Chapter 27
Samantha
Three nights later, an hour after the home game ended, Evan showed up at my condo with takeout and the over-edited normalcy of a man trying to pass as fine through bad lighting.
He did not look hurt.
Evan would rather throw himself into active traffic than look hurt on purpose. But I had been photographing his body for weeks, and bodies told the truth faster than mouths did.
Normal Evan dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and rolled his neck like a man coming down from a game.
This Evan used the counter edge to brace himself when he bent for the takeout bag.
Normal Evan moved like his body belonged to him.
This Evan moved like his right side had filed a formal complaint.
I stood in the kitchen doorway with two plates in my hands and watched him pretend not to know I had noticed.
“What happened?”
He did not turn. “Nothing.”
I set the plates down. “That answer should have embarrassed you before it reached daylight.”
He exhaled through his nose. Not a laugh. More like his body had considered one and rejected it for being inefficient.
“Blocked a shot.”
“When?”
“Second period.”
“It is currently ten-thirty.”
“I’m aware.”
I crossed the kitchen slowly, because moving too fast around Evan’s pain made him mistake care for pressure.
“How bad?”
“Bruised. Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
He finally turned to face me. “Ribs.”
“Team doc checked me after the game,” he said. “Deep bruise, no fracture signs. Breathing’s fine.”
Of course.
Because apparently I had fallen for a man who treated his internal organs like replaceable parts.
Great. Perfect. Love discovering I’m emotionally invested in somebody who thinks maybe ribs qualifies as adequate medical disclosure.
I held out my hand.
“Shirt.”
His eyebrows shifted half a degree. “That’s not how foreplay usually starts.”
“Don’t flirt with me while lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are absolutely lying. You’re just doing it with good posture.”
For one second, I thought he might push.
Then he took hold of the hem and pulled the shirt over his head.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
His whole body went rigid, but that did not stop my brain from registering the movement. The lift of his arms. The shift of muscle under skin. The way the shirt dragged over his shoulders before he dropped it on the counter like it had personally offended him.
This was medical.
This was responsible.
This was also extremely unfair lighting for a medical assessment.
The bruise spread along his right ribs in ugly shades of purple and yellow, half-hidden under old scar tissue. It looked like a storm had moved through him and left evidence behind.
“Oh, my God.”
“It’s fine.”
I looked up at him. “You are a terrible person to know.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“You played a full game on that.”
“I finished the game.”
“Those are not the same sentence.”
He reached for the takeout bag with his left hand, which told me everything I needed to know about how badly he wanted this conversation to be over.
I slapped his hand away.
“Sit down.”
“Sam.”
“Sit.”
There were moments in life when men like Evan McKinney forgot they were bigger than you.
This was one of mine.
He sat.
Good.
I went for the freezer. Ice pack. Dish towel. Anti-inflammatories from my second drawer, because apparently falling for a hockey player required emergency infrastructure.
When I turned back, he was watching me with that look he got when I moved too fast for him to interrupt effectively.
“What?”
“You get bossy when you’re worried.”
“You get stupid when you’re hurt. We all contain multitudes.”
That almost got me a smile.
Almost.
I wrapped the ice pack in the dish towel and stepped between his knees.
His hands landed automatically at my hips.
Not pulling. Not asking for anything. Just there, warm and steady, like some part of him knew exactly where to go when the rest of him was failing.
The contact went through me before I could file it under medical necessity.
His palms were broad against my sides. His thumbs rested just above my waistband, not moving, which somehow made them harder to ignore.
He was shirtless in my kitchen, bruised and exhausted, sitting still because I had told him to, and my body was having several opinions I did not have time to organize.
“This is going to suck,” I said.
“I assumed.”
I pressed the ice to the bruise.
His whole body went rigid.
Not dramatically, which somehow made it worse. Just one long, silent locking down from spine to thighs, the reflex of a man who had spent half his life teaching himself not to make a sound when something hit bone.
His fingers tightened at my hips.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to tell the truth.
I looked at him and felt something split clean through me.
He was still trying to protect me from the sight of his pain.
That was the insane part.
Not that he was hurt. That he was hurt and still thought my comfort mattered more than his body did.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “You have got to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like pain is a private language.”
His fingers tightened once more, then eased.
I held the ice there. Counted breaths because without something practical to do, I was going to kiss him or yell at him or both, and neither was medically appropriate.
One.
Two.
Three.
By eight, the line of his mouth softened from endurance into fatigue.
By twelve, his forehead dropped against my sternum.
By fifteen, my free hand was in his hair without either of us deciding when it got there.
The condo hummed around us. Refrigerator. Traffic somewhere below. The ordinary noises of a city carrying on while I stood barefoot in my kitchen with a half-frozen defenseman leaning into me like his body had finally run out of ways to pretend it did not need anything.
His breath moved against my shirt.
Slow. Warm. Uneven.
I looked down at the top of his head, at the dark strands threaded through my fingers, at the slope of his bare shoulders under the kitchen light.
There was something almost worse about this than the training office.
That had been heat and urgency and a desk that was still probably traumatized.
This was quieter. No door shut against the world. No excuse of adrenaline.
Just Evan sitting between my hands and letting me take care of him.
That felt more dangerous.
When he loosened by degrees, I eased the ice back.
His head lifted slowly. His eyes found mine.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know that too.”
The honesty of it went straight under my ribs.
I set the ice pack on the counter behind me and looked at him properly.
Not the bruise.
Him.
“Why didn’t you?”
His hands stayed at my waist. One thumb moved once over the fabric of my shirt like it did not know it had done it.
“Because if I said it out loud,” he said, voice low, “then it stopped being mine to manage.”
That was it.
Not macho stupidity. Not some cartoon version of male pride. Fear. The real kind. The kind that sounded almost reasonable until you cared about the person enough to hear how lonely it was.
I touched his face.
“You don’t get points for suffering in silence.”
“No?”
“No. It’s deeply irritating, actually.”
That got me the smile.
Small. Crooked.
Ruined me completely.
I stepped closer. His knees opened automatically, giving me space between them. The heat of him reached for me before his hands did.
“You’re benched,” I said softly.
“What?”
“Sit there. Heal. Eat your noodles. Let me be mad at you for twenty minutes, then maybe I’ll kiss you.”
His hands slid around the backs of my thighs, slow and deliberate, until I was standing flush between his knees and trying very hard not to notice how quickly my own arguments were collapsing.
He tipped his head back just enough to look at me fully.
Then, very gently, as if he were testing the edge of something breakable, he put his mouth against the bare skin just below my ribs.
Not enough to start anything.
Enough to rearrange my breathing.
“Evan.”
“Mm.”
“You are injured.”
“I’m sitting.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s part of the point.”
His mouth stayed there.
One steady point of contact.
My fingers tightened in his hair. His hands stayed on the backs of my legs, not moving, which was somehow worse than if they had. The man had weaponized stillness. Again.
I made the mistake of looking down.
His mouth was still against my skin. His eyes were closed now, his face turned into me like this was the only soft place he had found all night.
The bruise cut across his side, ugly and real, but his hands were warm and careful, and the whole impossible, infuriating man of him was sitting in my kitchen with pain in his body and trust in his grip.
I slid my fingers deeper into his hair and held on.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “One kiss.”
He looked up at me like he knew we were both lying and liked me enough not to say it first.
When I kissed him, it was slow because it had to be.
Careful because of the ribs.
Hot because tenderness had teeth when it wanted to.
He did not chase.
That was what nearly undid me.
He sat there and let me choose the depth of it, the angle, the pace. Every inch of restraint in him felt more intimate than urgency would have. His hands stayed at my thighs, but his thumbs moved once, then again, barely there, as if he was reminding himself he was allowed to touch.
I shifted closer, and he inhaled through his nose.
Sharp.
Controlled.
Not controlled enough.
Good.
His mouth opened under mine, and the kiss deepened by degrees.
No rush. No desk. No losing ourselves because the room had tipped and gravity had stopped caring.
This was deliberate. It was Evan letting me set the line and then holding it with both hands even though I could feel exactly how much it cost him.
That was the problem with restraint.
I let my hand slide from his hair to the back of his neck. His skin was warm under my palm. His pulse worked hard beneath my thumb.
“Sam,” he said against my mouth.
Warning.
Want.
Both.
“I know,” I whispered.
I kissed him once more anyway.
His hands tightened at the backs of my thighs, and for one second the kitchen went narrow around us.
The counter at my back. His body in front of me.
The bruise under the towel waiting to be iced again.
The takeout going cold beside us because apparently noodles were no match for bad decisions and a shirtless defenseman with trust issues.
Then I pulled back.
Because one of us had to be reasonable.
It was very annoying that the one had to be me.
His forehead rested against my stomach for one second.
Then he said, very quietly, “Thank you.”
And that nearly finished me.
Not the bruise.
Not even the kiss.
The thank you.
The sound of a man who had finally let someone see the cost and had not been left alone with it.