Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
I closed my eyes, suppressing a curse as my heart cracked at her admission.
Then, I tilted her chin, and I made sure she was looking at me when I said, “You always have a safe place to land with me.”
Her eyes flicked between mine, and then she crushed me in a hug, her arms winding around my neck as she buried her face in mine. I held her tight, letting her feel it, feel me.
After a while, she pulled back, and the tears seemed to be drying out. She let out a long sigh. “That actually felt good.”
“Told you so.”
She chuckled. “I love traveling, by the way,” she said. “I don’t want you to think I don’t.”
“You can love traveling and still want a place to call home.”
Her lips curled, and she didn’t have to say another word for me to hear her. She felt seen. She felt understood.
I knew, because I felt the same way.
“Give me your phone,” I said.
She handed it to me, wiping her nose with the back of her hand as I turned on the camera and faced it toward us.
“Today, Grace Tanev cried,” I said, looking at her as she let a laugh bubble up. She swatted my chest, but then leaned into me, looking up at the camera. “And it was the most beautiful thing,” I added.
I kissed her temple, and she tilted her chin up at me.
“Tell me something good,” she prompted — just like always.
A million things crossed my mind, but every single one of them felt too heavy. So, I sighed, pulling her under my arm as I pretended to think.
“Oh, I don’t know… that blowjob last night was pretty fucking great.”
She elbowed me, earning her a puff of a laugh as I cut the video. She tucked her phone away again and then wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Thank you,” I said, squeezing her leg. “For sharing all that with me.”
“Thanks for listening.”
“And see? It didn’t pull you under, you’re not a depressed dark cloud roaming the Earth.”
She laughed.
“Everyone gets sad sometimes,” I said, knuckling her chin.
“It’s nice when you don’t have to do it alone.”
I nodded.
And then my stomach twisted into the most awful knot.
I knew, right then, on that craggy shoreline in fucking Kansas, that I didn’t want her to ever have to do anything alone again. That I didn’t want to be alone.
That I wanted her — not just for the fucking summer, and not in secret.
I also realized I couldn’t have what I wanted.
It was like I was the moon wishing to be the sun.
It wasn’t just us that we had to think about. It was her brother, my teammate — my team. It was the fact that I was eight years older and in a literal contract that kept me in one city for the foreseeable future, and she was young and hungry and ready to see the world.
I could see the same thoughts tracking through Grace’s mind as we stared at each other.
We didn’t fit. We didn’t work.
Except right here, right now, in this eclipse of time.
“Take me to the tent, Jax,” she said, curling her fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck.
So I did.
I laid her down and stripped her bare, sinking inside her on a longing sigh we both released in sync.
We knew what we were, and what we were not, and what we could never be.
We understood the risk we took with our hearts, and yet we did it anyway.
One day, we’d have to walk away from each other. One day, we’d have to say goodbye.
But that day wasn’t today.
And we were going to make the most of every second we did have.
That was a promise we both could keep.
Just A Little Hiking
Grace
I was living in a dream.
A bright pink sunrise, warm afternoon wind through your hair, scent of fresh-cut grass and mountains in the distance dream.
I’d known from the first moment I met him that I wanted Jaxson Brittain. I wanted to kiss him, to feel his hands on me, to see if he was as good in bed as he was on the ice.
But that had all been a pipe dream, a fantasy, one I knew would never play out. He was my brother’s teammate. That was all I needed to know to understand nothing would ever happen between us.
And then it did.
It was one thing for us to give in to the way we craved one another. That fire had been burning hot since the moment I pressed my ass against him in a crowded Austin bar.
But it wasn’t just a one-time, fuck-and-get-it-out-of-our-system deal.
I didn’t know how we ended up here. I didn’t know how many stars had to align for him to have been at my brother’s house when I showed up crying, suitcase in hand. Or for him to follow me upstairs, to make a joke about taking a drive that turned into an actual road trip. I didn’t know what had shifted in him to make him break, to make him give in and kiss me and touch me knowing the possible consequences.