.
With a parting kiss, I sat back on my heels and raised the bottom of the jersey: her breasts, her stomach, her wet center. I squeezed my aching cock through my dress pants. “Jesus, just look at you.”
I was sure that wasn’t what they said in Ice Crew Kiss Cam, but I was just a man.
A man with most of his blood diverted away from his brain, overtaken by awe of this beautiful, perfect woman waiting for me.
I lifted my thumb and grazed the pad of it over her nipple.
My brain spasmed. “Fuck, I forget the line, but it’s something about filling your pretty little cunt with .
. . um, speaking of.” I let the jersey cover her again and tapped my back pocket, looking for my wallet. “I don’t have any condoms.”
Violet put up a finger to tell me to wait. “I have options.”
I quirked a brow. “Options?”
“This,” she said, picking up a condom wrapper from behind her, “or I’m on the pill.”
A surge of precum trailed out of my tip and I suppressed a whimper. “Fuck, Vi. My tests have been fine.”
“Mine too. It’s up to you.”
“Bare?” I asked, making sure I understood.
She giggled. “That’s the idea, Cap. Just the two of us.”
I searched her face for any indication that she was forcing herself to do this. “And you’re ready for this? Emotionally?”
She put her hand over mine on my thigh. “I am. I want you.”
A chill ran through me. She did all of this, used her day off work, involved our friends, for me. She knew I was having a hard time, and she stepped up. “I love—this. I love that you did this for me. I feel so spoiled.”
“I’d love it more if your shirt was off,” she said, pulling the shirttails out of my pants and working at the buttons.
Her lips grazed my neck as she undressed me.
I inhaled her perfume while my hands ran up and down her toned thighs.
When she pushed my shirt from my shoulders, I removed the sleeves at my wrists.
My hands coasted under the jersey, molding her waist and thumbing the undersides of her breasts. “You’re leaving this on, right?”
The corner of her lips lifted. “If you want to fuck me with your name on my back, it has to stay on.”
I paused, the details setting in. “But if I can read the back . . .”
Vi’s brow creased and she nodded.
“You can take it from the back? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said quickly, but her voice wavered.
I shook my head and nestled us closer together, her center flush to my stomach where I still knelt in front of her and she sat in the locker. “I don’t need that to be happy.”
She swallowed hard. “I want to do it. For you.”
My hands settled under the jersey on her lower back, and I held her gaze. “I just want you, Violet. Any way I can have you.”
Her eyes rounded and her breathing quickened. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Even if it’s fake?”
I pinched my lips together and nodded. “If that’s what you need.”
“What about . . . what you need?” Her jaw clenched and her eyes fell between us. “Is it fake for you?”
My throat felt impossibly tight. She was directly asking a question. The answer could make her sprint out that door and never come back. Fear had me in a chokehold. What if I lost her forever? What if I built all this up just to send her away again. “Vi.”
She breathed out hard, tears starting to form in her eyes. I took her hand and brought it to my heart. My pulse thundered under her touch.
“Does this feel fake to you?”
Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. “No.”
I clamped my jaw so hard it started to quiver. “If I tell you this, you can’t run.”
“Okay,” she breathed. “I won’t.”
“I wanted to give you space. When I called you, I was trying to ask you to date me for real. But I didn’t want you to feel pressured, by me, by my work.
” I shook my head. “Since you’ve been back, all I’ve wanted is for you to be mine.
But you asked for space, for friendship.
So I gave you that. And when you asked about fake, I figured that kept the pressure off.
I didn’t want you to be with me because you felt like you owed me something.
I was willing to wait until it was your choice. ”
“How long?” she whispered. “How long would you wait?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’ve already waited the last three years. What’s another few months?”
“Years?” The word hung in the air.
I nodded. “Years.”
Her gaze darted everywhere. “I haven’t . . . I haven’t been with anyone since you. Since the wedding.”
A wave of relief washed over me. I’d been living on this base instinct: one day, it would be worth it. The waiting. The loneliness. The happy life on hold. And now, it was here. She was just mine, and she had been, even though she walked away from me.
Every sacrifice was worth it.
My eyes felt hot and I had to fight for air. “I haven’t either.”
Violet’s eyes searched the space behind me. “Wh-why? You could have had anyone. I was so bad to you.”
A tear escaped her eye and I wiped it with my thumb, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “Because you’re worth waiting for.”
She smashed me into a kiss so forceful that I groaned, relief spreading through my body.
I pressed back against her and squeezed her so hard I could feel her ribs.
Our kiss turned voracious, unleashing everything we’d been holding back from each other.
Vi’s short nails dug into the space between my shoulder blades.
The heels of my hands scraped down her sides, fingers clawed in their wake.
Grabbing, gripping, getting any piece of her I could hold.
When I released her mouth to tease her neck, she gasped out a few words.
“I know you told me the ribbon stuff, and you said you waited, but I need to be sure. To clarify, this isn’t fake?”
I held her waist and sat back enough to look her in the eye. “No.” I shook my head. “But I was willing to call it fake so maybe one day, it would be real.”
Violet nodded, her eyes going glassy. “Thank you. For waiting again. For being patient.”
I wondered if she could hear my heart pounding. I had to put it all on the line. My eyes flicked over her face, those tear-filled eyes. I realized I had on a soft smile, trying to keep her from being upset, reassuring her when, this time, I was the one who needed the reassurance.
“I need to know, baby. Is this real for you?”