Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
LEE
I settled into the chair next to Stella’s bed after she’d drifted off, but I didn’t plan on getting any sleep.
Even though Stella was okay, I was too wired to rest. Every time I attempted to shut my eyes, the moment I’d almost said fuck it to everything when I’d had her in my arms replayed over and over again.
. All that relief had rushed through me enough to let my guard down, even though I had no resistance left in me.
Losing Katie had broken me in so many ways. I’d lost the woman I loved, and even though I’d known she’d been sicker than she’d admitted to, I’d never thought the morning I’d told her goodbye before I’d headed to the airport had really been goodbye between us.
I loved my daughter and worried about her all the time, but that was part of being a parent. Actually having a person, a partner, more than just someone to have fun with for a night or two, that was totally different. I didn’t have it in me.
Or I’d thought I didn’t. When I’d told Stella that I couldn’t go through this again, she’d probably figured I was just talking about losing someone else I cared about, but my lips on hers would have clarified my confession.
That I couldn’t lose her because I loved her.
Letting go of the denial was at least less taxing, but now, I had a different problem. I needed to explain how I’d acted today, but I couldn’t figure out where to begin.
“That chair can’t be comfortable.”
I whipped my head to Stella’s gravelly whisper.
“It’s fine. I’m off for a couple of days, so don’t worry about me.”
“You need sleep to keep up with the little lady next door,” she said, chuckling into the pillow as she rolled onto her side. “Trust me, I know.”
“I’ll manage. Just sleep, Stell.”
The glow from the hallway night-light peeked through the crack in the door. I could make out Stella’s soft smile and her dark hair spilling across the pillow in tangled waves. Even now, injured and groggy, she was beautiful enough to take my damn breath away.
“Come,” she said, patting the mattress next to her. “If you insist on watching me sleep, there’s no need to give yourself a neck cramp over it. Unless you can give yourself an adjustment. That would be weird.”
“I probably could,” I said, exhaling a chuckle. “I don’t want to crowd you.”
“You won’t crowd me. It’s a big bed. Either lie down or get out. Your choice.”
She narrowed her sleepy eyes at me.
“Fine,” I said, standing from the chair. “I’ll sleep over the covers.”
I climbed on, the mattress creaking under me as I settled next to her as close to the edge as I could without falling off.
“Satisfied?” I narrowed my eyes at her before adjusting the pillow at my neck. This was a lot better than the chair and nice. Nice, natural, and dangerous.
“Can I ask you something?” Stella tucked her hands under her cheek. “Something that’s been bothering me about today?”
“Of course,” I said, bracing for what, of everything that had happened at the game, bothered her the most. I feared that I’d come on too strong in my office, but I’d felt her right there with me.
“Why did you…react like that when I was hit? I don’t remember much after I fell because it all happened so fast, but Bailee said you rushed across the field and jumped over the railing.”
“Well, I was worried about you,” I tried to explain.
“I know. And I know that’s how you are. But your mind went to the absolute worst possibility really fast. Is it because of Katie?”
“Some,” I allowed, sucking in a breath. “There was a game in Cincinnati a few years ago. A fan sitting on the first base side, like you were, was hit with a foul ball. By the time security got to them to take them to a hospital, they were…gone.”
“Oh my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t think that could happen from a foul ball.”
“Neither did I at the time, but it does. Usually when a fan is hit by a ball, it’s a bump or a bruise, nothing to really worry about other than them suing the team later on.
” I rubbed at my eyelids. “The ball hit that fan hard enough and in just the right spot, there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
” I took slow breaths to get rid of the growing lump in the back of my throat. “I couldn’t lose you like that.”
I turned to her watery gaze. I couldn’t lose her at all, even if she wasn’t really mine.
“Lee…I’m so sorry,” she whispered, propping herself up on her elbow. “I had no idea.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Stell,” I said, shifting on my side. “I think the two idiots knocking you over was the bigger blow.” I sifted my hand through her hair, swirling my fingertips over the bump on the side of her head. “The swelling went down. How does it feel?”
She let go of a low moan, her eyes fluttering as she leaned into my palm. So much for keeping to my side of the bed, but I couldn’t help myself.
After everything that had happened today, what I’d thought I’d lost and grown so fucking tired of denying, I was done holding back.
“A lot better. Just a little sore,” she said, pressing on her temple. “I have a little knot here, but I’ve done a lot worse.”
I drew her closer, my hand still in her hair while I pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“I can’t see where it is exactly, but is that better?”
“You were close,” she said, sputtering out a laugh. “But yeah, that’s better.” She closed another inch between us, drifting her hand down my cheek. “Embracing the full beard?” She smiled, scratching her nails across the bristles covering my chin.
“It’s easier to travel with a small electric shaver than a razor.” I lifted a shoulder. “And I guess I’m a little lazy. Why? You don’t like it?”
“I love it,” she said, her voice a breathy whisper and only beckoning me closer. “I mean, it’s okay.”
“It’s just okay?” I chuckled, leaning in to graze my cheek against hers.
Another moan fell from her lips as she leaned into me.
“Just okay,” she repeated.
The worst part of losing Katie had been the bone-crushing loneliness, but I’d embraced it because it seemed too ridiculous to ever want anyone else. I’d always love and miss Katie, but I wasn’t so okay with being alone anymore.
And if I didn’t have to be—if I could have the woman I loved, and she was right here—why was I fighting it?
All the excuses I’d used didn’t matter anymore, or I didn’t care.
Yes, I was risking a years-long friendship I’d depended on since I was a teenager, but Stella had stopped being only a friend a long time ago.
“Do you want me to sit back in the chair?” I asked, my voice dipping low.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes clenched shut as she nuzzled my cheek.
I drifted my lips over her jaw, smiling as her chest rose and fell with a shaky breath.
“Do you want me to go back to the other side of the bed?”
Her throat worked as she shook her head.
“What do you want? God, Lee…” She trailed off, dropping her head back while I peppered kisses across her collarbone.
My heart hammered in my ears almost as hard as my cock pulsed, growing harder with every tortured noise falling from her lips.
I rolled on top of her, slow and careful as I wound my fingers around her hair and gave it a gentle tug.
“If you don’t know, let me make it crystal fucking clear.”
I pressed my mouth against hers before either of us lost our nerve. She stiffened, her body tensing on the mattress as her chest rose under mine for a minute before she melted into the kiss. I glided my tongue along the seam of her lips until they opened for me, groaning when I got my first taste.
There was nothing friendly about this hot-as-fuck kiss I never wanted to end. She kissed me as if she’d been waiting her whole life to do it, whimpering into my mouth as she drifted her hands up and down my back, raking her fingers into my hair as she clutched the back of my head.
I snaked my arm under her waist to pull her even closer, pressing into her as her legs fell open under the sheet.
“You taste so good,” I murmured against her lips, unable to take my mouth or any other part of my body off her.
I pulled back, running my nose along hers before I dragged my lips down her neck and over the swell of her breasts peeking out of her tank top.
The perfect breasts that I hadn’t been able to get out of my head since that morning in the hallway, when all I’d wanted to do was strip us both and sink inside her.
She grabbed the back of my head when I started to pull away, skating her hands down my back and digging her nails into my ass as she rubbed against me.
I was close to blowing all over the sheet between us, all the tension and mind-numbing lust I’d been—we’d been—running from exploding as it finally caught up to us.
I fisted the sheets next to me, afraid I’d pull on her hair too hard and hurt her.
“This isn’t taking it easy, Doc,” she panted, a lazy smile drifting across her swollen mouth when we broke apart.
“No, it’s not,” I said, running my thumb over her lips, still wet from our kiss.
“What if we go slow? Gentle,” she murmured against my lips.
I shook my head and smiled into the kiss.
“I don’t think either of us can pull off slow and gentle right now,” I said, pressing my hand to her chest over her racing heart.
Every ounce of control I had left was keeping my palm in place instead of letting it travel lower.
“I want you so much, but I don’t want to worry about hurting you the first time I make you come. ”
“Jesus, Lee,” she breathed out, dropping her head to the crook of my shoulder before lifting her gaze to mine, a wicked grin curving her lips.
“How do you know it would be the first time?”
“I guess I don’t know. Did you come right here?” I rocked against her. “Riding your hand and pretending it was my face?”
“Maybe,” she said, arching her back under me while her tank top strap fell to the side, giving me almost the same gorgeous view as that morning in the hallway.
I groaned, my poor dick already pissed at me. I couldn’t handle the details or picture her moaning my name as she had just a minute ago.
“That’s playing dirty.”
I held her gaze as I ran my finger along the low neckline and pressed a slow, openmouthed kiss right above where her nipple pebbled under the fabric. I laughed at the frustrated groan vibrating against my lips.
“Tonight, you sleep in my arms. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling okay, we’ll figure out the rest.” I ran my knuckle down her cheek. “Doctor’s orders.”
My chest pinched at the disappointed pull in her features.
“And it’s for the best,” I said. “Because if you didn’t have a bump on your head, I’d fuck you into the mattress until you screamed. And I need to take you out first.”
Her eyes heated before they narrowed.
“Take me out? We’ve gone to dinner a million times, and I live here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I rolled onto my back and pulled her into my side. “I want to take you somewhere where I can show you off.”
“Like outside the locker rooms at Wayne Field?”
I smiled at her raised brow.
“We can stop there.”
She laughed and slapped my chest.
“Well, at least get under the covers with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, slipping my legs under the sheets.
“We’re really…” she started, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip as she searched my gaze. “You really want this? With me?”
I brushed a light kiss to her lips, going in for one more because I couldn’t help myself. Her mouth was already intoxicating, and it would be so easy to lose myself in her tonight, even more than I already had.
“Yes, I do. With you. More than anything. Do you want this with me?”
“I do,” she said on a long exhale, as if she’d been holding it in for a long time too. “So much.”
“Then we can wait a little more, even if it feels pretty painful right now. Good night, baby,” I whispered against her temple.
Her eyes grew wide with a weird recognition before she nodded and cuddled into my chest.
“It is a good night.”