Chapter 5
five
Dani
Avoiding Luke had been easy enough during the day. I had given him partial clearance for joining practice since their Game One of the Stanley Cup Final was on Tuesday.
Practice ran long and Eli kept him tied up in film sessions until dinner to keep up with the day he missed. I told myself the distance was doing exactly what it needed to do.
The house had started vibrating with the pressure from the upcoming game. Eli buried in tape, Maya fielding calls from three different reporters, even Lily picking up enough of the tension to ask if the Leopards were “gonna be okay.” Luke felt it worse than anyone.
I found him at nine, rigid on the edge of his bed, staring at nothing, his knee bouncing with restless energy that had nowhere left to go.
“You and Eli are done with the film session,” I said from the doorway.
“Yeah, we just finished up.”
“You look like you’re about to run through a wall.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Bryan’s starting Game One. I’m gonna be on the bench in full gear pretending I’m fine with it, and everyone’s gonna be watching to see if I get any ice time. I don’t know how to just sit with that.”
"I'm sorry, that's rough.”
I studied him for a second—the tight set of his shoulders, the restlessness he had nowhere to put. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Hydrotherapy. It’ll help with any lingering symptoms, and it might get some of that tension out of your system.” I held up a hand before he could make it a joke. "The pool. That's all this is."
He raised an eyebrow, but got up without arguing, which told me more about how badly he needed the release than anything he could have said.
The pool was quiet beneath the moonlight, wisps of steam curling off the heated water. The house had gone still. Lily was long asleep, and Maya was somewhere inside with a laptop and a glass of iced wine.
“Problem,” he said, “we didn’t bring swimsuits.”
I hesitated for half a second. The logical part of me knew we should go back inside and find proper suits. The other part had been wound tight for days and didn’t want to break the quiet privacy we had right now.
“We can use what we have on,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Underwear works fine. It’s dark enough.”
He didn’t argue. I turned my back first, heart hammering, and slipped out of my tank top and shorts, leaving me in a simple black bra and panties.
The night air felt cool against my skin.
I lowered myself into the water quickly, arms crossed over my chest, trying to put as much distance between us as the pool allowed without making it obvious I was fighting every instinct to close it.
Behind me, I heard the rustle of fabric. When I finally turned around, Luke stood at the edge in nothing but black boxer briefs. My mouth went dry. He was all hard lines and muscle, the kind of body years on the ice had carved. He lowered himself into the water, eyes never leaving me.
The way he looked at me sent shivers racing down my spine.
Not just hunger. Something deeper. Like he’d been waiting all day to see me and couldn’t look away.
My pulse quickened. I stayed near the far side of the shallow end, arms still crossed, trying to ignore how aware I was of every inch of exposed skin.
He was floating a few feet away.
“You look… damn.” His voice had gone rough. His gaze drifted over me again, slower this time, like he was memorizing the way the water clung to my skin.
“Don’t,” I said, but there was no real fervor in it.
He drifted a little closer, slow enough that I could have moved away if I wanted to. I didn’t.
The water lapped between us. Steam rose around his shoulders. His eyes stayed on mine, soft and steady, like he was daring me to look away first.
I lost that dare.
We floated like that for a long moment, the silence thick with everything we weren’t saying. The attraction that had been simmering felt suddenly unbearable. My body wanted to close the distance. My mind kept screaming that this was dangerous.
“You’re killing me right now,” he said quietly. “You know that?”
“Luke.”
“I know… I haven't forgotten you still need time. I’m just… stating facts.” His hand moved through the water, not quite reaching for me. “You in the water like this? It’s a lot.”
I bit my lip, fighting the smile that wanted to break free. “You’re supposed to be relaxing your mind with all the tension hovering around you. Not staring at your nurse in her underwear.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said, echoing his words from earlier, but this time his voice was lower. Rougher. “I’m trying to be good. Really trying.”
I stayed as far as my body could handle without launching myself at him. The water felt warmer than it should have. My pulse was loud in my ears. Every small movement sent ripples toward him, and I hated how aware I was of that.
We were playing with fire, and we both knew it. Luke broke the silence minutes later.
“After my dad died, my mom kind of checked out. She just went quiet. Worked more.” He traced a slow line through the water.
“I raised myself most of that year. Figured out fast that if I wanted anyone to notice me, I had to be loud about it. Hockey was the first thing that ever made people actually look at me and mean it. It was the core memory I had with my father. I wish he were here. But sometimes I wonder if he’d be disappointed that I still haven’t earned a starting job. ”
I let that sit a second before I answered.
“You’re not a disappointment. I'm sure he is proud of you. Everything you're working for—it's coming. I mean that.”
He looked at me for a long moment, something raw moving behind his eyes.
“Thank you, Dani. It means a lot coming from you.”
"Your turn." He gestured toward me. "Lily's dad."
“There isn't much to talk about. He was a basketball player in the G League, nobody you’d recognize. We met in college and dated for a very short while. He promised me everything the second I told him I was pregnant. Ring, house, the whole picture.” I watched the ripples move around my hands.
“He was gone before she turned one. No explanation whatsoever, and now it's Lily and me against the world.”
“That’s why the guard’s up.”
“That’s why the guard’s up. I don’t trust easy charm anymore.”
“I’m not him.”
“I know you’re not.”
He drifted closer through the water, slow, leaving me every chance to move away.
I didn’t take it.
“I know that night was supposed to be the fever talking,” he said. “But I’ve been clearheaded for almost twenty-four hours now, and I still want you exactly as much.”
“Luke—”
“You don’t have to say it back. I just needed you to know it wasn’t the fever. Not really.”
The water lapped quietly between us. I could feel my own pulse in my throat, steady and fast at once.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
“You’re my patient.”
"For only a few more days."
“I have a five-year-old who already likes you more than she likes most adults. That’s its own kind of danger.”
“I like her too. That’s not supposed to make it worse.”
“It does, though.” My voice caught on the last word, more honest than I’d meant it to be.
He reached out and tucked a wet strand of hair behind my ear, the same careful motion from the night before, except this time neither of us had a fever to blame it on.
"You look unbelievably beautiful right now," he said. "In case that needed saying."
I bit back a smile I didn’t quite manage to hide. “Not helping the boundaries conversation.”
“I’m aware.”
He drew me closer through the water, hands finding my waist, and I let him—some argument in my head about protocol and professionalism losing very quickly to the much louder argument being made by the rest of my body.
He kissed me first this time. Slow. No fever standing between us as an excuse, both of us choosing it with eyes open.
I kissed him back like I’d been waiting to since last night.
His hands slid up my back; mine found his shoulders, and the water made everything slower, more deliberate. When he pulled back just far enough to look at me, his eyes had gone dark in a way that had nothing to do with concussion symptoms.
“Tell me to stop if you need to.”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “That’s the problem.”
He smiled and pulled me toward the shallow steps, water sluicing off both of us as we climbed out into the warm night air. My underwear clung, and his shorts clung, and neither of us pretended not to notice.
Under the gazebo, out of the direct moonlight, he turned me to face him.
“You’re stunning,” he whispered. “I need that on the record.”
“Noted.”
He kissed me again, slower, one hand at the small of my back, the other in my wet hair.
I melted into it, fingers threading through his damp strands, pulling him closer.
Our bodies pressed together, skin to skin, the thin fabric of my bra and panties and his boxer briefs doing almost nothing to hide how much we both wanted this.
His mouth moved down my neck, kissing, tasting, sucking lightly at the spot that made my knees weaken.
I tilted my head back with a soft sound, giving him more access.
His hands explored my back, my waist, the curve of my hips.
When his fingers slipped under the waistband of my panties, he paused, eyes lifting to mine in silent question.
I nodded.
He eased them down slowly. I stepped out of them. Then I reached for his boxer briefs, tugging them down until he kicked them aside. We stood bare under the stars, breathing hard, taking each other in.
Luke’s gaze moved over me with open reverence. “God, Dani…”
I pulled him back to me. Our kiss turned deeper, hungrier. His hands cupped my breasts, thumbs grazing my nipples until they tightened under his touch. I gasped into his mouth. He swallowed the sound, answering with a low groan that vibrated through his chest and into mine.
We moved to the wide lounge chair. He lay back first, pulling me on top of him. I straddled his hips, feeling the hard length of him pressed between us. My hips rolled instinctively, desperate for friction. He groaned, hands gripping my waist, guiding but not forcing.
“You feel incredible,” he whispered against my lips.
I kissed him harder, losing myself in the taste of him, the feel of his skin, the way his body responded to every touch. His hand slid between us, fingers finding the sensitive bundle of nerves at my core. He stroked me with slow, deliberate circles, learning exactly what made me tremble.
“Luke,” I breathed, hips rocking against his hand.
He watched my face the whole time, eyes dark with want and something deeper. When the pleasure built and crashed over me, I came with his name on my lips, body shaking, fingers digging into his shoulders.
He held me through it, murmuring soft words against my neck, kissing my temple, my cheek, my lips. When the waves finally eased, he rolled us gently so I was beneath him, his weight perfect and grounding.
His forehead rested against mine. His breathing was ragged.
“Dani… I want you so much it hurts,” he whispered. “But not tonight. Not like this. Not until you’re sure.”
I blinked up at him, surprised. My body was still humming, still aching for more, but his eyes were steady. Patient. Even through the clear evidence of his own need.
“You’re stopping?” I asked, voice shaky.
He nodded, pressing a tender kiss to my lips. “I want this to mean something. Not just because we’re both wound tight. When we take that step, I want you to have zero doubts.”
I touched his face, tracing his jaw with my fingertips. The tenderness in his eyes made my chest ache in the best way.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He kissed me again, soft and slow, then helped me sit up. We stayed tangled together for a while longer, breathing, touching, letting the moment settle. Eventually we gathered our things, both of us still breathing like we’d finished a full period of hockey rather than a conversation and a kiss.
I walked back to my room alone, skin still damp, heart still going too fast, and lay awake a long time in the dark, thinking about a lounge chair by a pool and a man who’d just shown me, without a single word, that he had no intention of disappearing.
I wanted, badly, to believe him.