And then I spend the ride back to the hotel telling myself to get my shit together and act like a fucking man because chances are good none of that is going to happen. Harlow is getting a shot at the one thing she’s always wanted, and I’m not going to get in her way.
No matter how hard it will be.
I get up to the room and, bracing with a supportive face that’s backed with a steely will usually reserved for going after what I want rather than letting it go, let myself in. Stop short, not understanding what I’m seeing.
“Where’s the coffee?” Harlow asks from within the still tangled sheets of our bed. Her hair is still a sexy sleep-mussed mess. She’s still swimming in my T-shirt, our clothes from the night before still scattered around the room.
There aren’t any bags. Just the woman I could feel slipping through my fingers, looking like she isn’t going anywhere.
I rub my hand over the spot in my chest that’s hammering harder than it did before my first NHL game.
“In the truck. With breakfast.” Water. Soda. Some snacks and, in case she wanted to try and sleep on the way back, one of those neck pillow things that people love but would straight-up strangle me. “You’re not packed.”
I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Hell, she might only want to sleep another hour or so. She might—
Jesus, please be what it looks like.
Harlow
“I’m not leaving,” I say quietly, somehow more nervous than I was on the phone with my father. Wade doesn’t move and the anxiety that’s been building since he left ramps higher. What if he doesn’t want—
But then, he’s on me in a blink, pulling me hard against him, crushing me with his kiss. Telling me everything I need to know without words.
I cling to him, emotion choking me.
“Thought I was losing you,” he growls against my mouth, arms banded around my back, holding me so my bare feet dangle above the floor.
“No.”
Not when it feels like, for the first time in my life, I’m not missing what matters. I’m not alone.
“I was going to take you.” He lays me back on the bed, following me down. “Let you go if that’s what you needed.” He whips the shirt off my body and does the same with his clothes. Groans when we’re skin to skin. Then pulls back to meet my eyes. “Fuck, Harlow, it was going to kill me.”
I shake my head, run my fingers over his scruff. “I told him I couldn’t leave and I’d be there Monday.” And then the truth I need him to know. “I couldn’t leave you.”
“Just for this week?”
“What if it’s more than this week?” I ask softly.
His eyes close and then he kisses me again, so long and deep, when he stops, we’re tangled together. “So you’re mine, really mine?”
Mine.
No one has ever wanted me to be theirs. And the way this man does, so openly, so completely… it makes my heart ache so hard I can barely breathe through it.
Hands shaking, I trace the lines of his face. Slip my knee higher up his ribs. Inviting. “I’m yours.”
God, the sound he makes. It’s pure possessive relief.
And then he’s pushing inside me. Thick and long. Slow and gentle.
He fills my body the way he’s filling my heart. Completely. And when it feels like he’s given me all I can take, he says my name with quiet reverence… and gives me that much more.
We move together. Eyes locked. Bodies straining.
It’s beautiful.
It’s making love. My first time. And I never want to stop.
Chapter 22
Wade
She’s mine.
Knowing it—hearing her say it once should have been enough. But I’m like a damn addict, needing more, again, louder. Coaxing, teasing, and working it out of her… On my knees with her hands in my hair, her back against the door to our room, the taste of her coating my tongue. Her breathless cries falling like soft rain over my shoulders.
Against the shower wall, while I give her my cock so slow and good. She says it twice.
On. The. Pull-out.
I give her everything I have. Almost everything.
I want to tell her how hot and sweet she is. I want her to hear how she makes me feel. That nothing has ever been so good. But I don’t dare say a damn word, because if I open my mouth when we’re that close, when I can feel her heart beating against mine… I’m going to tell her something it’s too soon to say.
Something that when she hears it the first time, I want her to believe with her whole heart and never doubt.
Eventually, we make it out to the truck and the abandoned travel smorgasbord.
“You really went all out,” she says with the kind of soft, satisfied smile I’d like to keep on her lips for the next fifty years or so.
But when she tries to reach for the hours-cold coffee in her drink holder, I swat her hand away. “No. This one’s no good.” Fucking tainted with heartbreak, and she’s not getting one sip.
I collect every single thing I bought before dawn including the neck pillow. I even take the charger I’d plugged in for her phone, and I dump the entire lot of it into the trash bin by the lobby door.
When I get back, Harlow’s staring at me like I’m out of my mind. But I just slide into my seat, take her hand in mine, and lean over to kiss her. Quick. Because the sun’s up and my gorgeous Good Girl was already embarrassed by the noise we made earlier.
I should feel guilty, but fuuuck, once I found that spot that made her scream… no way was I giving that up.
“You get fresh coffee and a hot breakfast.”
She’s still playing with my knuckles. Damn, that’s nice. “When are we supposed to be at your mom’s?”
Half an hour ago, but I already texted that we were running late. “After I get you fed.”
Harlow
I keep waiting for the nerves. The uncertainty. The looming sense of dread that always accompanies the slightest hint of resistance to my father’s dictates. But it doesn’t come. Not at eight, when I was supposed to be at work. Not through breakfast. Not once Wade parks me in his high school bedroom and tells me to get some sleep while he and his parents run a few last errands.
It’s like, for the very first time, every single part of me is in agreement on what it wants. Like I know what matters most… and I’m not worried about losing it.
Wade’s bed is comfortable and soft, the blue plaid comforter smells like fresh laundry. I barely remember lying down, but when I open my eyes, the light in the room is different and there’s a weight at the foot of the bed.
For a heartbeat, I think it’s Wade. But no.
I sit up fast. “Kelsey, what are you doing in here?”
She’s sitting with her knees tucked neatly together, eyes rimmed in red, and a tragic smile on her face.
“When you first got here, I didn’t know what to think. Wade never brings girls home. And I didn’t really see—” She takes a breath and holds up her hands with a helpless laugh. “I thought, she’s all wrong. It can’t last. I even let myself think maybe you weren’t really together. But I see it now.”