Chapter 41
Izzy
“You sure they don’t mind me staying with you?”
I glance over my shoulder at Nik. “They know we’re having sex.”
“I’m sure you have a guest bedroom. Or I could sleep on the couch.”
“And disturb Santa? No way.” I open the door to my bedroom, waving him inside. “No one is going to lock you outside again,
I promise.”
He groans. I grin at him as I flip the light switch. What James did was effective, after all, and Cooper suffered right alongside him. Aside from trying to convince Nik to take the cursed toy soldier
game piece—which, for the record, no one has tried on any of my brothers’ significant others—the evening went smoothly; he
even ate three sugar cookies after he heard I’m the one who made them. Sebastian and Mia pulled off a suspicious Monopoly
victory, and we ended the night with The Family Stone and glasses of Irish cream. I ought to be ready to pass out, but instead, I’m all fired up. And possibly a little tipsy.
I’m glad I’m not the only one going to bed without a partner tonight.
“Whoa, sweetheart,” he says, stopping in his tracks. “This is a lot of pink.”
I flick his cheek. “You knew this about me.”
“And that’s an army of stuffed animals.”
I scoop an armful of stuffies from the bed, dumping them onto my desk. He’s right, the walls of my room are pink, as is the rug on the floor, my bedding, and even the fan on the ceiling. The furniture is a uniform white; while the bed is bigger now, I still have the desk and rocking chair my parents bought for me when I was little. The bench underneath the picture window, one of my favorite places in the house, is covered in throw pillows in various shades of pink, with more stuffed toys keeping guard. The exterior Christmas lights provide enough of a glow that I can see the snow-covered trees outside.
Nik peers at a shelf full of volleyball trophies, then trails his finger over the spines of the books nestled into the built-ins
above my desk. He lifts an eyebrow as I move even more stuffed animals. “How many do you have?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve never counted.”
“Liar.”
I bite my lip, smiling. “Okay. About two hundred, if you count the ones I brought to school.”
“That’s terrifying. And impressive.”
Desire lurches through me at the fond expression on his face. “Come here.”
He gives me a cream-and-whiskey kiss. I try to focus as he draws a finger up and down my spine, but it’s hard. He smells deliciously
clean, and his sweater, a fresh one that he changed into after the snowball fight, is ultrasoft cashmere. I rub my cheek against
his shoulder, gasping when his hands work underneath my dress.
“This fucking dress,” he rasps. “I’ve wanted to peel it off you for hours.”
Despite the dirty words, he makes no move to back me against the bed. He slowly hikes the dress up my thighs, my bottom. I
bite his lip, giggling breathlessly at the way it makes him moan. “Consider it an early Christmas present. Although you’ll
be very impressed with my real one tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, shoot. That reminds me, I left all your presents in the city.”
I jab him in his rock-hard abs. “Now who’s the liar?”
“Don’t worry,” he says, grinning as he ducks in for another kiss. “I have plenty of presents for you.”
“You already gave me a present.” I scratch my nails through his hair. “You made up with Cooper. Although I don’t know why
he had to throw a snowball at your face.”
Something about that makes him go still.
“Look, I... I tried to goad him into taking a swing at me, outside the hospital.”
“You what ?”
“I know,” he says shortly. “It was stupid.”
I unwind myself from him, tugging down my dress. “I told you to talk to him!”
“And I’d just seen the evidence of what happened when I let you go,” he snaps. “I would’ve deserved that punch.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I know you hockey players like to talk a big game about throwing punches—”
“You had a concussion,” he interrupts, his voice quiet, intense. “There’s a scar on your face, and that won’t go away. Ever.
And it could’ve been so much worse, Isabelle. I’ve seen what it’s like when it’s worse.”
My retort dies in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, clenching his jaw as he looks away.
I wait for him to add something else, anything else, but he doesn’t. Great.
“Like I told you, it was my choice to act like an idiot,” I say eventually, grabbing a nightgown from my dresser and striding
past him to the en suite bathroom. “You didn’t need Cooper to punish you, or whatever the hell you thought you deserved.”
As soon as I shut the door, I yank the dress over my head, balling it up and throwing it into the corner. I’m cotton-mouthed, a headache starting up behind my temples. What’s it like when it’s worse? An accident? An argument? It didn’t sound like he was talking about himself, even though his scar makes mine seem like a scrape.
I get ready for bed slowly, half expecting to be alone when I come out, but Nik’s still there, dressed for bed as well. I
breathe easier as I take in the sight of him, shirtless and barefoot in a pair of black sweatpants, head hanging low. At the
sound of the bathroom door shutting, he looks at me, a tight, unreadable expression on his face.
I walk to the bed. “If we’re going to date, we need to trust each other.”
“I know.”
I slip into his lap, my arms around his neck. I sigh with relief when his hands settle on my hips. I tilt his face up, searching
his eyes for some glimmer of whatever he’s holding back.
“I didn’t protect you,” he says eventually. “I wasn’t there to protect you. And you’re right, I wanted to be punished for that. Even if it meant pushing Cooper to a place we couldn’t
come back from.”
“I never asked for your protection,” I say softly.
He cradles my jaw, rubbing his thumb over my skin. “All the same.”
“You promised you’d tell me everything.” I kiss him. “Please, Nik.”
He shakes his head. “Thank your brother for keeping his head.”
“It’s just me. I’m not going to judge you, whatever it is.”
“Not tonight, Isabelle.” He sounds exhausted, as if this conversation is aging him. “I haven’t pushed you about volleyball.
Don’t push me on this.”
I shift in his lap. “That’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” he says. “Have you faced your father yet? I’ve seen you compare yourself to your brothers over and over—”
“You don’t have siblings,” I interrupt. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I watched you spend an entire season chasing after what your father wanted.”
“What I wanted.”
“I know what it looks like when you’re doing something for family.”
“So tell me about it!” I burst out, my nails digging into his back. “Tell me about it, because I don’t know. Who was on the
phone when I came out of Alexis’s office? Why don’t you want to go back to Russia? Why do you look at your mother like she’s
on the other side of a wall?”
He flinches. I can’t help it, I press further. “Did you even tell her about us? Does she know, or are you planning on bringing
it up the next time I’m your buffer?”
“She knows,” he says shortly. “And in case you were wondering, she’s thrilled. She sent you a Christmas present. Cricket,
too.”
“Oh,” I say, the emotion leaving me in a rush. “Nik, I didn’t...”
“It’s late,” he says, that bone-deep note of tiredness still in his voice. “And I’d like to go to sleep next to my girlfriend
and wake up on Christmas morning with her in my arms. Can we do that, solnishko?”
I don’t trust myself with more words, so I nod. There’s tenderness in the way he lifts the covers for me, and in the kiss
that he brushes against my forehead. When he comes back from the bathroom with minty breath a couple minutes later, he eases
next to me slowly, as if I might already be asleep. I roll over, and he wraps an arm around me, urging me closer.
I plant my face to his chest and breathe.