How alone I feel.
Daily.
“You’re crazy. Fucking crazy, Mad,” I say to the empty room as I acknowledge that tonight was most men’s dream. Hell, it used to be mine too.
Great sex with a gorgeous woman who walks away after it’s over and doesn’t ask for anything more—not even a kiss goodnight.
Sex without strings.
But fuck if I don’t feel invisible strings tying me up in the biggest fucking knot I’ve ever seen or felt before.
One that has her at the goddamn center of it.
Get over it, Maddox. Get the fuck over it.
I don’t get attached.
I don’t get the privilege to have feelings for someone.
I don’t ever allow myself to want more.
But hell if what she did for me tonight—made me laugh, made me feel carefree, and then fucking owned every urge and need and want and inch of my body—doesn’t make me wonder what it would be like to have that on the ready. If it’s something I could get used to.
Drawing in a deep breath, I swear this room still smells like her—her shampoo, our sex—and that makes it hard to stop thinking about her. To stop wishing she were still here. To stop replaying her bullshit ghosting act and the way it felt watching her walk away.
“Let it go,” I murmur and lean my head against the back of my chair, willing sleep in any form to come.
I close my eyes and try to quiet everything. All thoughts. All hopes. All dreams.
And in that limbo state between being awake and falling asleep, I have a moment of clarity I’m sure I won’t remember once I wake in the morning.
She slept with me tonight and bailed.
Why?
To get back at me like I did her that first night in the elevator? To show why I should have chased after her three years ago? That’s not like her, though.
Then what could it be?
Because Callum saw us? Because what had just happened between us was more than obvious?
Why the fuck does that matter?
He’s her client, I’m not.
There’s no line of professionalism that was crossed when it shouldn’t be. There were no favors promised. Just pure, insanely incredible sex.
So why . . .
Shit.
Because Dekker Kincade is here to recruit me.
That has to be the only logical answer.
And I say logical, because I can’t swallow that she bailed because she’s embarrassed for people to know we were together. For Callum to know we had slept together.
The question is: is that why she slept with me? To maybe slide into my life between some bouts of good sex, some pillow talk . . . where she convinces me to leave Sanderson and change to KSM?
That would mean she just slept with a potential client. That would explain why she bailed right after.
I reject the notion but hate the thought that lingers. The one that screams all I am is a client to her.
A number she wants to nail to her wall, a fat commission check she’ll win over to her side and then forget to pay attention to. First the Dartmouth game and then tonight.
It’s the easiest thing to believe.
So much easier than believing maybe I deserve her. So much easier than believing she cares for me.
Because the last time she blew me off like this was after a bout of sex, when she got dressed and walked away, visibly upset without divulging why.
I didn’t chase her. I never asked what the hell happened but just figured our time was up. It was probably a good thing because the minute I feel things, I bail too. And I was starting to feel things.
But now I’m remembering the shitstorm it made me feel and hating it.
And that’s a sign that I need to back the fuck away and head whatever shit I’m feeling off at the pass.
My life is hockey. It’s about being the best. It’s about outrunning ghosts that will forever be a part of me.
Her job is profiting off athletes like me. It’s about getting the biggest roster. It’s about acquiring them like tokens and cashing them in when all is said and done.
She’s using me, and that gives me a justified reason to be pissed and push her away when I’d fucking kill to have her sitting beside me right now, quiet and comfortable waiting for the sunrise.
But I can’t let that happen.
I don’t deserve her.
I don’t deserve anything.
She used you, Mad. She just showed her cards. She’s in this for her. She can ply you with comments about how she wants to be your friend and be there for you if you need to talk, but the endgame is you being her client.
Another person to use me.
Another person to see me as a commodity.
Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I’ll stop wanting her as badly as I do right now.
Maybe I’ll find some other way to not be lonely.
Is this all there is?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
DEKKER
THE SUBTLE SORENESS BETWEEN MY thighs is the first thing I notice when I snuggle deeper beneath the covers to hide from the sun streaming through the window.
Last night is more than a distant memory. It’s more like an in-the-face reminder of a pickle I need to figure my way out of.
I slept with a potential client. A current client all but caught me in the act. And then I had a moment of panic.
A huge moment of panic that only took some tossing and turning in bed when I couldn’t fall asleep to figure out.
What I felt for Hunter—the reasons I pushed him away the last time we were together—came back clearly last night.
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. How can I purport to be this strong, independent female who puts up with no one’s shit, and after I spend one night with a man, I still have those same feelings? How can I be proud of myself when he was an ass to me at the club and I turned around and did what we did? How can I do any of this when I haven’t been up front with him about why I’m here?
I’m a chicken.
Isn’t that what this comes down to? I’m an overthinking, nervous-nelly chicken who doesn’t have the guts to admit that I not only screwed up by sleeping with him for professional reasons, but also because I know I’m not gutsy enough to tell Hunter being fuck buddies isn’t good enough for me anymore.
I’m not the same person.
Three years does a lot to mature a person and after Chad, maybe I want something more.
Maybe, my dad was right—not that I’ll ever tell him.
Hunter Maddox. Complicated and multi-layered, incredibly gifted, a god in the sack, yet troubled by something significant.
I’d ask myself what I want from him but I already know. Just sex won’t be enough. Just being a client might never work.
Oh what a tangled web I’ve woven.
But at least I’m sexually satisfied for what feels like the first time in forever. There’s always that very shallow tidbit to fall back on as the sky falls and more clients leave KSM, because one of their lead agents sleeps with clients and presumably gives them better treatment than all her other clients.
Even worse, they’ll start thinking that sleeping with my clients is part of the KSM package.
Shit. The more I think the worse this gets.
I groan and flop onto my back, trapping myself in the comforter when I do.
“Woman up, Kincade,” I mutter. Tell him the truth. Explain why this can’t happen again. March up to him and say, yes, he’s the player I’m here to recruit. And yes, we slept together. Christ, Dekker, he already knows that part. But maybe tell him it happened once, I own it, but I can’t let it happen again because I want to win his trust as a client. And once he’s a client I can’t cross that line.