Page 31 of If You Love Me

“Are you sure? We can stay back.”

“I’m sure, kiddo. Go out. Have a good time. I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast.” If they stay back I’ll have to make up more lies as to why I’m not in the mood, and I’d like to avoid that for the sake of my stomach and my conscience.

“Okay.” She kisses my cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I return to the hotel, but I’m too on edge to relax, so I change and head to the gym to run out my frustration.

I’m 3K into a run when the gym door opens and in walks my wet dream and my worst temptation. Lexi pulls her cropped sweatshirt over her head, leaving her in a sports bra and running shorts. It’s skin, skin, and more skin—all her toned, athletic, incredibly fucking bendy body on display as she crosses the room.

It’s eleven, so the gym is empty apart from us. Our flight leaves at eight thirty in the morning. We should be getting ready for bed.I’d love to give her a different kind of workout.

She falters when she reaches the treadmills but steps up onto the one beside mine. “Didn’t get enough of a workout on the ice tonight?”

“Apparently not.” I fight to keep from looking at her, but I can’t help myself as she winds her braid on top of her head and secures it with a scrunchie. I long to free that coil of hair, wrap it around my fist and kiss a path from her shoulder to her ear. I clear my throat and look away. “How’s Callie?”

“The fever is down, and she’s asleep, so that’s good. Dred doesn’t have a shift until the afternoon, so she can stay with Callie until I get back. That means Fee can go to school.”

“That’s good.” I try to keep my mouth shut, to not say whatever the fuck is on my mind, but my self-restraint is a bag of shit. “So why are you here if Callie’s being taken care of?”

“Probably the same reason you are.” She starts her treadmill.

“Doubtful,” I grumble.

She side-eyes me. “So this isn’t post-game punishment?”

“Not entirely, no.”

“So partially punishment.”

I avoid the question and ask one of my own. “Why are you down here?”

“Trying to settle my mind. My goalie had a rough game, and it’s my fault.”

“How I fail to protect the net isn’t on you.” I increase my pace.

She hits the stop button and turns to face me. “Isn’t it? I show up here, no warning, no explanation, in your last season. I know I fucked up, Roman. I knew the second I saw you that I’d made a mistake.”

“You’re a good fit for this team.”

“I know. That’s not the mistake.”

My gut churns. I hop off the belt and hit the stop button on my treadmill. I should leave. Walk away. But Ican’t. “Me. I’m the mistake.”

“I wish I could take it back,” she whispers.

That hurts more than a puck to the chest. I take a moment before I speak. “At least look me in the eye when you tell me you regret me.”

Her eyes move over my face, and I find that same desire I feel every time I’m close to her reflected back at me. “I don’t regret you. At all,” she says. “That’s the problem, Roman. Every time you look at me, touch me—I relive what it was to be with you.”

Fuck. I wish she was less beautiful, less incredible, less of a powerhouse woman, less of a siren in the bedroom. But she’s all those things and more, and it’s driving me up the fucking wall. “If that’s true why did you leave with no note?” It’s the thing that’s been eating at me.

Her expression grows pained. “I thought I was just a fun weekend for you,” she whispers. “That I was just one of many who got to warm your bed then be forgotten.”

“And what do you think now?” I grip the rail, struggling not to reach out and stroke her cheek, feel her soft skin under my fingertips, to give in to this overwhelming need.

“That I was wrong.”

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