Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
After the morning skate on Friday, I went back to my hotel room to do my usual pre-game routine. But something felt off.
I couldn’t place it, but I knew without overthinking it that I needed to shake things up.
“I’m going somewhere.”
Maven peeked up at me from where she was working on her phone on the couch in my suite. She wore olive sweatpants and an oversized black t-shirt that swallowed her small frame. Her bare feet were tucked beneath her, no makeup on her face and her hair natural. I didn’t have to guess that she also didn’t have a bra on under that shirt, which killed me as much as it made me count my lucky stars.
It stole my breath a moment, seeing her like that — comfortable, relaxed, like she was just wasting away an afternoon in her own home.
I’d been buzzed the night after our home game, but I still remembered everything. I remembered following her out of that bar, remembered the exact moment I realized she wasn’t mad at me.
She was jealous.
I didn’t need her to confirm it, because when I’d backed her into that wall, her body had betrayed whatever lie she was trying to tell me and herself.
She’d kissed me.
It had taken everything in me not to take her right then and there. The way she melted into me when I kissed her back, how she trembled when my hands framed her face and my leg slid between her thighs. I loved pushing that skirt up to her hips, loved pushing that girl to the edge even more.
Neither of us had said a word about it since.
I knew why I hadn’t. I told her all I needed to that night — that if she wanted me, she was going to have to admit it. She was going to have to use her big girl words and say it out loud.
But she hadn’t broached the subject either, either because she was still pissed at me, or she was trying to convince herself it didn’t happen.
Regardless, it didn’t bother me.
I was a patient man.
Or so I told myself.
“Okay?” she said carefully when I didn’t elaborate.
“You don’t need to come,” I said. “It’s nothing that needs to be covered.”
That made her eyes narrow in suspicion, and she set her phone aside before sitting up a little straighter. “Where are you going?”
I shrugged. “Just somewhere to clear my head.”
She watched me a moment longer before hopping up from the couch. “I just need to change real quick.”
“You really don’t have to come,” I said. “If you want a break.”
“Twenty-four-seven, remember?” she reminded me, and then she slipped out of my room and over to hers to change.
I smirked in victory. Reverse psychology worked a little too well on this woman. She was nothing if not stubborn, but sometimes, that worked to my advantage.
Though we hadn’t spoken about what happened between us, I felt a charge of electricity anytime she was near. When we sat next to each other on the plane, her laughing and playing cards with Carter while I pretended to listen to a podcast, I saw the hair on her arm stand on end when she brushed against me, felt how she drew her breaths a little shallower.
The guys had taken my coaching from that night at Boomer’s and done everything to make sure Maven felt comfortable with us — whether we were in the public’s eye or alone in the arena. I didn’t know why Maven had felt vulnerable enough to open up to me about what happened with her ex, but I knew one thing.
I didn’t want to be lumped into the same category as him, and I wanted my team to prove to Maven that we weren’t all the same.
When we were in the back of the black car I’d arranged for us, she watched the city pass out the window, taking in the cool, gray day painting the city.
I watched her.
She frowned when we pulled into the parking lot of the old, beaten-down rink — first at the scenery, then at me, and then again at the building as we both got out of the car. I tapped the trunk twice with my fist until the driver popped it, and then with my duffle bag slung over my shoulder, I led the way.
“What is this?” Maven asked.
“You’ll see.”
It was quiet when we walked into the rink, save for the sounds that always came with it — skates gliding, pucks being hit, sticks scraping the ice. I smiled at the familiarity of it, of how it took me back to a simpler time when Mom and Dad put me in pads as a kid and told me to just have fun.
Bobby Green stood in the box, his hands on his hips while he watched the kids skate around on the ice. He had a whistle between his teeth, and he shook his head at something before he glanced over at where Maven and I had just walked in.