Chapter 41 Fuck Mornings
FUCK MORNINGS
CORBIN
I can barely keep my hands off her. The house is mine alone, so we go back to my place, and the second I shut the door, my fingers are in her hair.
“I want you to spend the night here. For the first time,” I say. The first of many.
“Do you now?” she teases.
“I really do, Mabel. Everything’s better when you’re with me—falling asleep next to you, waking up next to you, seeing you as often as I can. Working with you. Playing with you. Talking to you.” God, I sound like a sap. But I don’t care.
She slides a hand up my chest and curls her fingers around my collar. “Same,” she whispers, sounding more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard her.
Maybe soon I’ll tell her how I feel.
But right now, she brings her mouth to mine and kisses me ravenously—harder than she ever has before, more desperate. She’s all need and fire, and that trumps everything else.
We grab at each other’s clothes, kick off shoes, and stumble toward the staircase in a flurry of hands, teeth, and heat. At the bottom of the steps, I hoist her up, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her upstairs.
“It’s faster this way,” I say.
“Is it, or do you just like being all…protective?”
“How is this protective?”
“I’m sorry—possessive,” she corrects playfully as we reach the top.
I set her down, look her in the eyes. “Want me to show you how possessive I am while I fuck you?”
She trembles and nods.
Soon she’s flat on her back on my bed, shiny hair spilling across my pillow, moonlight streaming over her pale skin, her head tipped back, her throat exposed as I thrust into her—her wrists pinned above her head.
She moans beautifully.
Writhes.
Arches.
“This is how possessive I am,” I rasp.
“How?” she pants.
Letting go of her wrists, I lower myself closer, still moving inside her. “Mine. You’re mine. You’re all mine.”
Her lips part. She shudders. She whispers, “Yours,” before she comes.
And I follow her there.
Later, I’m yawning, and she is too. Exhaustion kicks in, but she tells me she needs to set her alarm. “I have to get up early and bake for my mom. I’ll need to grab a Lyft then too. I don’t have my car.”
“I’ll drive you,” I say, sleep tugging at my eyelids.
“It’s super early. I have to be up at six instead of seven-thirty.”
“Anything for you, even mornings,” I grumble as I drift off.
The sound of birds chirping before the sun even rises hurts my head. Their happiness over the dawn is awful. They’ve never been this loud before.
It’s like there’s a flock of them.
My eyes float open, and I realize the sound is coming from Mabel’s side of the bed.
What the hell? Her phone is chirping. It sounds sick. My head is a fog. The room is pitch black. Mabel looks so peaceful, sleeping soundly, so I reach across her and hit the snooze button.
Except sometime later—I don’t know how much later—she’s bolt upright, hopping around the room yanking on panties, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit!”
I push up in bed, groggy. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nine!” she shouts, one hand in her hair, the other grabbing her bra. “I was supposed to be up at six. So I could be at the bakery by seven. I have to get the cake in the oven right now or it’ll never cool in time for the event.”
Oh shit. My stomach craters. I didn’t hit snooze on her alarm. I hit off. This is my fault. Come to think of it, “Nine?”
She’s already running around, hunting for her shirt. “I set my alarm. I swear I did. I don’t know why it didn’t go off.”
Oh, I know why. Because I turned it off.
I just stare at her, my heart pounding with guilt as she yanks on her sweater, then grabs her phone. I want to say I’m sorry, but she’s already halfway down the stairs, calling someone, then saying, “Aisha, can you come in early?” A brief pause. “Shoot. That’s right. What about Audrey?”
And it hits me that she’s holding everything together, and I’m the one unraveling it.
Like when I ordered the wrong pretzels and she saved the day. Like when I was late to the cookie swap but she set up everything without me.
She’s the one who fixes things.
And here she is, running out of my house because I fucked up. And she’s probably about to call a Lyft.
“Wait,” I shout, then pull on shorts and a T-shirt in record time. I fly down the stairs, and drive her to the bakery, where she left her car yesterday before we went to the studio.
She’s on the phone the whole time, then says the fastest of goodbyes, racing into the bakery.
As I drive back to my house all I can think is I’m…the hot mess.
And now I’m late for practice—for the first time in my career.
Don’t speed. Don’t speed. Don’t fucking speed.
But even if I wanted to race through the city, traffic is making an ass of me. I grit my teeth, swallowing down ten thousand gallons of self-loathing as the clock on the dashboard warns me of my fate. I avoid the clogged Embarcadero and maneuver through the side streets to the arena.
So much for that strategy though. They aren’t much faster.
Every muscle in my body is tight. I breathe out hard, barely relieved when the sign for the arena comes into view, along with the fox statue.
Never been so happy to see it—or so embarrassed.
And I’m showing up ten minutes after ten to the goddamn players’ lot. It’ll take me another five minutes to suit up.
I slam the car door, sprint to the players’ entrance, and run hard down the hall to the empty locker room. The silence is shameful. I should have done better. I can’t believe I was so…so high on sex and love and romance that I skipped an alarm. For both of us.
I tug off my shirt and jeans in record time, then pull on my pads, shorts, jersey, and skates, lacing them faster than I ever have before.
It’s just practice, but it’s more than that—it’s a rule. Coach’s rule. You can’t be late for practice.
I practically jog through the corridor, then fly through the tunnel and out onto the ice…right in the middle of shooting drills.
I swallow roughly.
The whole team is here. Of course. Because it’s a game day, and morning skate on game day is mandatory for the Foxes.
I skate past Coach, giving him a quick chin nod. He barely acknowledges me, but that’s fine. I want to blend in, and I do my best, lining up to take shots on goal, with Lake and Riggs both giving me arched eyebrows.
I say nothing. I speak better with my skates and stick. I’m fast and aggressive, putting the puck past Miller in the goal. Then we run through the rest of our drills.
My lungs are on fire at the end, but at least I made it without much ado, after all. That’s a relief.
I catch up with Riggs as he’s heading toward the gate.
“How was yesterday? Or is it a secret?” he asks.
“Guess you’ll have to ask your girlfriend,” I say, grateful to talk about something besides my tardiness.
“She tells me nothing about the show.”
“Smart woman. And that means I’ll tell you nothing,” I say.
I survived. And I’ll have to apologize to Mabel next. Again. I’m starting to feel like a fuckup.
When I step into the tunnel, a deep, commanding voice calls out from the ice, “Knight. A word.”
Riggs gives me an oh shit look, then skates off unscathed.
As my stomach drops, I turn around and skate toward Coach, putting Mabel out of my mind as best I can so I can focus on my job. Coach stands by the boards, reviewing something on his tablet.
He tucks it under his arm when I arrive. “Knight, everything okay?”
I furrow my brow. “Um, yes.”
“Good. I wanted to make sure. Since I know you’ve been through some tough stuff, and you’ve never been late before.”
He noticed. He tracked it. My stomach churns. “Sorry, sir.”
“That’s why I wanted to make sure everything’s good with the family, your daughter, and all?”
“It’s all good,” I reassure him.
“Excellent. Then I’ll be fining you.”
I blink. “What?”
“I expect more of you. We have rookies and veterans alike who look up to you. Don’t be late again.”
He turns around and skates off to join his assistant coaches, and I don’t move.
It’s not about the money—it’s the embarrassment. This isn’t me. I don’t even know who I’ve become.