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Chapter Twenty-Two

A urora

“It hit me straight in the forehead,” Tate says, mimicking getting smacked in the face with a hockey puck. “That was the last day I got on the ice.”

I laugh at the look of horror on his face as he relives the memory.

“It traumatized you, didn’t it?” I ask.

“Have you ever been hit in the face with something hard and …” He smirks. “Never mind.”

I elbow him in the stomach, making him chuckle.

We’ve been tucked away naked in his bedroom for hours. I left once to pee. He left one time to grab water and pie for us. Otherwise, Wednesday faded into Thursday with a soundtrack of our laughter.

My leg drapes over Tate’s. His hand rests on my thigh, gently stroking it back and forth. I’m not sure he even realizes he’s doing it at this point.

And I love it.

“Can’t be too mad at hockey, though,” he says. “It brought me to you.”

I slide my fork into the pie we’ve so carefully positioned on a pillow between us. “What are you going to do if Charlie comes back?”

It’s a thought that’s run through my mind a few times tonight during our haphazard conversations. Will he go back to traveling? Work out of another office? Stay at the Raptors?

“What would you like me to do?” he asks.

“It’s not really my choice.”

“Maybe it’s not ultimately your choice, but you have a say in the matter.”

I look at him, both brows lifted. “This is business. Your family counts on you. What I think doesn’t matter.”

He falls deeper into the pillows and shakes his head as if something I said amuses and frustrates him at the same time.

“What?” I ask, shoving the bite of pie in my mouth.

“Nothing.”

“No, what ?”

“You don’t want to hear it,” he says, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to hear half of the things you say, but I listen.”

He turns to me, dropping his jaw for my benefit.

I laugh. “Really. Tell me what you were thinking.”

“You can only blame yourself for this.”

“Sounds about right.”

He rolls his eyes. “When McCabe comes back, or when we find a replacement for him, I need to do something conducive to the rest of my life.”

I shrug, taking another bite. “Of course.”

“And you, gorgeous, are a part of the rest of my life.”

My chest tightens. The fork nearly falls out of my hand.

“You made me say it,” he says. “I wasn’t going to go there.”

I lay the utensil back in the pan. When I look at him, he’s smiling as if we’re still talking about an errant hockey puck twenty years ago.

His words both scare and comfort me. I can’t help but wonder if those emotions are not two sides of the same coin. Is it possible to feel comfortable if you haven’t identified and moved past the things that scare you?

I don’t know how to respond to him, so I change the subject.

“The Good Day reports were emailed to me this evening,” I say.

“I took a quick look at them before I left my house for Caesar’s.

Interesting stuff. Derek will tear into those numbers tomorrow and regurgitate them to the rest of us by the beginning of next week. I copied Charlie on it, just in case.”

“How do you feel about the rebrand?” he asks.

“I think the team has done an excellent job so far. Tally has been identifying community outreach projects we can get involved with, and I must admit, I'm surprised it hasn’t been done with the team before. We have lots of things in the works not to just appeal to your typical male hockey fan demographic, but to bring in women and children, too.”

He smiles. “I love the way you light up when you talk shop.”

I do?

“Your body is fucking fire, but your brain is the sexiest thing about you,” he says. “And I mean that in the best way.”

“ Wow . I don’t think anyone has ever complimented my brain before.”

“Have you always worked in sports marketing?”

I laugh, finding the question amusing. “No. This is the first time I’ve worked directly in a marketing position like this.”

“No shit?”

“Like I said, I worked as a cheerleader for a while in my twenties. That’s essentially marketing. But I did that just to be involved with sports because I loved them so much but could never play.” I paste on a fake smile. “Little girls don’t get dirty.”

He draws a line up my leg to the apex of my thighs. “Your parents would be very disappointed in you tonight.”

“You have no clue. I didn’t have sex until I married my first husband, and, in retrospect, I probably only married him so I could have sex. He was a virgin, too.”

Tate’s hand stops moving. “Kudos to him for waiting … but how?”

“He went to our church.”

“That’s some kind of dedication.”

He pulls his arm back and picks up his fork.

“There was no dedication in that marriage,” I say, stretching and yawning.

“Neither of them, really. Not to me, anyway. The first one had control issues. I see that now. He had a love/hate relationship with me working for the Legends. He supported me publicly but shamed me at home. Actually, he took a job here in Nashville, so I’d have to quit. ”

“What a fuck.”

“It gets better,” I say, laughing angrily. “He told me he didn’t want to have kids about a year into our marriage—knowing I did. But we were already married, and I thought maybe he’d come around. He did.” I shake my head. “He went on a mission trip and came home with a pregnant mistress.”

“Holy shit.” Tate’s eyes widen. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. That’s why I divorced him. Now, my second husband was the opposite. He was obsessed with me, I think. I know that sounds amazing.”

My stomach tightens, and I almost don’t finish the story. But with every sentence I say, a bit more of the heaviness I carry around is lifted from my chest.

Tate stills. “What happened with him?”

I force a swallow. “Two things were the nails in his coffin. First, his daughter was coming over for dinner, and I had forgotten to put the meat out to thaw the night before. So that morning, I ran to the grocery to buy a pot roast.” My stomach churns.

“He happened to have swung by the house while I was gone and was furious that I’d gone to the store alone.

I don’t think he believed me. I think he thought I was with someone else, maybe. ”

Tate’s fork hits the pan with a clink .

“She came over that night, and I had to create a lie to explain why my back was stiff and bruised.”

I barely get the words out before Tate pulls me into his chest. He holds me so tightly that I can scarcely breathe. And when I realize that no one has ever held me like this in my entire life before now, tears slip down my cheeks.

“Where is he now?” he asks, his voice rough.

“Far away from here. His daughter’s husband took care of it, and I never got the chance to really thank him.” I press a kiss to his sternum before lifting and wiping my cheeks with the sheet. “What about you? Have you been married? Engaged?”

He looks at me warily, as if he hasn’t gotten past my admission. I shake my head, silently telling him that I need to move this conversation along. And because he somehow understands me already, he acquiesces even though I know he doesn’t want to.

He clears his throat. “I have not been married or engaged.”

“That surprises me.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “I can imagine lines of women throwing themselves at you.”

“Well, they do. That’s true.”

I snort-laugh.

He grins, and the light slowly filters back in his eyes. “My parents fought my whole life. Well, they didn’t really fight in front of us. It was just obvious, to me at least, they didn’t like each other.”

“That’s sad.”

“I’ve always known that I wanted to have a family, have a home. I’ve wanted a beautiful wife and a house that smells like pie.”

That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

He reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together.

“I’ve always said that I’m going to do it once—find the right girl and sweep her off her feet,” he says, monitoring my reaction.

I don’t give him one—not one that he can use.

“Yeah, well, I thought that too, and I married two of the wrong ones,” I say. “It doesn’t always work out like that.”

“Guess I’m a better judge of character than you.”

“Fuck off,” I say, laughing.

“Hey, when you know, you know.” He shrugs. “That’s what my brothers have told me, and I didn’t think Gannon would ever be happy.”

I scooch around so I’m facing him. He appears to prefer this position. His hands slide right into my lap. I prefer this position, too.

“Was Gannon who you were talking about in Nashville? The one you called a prick? The asshole boss?”

Tate snickers. “Yup.”

“That’s mean!”

“He is a prick sometimes,” he says. “But he married my best friend, which is great for him and terrible for me because I lost her in the deal. But they’re happy, and I still call Carys whenever I want to?—”

“ Wait .” My jaw drops. No. This is not … no. “What’s her name?”

“Carys,” he says slowly.

Oh God. I close my eyes. “What’s her last name, Tate?”

“Johnso … holy fuck .”

Holy fuck is right.

He shoots up in bed.

Cringing, I open my eyes and brace myself.

My features display shock, in that my ex-stepdaughter is my … whatever Tate is to me at this point’s best friend. Tate’s features also display shock in a much more entertaining way.

This is not going to be good.

“You’re the hot stepmommy,” he says, his eyes twinkling.

“What are you talking about?”

He climbs out of bed, laughing hysterically. “Why didn’t I put this together before now? It all makes sense.” He faces me as if he just solved world hunger. “The Legends! That’s why that was so familiar to me.”

“How did you know that?”

“Carys might’ve stalked you—don’t judge her, though. Never tell her that I told you that.”

She stalked me? “Okay …”

“It was harmless,” he says. “Don’t panic. Anyway , I saw a picture of you looking hot as fuck in your cheer uniform. And I’ve always teased Carys that I wanted to bang her hot stepmommy. Now I’m banging her hot stepmommy .”

“Never call me that again.”

He cackles. “New kink unlocked.”

“Stop it!”

“Wanna role-play?” He wiggles his brows. “You can?—”

“Tate! Stop,” I say, trying not to laugh at his ridiculousness.

“You didn’t even hear me out.”

I sigh.

“You can call me Daddy if you want.”

I climb out of bed and cross my arms over my chest. “This isn’t funny.”

He grabs his cock and palms it. “You’re right. It’s hot as fuck .”

Tate walks toward me with a glimmer in his eye. I take a step back. Then another. His smile grows wider with each movement, and the pull in my core grows tighter.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say. He opens his mouth, but I can read his mind. “And don’t call me Mommy.”

He growls, still moving forward. “You’re taking the fun out of this.”

“What are you doing?” I ask, laughing. My heartbeat picks up. “You’re making me nervous.”

He leaps forward, and I stumble backward, shrieking as I land on the bed. My ass lands in the pie plate and blueberry pie filling squirts everywhere.

“Tate! Wait!” I say, trying to warn him about the mess.

If he hears me, he pays no attention to it. He’s on me before all the syllables fall from my lips.

“Pie,” I say, looking at him hovering over me. “Sorry.”

He kisses me quickly and then rolls to the side. A sneaky smile graces his lips.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, scooping a blob of the filling with his finger. Then he dangles it over my naked chest, letting it fall between my breasts.

My chest rises and falls rapidly. I giggle. “What are you doing?”

“I have to clean up my messes, right, Mo?—”

“Tate! Don’t you dare … ah !”

His tongue slides down my chest, lapping up the dark blue blob. His eyes stay trained on me as I wiggle beneath him.

His right palm is covered with the dessert, and he plants it just below my belly button. The mixture is sticky and soft. The entire room is perfumed like blueberries. Tate smears the mixture up my torso and my nipples, painting the buds with his fingertips.

“ Oops ,” he says, grinning devilishly.

“Right. Oops, my ass.”

“I can oops your ass.”

I shriek as he turns me over, smacks my ass, and blueberry pie goes everywhere.

“This is going to stain everything,” I say, laughing. “You’re nuts!”

He lies next to me, his hand resting on my backside. His smile lights up the room. Somehow, it shines on the inner corners of my heart—the parts that have been hidden in the shadows for far too long.

His kiss is tender and sweet, and I melt into him. But as he pulls away, his smirk is back.

“Ready to get eaten, Stepmommy?”

“Tate!”

His laughter mixes with mine. And if this is the kind of relationship Tate has in mind, I might be okay with it after all.