Page 50 of If You Love Me

CHAPTER 17

ROMAN

Roman

Reason number 6982 why I can’t wait for the end of the season.

Ifollow it with a picture of an oversized bathtub filled with bubbles and rose petals. It’s the tub we spent a glorious hour engaging in the most torturous, incredible foreplay before I carried Lexi—soapy and needy—back to bed, where I fucked three orgasms out of her.

It’s been sixteen days, seven hours, and five minutes since we shared that kiss at the holiday party, and I can’t stop thinking about it—or every single other kiss, touch, and sensual moment we’ve ever had.

Lexi responds a minute later with an image of apple slices and caramel sauce. That weekend started my green apple addiction. That’s when I learned exactly how much of a pleaser she is, and how amazing her sweet mouth felt when she was trying to swallow my entire cock, like a good girl.

Roman

You’re killing me.

Lexi

You started it.

Roman

Hmm… True. I’ll cease the torment for both our sakes.

Waiting for the season to end is increasingly challenging. If it was just sexual chemistry, it might be fine. But it’s so much more than that. When she’s in the room, my eyes are on her. We’re on the ice together constantly.

She’s smart, driven, and has quickly gained the respect of the team. Watching her confidence blossom as she leads this team is inspiring. I’m falling more for her every day. For her take-no-shit attitude on the ice, the soft moments when she gives a player a pep talk, the woman who has lost so much and puts everything she has left into her sisters, and the friend my daughter and the rest of the girls have embraced so wholly.

She would fit seamlessly into my life and world, and it’s the most unreal mindfuck to be frozen like this. That we’re adults with a history doesn’t matter. Should something happen now, she’d forever be the assistant coach who was involved with one of her players.

Even if we don’t make it to the playoffs, I have another four months of limbo ahead of me.I could retire early. It’s not the first time I’ve rolled this possibility over in my head.

Roman

How are you and the girls holding up?

Lexi

That was a hard right.

Roman

I know. Don’t evade the question.

Lexi

We’re okay. It’s just hard for them.

Roman

What about you?

Lexi

I’m managing.

Lexi is unaccustomed to asking for help, let alone accepting it. But it doesn’t mean I have to sit back and let her drown in the difficulty of it all. I know what it means to miss the people you love during the holidays.

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