Page 91 of Ruled Out

I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat won’t shift; it feels like I’m choking, and I know it’s on painful memories. “He, um … he died that night. Mom said it was an infection that took him. But they never made it back to the hospital in time. I’d spent all night crying and wailing. Mom couldn’t settle me; she said it was like I knew something wasn’t right. They say that twins, you know, even as newborns, we instinctively feel what the other one is experiencing.”

I drop my forehead to her shoulder, dampness coating her skin. “He was so damn small, Mia. One day when I was around ten years old, I found the ID band that the doctors had put around his ankle.”

I fight to inflate my lungs, but each time I try, it feels like the vise fastened around them tightens. “I don’t know all that happened after Will’s death since I was a baby too. Mom was always a heavy drinker, but as the years went on and I got older, she spiraled out of control. She blamed herself for Will’s death. Grief tore her apart, but alcohol never gave her a chance to heal.”

“And your dad, he blames you, right?”

Picking my head back up, I shift a piece of loose hair from her face. “Dad has always been an asshole. My mom’s parents hated him from the second they met them until the day they died. I was young when Papa took his last breath. Papa had been my rock and the only member of my family who believed in me and my hockey career. They never knew the horrors of what went on behind closed doors, but they never trusted Dad either.”

Mia kisses the tip of my nose, letting me know she’s here and listening.

“My dad told me I was the reason Will was so small, I was the reason he was too weak to survive, and I was the reason they never got to say goodbye. Funny thing is, I don’t think he reallycares all that much about Will; he just uses his death as a reason to be cruel and hate on me.”

“I just can’t understand how someone can hate like that, especially their own flesh and blood,” Mia whispers.

I run my trembling lips over hers. “Those are answers I’ll never be able to give you, Sweetheart. Because I’m nothing like him. I’m nothing like the person your dad thinks I am. Turning into him has never been my fear. Becoming my mom has. Every time I have a drink, I know I’m sinking further into her mold. Watching her destroy herself broke me. My dad beat me every night; he beat her too. But the bruises you see from him are just surface-level wounds.”

Picking up her hand, I place both of ours over the dove that decorates my heart. “The true bleeding is in here. It bleeds for my mom; it bleeds for my brother. But it keeps beating for you.”

“I love you, Jessie.”

“Even when you thought I was shutting you out of my life and running away from you, you were saving me. You saved me, Mia. You did back then, and you do every day now.”

“I just believed in you, Jessie. You are the reason you’re standing here today.Nevertake that away from yourself. It takes incredible strength to keep going against all the odds, and it takes even more courage to know when to ask for help. Thank you for trusting me.”

The golden fleck in her eye shines in the soft lighting of her side lamp, and the urge to bury myself deep inside my girlfriend, along with my darkest memories, hits me square on.

I sit back on my heels, threading my fingers through hers, and she sits up with me, the duvet still wrapped around us.

When my hands find the clasp on her red bra, she looks up at me. “Can I ask you one more question?”

“Anything,” I reply, releasing the clasp and her stunning tits.

“When you joined the Scorpions, your number was ninety-eight. Then, the next season, it was forty-four. No one ever really knew why you’d changed it.”

She noticed.

I lay her back down and bring one of her nipples to my lips, swirling my tongue around it until it peaks in my mouth. She groans at the pleasure, and the sound pumps blood straight to my dick. With a single hand, I push down my pants to free myself.

“When things got really tough for me mentally, Coach Burrows and the GM asked me if there was anything they could do to help. And I asked if I could switch up my jersey number. Number ninety-eight had been allocated to me at the last minute, and I hated it from the start. Will was born at eight minutes past nine at night, and every time I look at that number, it triggered memories I couldn’t handle. It’s not normally something a team does, but I was granted special permission to change it.”

My hands fall to the waistband of her thong, and I pull her panties down and over her legs, tossing them on the floor alongside her bra.

Pushing myself down the bed, I dangle my feet over the end, spread her legs apart, and swipe my tongue through her soaking pussy. “Forty-four is an angel number. It also means tenacity, belief, and manifestation. You can have the life you truly want if you believe in it enough. I never stopped believing in us, Mia. I never stopped loving you. If I couldn’t put my name on your back, I’d wear our number.”

“Fuck me,” she pleads, and I feel the way her pussy contracts around my tongue as I push it into her. “Now. I need you inside me.”

I rise onto my knees above her, the only way I want to take her tonight is to be as deep as possible. “On your hands and knees for me, Mia.”

I watch as she does as I ask, her eyes never leaving mine as she turns around, her silky black hair falling over her shoulders.

“What do you want me to do now?” Her voice is full of need as I bring my palms to her ass and spread her wide, and she gasps at the sensation.

“Come all over my face,” I command, sucking her pussy into my mouth.

She drops her head into the pillows. “Oh my god.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re so damn ready for me,” I rasp against her, swiping my tongue over her entrance. The pressure building in my cock is virtually unbearable. “Let me drink you in, Mia. Come for me.”

---