40. Dean
Dean
I cannot remember ever being this crazy. I also cannot remember ever being this happy.
Those two things should probably concern me more than they do.
Instead, I am lying in a pile of tangled hotel blankets with my wife curled into my side, Vegas sunrise barely bleeding through the curtains, and all I can think is that if this is insanity then I never want to be sane again.
My wife.
Jesus. Even thinking it does something violent to my chest. Last night plays in flashes behind my eyes every time I blink.
The tiny chapel. Her tear-streaked face. The way her voice shook when she promised to love every side of me.
The kiss after the officiant pronounced us husband and wife that felt less like a kiss and more like every scattered part of me finally snapping into place.
Then us stumbling back here laughing, crying, kissing, touching, saying we really did that every ten minutes like two lunatics.
I should maybe be worried. Should maybe be thinking about the fact that we made a life-altering decision in the middle of Vegas on a hockey road trip after only a couple months of stolen nights and adjoining hotel rooms.
I should maybe be bracing for Maddie to wake up, blink at me, and realize she married a complete psychopath.
Too bad. Because even if she does—I’m not letting her go. Not now. Not ever.
I tighten my arm around her sleeping body and press my mouth to the top of her head before carefully reaching for my phone on the nightstand.
There is one thing I can control immediately. Housing. My penthouse suddenly feels like the dumbest place on earth.
Too public. Too many cameras. Too many elevators. Too many ways for people to watch her come and go.
No. I need walls. Land. A gate. Somewhere I can put my wife and breathe.
I pull up Coleman Raines because being friends with one of the best realtors in Chicago has its perks.
Me:
Need a house.
Secluded. Gated. Away from people.
Three dots appear almost immediately because apparently billionaires also don’t sleep.
A response comes through.
Coleman:
I have a couple. Sending today.
How fast do you want in?
I glance down at Maddie burrowed into my chest. As fast as humanly possible.
Me:
ASAP.
There’s a longer pause this time.
Coleman:
Yeah, we’re definitely meeting at the Reserve when you get home.
You don’t get to text like a serial killer and not explain.
A laugh rumbles out of me. Fair. Very fair. Before I can answer, Maddie shifts.
Her nose brushes my ribs. One hand slides sleepily across my stomach. Then those blue eyes blink open slowly and land on me. Still sleepy. Still soft. Still the prettiest damn thing I have ever seen in my life.
“Good morning, Baby.”
A smile spreads across her face. Not just any smile. That warm, secret smile that says she remembers exactly what happened last night too.
“Good morning, Husband.”
My heart nearly stops. Actually stops. That one word slams into me harder than every vow, every signature, every chapel light. Husband. I am her husband. I make some embarrassingly caveman sound in the back of my throat and haul her farther on top of me so I can kiss her before I combust.
She laughs against my mouth.
I kiss her anyway.
Slow. Deep. Possessive enough that she sighs into me.
When I finally pull back, I rest my forehead against hers and just breathe for a second.
“Say it again.”
Her smile turns sleepy and wicked. “Husband?”
I groan. “Christ.”
She giggles. I kiss the corner of her mouth. Then the other. Then her nose because apparently I have become unbearable overnight.
“As much as I would love to keep you naked in this bed until checkout,” I murmur, sliding my hand down her back, “we need to get ready.”
She blinks. “Why?”
I grin. Because she has no idea.
“Because,” I tell my wife, and God that feels good, “we’re heading out this morning.”
Her brows knit together. “Heading where?”
I kiss her once more. “To start our life.”
The high from Vegas lasts exactly until we leave the hotel room and have to pretend we are nothing to each other again.
Nothing. No touching on the plane. No sitting together. No kissing my wife when she falls asleep against the window and I want nothing more than to drag her across the aisle and into my lap.
Just stolen glances over seatbacks and Luka loudly complaining about airline pretzels while I sit there with a marriage certificate in my backpack feeling like the world’s most irritated newlywed.
I’m over it. Completely. This sneaking around thing was tolerable when she was my girlfriend. Annoying, but tolerable.
Now? Now she is my wife. My actual wife. And I am supposed to walk through O’Hare Airport like she is just another member of staff?
Absolutely fucking not.
I manage to keep my mouth shut until baggage claim. Barely. When the team starts filtering out to cars and drivers, I catch Maddie by the elbow in a blind spot beside the parking garage entrance.
Her eyes dart around instantly. “Dean—”
I press my penthouse key into her palm. Then lean in and whisper the private elevator code against her ear. “Go to my apartment.”
She blinks. “What?”
“I’m meeting you there.”
Her fingers curl around the key. “We can’t both walk out together.”
“We’re not.” I step back. “You leave now. I’m stopping for food.”
She studies my face. Sees I’m not in the mood for arguments.
A tiny smile tugs at her mouth. “Yes, Husband.”
Christ. I am never getting used to that. I squeeze her hand once and force myself to let her go before I create a scene in a parking garage.
Food is the first stop. Thai from the place she likes because she always steals half my noodles.
The second stop is impulse. Or maybe inevitability. I pass a jewelry store, slow, then immediately turn into the lot. Because there is no way in hell my wife is walking around with nothing on her finger.
Not after I watched her say forever to me.
The salesman tries to show me flashy diamonds and thick platinum nonsense. I wave him off.
“No. Simple bands.”
He blinks. “For both?”
“Yes.”
I pick hers first. Slim white gold. Clean. Elegant. Something she can wear every day. Something that won’t snag cameras or scream for attention at the arena. Something that says married without her needing to explain a giant rock every five minutes.
Mine is heavier. Brushed silver. Solid. The kind of ring I can feel. The kind that will remind me every time my hand closes into a fist that I belong to someone now too.
I buy them both and head to the penthouse with my pulse doing stupid things the whole drive.
The private elevator opens. And the second I step into my place, I stop.
Maddie is curled up on my couch under one of my gray blankets like she has lived here forever.
Shoes kicked off. Hair piled messily on top of her head. Her Kindle glowing in front of her face. My apartment has always been too clean. Too quiet. Too untouched.
Now there’s her overnight bag by the chair and one of her hoodies draped over the armrest and suddenly this place feels like someone turned the lights on for the first time.
She glances up when she hears me. Sees the takeout bags. Then immediately holds one finger in the air. I lift a brow.
She points to the Kindle.
I bite back a laugh. My wife is making me wait because apparently fictional men are still competition.
I set the food on the coffee table as quietly as I can, then pull the small velvet ring boxes from my pocket.
When I turn back, I just stand there holding them out. Waiting. She finishes the page. Taps her Kindle. Looks up. And freezes.
Her eyes drop to the boxes. Then to me. Then back to the boxes.
Slowly, she lowers the blanket. “Dean…”
I smile. Soft. Completely wrecked by how much I love this woman.
“You didn’t think I was letting my wife walk around without rings, did you?”
Maddie did not wear her ring to the arena today. I noticed the second she slipped it off.
We were by the door of my penthouse getting ready to leave, me straightening my tie, her shoving camera batteries into her bag, when she paused and motioned me over.
Without a word, she took her wedding band off. Then reached for mine.
I stared at her hand like she had personally offended me. I pull my hand to my chest protecting my ring. “Absolutely not.”
She laughed softly, the traitor. “Dean…”
“No.” She slid my ring from my finger anyway and set both bands carefully on the dresser by the door.
I glared. She stepped into me, rose onto her toes, kissed me once. “Soon,” she whispered against my mouth.
Soon. I have discovered I hate that word. Because soon still means not now. Soon still means I have to spend another night pretending she isn’t mine. And I am rapidly running out of patience for pretending.
Which is exactly why I am in a foul mood standing in the locker room twenty minutes before puck drop while Maddie films some dumb little pregame social segment with two of our rookies.
One of said rookies—some twenty-two-year-old call-up with too much hair product and not enough self-preservation—keeps smiling at her.
Too much. Leaning in too close. Too comfortable. Maddie laughs at something he says while adjusting her camera angle and the kid actually reaches over and touches her elbow.
My eye twitches. No. Nope. Not happening. I cross my arms and try to tell myself to calm down. He doesn’t know. No one knows. This is exactly the problem with no one knowing.
The rookie says something else. Maddie smiles politely.
He winks. He fucking winks.
That’s it. I snap. My feet are moving before my brain catches up.
I stalk across the locker room with every player’s conversation slowly dying around me because apparently Coach Dean storming through the middle of pregame has a noticeable vibe.
Maddie looks up just as I reach her. Her brows lift. “Dean—”
I grab her by the waist, spin her toward me, and kiss her. Hard. Not a maybe-this-could-be-misunderstood kiss. Not a subtle peck. A full, possessive, locker-room-stopping kiss. The kind that says mine in every language known to man.
For one split second I expect her to jerk back in surprise. To shove at my chest. To remind me we are in public. Instead—her hands come up and cup my face. And she kisses me back. Just as deep. Just as hungry.
A roar explodes around us. Helmets slam. Someone whistles loud enough to rupture an eardrum.
I finally drag myself back an inch, breathing hard, my hands still locked on her waist. Her lips are pink. Her eyes dazed. My wife. I keep my gaze on hers when I speak.
But my words are for the idiot rookie standing two feet behind her looking like he just witnessed an alien landing.
“Eyes off my wife, kid.”
Silence. One beat. Then the entire locker room detonates. Half the team starts shouting. The other half starts cackling. A chorus of WHAT THE FUCK echoes off concrete walls.
Luka’s voice bellows the loudest. “WIFE?”
Jake is halfway out of his stall, tape hanging from one hand, looking personally betrayed.
Grady just shouts, “NO FUCKING WAY.”
And Jasper—dramatic, ridiculous Jasper—throws both hands in the air. “This is why she would never go out with me!”
Maddie buries her face in my chest laughing. I don’t even care that the room is in chaos. I just wrap one arm around her shoulders, look at the stunned rookie over her head, and shrug.