11. Ryan #3
I took a breath. This was new territory.
Not the wanting—that had been there since September.
The saying it. I did not say things carelessly.
The press had been writing about my economy of words for years.
What I said, I meant, and what I meant, I said plainly, and right now, alone in a hotel room in Nashville with the team three blocks away and her voice in my ear, I meant this.
“You have no idea the things I want to do to you, Maren.”
A sharp intake of breath on her end. I heard it clearly. “Like what?”
“I want to take that sleep shirt off you slowly,” I said, my voice dropping low and unhurried. “And then I want to put my mouth on you until you stop thinking about anything except my name.”
The silence that followed had increasing temperature to it and my dick was already hard.
“What else?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Not a question so much as a door swinging open.
I let the pause stretch exactly as long as I wanted it to. “I’ll have to show you.”
She made a sound that was soft and involuntary and my hand moved to my forehead.
“You in that parking lot,” I continued, quieter now. “The way you came to me. You closed the distance. I’ve been thinking about how you pressed yourself against me. What you want.” I paused. “I want to learn it all exactly.”
Her breathing had changed. I could hear it, shallow and unsteady. “Ryan.”
“Is this too much?” The last think I wanted to do was push her away.
“No.” Her reply was immediate, quiet, certain. “It’s not too much.”
Her words settled between us and my dick started to take notice.
“I’ve been in a hurry every time I’ve gotten near you,” I said. “I’m done being in a hurry. The stolen moments. I want all of you. I want to hear every sound you make when nobody’s about to walk in.” Another pause. “I’ve been thinking about that since Cole’s kitchen.”
The silence on her end was full and unsteady. I heard her exhale slowly.
“I—” She stopped. I heard her try again. “I have thought about that. A lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” A breath. “The part where nobody’s about to walk in especially.”
I let out a sound that was almost a laugh, warm and low. “One more day.”
“One more day,” she echoed, low and a little rough, like a countdown she was already feeling in her body—would settle into me unhelpfully for the next forty-eight hours.
“Get some sleep, Maren.”
“That is not going to happen.” She let out a small laugh.
“No,” I agreed. “Probably not.” I’d certainly be getting in the shower and rubbing one out the minute we got off the phone.
She laughed, strangled at the edges, working to keep her voice even and not entirely winning. “You’re very good at this. For someone so…contained.”
“I’m not contained with you.”
A silence. I heard her exhale again, slow and careful, and my mind went somewhere I hadn’t expected.
I wondered if she was going to touch herself after we hung up.
Whether she was already thinking about it.
Her in the gray sleep shirt, her hair down, alone in her house in Scottsdale with her hand sliding between her thighs, thinking about me.
The sounds she might make. Whether she’d let herself be loud when she was alone.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye.
“Good night, Maren.”
Her voice, when it came, was barely above a breath. “Good night.”
Then, because I meant it, I said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Think of me.”
“It would be impossible not to.”
I lay in the dark for ninety seconds before I got up and went to the shower, and I did not think about anything except her for the entire duration.
The charter home was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
It left Wednesday evening instead. A rebooking nobody had flagged—new team, new travel staff, someone had misread the game schedule when they’d built the itinerary and then quietly fixed it without telling anyone.
I found out when the revised departure time appeared on my phone at noon while I was going over tape.
I texted Griffin.
Ryan: Heads up, we’re leaving today
Griffin: How did you not know this already you’re the captain
Ryan: I’m forwarding you the email
Griffin: Oh. Huh. Okay
I packed my bag and decided not to text Maren. I’d experienced travel fuck-ups before and I didn’t want to think I’d be in early only to find out the whole email was wrong and we’d be fucking off at the airport until the next day anyway.
We landed at Sky Harbor at 10:22. The desert air hit me when I stepped off the jet bridge—warm even in November, the dry heat of Phoenix that still felt foreign after a Minnesota childhood but had started, over the last few weeks, to feel like something I might call home.
I grabbed a rideshare from the curb while the rest of the team waited for the bus or grabbed their own rides, bag at my feet, and gave the driver her address.
Her street was quiet. One light on in her front window, the warm amber of her living room lamp throwing a glow across the front steps. The car pulled up and I got out with my bag still on my shoulder, still in my travel clothes, and walked to her door, loosening my tie.
I knocked.
I heard movement inside and then she pulled the door open.
“We landed early,” I said, and forgot every other thing I’d planned to say when I saw her.