Chapter 8
Eight
Sean
The desert sun beats down on us, and as she looks up at the cliff with a smile on her face, the light catches her hair, turning it a beautiful shade of red.
I think what makes her even more stunning is the fact that she doesn’t know how gorgeous she is.
My hand accidentally grazes hers as I step around the cactus littering the canyon floor, and she moves further away from me.
We continue to hike, sweat pouring down our temples, me trying to walk closer to her, her moving further away again.
It’s a constant push-and-pull. Once we’re on top of the cliff, I look over at her.
A smile lifts the edge of her mouth, and her eyes gleam with mischief like they do every time she’s about to do something crazy.
“You scared?” she asks, and I realize for the first time I’m not.
“Nope.”
If I can fly around in a hot air balloon half the day, jumping off a cliff will be a walk in the park.
Hannah zips the arms and legs of her wingsuit, then moves closer to the edge. “Well, we need to fix that then, don’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
Christian, my tandem guide, chuckles as he straps me to him, my back to his front, and I watch as Hannah shuffles her feet. Small rocks clack against the cliff as they tumble over.
“Sweetheart, what are you doing?” I ask.
Tilting her head back, she inhales several deep breaths and releases them slowly.
More shuffles.
“See you on the other side,” she says, pulling up the loose piece of material from between her legs.
Then she jumps, hovering in the air for a couple of seconds before dropping.
My gut drops with her. There’s nothing but silence.
I can’t see her. My feet try to move forward, but the guide holds me in place.
My breaths become ragged, and my heart plumets while I wait to see or hear anything out of her.
As panic begins to set in, she comes into view, soaring over the canyon floor in her white wingsuit, turning left, then right around big boulders.
“That your girl?” Christian asks as he shuffles us closer to the edge.
“Yes, though she won’t admit it.”
“She’s fearless, man. I bet she’s probably topping out at over 100 . . . maybe 140 miles per hour.” He laughs, and my stomach knots at the thought. “Any last words before we jump?”
The way he makes it sound like we’re not going to survive makes me question my decision to do this crazy shit.
My eye catches on Hannah as she releases her parachute, and my heart fucking stalls.
I don’t know anything about this shit, but I know something is terribly wrong.
She’s all twisted up. I watch in horror as she crosses her arms, pulling hard on the straps, over and over.
“Shit!” Christian mutters. “Ready or not, we need to jump.”
We launch ourselves off the cliff at the same time.
The parachute pops open, and our bodies jolt upward before we begin to glide down.
I keep my eyes trained on my girl as Christian guides us toward her.
Hannah yanks hard on the straps one more time.
Spinning around, her chute straightens out, and I let out a relieved sigh.
I don’t pay attention to anything other than her.
The moment of relief is short-lived when she hits the ground hard and fast, then rolls.
It takes us too damn long to land, but the second our feet hit the ground, and I’m unclipped, I take off in a sprint, my feet pounding against the desert sand, jumping over rocks, and sidestepping cacti.
Hannah clambers onto her knees, then rises to stand with laughter bubbling from her pretty mouth, each laugh becoming louder and more hysterical. After dusting herself off, she looks up at the sky, raises her hand in the air, and flips the bird.
Jesus Christ. My palm itches to spank her fucking ass.
“?Estás pinche loca? ?Qué fregados fue eso? ?Te podrías haber matado! ?Nunca más me hagas eso!”
(Are you fucking crazy? What the hell was that? You could’ve gotten yourself killed! Never do that to me again!)
As soon as I reach her, I cradle her face, then my eyes roam over the front of her body, checking to make sure she’s okay. Frantically, I pull her into my arms and kiss her hair.
“Breaking out the Spanish, Sean? You must be really mad,” she teases, looking up at me, smiling from ear to ear. “Maybe I should piss you off more often; this side of you is hot.”
“Don’t even play with me right now; it isn’t funny. This shit is done! You hear me? Fucking. Done!”
I’ve never been more scared in my entire life, and she stands here, laughing about it. I try to tamp down my anger and understand what’s going on in her head.
“What are you going to do, spank me?”
“Don’t provoke me,” I snap back.
Pushing away from me, she holds out her arms, turning around in a full circle. Her wingsuit is ripped, and her right arm and leg are both scraped up and bleeding. “I’m fine. See? I’ve trained for this. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. You could’ve died! You have cuts down your right side and cactus needles all over the back of your legs.”
She twists around to look, then realization hits her, and she starts stripping out of her suit. “Oh, God, it burns. It fucking itches.”
I want to tell her that’s what she fucking gets for doing this shit, but that’s not going to help matters any. Guiding her to turn so the back of her legs are facing me, I squat down and try to pull out the needles, but it’s impossible to do without tweezers. I stand up and reassess the situation.
“You two okay over here?” Christian asks.
“Not really,” I scratch the scruff on my jaw, trying to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do. “She’s covered in cactus needles.”
“Happens more than you think. I’ll run you two over to the drug store on our way into town so you can pick up supplies,” Christian says, looking Hannah over as she groans, knowing it’s going to be a long hike back to the shuttle, and another twenty-minute drive back to the town center.
Hannah lies face down on the dining room table. I’ve spent the better part of an hour picking out the larger needles with tweezers and applying duct tape to remove the fine-haired nuisances from her skin.
Pulling the last strip from her leg, I lightly run my fingertips over her calves to see if she feels any pain.
She doesn’t wince or make a sound, but goosebumps pebble her skin.
Her head is turned, so I can’t gauge her reaction, but if I had to bet it all, I’d say her cheeks are a pretty shade of pink and not from the sun.
The side of my mouth quirks into a devious smirk as I trail my fingertips higher.
And a little higher.
A gasp escapes her as I lean over, my lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Be a good girl for me and don’t . . . move.”
Her thighs squeeze together, and I chuckle under my breath, turning to grab a bowl of water and soap from the counter.
Does her body react to me? Always. Does she want me back?
Though I wish I could answer that question, I can’t.
I’ll never be able to erase all the shit I’ve done to her, no matter how bad I want to.
But she’s it for me, and I’m going to do whatever I need to do to prove that to her.
The problem is where I’m a genius when it comes to getting women into bed, I’m an ignorant fuck when it comes to matters of the heart. I don’t even know where to begin.
When I return with the bowl of water and a bar of antibacterial soap, her eyes are on me, watching my every move. With her brows pinched together curiously, her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re hurt,” I answer back.
“No. Why are you here? What’s the goal, Sean? Because I’m not down to be your fuck buddy again.”
Setting the bowl down, I dip a washcloth into the water, ring it out, then run it over the back of her leg.
“I want you back,” I tell her honestly. “You don’t trust me, and I understand your reasons, but a lot has changed in the past few months.”
She snorts. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
Fuck, I’m going to have to do what Carter’s been encouraging me to do all along, so maybe she’ll understand what the hell I’ve been doing all this time.
“I was married,” I blurt out, and her eyes widen in response.
“Not while we were together. God, no. After I met you the first time. She and I were introduced and dated about a year before we eloped. Long story short, one evening I came home from an away game, and I was putting my things away in our bathroom when I found a pregnancy test in the trash. Believe it or not, I was ready to become a father.”
She pierces me with one raised brow in question, and I huff a short laugh.
“I know, shocking, but I come from a big family, and I wanted to create a big family of my own. I wanted chaos and kids running around everywhere—our girls bickering over the bathroom and our boys trampling mud inside the house. I didn’t care.
I wanted it all. Anyway, I ran into the living room, so fucking excited, picked her up and swung her around, but when I set her back on her feet, her excitement didn’t match mine, and tears were staining her cheeks.
Not the happy kind. That’s when she told me that she had an affair, and she didn’t know if the baby was mine or his. Spoiler alert, it was his.”
“That’s awful,” she says, sitting up.
I shrug a shoulder and grab the antibiotic ointment. Squirting a dab onto my fingers, I hold her leg out and massage the ointment into her skin.
“Needless to say, mine and Allie’s marriage ended before the ink really had time to dry on the marriage certificate.
I don’t know how I didn’t see it, because everyone else could.
Looking back, I know I had to be lying to myself.
They were childhood friends and realized they had romantic feelings for each other.
I just wish their realization came before she got involved with me. ”
Hannah tilts her head to the side, and her expression shifts as if she’s piecing things together, then something clicks, and her brows raise. “Oh, my god! Allison? Owen’s best friend, Allie?”
“You knew her?” I ask before it dawns on me.
“Savannah,” we both say at the same time.
“Yep, I met her a couple of times. Savannah saw that shit from a mile away. Actually, come to think of it, Allie’s the reason Savannah and Owen broke up.
They had a huge fight over her not long after you and I met.
I can’t believe they betrayed you like that .
. .” She pauses, her brows puckering together in question.
“Wait. Is that why you backed off from me? Because of my friendship with Aiden?”
“I know you’re nothing like Allie, but if I’m being one hundred percent honest, yes, your friendship bothers me. It’s one of the things I’ve been working through.”
She looks down at her hands as she fidgets with her cuticles.
“Aiden is like my brother. I know everyone looks at us and thinks we’d make a good match, but we don’t see each other that way. Never have.” She glances up, her eyes locking with mine. “And that won’t change.”
Averting my gaze, I begin tending to the scrapes and cuts on her arm. “Aiden and I have hashed that out.”
“What? He knew all of this and didn’t tell me?”
“Don’t worry, he doesn’t tell me shit about you either. Maybe he’s a better friend than I’ve given him credit for.”
“Aiden’s a man-whore, but he would never betray his friends, and I’m not a cheater, Sean.”
“I know.” I say even though her and Aiden’s friendship is still a major insecurity for me.
“That’s not a you thing, okay? It’s a me thing.
I’m scared of that happening to me again.
When Allie cheated on me, I was embarrassed.
You know? I felt emasculated, like I was lacking in some way.
My self-esteem took a major hit. Which is why, after my divorce, I spent my free time fucking my way through a laundry list of women. ”
“You created quite the reputation for yourself,” she agrees.
I glance up and my eyes lock with hers. “I did. I became the biggest piece-of-shit-asshole to grace the NHL. I didn’t care . . . until you.”
Something was different about her. She intrigued me. Kept me on my toes. And as we kept seeing each other, the thought of other women became hollow and monotonous.
“After you left me in the parking lot, I started working on myself. I knew whatever was going on between us wouldn’t work until I straightened up. I’m trying here. I really am.”
She doesn’t say anything in response as I cap the tube of ointment.
“All right. You’re good as new,” I tell her, placing my hands on either side of her thighs.
“I don’t know how to do this, Hannah. I don’t know all the right words to say or what to do to get you back.
I’m not about the sappy, sentimental shit.
You know that’s not me. What I will say is that my insecurities took over, and I let them; I screwed everything up.
I’m just hoping you’ll give me another chance. ”
“Like you pointed out, I don’t trust you.”
“Then I’ll earn your trust.”
“Don’t!” She sweeps a hand down her torso. “Look at me. Just look! Is this what you want? A woman with no fucking tits?”
“I don’t see the problem here. I’ve always been an ass man,” I counter, shrugging my shoulders.
A laugh spills from her lips. She knows it’s true, I never could keep my hands off her ass.
“Your body is incredible exactly as it is, Hannah, but your mind is what ensnared me.”
Her laugh dissipates as her eyes find mine again. “I could die of cancer.”
“We all have to die of something sometime,” I counter, feeling a pang in my chest. I anticipate the next argument to slip off her tongue, but her top teeth clamp down on her bottom lip in hesitation.
“There’s not a single fucking thing you can say to detour me.
I don’t want anyone or anything other than you. Not a damn thing.”
She begins to open her mouth, and I cut her off, knowing she’s going to shoot me down again.
“How about this? You don’t have to make a decision yet. Just let me keep doing what I’m doing right now.”
“And what’s that?”
“Proving it.”
She holds my gaze for a few minutes, her silence deafening, and the air charged with static, but then she gives one stiff reluctant nod, and I release the breath I’ve been holding for so long that my lungs feel like a flame has torched them.
“A nod is better than a fuck you, fuck off, or my personal favorite . . . get fucked.”
A laugh bursts out of her, pulling a smile from me. I step back, and when I begin cleaning everything up, she grabs my arm. Her touch lights me up, and sparks ignite from the top of my head all the way to my toes.
“Thank you for the hot air balloon ride and for patching me up,” she says.
And with that, she turns to leave, and I watch as she makes her way to her room, with a small amount of hope blooming in my chest.