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Chapter Twenty-Three

“I tell secrets. It’s what I do. I love my job.” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Boh

We lay in bed, her honey brown hair fanning out across my pillow, my sheets. She curled one hand beneath her cheek as she faced me on the bed. Her pretty eyes stared up at me, her lips pink and full from my kisses. She had the look I was coming to know. The one that said a question perched on the tip of her tongue, that her curiosity was aroused.

“Go ahead,” I told her, “ask whatever you’re thinking.”

“I was just wondering… was it so bad at Brightside that you preferred living with a complete stranger to being there?”

“Complete stranger? Would she be as hot as the woman currently in my bed?” She laughed, playfully slapping my hand where it rested atop my chest. “It wasn’t that I hated Brightside. I hated the way I felt there. The feeling of being locked down, under constant scrutiny. Being there made it impossible to forget for even a second why I was there. What was at stake. It still fills my thoughts, but at least around here, I have some distractions.”

“Me?” She leaned up, a worried little dip between her brows. “You’re calling me a distraction?”

“You have to admit, what we just did was pretty distracting.”

She plopped back down on the bed. “I’m not liking your description of time spent with me, Mr. Zacha. Maybe I need to head back to my own room and leave you to your K-dramas. Let them be your ‘distraction’.”

I tugged until she lay half over my chest, wrapping my arms around her and holding her in place. I joked, but the truth blasted through my head. It’d been a long time since I’d been in a relationship, probably as far back as my junior years. I couldn’t remember wanting any of the women I’d spent time with to linger. I flattened my hand along the ridge of her spine, pressing her soft body close. I didn’t want Novy going anywhere.

“But you're so much more interesting than even my favorite drama.” I rolled her closer, my eyes on the top of her head. “Being in the NHL is a dream come true. Every time I lace on a pair of skates, every time I slam the puck into the net. Hell, even the drills and practices we all bitch about. Every part of being on the team is a dream. But it’s a fragile dream.” My fingers tightened around her hip, on the smooth skin of her shoulder. “Gone in a blink. I’m making it back, I know it. In my head, in my heart, I know I’m making it back from my injury this time. But what about the next? When will the universe decide I’ve had my share of luck and rip everything away? I can’t shake the idea that it’s too good to be true. That I’m living on borrowed time.”

She smoothed her fingers over my chest, soothingly, as though she could pet away my worries. “Don’t say that, Boh. You’ve worked hard. That’s how the universe works, right? You work hard and earn your place. It’s not going to slip through your fingers.”

“But it nearly did already, didn’t it?”

“You mean your accident?” She pushed up, wedging her hands against my chest and turning her face to mine.

“Yes.” I looped a length of her hair around my finger, so silky soft. “Hammer lives with a grudge on his shoulder. Isn’t that the saying? He pushes and pushes. I knew he’d had a couple drinks. He had no business being behind the wheel of that car. But I needed to get away from Aubrey and Trent, the shocked faces of my teammates and everyone else in that bar. When he took off, I took off with him.”

I closed my eyes. I hadn’t even reached the bottom of the pit, but I’d thought everything was out of control then. When all I had to deal with was Trent biting at my heels and the first concussion. Would I have chilled if I’d realized it was going to get worse? That I was lining up for more serious circumstances—a broken leg and another, more severe than the first, concussion?

“Did they tell you I had a concussion mid-season? Had to leave the game, missed the next two, but made it back fast. It scared me. My first real injury since coming to the pros. I’ve been lucky. Guess my luck ran out.”

“Don’t think like that, Boh. Luck isn’t real, anyway. Luck is being prepared when opportunity strikes.”

“Is that right?”

She poked my chest. “That’s what the graphic on my Insta feed says, so it must be true.”

Her grin sent a curl of warmth from my chest, to my fingers. A steady pulse of something dangerously close to happiness.

“You’re awfully talkative tonight.”

I cocked a brow toward the sheets and her nakedness. “You caught me at a good moment.”

She laughed again, wiggling off me to sit on the side of the bed. “So the trick to getting the grump Bohdan Zacha to talk is sex?”

“Yes,” I said with a serious nod. “Works like a charm. You have more questions? I’ll be ready to go another round—”

She slapped my arm. “Using sex is wrong.”

“But effective.”

“So now’s when I should ask about what you told the doctor at Brightside, then? What’s the truth about your symptoms?”

The image of Tom Edwards crashing to the ground at the golf tournament flashed through my mind. “You know the answers to that question. He’s got all he needs from me.”

I grabbed her wrist and tugged her back down, wrapping my arms around her waist as she tumbled across me. Her tongue slipped out to moisten her pink lips and I lifted my head to steal a taste. I was addicted to the taste of her lips.

“Time to pay up if you have more questions.”

She sighed against my lips, her fingers slipping through my hair. “I guess,” she said, “if I have to. ‘Cause I really want to know what you’re afraid of the doctor finding out.”

I froze, my lips on the curve of her neck. She’d landed on the real question, the real problem, but from the way she arched up against my hand, I didn’t think she realized it. I nuzzled into the curve between her neck and shoulder, my hands exploring, my pulse picking up a steady, heavy rhythm.

Better to focus on bringing Novy pleasure, and hope she didn’t circle back around to her question again. Because I’d always play hockey. No matter the risk, I’d always play hockey. I wouldn’t be Boh Zacha without hockey. But I was suddenly terrified of what I’d be willing to sacrifice to keep hockey, w ho I’d be willing to sacrifice to continue playing the game that had been my life for as long as I could remember.

She pushed on my shoulder and I rolled us until she hovered above me. She leaned down to run her lips along my neck, to my chest. My fingers threaded through her silky hair.

Would I sacrifice Novy?

Did I even have Novy?

She slid lower, her warm mouth at my pec, then drifting lower. The muscles of my stomach rippled as she kissed her way south.

I wouldn’t do to Novy what Tom Edwards did to his wife. This thing between us was early enough, I could stop us before it went any further. Before feelings took over and emotions became involved and—

Her fingers closed around my dick and my thoughts scattered. As she slid between my legs, her bright blue eyes looking up at me as her mouth closed around the tip of my dick, I grit my teeth.

I would sacrifice Novy. I couldn’t tolerate the idea of her seeing me vulnerable. Wouldn’t let her witness the crap that lay in my future if my brain decided to go bad. Because I would be Tom and she would be Katie, and I had no business dragging her down with me. I’d stop now. Before I started imagining a future with her.

I’d take the rest of this time with her. Until I was cleared for the ice. Then her obligation would be over, she’d have Fernbrook for her derby, and our connection would come to an end.

Pain spiked through my chest, sharp and intense, even as she slid me to the back of her throat, taking me deep. Her wet mouth pulled me away from the painful decision and delivered a different kind of torture.

But Novy wasn’t a girl like Aubrey that I could easily dismiss. No more than I was like Shep, a reliable, good man. I was a time bomb, ready to explode. And Novy Dalton deserved better than the unpredictable future I could offer.