Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
He groans and crashes his mouth to mine.
The kiss is nothing polite; it’s days of restraint snapping, teeth and tongue and the kind of hunger that makes my toes curl in the sheets with anticipation.
His palm cups my throat while the other hand slides down, down, claiming the back of my thigh and hauling me flush to the heat straining behind the fabric of his bottoms.
“Feel that?” he rasps against my mouth. “That’s how much I missed you.”
“Show me.” I fist his shirt. “Get naked, please.”
He shucks it off and leans back, broad chested and with cut lines I can’t wait to touch. I rake my nails lightly over his skin, and I help as he pulls at the drawstrings at his waist, my greedy hands helping . . . palms skimming over the flex of his stomach.
So tight. So different from mine.
My fingers slip lower, fingers teasing the bulge of his erection, and he groans again, fumbling to remove his pants. My shirt.
Heat rolls off him when he climbs back over me—bare skin to bare skin, solid and overwhelming. “Better?” he asks, voice shredded.
“So much.” I drag him down. Kiss him hard, relishing the skin-on-skin contact, smiling when he chases the curve of my mouth.
“I’m fucking starving,” he grumbles, kissing the side of my neck. Licking.
I laugh. “You should have ordered room service.”
“They didn’t have what I want.”
“What’s that?” I taunt breathlessly, already knowing the answer.
“You.”
His mouth closes over my nipple, and he sucks, nips. Soothes with a slow lick, hand palming the other breast, inching his way down my body . . .
“I love you like this.” He kisses the soft inside of my knee, then the other, teasing until I swear at him. He laughs—wrecked—and finally puts his mouth where I need it, tongue sure, fingers anchoring my hips when I try to chase the high.
And as far as makeup sex goes?
It’s a truce and a trophy, an apology and a promise—fire and comfort braided together until I can’t tell where the ache ends and the relief begins.
We make each other come apart like two adults who are finally pulling our lives together, and when we come and go still—foreheads pressed together, breath shared—the uncertainty we dragged into this room with us is gone.
Tomorrow might be complicated.
But tonight is simple: I choose him.
Chapter 39
Hayes
One month later . . .
“Benny. I have a surprise for you!”
It’s Saturday. I’ve got film in an hour, a game tomorrow, and a knot of nerves that feels dumber than any playoff pressure, because this isn’t about yards or stats.
This is bigger.
This is our life.
My daughter doesn’t come busting out of her room the way I expect her to, so I go to the bottom of the stairs and shout again.
I move to the bottom step and cup my hands around my mouth. “Bernadette. Are you listening?”
A beat. Then a muffled “I’m doing something!”
I glance toward the kitchen. Layla’s there in one of my old team tees, sleeves rolled to her shoulders, hair in a knot that’s losing the fight because she took the first flight out and beelined here from the airport. No makeup. Sleep in her eyes.
Nerves everywhere.
My chest does that dumb squeeze it’s been doing for a month—ever since we picked a date and booked her airfare and paid a company to pack up the shit in her apartment and haul it to a storage unit for the winter.
The plan came together in pieces: a lot of late-night calls, one spectacular fight that—thank God—we didn’t let turn into a breakup, her job being the big hurdle.
She hadn’t wanted to quit—of course she hadn’t. The city hall’s rec department owes her a favor after the Fall Fest miracle; they signed off on a seasonal flex employment so she can finish winter programming from here and fly back for a couple of weekend events.
She’s nervous as hell. Hiding for the big reveal we’ve been gearing up for for a month.
I grin up the stairs again and increase my volume. “Too busy for a surprise?”
That gets Benny’s attention.
Thudding footsteps overhead, a door flung open. She appears on the landing in mismatched socks and wild hair, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Did you finally buy me a hedgehog?”
A hedgehog? What the fuck. “No hedgehog.”
She groans like I just canceled summer. “Then what?”
“Stop being sassy.” I can’t keep the stupid smile off my face. I tip my head toward the kitchen. “You’re gonna wanna come down so you can open it.”
She barrels down the steps, takes the turn, yanks the door wide—
—and freezes.
“Whoa. Holy crap. Layla? What are you doing here?”
“Surprise!” Layla and I shout together, throwing up our arms as if we’re throwing Benny a birthday party.
My daughter spins to face me, eyes wide. “Is she the surprise?”
“Yeah, kiddo.” My throat is tight. “She’s the surprise.”