I bend slightly, putting my hand around the nape of her neck. “You should go relax with the girls. We have five days to test out that mattress.”
Clarke’s face clouds with worry, a bit of embarrassment tinging her cheeks. She murmurs so only I can hear her, “Do you know how much something like this costs?”
Fuck.
Clarke is a proud woman and it took a lot of damn browbeating to get her to accept my offer to come here without an agreement that she would cover some of her expenses. For example, she didn’t want to pay for first-class. However, I already had my ticket purchased, and I wasn’t about to ride in coach. We compromised, and she let me pay the difference in costs.
I take her by the elbow, glancing over her head at Regan, Willow, and Brooke before leading Clarke a few steps away. I need to nip this shit in the bud so Clarke can just have a good time instead of second-guessing everything.
“My contract with the Vengeance is a four-year deal worth thirty-two million dollars,” I say bluntly.
Clarke goes pale, her mouth dropping open.
I pull her a little farther away, dipping my face closer to hers. “Listen… I get you work hard for what you have, and I also get that what you and I have going on is very new. But I want you to have a great time this week, and I’d like to treat you to this trip. I make so much freaking money it would be the equivalent of a regular Joe buying you a dozen roses for the hell of it. It’s a drop in the bucket.”
She just stares, face blank and unaffected by my words. I worry I’ve offended her, so I rush to ask, “Was that pretentious? Because I didn’t mean it that way. I just want to make you feel special, I want you to have an amazing week, and I want you to do it without one single worry in your pretty head.”
Clarke glances over her shoulder at the waiting women, then back. Her hand comes to my chest, and she tips her head back so her eyes meet mine. There’s a soft smile on her lips. “I think what you just said was incredibly sexy, not pretentious at all. And that’s me, trying to let go of my past and realize you are you, and not like anyone else I’ve ever known. So, I will accept their invitation and your generous offer, and I will make it up to you this evening where we will not only attempt to test the mattress, but we will also endeavor to break the bed.”
I’m sure if Clarke and I end up becoming a permanent thing—that lasts the test of time like some of my other teammates have been fortunate enough to find—I know I’ll look back on this moment, and those words she just gave me, and realize this is probably the beginning of when I really began to fall for her.
“Sounds like a plan,” I murmur before giving her a deep kiss filled with the promise of better things to come. It’s apparently such a good kiss—perhaps not the type to be made in public—that I’m vaguely aware of the ladies nearby giggling.
I let Clarke up from the power of my mouth, loving that dazed expression she often gets when I kiss her, and make a show of turning her toward the women. Giving her a pat on her ass, I push her toward them. “Might as well get going. Start hanging out with them now. Those drinks look great.”
Clarke grins over her shoulder, then moves off to join what looks like a hell of a lot of trouble. Brooke loops her arm through Clarke’s. They all take off through the lobby, disappearing through a side door.
“Are you ready to check-in, sir?” I hear from the reception desk, realizing it’s my turn. Snickers from behind me have me pivoting, and I see some of the young pups there. Two of the rookies—Vance Gather and Trace LaForge—appear incredibly amused.
“Shut up,” I growl.
CHAPTER 17
Clarke
I feel out of place, yet, I don’t.
The glass of champagne in my hand will be my start toward making me feel more comfortable, but the part that’s freaking me out the most is being in an alien environment. I’m naked under a plush, white robe while my feet are being scrubbed, pumiced, and polished. We’re in a large room with subtle lighting and eight pedicure chairs complete with bubbling feet basins and massagers in the backs.
The chairs are laid out four on each side of the room. Willow, Pepper, Regan, and Nora sit opposite me with Brooke to my left and Blue—who flew straight here from her honeymoon in Australia—to my right. She’s currently recounting her terror at going snorkeling with Eric, afraid a shark would eat her but committing to the adventure anyway because he’d really wanted to do it. I found out she’s pregnant, which is why she’s the only one sipping guava juice instead of champagne.
The women themselves cause a conundrum in me. They are all warm and inclusive, making me feel welcome. But they’re also a tight-knit group—women who have all clearly bonded over the last year their significant others have played hockey together. I’m grateful to be included, yet I feel like such an outsider at the same time.
“How did you and Erik meet?” I ask Blue.
She shifts slightly in her seat, shooting me a devilish smirk. “Actually… he and I hooked up years ago, then reconnected last year on the team plane. I’m a flight attendant.”
“Second-chance romance,” I reply, noting one of my favorite tropes to read.
“Hardly,” Blue snorts. “He didn’t even remember our time together. It was insulting.”
I stare, my mouth agape, and wonder how she found it within herself to ever move past that. But before I can be so nosy as to ask, Pepper chimes in. “Insulting is trying to get a rise out of your hot neighbor by planting dozens of plastic pink flamingos in his lawn, but not even getting a flinch.”
The girls laugh. I chuckle, envisioning that. I’m going to assume Pepper had the hots for Legend, but maybe he was playing a little hard to get. Aaron had actually told me a little bit about the circumstances surrounding their daughter, Charlie, and how she came to be with them. Sounds like a truly romantic story of overcoming adversity and danger to find love, with a cute baby thrown in.
I wonder if all these women have stories like that. I mean… it’s no easy feat to meet a professional athlete, fall in love with one, and get them to return the sentiment.
I look to my left at the beautiful woman who’s going to be marrying her love this week. “How did you and Bishop meet?”
“In a bar,” she replies with a sly grin. “When we hooked up, I had no clue he was a Vengeance player.”
All the other women laugh again, and I realize I’m missing something. My confusion must show because Brooke explains. “My dad’s the coach. He caught Bishop and me in a compromising position.”
“You’re kidding,” I say, a bark of laughter escaping me.
“Nope,” she replies, her eyes burning with humor. “And I blurted out he was my fiancé, so we did the whole fake-engagement thing for a while.”
“That’s hilarious,” I reply, shaking my head in amazement. I gesture across the room at Regan and Nora, who sit side by side. “What about you two?”
Nora takes the lead, telling me that she was Tacker’s therapist. That seems pretty saucy as I’m sure there are ethics in place about that, but I’m a sucker for love winning.
Regan’s story hits me in the feels, too. “I have a really rare blood disease, for which the cost of treatment is astronomical. Dax married me to give me health insurance, but we’d known each other our entire lives.”