25. Ellie
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ELLIE
He lifted me into his arms and carried me over to sit on the edge of the treatment table, the paper crinkling underneath me.
“I missed this,” he said against my mouth, nudging my thighs apart to step between them. “Touching you. Being close to you.”
I pulled my head back. “You had two weeks to tell me that.”
“I did.”
“So why now?”
“Because I can’t lose you.”
His hands found the buttons of my blouse, working them slowly. “Denver offered you everything.”
“Yes.” My breath hitched as he tugged another button free.
“A solid position, working with big-name athletes.”
“You talked to Crim.”
“Are you going to take it?” Another button.
“I don’t know.”
Button by button, he unwrapped me. He pushed the silk off my shoulders, slipping the blouse free, and stared at the purple lace like he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Ellie.” My name came out strangled.
“What?”
“You’re wearing purple.” He traced the edge of the lace with one finger. “My color.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “It’s laundry day.”
“Liar.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “You wore this for me.”
I had. I’d put it on this morning in my Denver hotel room, and I hadn’t even admitted to myself why. But with his hands on me, there was no point in denying it.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” He kissed me hard, possessive, his hands sliding around to cup my breasts through the lace. “Fuck, Ellie. Do you have any idea what this does to me?”
“Show me.”
I pulled his shirt over his head, needing to see the scars I’d memorized during treatment.
“I watched you for weeks,” I said, tracing the scar across his ribs. “I learned every one of these.” I stroked my fingers up his arms as far as I could reach. “Every place you hide tension.”
He caught my hand and kissed my palm. “I wasn’t lying about wanting you.”
I slipped my free hand to the waistband of his compression shorts. “This has to go. I need to see all of you. The way you want to see me.”
He helped me push the shorts down, revealing boxer briefs underneath. His cock thrust against the fabric.
“I’m scared that I’ll disappoint you,” he said. “That I’m not enough.”
I kissed him softly. “Join the club.”
He found the zipper of my skirt. “This too?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me to stop, and I will.”
“Don’t stop.”
I shifted back and forth as he worked the fabric down, and the skirt pooled by my feet, leaving me only in a purple lace bra, panties, and my heels.
He stepped back to look. “Fuck. You’re perfect.”
“I’m really not.”
“You are to me.” His gaze met mine. “You need to know that for me, this isn’t goodbye. I know you’re thinking about Denver. I know it makes sense. But I need you to know that if you go, I’ll follow if only for a holiday or a weekend. I’ll fly for even one day as long as I get to see you.”
Fresh tears slid down my cheeks. “That’s not fair to you.”
“I don’t care about fair. I care about you.”
“I’m terrified of you,” I whispered.
He flinched.
“Not because you’re scary. Because you make me want soft things. Stupid things. Coming home to someone. Making coffee for two on a Saturday morning. Wearing someone’s hoodie because it’s warm, and it smells like someone you care for.”
“Those aren’t stupid things.”
“They are when you’ve spent your whole life proving you don’t need them.”
“Maybe you don’t need them.” His voice went gentle. “Maybe you just want them. Need is survival. Want is living.”
He kissed me slower this time, tasting my tears, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones.
“I want to try living,” he whispered against my mouth. “With you, if you’ll let me.”
I pulled back to look at him, seeing the scared kid under the brutal goalie. The weapon that wanted to be a person. The male who’d learned his value in saves and was trying to unlearn it.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, we’ll try.”
He leaned me back onto the table. “I’m going to make you feel good.”
“Is that a promise?”
“It’s a guarantee.”
His hands slid up my inner thighs. “I’ve been thinking about this. About tasting you. Making you come. Hearing you cry my name.” Braced over me, he kissed down my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast over the lace. “Can I take this off?”
“Yes.”
He reached around and unhooked my bra one-handed. It fell away, and his breath caught. “Beautiful.”
Then his mouth was on my nipple, and I arched into him, gasping. His hand came up to cup my other breast, his thumb circling until I was making sounds I didn’t recognize.
“Brashe…”
“I’m here. I’ve got you.”
He kissed down my belly, and my hands moved automatically to cover myself. Old instinct. The kind that came from years of being told to suck it in, stand up straighter, and wear the right shapewear.
He caught my wrists. “Don’t.”
“I’m just—”
“Beautiful.” His eyes met mine. “Every part of you is beautiful.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m not saying it to be nice. I’m saying it because when I look at you, I see someone who’s perfect exactly as she is. Soft where you’re meant to be. Strong where you need to be strong.” He kissed below my navel.
My throat closed up.
He hooked his fingers in my panties and tugged them down, his eyes holding mine the entire time. “Still with me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I won’t want you to stop.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He dropped to his knees, eye level with my core. “Spread your legs wider.”
I did.
“Fuck. Look at you.”
“Brashe, please.”
“Please what?”
“Stop talking and—”
He licked up my center, and my words dissolved into a moan.
The arena was empty. Every sound I made echoed off the tile. Every gasp, every whimper, bouncing back to us in the quiet.
He could hear exactly what I liked. When he circled my clit, I whimpered. When he pushed his tongue inside, I keened. When he added a finger, I said his name.
“That’s it,” he said against me.
“Don’t stop.”
“Never.”
He added a second finger, finding the spot inside that made stars explode behind my eyelids.
My thighs started shaking. “Oh god—”
“Come for me, Ellie. Let me hear you.”
The orgasm crashed over me. I was loud, but I didn’t care as I rode his face through it. He didn’t stop until I pushed him away, oversensitive and trembling.
“Holy shit.”
He stood, grinning. “Good?”
“You’re so smug.”
“I earned it.”
I sat up and reached for his boxer briefs. “My turn.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
I pulled them down. He was hard. He had been since our first kiss. When I wrapped my hand around him, he hissed through his teeth.
He was big, seven feet of orc, with everything proportional. But it was more than size. Raised ridges ran along his length, each one pulsing against my palm when I stroked up. So different from human anatomy.
“Ellie, that’s…”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want inside you.”
“Condom?”
He hesitated. “I don’t… I didn’t plan…”
“I’m on birth control. I’m clean. I got tested after my last relationship.”
“Me too. I haven’t been with anyone in years.” He swallowed. “Fates, I don’t even remember when.”
My eyebrows rose.
“That reputation was bullshit, remember?”
“So you want to…?” I gestured between us.
“Fuck yes. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
We were going to do this. Here, in the treatment room where I’d spent two weeks touching him clinically. Where I’d learned the landscape of his body in the most unsexy way possible.
And now…
His hand came up to cup my face. “I’ve thought about this. Touching you again. Being allowed to touch you.”
“Me too.”
My heart pounded against my ribs. This was a conscious choice. Not heat-of-the-moment desperation, but something I was walking into with my eyes open.
He leaned me back on the treatment table again and tugged my hips forward, positioning himself with the tip pressed against my entrance.
“This changes things,” he said, his gaze shooting up to meet mine.
“It does.”
“I need you to know—” His voice broke.
“What?”
“I love you.” The words came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. “I’m in love with you. I have been since the picnic. Since before the picnic, probably. Since Crim showed me that photo and you were rolling your eyes at the camera.”
I went completely still. My heart stopped. Started again. Stopped.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he said quickly, his hands framing my face like he was trying to hold me in place. “I just needed you to know. Before. In case this is the last time. In case you take the job in Denver, and I never get another chance to—”
“Brashe.” His name came out broken.
“I know the timing’s shit. I know I don’t deserve to say it after what I did. But I can’t…” He swallowed. “I can’t do this without you knowing.”
Every defense I’d built was crumbling, and I didn’t know if I wanted to stop it or run.
“Say something,” he whispered. “Please.”
I pulled him down and kissed him instead. Because I wasn’t ready to say it back yet. Saying it meant admitting he could hurt me again. Love was the scariest thing I’d ever felt, and I needed more time.
He kissed me like he understood. Like he’d wait as long as it took.
He entered me slowly, watching my face the entire time, seeing every reaction. Stroking my clit in a way that made heat swirl through me.
I savored the stretch, the burn, the nubs along his length dragging against places I didn’t know existed.
When he was completely inside me, we stilled.
“Alright?” he asked.
“So alright.”
“You feel incredible.”
“So do you.”
He started to move. Slow at first, finding our rhythm. I wrapped my legs around his waist, digging my heels into his ass.
He stroked my breast, one hand still rolling my clit, driving me higher and higher.
“Harder,” I gasped out, needing more.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m not fragile.”
“I know. You’re fucking steel.”
He snapped his hips, and I cried out.
“Like that?”
“Exactly like that.”
Faster now. Desperate. The table shook under us. Neither of us cared.
All I could think was, this is what I almost gave up. This connection. This feeling of being with someone who wanted me for who I am.
“Touch yourself,” he said, sliding his hand around to my hip to help guide me upward to meet his thrusts. “I want to feel you come around me.”