33. Mallory
Mallory
I stared at the ceiling for a long time after dinner.
The scent of lemon still hung in the apartment—faint but clinging, like it didn’t want to leave either.
The lights in the living room had dimmed automatically on their timer, and Jaymie had mumbled something about needing to finish laundry before he crashed, then kissed the top of my head and left me in the soft glow of the guest room.
He hadn’t brought it up again.
The I love you.
But it was still there. Quiet. Humming between us like electricity behind drywall.
I c urled up on my side and grabbed my phone.
He said it.
It didn’t take long.
Dakota
He SAID it?? As in THE WORDS?
Yup.
Omg. What did you say??
Nothing. I think I pretended broccoli was more interesting.
There was a pause. Then:
Dakota
Jesus Christ, Mallory.
I know.
AND?
and what?
FINE.
I think I’m falling for hi m too.
There. Said it. Not out loud, but close.
I waited.
No shit. He’s been taking care of you like a very hot, emotionally available nurse.
I snorted.
I don’t know what to do with it. With love. I’ve always been the one doing the helping. I don’t know how to be the person someone stays for.
Then let him stay.
My throat tightened.
I’m trying. I really am.
You deserve this.
It hit me like a body check to the chest.
Because I wasn’t sure I believed that yet. But I wanted to.
***
Two nights later, I decided to try in the only language I knew—action.
Jaymie had practice and I was supposed to be resting, which I mostly did. But around three, I shuffled into the kitchen in his softest hoodie and a pair of socks I found in his drawer, determined.
It wasn’t much. Paper thin chicken parm, piles of spaghetti, and homemade garlic bread.
It was messy. The bread got too brown around the edges and I used way too much garlic, but it smelled good.
I also managed to bake a decent batch of those cookies he always gets from the bakery.
There may have been flour all over the kitchen, but it felt like home.
He came in around seven, still in his sweatpants and team fleece, hair damp from a post-practice shower at the rink.
The second he stepped through the door, his nose lifted.
“Is that…?”
“Dinner,” I said, spinning toward him, wiping my hands on a towel. “A thank you. For everything.”
His eyes softened so fast it made my knees wobble. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
He walked closer slowly, like he wasn’t sure I was real, then stopped just short of touching me.
“You didn’t overdo it, did you?”
“No. Just enough to feel human.”
He reached for my hand, pulled it up, and pressed a kiss into my palm. “You are human. The best kind.”
He stopped right in front of me. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough for his fingers to brush the hem of the oversized hoodie I was wearing—his hoodie.
“You didn’t have to,” he said softly.
“I wanted to.”
He kissed me before I could say anything else—slow and tentative at first, like he was testing the waters, like he needed to be sure I was all the way here.
I was.
I grabbed a fistful of his hoodie, tugged him down with all the urgency I’d been choking back for days, and kissed him like I meant it. Like I needed him in my skin, under it, part of me.
His hands slid under the hem of the hoodie I’d stolen from him—his fingers tracing the stretch of bare skin at my hips, warm and reverent.
“Fuck,” he breathed, his voice already breaking.
He grinned against my mouth, cocky and wrecked, and then in one smooth move he lifted me, setting me on the counter like I weighed nothing. The cold granite stole a gasp from my lips, but I barely felt it—not with him standing between my knees, breathing me in like I was his next breath.
His mouth found my neck—hot and open, trailing from my pulse point to the dip of my collarbone. He nipped, licked, whispered, “Tell me if you want to stop.”
I shook my head, already dizzy. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He sank to his knees.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
He didn’t hesitate. Just hooked his fingers in my underwear, pulled them down slow, and kissed the inside of my knee like I was something sacred. His stubble scratched a path higher, grazing the inside of my thigh, making my whole body shiver.
“I'm gonna make you fall apart for me,” he muttered, hands spreading my legs wide, holding me open. “Wanna feel you shake on my tongue.”
“Jaymie—”
He didn’t wait.
His mouth was on me, hot and sure and filthy in the best way.
He licked and sucked and groaned like he was addicted to the taste of me.
Like he needed this as badly as I did. One of my hands flew back to brace against the counter.
The other threaded into his hair, anchoring me while my hips jerked with every pass of his tongue.
“Jesus,” I gasped. “You’re gonna make me…”
He moaned into me. “That’s the point, baby. I want you messy. I want you loud. I want to hear you scream my name. ”
I c ame with a broken sound, thighs trembling around his shoulders, my body curling forward as the orgasm crashed over me.
When he stood, his mouth was slick, his eyes wild, and he kissed me like he wanted to brand me with it.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come.”
I dragged him in by the collar, my voice hoarse. “Couch. Now.”
He didn’t argue.
He carried me, lifting me off the edge of the counter like I was a feather, laughing under his breath, to the living room and sat down hard, settling me with him. I straddled him, one knee on each side of his thighs, my hands gripping the top of the couch.
“Look at you,” he whispered, running his hands up the backs of my thighs, under the hoodie. “So fucking perfect.”
I reached between us, guided him in, slow and deep, both of us gasping at the stretch.
He gripped my hips, tight and grounding, letting me set the pace.
I moved over him—slow, deliberate, grinding down with each pass, the angle driving him deeper than I thought possible.
His head fell back with a groan. He pulled on the hem of the sweatershirt “God, Mal—just like that. Take this hoodie off, I want to see you fully when you ride me. Fuck—you feel so good. So tight.”
I m oved harder, chasing it, drowning in the sound of skin on skin, in the way his hands squeezed and steadied and worshipped every inch of me.
“I can’t—shit, I’m—”
“Let go,” he said, voice thick. “Come on, baby. Come for me again.”
I shattered, again my body trembling. And he followed with a curse, his arms wrapping around my middle, his forehead pressed to my chest, like he couldn’t bear to let me go.
He didn’t say a word as he picked me up, cradled me against his chest, and carried me into his bathroom—into a space I’d never seen but now felt like a promise.
He set me on the edge of the tub, turned on the water, checked the temperature twice.
Then he stepped in, reached for me, and pulled me under with him.
He washed my hair. His fingers moved gently through the tangles, massaging my scalp, rinsing away the sweat, the moans, the everything.
He kissed my shoulder. My back. The curve of my hip.
And then he turned me to face the tile. Pushed inside me with one deep, claiming thrust that stole the air from my lungs. My lips burned but stretched to accomodate his width. I was stuffed full in every sense of the word.
“Hold on,” he growled, one hand braced beside mine, the other spreading across my belly like he was marking his territ ory. “I need to feel you again. Need to give you all of it.”
He fucked me hard—each thrust deep and deliberate, his chest against my back, his breath ragged against my ear.
“Tell me you feel this,” he panted. “Tell me you know you’re mine.”
“I know,” I whispered, breaking. “Jaymie—please—” his fingers splayed down my belly further and found my clit.
Working in circles, I could barely hold myself up between each thrust and circle of his finger.
I could feel the pressure building at the base of my spine.
Another moan left my lips and he came with a harsh, guttural sound, hips jerking, his fingers flexing where they held me.
And when he pulled out, breathless and wrecked, he didn’t step back.
Just wrapped his arms around my middle, pressed a kiss to my shoulder, and rested his forehead there like he belonged.
Like he wanted to belong.
We didn’t say the words.
But they were there.
In every breath. Every touch. Every lingering second of silence.
And for the first time, I didn’t just believe him.
I believed it too.