Page 24 of Forever After All

Chapter 12

Carter

Momentarily leaning into Alice's body, I taste the beer on her lips and I deepen the kiss further, parting her mouth with my tongue. I swirl my tongue against hers and imagine all the ways I've wanted to touch her since the day I met her. She lets out a gentle moan into my mouth and I swallow the sound by reaching up to pull her closer to me.

Stop fucking kissing her.

My head is all over the place. I want to fucking murder her ex, but…oh well, too late, he's already dead.It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Fucking cunt. I don’t know how I managed to contain my rage hearing the pain, panic, and torment in her voice as she describes the months and months of abuse she endured.

How could anyone hurt Alice?My Alice.

How could anyone ever make her feel worthless, when she’s worth more than most people I've ever met? The world is abetter place having her in it. As Alice lies boneless in my arms, a shell of the woman I know her to be, my heart breaks into unquantifiable pieces for her.

The room lights up when she walks in. Everyone loves Alice—and I mean everyone. She is beautiful,my god, she's so fucking beautiful.She is so funny, with the darkest sense of humour, and can make you laugh at times when you forgot that you even could. She has swiftly become one of my best friends, and listening to her torture herself is too much to handle. It really goes to show that true friends aren't always the ones you've known the longest, they're the ones who consistently show up for you.

I can't tell you how long I have wanted to kiss this woman.Actually, I can.I've wanted to kiss her for thirteen months, one week, one day, and about, oh, eight hours. The very second I saw her in my parent's home hugging my niece, my brain malfunctioned.

At the point in my life when I met Alice, I didn't know I would be retiring from hockey. I knew it would be coming; I just didn't expect it to be so soon. A particularly shitty knee injury caused me to end my career a couple of seasons before I'd planned.

I had absolutely no time for women at that stage in my life, and honestly, they were just a distraction to me. I’m no strangerto a puck bunny or two, and I have unfortunately been burned by that.

When I thought I might have found my future wife, it was just not meant to be. I thought I might have proposed to Eleanor, but it always felt as though something was missing. We went through the motions, but ultimately I didn't want to stay in a relationship with her and hold her back knowing I was never going to marry her or create a life with her. I kept the relationship going for longer than I should have. When I broke it off, she didn't take it well at all. Eleanor spoke to the press, initiated lie after lie about me cheating on her, having multiple affairs, and it damaged my career and any future with a serious partner.

None of that was true of course, but the press made everyone think I was the world's biggest heartbreaker, and how do you possibly counteract the tidal wave of lies about you when their opinions have already been formed? Eleanor moved on with another hockey player soon after our break up, and they're married with kids now. I really hope she’s happy now. She deserves a life I couldn’t give her. I just wish she hadn’t tried to destroy my reputation, but people do things in the heat of the moment, and I have no ill will towards her now.

To be left alone, I just let people think what they wanted, why try and win a battle that you're always going to lose? My friends,family, and teammates knew the truth, but by then the damage was done to my image.

I pull away from Alice and sit on the floor, creating a small distance between us that feels too far away and not far away enough, both at the same time.

"Alice, what the hell are you doing?" I ask, surprising myself by sounding angry which I hadn't intended. She has absolutely no idea the effect that she has on me, and this is pure fucking torture.

"I need to feel something. I need to feel anything apart from shame and guilt and hurt." She leans down and presses her forehead into mine.

"Alice, no. We can't do this. It's too fucking messy.You'retoo fucking messy right now." I was rock hard the second she kissed me.

Holy fuck, my willpower is strong but it isn't Fort Knox. Everyone has a breaking point and I think I'm going to reach mine. It would be a huge fucking lie if I said I hadn't thought about her long legs wrapped around my waist, or her long flowing hair wrapped around my fist, and every bad thing I've wanted to do to my friend since the day I met her rages a war inside my head.

"I don't know about you, Carter, but I think a little mess is exactly what I need. I need you to help me feel something,anything." Her words are desperate.

I scramble to my feet and push my back and palms against the windows, feeling the cold permeate through my shirt and against my hands. Staring at the floor, I refuse to look into her big green eyes. "Alice, this is a bad fucking idea." The words come out shaky as I try to regain some composure. "Such a fucking bad idea."

Standing from the chair, Alice approaches me. I look up to see her tear-stained eyes staring into mine. Watching the evidence of the pain on her face is like a knife twisting in my gut.

"Carter, I need you. I need you to make me feel. Please, just make me fucking feel.Please." Begging with a single tear rolling down her cheek, she takes my hand and holds it to her chest. Through her sweater I feel her raspy breathing beneath my palm.

"We're just friends, Alice. But, fuck, I want to ruin that." By the fabric of her sweater, I pull Alice towards me and crash my lips to hers, feeling her warmth against my body. I pull away long enough to say, "I've got you, princess. You can trust me."

Then she melts into me.

"I know. I would trust you with my life, but why did you call me princess?" she asks, sounding a little confused.

"It's 'princess' when I fuck you and 'Alice' when I don't. It'sless messy this way." I nod, trying to convince myself.

I am so fucking screwed.

"You need to tell me what you want, princess," I affirm the nickname.

"I want you to touch me." She calls on me to touch her, and I need to be sure she wants this.

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