Chapter 16
ROMAN
I score a hat trick against Colorado but all I’m thinking about is how Marnie’s mouth felt on mine in the medical room.
This is a problem.
“Cap, you good?” Dex asks during the second intermission. “You just bodychecked a guy into the glass for looking at you wrong.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not fine, that’s unhinged.”
He’s not wrong. I’ve been playing angry since we got interrupted. We haven’t been alone since. Haven’t talked. Haven’t finished what we started.
After the game, I text her before I can overthink it.
We’re still on?
Dinner. Tonight. My place.
Marnie
That’s a bad idea
Probably. Come anyway.
Marnie
What time?
Seven
She shows up in jeans and a sweater that makes her look softer than usual, less guarded.
I’m suddenly aware my apartment is aggressively bachelor—leather couch, massive TV, gym equipment where a dining table should probably be.
“Nice place,” she says, looking around. “Very you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Protein powder where normal people keep decorative bowls.”
“Decorative bowls serve no purpose.”
“Neither does a bench press in your living room.”
But she’s almost smiling as she moves toward the windows. “View’s good though.”
“Yeah.” I’m not looking at the view.
She turns and catches me staring. Her cheeks turn pink.
“So. Dinner?”
I ordered Italian because cooking is not in my skill set. Marnie sees through it immediately when the delivery guy arrives ten minutes later.
“You said you’d cook,” she says, but she’s almost smiling as I unpack containers.
“I said I’d feed you. Semantics.”
“That’s not—”
But she’s laughing as she opens the wine I bought specifically because the guy at the store said it paired well with pasta. I don’t know shit about wine.
We eat and it’s surprisingly easy.
She tells me about Rodriguez self-diagnosing via WebMD, convinced his tight hamstring is actually a blood clot. About Luca’s meltdown over someone moving his tape rolls. About Jake eating someone’s labeled lunch and the passive-aggressive note war that followed.
I tell her about Barrett’s new power play setup, about Brody’s suggestion that we do trust falls for team bonding. About how Dex nearly started a riot in the locker room by suggesting we change the pregame playlist.
Normal conversation. Like we’re normal people on a normal date instead of two people about to make everything complicated.
When we’re done, wine glasses empty, she sets down her napkin and looks at me.
“So.”
“So,” I echo.
“We should talk about what happens next.”
“Or,” I say, standing and offering my hand, “we could stop talking.”
We make it to the couch. Barely.
Her back hits the cushions and I follow her down, weeks of careful distance finally breaking.
She tastes like wine and want, her hands gripping my shirt as she pulls me closer.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about this since the hotel,” I admit between kisses.
“I know.” Her fingers find the hem of my shirt. “Everyone’s been watching us, waiting to see what we’re doing.”
“What are we doing?”
“Still deciding.”
When my hand slides under her sweater, she arches into the touch.
“Roman—” She bites her lip as if she’s unsure how to ask for what she wants, all her bossiness from our sessions abandoned in this moment.
“Yeah?”
“Take your shirt off.”
I sit back and pull it over my head. Her hands immediately find my chest, my shoulders, tracing muscles like she’s studying them.
When her fingers brush my ribs I flinch slightly.
“Ticklish?” she asks, eyes lighting up.
“No.”
She does it again and I catch her wrist. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Moxie.”
“Who says I can’t finish it?”
I kiss her again, harder this time, and she responds immediately. Her hands are everywhere before sliding down to my waistband.
When she tugs at my belt I break the kiss to look at her.
“You sure?”
“Stop asking me that.”
Fair enough.
I work her sweater up and off, then the tank underneath, and she’s in black lace that makes my brain stutter.
I kiss down her neck, her collarbone, lower. When I take her through the lace she arches off the couch with a gasp. I unhook her bra with one hand and she laughs breathlessly.
“Smooth.”
“Practice.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Of what? Hockey equipment?” I trace my tongue over her nipple and she stops laughing. “That’s the only thing I’ve practiced unhooking in the last five years.”
“That’s—oh god—that’s really sad.”
“Feeling sad for me?” I move to the other side and she threads her fingers through my hair.
“Little bit—fuck, that’s—”
Her whole body is responsive. I memorize every reaction—what makes her gasp, what makes her arch, what makes her fingers tighten in my hair.
I’m working my way lower, hand sliding down to unbutton her jeans, when she suddenly tenses.
“Wait.”
I freeze immediately. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just—” She sits up slightly. “I can’t believe I finally get to see it.”
“See what?”
“Your tattoo. The full thing.” Her fingers rest on my waistband. “You keep showing everyone glimpses but I want to see where it actually goes.”
“You want a private showing?”
“Obviously, Roman. It’s been weeks.”
I stand and work my jeans open. Her eyes track every movement as I push them down, revealing the constellation that starts at my knee and winds upward.
The stars climb my thigh, coordinates inked between them, disappearing under my boxer briefs at mid-thigh.
She sits up on the couch, eyes tracking the ink. “Higher than I expected.”
“That’s the point.”
“Can I—” Her hand reaches out and traces the pattern, following stars upward.
Her touch is light, deliberate, and when her fingers slip under the hem of my boxers to follow the final stars, my breathing changes completely.
“All the way up here?” she asks, voice dropping lower.
“Yeah.”
She hooks her fingers in the waistband and pulls down slowly, watching my face the whole time.
When she sees exactly where the constellation ends—high on my hip at the crease of my thigh, stars pointing inward like an arrow—something flashes in her eyes.
“That’s beautifully obscene,” she says.
“You asked.”
“I did.” Her hand wraps around me and rational thought evaporates. “And now I’m going to make you regret teasing me with glimpses.”
“I’m not regretting anything right now.”
She laughs, low and pleased, and then she’s pulling me back down to the couch.
I try to reach for her jeans, try to get my hands on her, but she catches my wrists.
“My turn,” she says.
“Marnie, I want to—”
“I know what you want.” She pushes me back against the cushions. “But right now I want this.”
Before I can argue, her mouth is on me and my brain whites out completely.
She’s careful at first, learning what I like, but she pays attention to every reaction. She looks up at me, pupils blown wide.
“Tell me what you want.”
The question nearly destroys me. “Everything. Anything. Jesus, Marnie—”
She starts slow—too slow, almost teasing—her tongue tracing along the underside before taking me deeper.
The heat and pressure make everything else disappear. My hand finds her hair, not directing, just needing to touch her, to ground myself in something real.
“That’s—fuck, that’s good.”
She hums in response and the vibration goes straight through me. I’m trying to stay still, trying not to thrust, but when she hollows her cheeks and takes me deeper, my control splinters.
“Marnie, I’m going to—”
She doesn’t pull back. Just dips her head and takes me deeper, and that’s it. I’m gone.
The orgasm hits hard—white-hot and all-consuming. She works me through it, and when she finally pulls back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, I’m wrecked.
Completely, thoroughly wrecked.
“Come here,” I manage, voice rough.
She climbs up to straddle me and I kiss her hard, tasting myself on her tongue and not caring.
My hands slide to the button of her jeans.
“Your turn.”
She catches my wrist.
“I’m good.”
“Let me—”
“Really. I’m good.”
But she won’t quite meet my eyes.
I study her face, seeing something I can’t name. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. God, no.” She kisses me again, softer this time. “That was... that was perfect. I just—” She stops, struggling for words. “Can we just... not tonight?”
Every instinct says to push, to ask what’s wrong, to figure out why she’s pulling away when five minutes ago she had her mouth on me.
But there’s something fragile in her expression that makes me back off.
“Okay,” I say finally. “Not tonight.”
Relief flashes across her face, followed immediately by something that might be guilt.
She climbs off my lap and I let her, even though everything in me wants to pull her back.
She stays another hour.
We talk logistics about the upcoming road trip, about schedules and travel rosters. Professional distance reasserting itself even though we’re both still flushed, still breathing hard.
When she leaves, kissing me at the door like nothing happened, I’m left standing in my apartment trying to figure out what the fuck just went wrong.
She wanted me. I know she did. Felt it in how she touched me, heard it in the sounds she made.
But the second I tried to reciprocate, she shut down completely.
I grab my phone, thumb hovering over her contact. Almost text her. Then stop.
Whatever just happened, pushing won’t fix it.
She’ll tell me when she’s ready.
Or she won’t, and I’ll have to figure out how to to deal with wanting her more than she wants me. I head to my room, shoulder aching from the game, body still humming from her touch.
The satisfaction is there. But underneath it sits something sharper.
Frustration. Confusion.
The growing awareness that this thing between us is more complicated than I thought.
I lie in bed, replaying the moment she caught my wrist. The relief when I didn’t push. The guilt that followed.
She’s protecting herself from something.
And that’s the problem—I’m good at reading plays on ice, at anticipating where the puck will go, at knowing what my teammates need before they ask.
But Marnie? She’s a puzzle I can’t solve yet.
Though lying here, remembering the weight of her in my lap, the taste of her mouth, the way she’d looked at me before taking me in her mouth, I know one thing for certain.
I’m not giving up on figuring her out.
Even if it kills me.