Page 126 of Faking All the Way
Groaning deeply, I bend over her upper body, thrusting one last time before emptying myself. I latch my mouth onto her shoulder, sucking hard, marking her skin as the orgasm rolls through me, wave after wave of it.
As the last aftershocks jolt through me, I slump over her back a little. My heart is thudding so hard that I’m sure she can feel it, shaking my ribs with each beat. I grip her chin gently and turn her head, finding her lips with mine. This kiss is long and deep and slow, our tongues sliding together as if we have all the time in the world.
Because now we do.
When we break apart and I slide out carefully, her legs are shaking too. We’re both so unsteady that we end up sliding down to sit on the floor by the window, our backs leaning against it, the cold glass a shock after all that heat.
But that’s not enough for me. I need her closer, so I pull her onto my lap so that she’s straddling me, her legs on either side of my hips. Cum is leaking out of her, making a mess on my lap and thighs, but I like it. I like feeling the evidence of what we just did, of how I marked her inside and out.
I brush her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears. Then I kiss the tear tracks that linger on her cheeks, dried now. “I’m so sorry. For everything. For not telling you sooner how I felt. For letting you believe Alexis’s lies even for a second.”
She shakes her head, her hands resting on my chest.
“I’msorry. I shouldn’t have let Alexis and all my old fears get in my head like that. I let it pull me away from you when I should have been running toward you.” Then her expression shifts, turning serious and determined. “But you can’t give up your contract. That’s your dream, Asher. I know how much you love hockey, and I won’t let you lose that job because of me.”
“I won’t be losing anything as long as I have you,” I tell her, meaning every word. “The contract doesn’t matter if you’re not in my life.”
She shakes her head adamantly, the spark of stubbornness that I love so much about her rising up. “No. I’m done letting my insecurities keep me from a good thing. And I sure as hell won’t let them keep you from a good thing either.”
She takes a breath, squaring her shoulders. “So what if I’m not what a hockey girlfriend ‘should’ look like? Who decides that anyway? Who decides what world I get to be a part of, if not me and you?”
My stomach clenches at the word she just used.Girlfriend. Not as part of our fake arrangement, but real. The first time it’s ever been said like that between us, and I fucking love it.
“Girlfriend?” I repeat, unable to stop the grin that tugs at my lips.
She flushes, her cheeks going pink. “If you want me to be.”
“Hell fucking yes I do, bright eyes.” I pull her in for another kiss, quick and hard. “I want you to be my girlfriend, my partner, my everything. We can make it work. I can come back to Philly as often as I can. I’ll be there every second when I’m not practicing or playing. We’ll figure out the distance somehow.”
She hesitates, biting her lip. “Or…”
“Or what?”
“What if I came with you? To Denver.”
My heart stutters, seeming to stop for a second before starting up again like a drumbeat. “What?”
“I’m freelance. I can work from anywhere. I just need internet and my supplies.” She shrugs lightly, even though I can see how nervous she is. “It’s not like I’m super rooted in Philly anyway. I’ve moved around a lot already since I left Maplewood the first time.”
“You would really do that?” I murmur, my hands resting on her hips. “You’d move to Denver with me?”
“Yes.” She swallows, her eyes locked on mine. “You asked me once why I moved around so much, why I never seemed to settle anywhere for long. And I said I didn’t know, that I just got restless. But now I think it was because I was searching for a place that felt like home. I just didn’t realize until now that ‘home’ isn’t a place for me. It’s a person. You. You’re my home.”
God, I love this woman so much.
I palm the back of her head, bringing her in for a kiss. Pouring everything I feel into it, trying to show her what her words mean to me.
“You’re my home too, bright eyes,” I whisper into our kiss. “Forever.”
For the first time in years, maybe in my entire life, I’m not afraid of that word. Forever used to terrify me, used to seem like a trap or a lie people told themselves.
But with her, it’s a promise I can’t wait to make.
Chapter Forty-Five
Kat
I wake up on Christmas morning wrapped in Asher’s arms, sunlight streaming through the curtains of my bedroom in the main cabin. The light is that special kind of bright that only happens when there’s fresh snow on the ground, reflecting everything back twice as strong.
