Rebound

34. Roman

THIRTY-FOUR

ROMAN

As Lavinia gets ready for bed, I realize that I’ve had a lot of sex. That’s not meant to be boastful or conceited. It’s the honest truth. I’ve had a lot of sex, and I’ve never shared the bed with anyone before. Unless I count my cats.

I invited her to spend the night and now Lavinia is going to be sleeping next to me. That’s totally normal. People do this all the time. I don’t need to freak out.

The water runs in the en-suite bathroom, and I stop pacing and stare at the cats. They’re sitting in front of the bathroom door, and I don’t blame them because I also want to sit in front of the door in anticipation of Lavinia. Why am I freaking out about her spending the night?

The water shuts off and when the door opens, Lavinia takes a startled step back. “Oh my god.”

“Guys, don’t bother your mother. Come here, please.”

I walk over to them, bending down and scooping up the three of them into my arms. It’s not an easy feat because they’re already squirming to get down. “In or out?”

“Oh, uh,” Lavinia looks between the cats and me, “where are they usually?”

“Wherever they want to be. It’s their apartment, I just live here.”

Lavinia breathes out a laugh. “That works for me.”

“Wrong choice. They’ll be walking on your head at three in the morning because their breakfast is late.”

I kiss Salem, Buffy, and Sabrina on their heads and situate them on their bed by the window.

It’s one of six cat beds in the apartment because why have one place to sleep when you can have several.

I keep this one by the floor to ceiling windows so they can hang out in the sun during the day.

But it’s early December and there’s already less sunshine for them to hang out in.

“What time is their breakfast?”

“Around six-ish. They have an automatic feeder but still want to stomp on my head or chew on my arms if I’m late getting up.”

I turn in time to see Lavinia making her way across the room.

The t-shirt I gave her is just long enough to cover that perfect ass.

Her long legs are on full display. I want to live between her thighs.

They’re strong and powerful, the muscles shifting as she walks across the room.

There’s a clean scar over her right knee, probably from her ACL surgery.

“What’s all this?”

Lavinia looks over her shoulder at me and motions toward the nightstand and bed. On the nightstand, I have a tray with a teapot of hot water, a variety of herbal teas, and a cup.

“I know you have tea before bed every night,” I explain.

“And I wasn’t sure how many pillows and blankets you sleep with, so I got extras from the guest room.

I tried to tell the interior decorator I’m never going to have guests, but she still insisted on me having a guest room and decorating it.

It was easier to let her do that than arguing with her. ”

I shove my hands into the pocket of my lounge pants. Lavinia turns to face me fully, tucking her hair behind her ear and licking her lips. Her eyes are the softest color of green. “Roman, are you nervous?”

I scoff and then sigh. “Yeah.”

Lavinia laughs lightly. “Do you want me to leave? No hard feelings.”

“What? No, that’s the last thing I want.” I didn’t invite her to spend the night only to tell her to leave. I’ve never wanted this with anyone other than Lavinia, and it’s strange to think I’m actually getting it.

When I first got drafted, I kept waiting for the phone to ring or my email to chime, telling me that a mistake had been made because there was no way the NHL wanted me. It’s hard for me to accept that Lavinia wants this.

“Have you never done this before?” Lavinia asks gently.

“Once, when I was eleven. There was this girl, and we were hanging out in her parents’ basement on Halloween watching Hocus Pocus. They had an L-shaped couch, she fell asleep on one end, and I fell asleep on the other.”

Lavinia blinks once, slowly like a cat. “That was me!”

“Was it?” I pretend to be shocked. “Damn, you really have been obsessing over me since we were kids.”

Lavinia grabs a pillow and tosses it at me. I dodge it by shifting to the right. She bends down and grabs another pillow, the shirt riding up and revealing her pink, floral pattern lace panties stretching across the curve of her ass. Fuck. Me.

I reach out, running the back of my fingers along her hamstring. Lavinia stiffens as I trail my hand up and under the curve of her ass.

“You have the most perfect ass,” I say with a groan.

Lavinia arches her back, thrusting her ass further up. She looks over her shoulder at me, her eyes wide and innocent. “Do I? Good to know all those RDL’s are paying off.” Then a pillow lands right on my face and Lavinia’s laugh fills my ear.

I grab her around the waist, throwing her onto the bed and falling down on top of her. She’s twisting and writhing under me as I tickle her, kissing and biting her neck.

“No, stop!”

“Not until you apologize.”

This might not be the best idea because Lavinia’s thighs are spread, straddling my hips as my cock presses right against her soft center.

“I’m never going to apologize, you deserve it,” she cries.

Somehow, she manages to grab a hold of my arm and buck up her hips. Then she’s throwing me onto my back and straddling me. She’s breathless, chest rising and falling rapidly, her hair a mess, curls falling everywhere. I reach up, tugging on her hair.

“Your Medusa curls drive me crazy,” I say.

“I like to think of them as Merida curls, although I’m flattered to be compared to Medusa.”

“How lucky a man has to be to see you as the last thing before he dies,” I say, my hands gripping her waist under my shirt. Lavinia braces her hand on either side of my head, falling forward, her hair like a curtain around our heads.

“The things you say can make a girl feel very special, Mr. Maddox,” she says in a low voice.

“When the girl is you, I want you to feel special, Mrs. Maddox .”

Lavinia nips at my bottom lip. “If I’m so special, why did you ignore me for eighteen years? Out of which, I was right there for two years, and you didn’t even have the excuse of not being in the same city or not having my number.”

I should’ve known she’d ask this, and it's my fault for growing complacent. I flip us over so we’re both on our sides facing each other and then I pull the duvet over us. I don’t want her catching a cold.

“Is that what you think I’ve been doing, ignoring you?” I ask.

Rolling her eyes, Lavinia sighs. “Don’t tell me you’re about to gaslight me into believing you haven’t been ignoring me. Literally the first time we spoke in eighteen years was the day of my wedding.”

I snake an arm around her waist, pulling her in closer. “Vin, I’m not going to gaslight you into believing you’re wrong.”

“Good that we got that cleared up.” This statement is followed by another eye roll and a nose twitch like she’s fighting hard to keep a straight face. Her body is stiff against mine.

I should’ve prepared an explanation before we got this far, airbrushed the truth so it didn’t make me sound psychotic.

“I can’t ignore you, Vin. I might not have been talking to you, but I can’t ignore you.

” I pause to make sure she’s actually listening to what I’m saying.

“You can’t ignore the brightest thing in a room.

It’s like living on earth and ignoring the sun.

Every day, not talking to you was the hardest thing I had to do.

I watched you every minute, every second when you were close to me. ”

Like the air being let out of a balloon, Lavinia relaxes against me.

Her hand comes up to rest on the side of my face, soft and warm, like the look in her eyes.

She’s so forgiving. I want to keep her locked up so no one can ever hurt her, including me.

I’m terrified of fucking this up and losing her before I’ve even had the chance to have her.

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I wanted you to talk to me and when you didn’t, I figured you didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“I didn’t want to be your friend,” I say.

Hurt flickers across her face and I shake my head, closing the distance between us to kiss her softly.

“What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t want to be just your friend, Lavinia.

I couldn’t watch you with Josh, with anyone, and stand by and pretend I was happy.

At the same time, I knew I was the last man on earth you belonged with.

My feelings were my responsibility, and you shouldn’t have had to put up with any awkwardness, expectations, or bitterness from me. ”

Lavinia doesn’t say anything, just watches me with her soft, tender eyes.

Her eyes have always reminded me of a forest, one you can get lost in and never want to leave because you finally feel like you belong.

Like you’re connected to the deepest part of yourself, in a place you’ve spent years searching for.

“If I couldn’t be happy as your friend, I figured you were better off not having me as a friend at all. I know it hurt you, and I’m sorry for that.”

Lavinia still doesn’t say anything and for a second, I wonder if she’s fallen asleep with her eyes wide open. Then she blinks and snuggles in against my chest. “I understand.”

“Would you have left Josh for me?” I don’t know why I ask, but I suddenly want to know.

Her eyes become glassy as she looks over my shoulder. “I don’t know. The last two years are kind of a blur, and not in the same way that life often feels like it’s going too fast. I mean, it’s really a blur, like I disconnected from what was happening around me.”

When she looks back at me, there’s a small spark in her eyes.

“This is going to sound extremely stupid, but sometimes I wonder if on that bike ride we went through like a portal or something and ended up in a different reality. I’ve felt more like myself since the wedding that never happened than I did before it.”

“That’s from shedding two hundred pounds of deadweight named Josh Whitmore.”

Lavinia laughs, shoving at my shoulder. Her laugh is a magical thing. It lights up her whole face and you can always tell she’s feeling happiness in her soul.

“I do enjoy a good breakup,” Lavinia says. “I felt the same way after my breakups with Kyle and Brad.”

I can’t stop my face of disgust. “Kyle, Brad, and Josh. Did you deliberately set out to collect douchebags or was it happenstance?”

“At least I’m not out there collecting Maniacs,” Lavinia snaps back.

I turn onto my back, throwing an arm over my face. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

“No, no, let’s talk about all the women that you’ve slept with who fell madly in love with you and now follow you from city to city and collectively call themselves the Maddox Maniacs.” She sounds so amused by it all.

“I haven’t slept with all of them,” I correct. “Some of them are hockey fans.”

Parasocial relationships are never something I’ve encouraged. In my past sexual encounters—before Lavinia came back into my life and turned it upside down—I was very clear that I’m not interested in anything beyond the physical or beyond one night.

My example of a relationship is my parents, two people who hate each other, but are still married for financial reasons.

I grew up with that fucked up mess in my head and only years of therapy helped me get through it to the point where I could openly admit I was messed up and I definitely didn’t want a relationship.

None of those apply when you have Lavinia Callahan barging into your life and smiling at you like she’s the literal personification of sunshine.

“Fascinating,” Lavinia whispers. “To be so good at sex women throw themselves at you.”

Lowering my arm, I look at Lavinia. “I’m a married man now. It’s a moot point what they do, and it’s never something I’ve encouraged.”

“Still, I’m not sure it’s something which endears you to the other guys on the team. Not that I’m saying it’s your fault or the women’s fault.”

Turning onto her back, Lavinia raises her arms over her head, hands pressing against the headboard as she stretches. Her chest rises up, nipples visible under the thin cotton of my shirt. It takes a lot of calculus to keep myself in check and not reach for her.

I don’t want to scare her away with how much I want her. If it’s up to me, I won’t let her leave this bed for at least a month. Maybe two. I want to memorize every scar and freckle on her body, every sound and sigh she makes, until she’s imprinted in my mind. Until she’s all I know and all I see.

“The water is probably cold by now,” she says.

It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about the water I brought in for her tea.

“I can get you more hot water.”

Turning to me, she snuggles in closer, resting her head on my chest. “Nah, it’s fine. I’m too cozy to let you out of bed.”

Slowly, I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. She lets out a deep breath, settling comfortably against me. I turn off the lamp and lower the blinds, plunging the room into darkness, except for the sliver of light coming through the partly open door.

I lie there, listening to Lavinia’s breaths even out until she’s finally asleep.

I’m still awake because the strangest emotions are wreaking havoc inside me.

Lavinia is placing her trust in me. She’s trusting me to take care of her, she’s trusting me to get along with the team and it brings up the strangest realization.

Lavinia is the only person who’s ever fully trusted me because I’ve allowed her to see everything, or at least the parts of myself that aren’t completely broken.