Page 27

Chapter twenty-seven

Nina

I ’ve never woken up from a dream that felt this real, or this confusing.

The light through the window is the kind of golden haze that should feel peaceful. But this morning, my stomach’s in knots, and my brain’s spinning like I’m still in the middle of that kiss.

Alex. His mouth on mine. The way he looked at me—like I was the only thing that existed in that moment.

I sit up in bed, heart still unsteady, and scroll to his name in my phone. My thumbs hover for a second, because once I type this, there’s no pretending it’s casual.

Can we talk?

I hit send. Seconds stretch.

Then—

Where do you want to meet?

Could I come to your place? It might be easier. On the way to my office anyway.

Yeah. Okay. It’s quiet here. I'll text you the address.

Perfect. Is late morning okay?

Yeah. I’ll be here.

I exhale slowly, then start getting dressed.

***

His house is tucked just outside downtown, a renovated craftsman-style place with navy-blue siding, white trim, and a porch that looks like it’s seen its share of quiet mornings and late-night decompression. It’s got clean lines, modern touches, but still manages to feel lived in—like Alex. A pair of hockey sticks lean near the front door, and a set of well-worn running shoes sit beside them. There’s a faint scent of pine as I step onto the porch. The front door opens before I knock.

He’s in joggers and a hoodie. Barefoot. Hair damp like he just got out of the shower. And he smiles.

Sort of.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

He steps aside, letting me in. The place smells like fresh coffee and the faint scent of whatever body wash he uses that makes me want to lose my mind.

We stand awkwardly for a second. Then he gestures toward the couch.

“Want coffee?”

I nod. “Please.”

He hands me a mug, and we settle into opposite ends of the couch like we’re in some kind of negotiation. It’s not tense. Not yet. But there’s something tight under my skin.

“So,” he says, sipping. “Big night for the team.”

I smile a little. “Especially you. That glove save in the third? Unreal.”

He smirks. “Thanks. I’m still waiting for someone to put it on a T-shirt.”

“Please don’t,” I say with a smirk of my own. “No one wants to wear that much ego on cotton.”

He chuckles, settling deeper into the couch. “Fair. I guess it belongs on a poster then. Maybe with glitter.”

I laugh and shake my head. “You want glitter now? That’s a bold choice for a goalie.”

“I’m a man of depth,” he says, sipping his coffee. “I contain multitudes. Including glitter and shutouts.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. My tension eases for a moment, which only makes what I’m about to say harder.

“Did the team go out last night?” I ask.

He nods. “Some of the guys hit that steakhouse on Fifth. I bailed early.”

“Too many cameras?”

“Too many people I didn’t want to see.” He pauses, then adds, “Didn’t feel like celebrating without you.”

I blink, caught off guard.

He doesn’t look at me when he says it, and I pretend not to hear the meaning beneath it. But I feel it, sharp and clear, sitting so heavy in my chest that I have to take a deep breath just to lighten the weight that just intensified.

I stare down at my coffee. “Alex…”

I laugh softly, then take a breath. “I didn’t just come here to relive the glory.”

His smile fades. He nods once. “Figured.”

I set the mug down, trying to keep my hands from shaking. “I got a job offer.”

He’s silent.

“It’s from the league office,” I continue. “Senior Mental Performance Consultant. National platform. Full department under me. It’s… everything I ever I wanted in my career.”

He stares at the coffee table.

"Where is the job?"

"It's based in New York."

“So you’re leaving,” he says flatly.

“No,” I say quickly. “I mean, I don’t know yet. I haven’t said yes.”

He lifts his eyes to mine, and there’s something dark there. Something hurt.

“You kissed me like it meant something,” he says. “And now you’re here telling me it was goodbye.”

My heart lurches. “That’s not what it was.”

“Then what was it?”

I struggle to answer. “It was real. It’s all real. But this offer is what I worked for. It’s what I thought I was supposed to want.”

“You said you didn’t want to mix personal and professional. But now you’re walking straight into one and shutting the other out.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No?” His voice sharpens. “Because it feels like I’m the only one who thinks this—whatever this is—is worth fighting for.”

I stand, too keyed up to sit still. “You think this is easy for me? That I haven’t been ripping myself apart over it?”

“Then why are you running?”

“Because I don’t know if staying is choosing you or giving up on everything I worked for!”

He stands too now, closing the space between us in two steps.

“And you don’t think I’m worth that risk?”

I swallow hard. “I think you’re the only risk that scares me.”

His jaw tightens. “Then stop pretending you’re not already all in.”

I hesitate. “Even if I am…it’s complicated. If I take this job, I’ll be flying across the country every week. I’ll be managing a team of consultants in every time zone. It’s not like I’ll be able to just drop in for dinner after practice.”

He nods slowly, jaw clenched. “And if you don’t take it?”

“I stay. We see where this goes. But I’d always wonder if I passed up the biggest opportunity of my career for something that might not last.”

Alex takes a step back, running a hand through his hair. “So what are you saying? That you’re leaving because it’s safer to let this die before it ever becomes real?”

“I’m saying I don’t know if long distance is sustainable. We’re both in high-travel careers. Between your season and mine, we’d see each other once a month if we’re lucky.”

He laughs, dry and bitter. “So that’s it? We don’t even try?”

“I’m not twenty-two, Alex. I don’t want a situationship that’s all airport reunions and text messages. Do you?”

He meets my gaze, voice low. “No. I want something real, with you. But I don’t want to force something that’ll fall apart just because we’re too scared to admit it’s not the right time.”

We stand there, caught between truths that hurt more than lies ever could.

“What if the right time never comes?” I whisper.

He looks at me for a long beat, and his voice is so quiet it barely registers.

“Then maybe we weren’t meant to work after all.”

He exhales, his voice thick. "Because I think you are worth it, Nina. All of it. The distance. The mess. The uncertainty. But it sounds like you don’t think I am."

“That’s not true,” I say quickly, chest tightening. “Alex, this isn’t about your worth. It’s about whether either of us can actually build something that lasts under the pressures of distance and work requirements.”

His eyes are stormy, searching. “If I thought there was even a sliver of a chance, I’d fight like hell to make it work. But I can’t be the only one willing to fight.”

I bite my lip, trying to hold back everything building inside me. “Do you think I don’t want to? Do you think I haven’t imagined every version of us somehow making this work?”

“Then why does it feel like you already made your choice?”

“I haven’t.”

“But you’re standing there,” he says, voice cracking just slightly, “like you're bracing for goodbye.”

We stare at each other, breathing hard. The silence between us isn’t empty—it’s loaded. With anger. With heat. With need.

And then I move.

Or maybe he does.

Either way, our mouths crash together like a match to gasoline.

Hands grab. Clothes tug. We don’t make it far…just to the hallway wall, his back hitting plaster as I press up into him.

He groans into my mouth. My fingers dive under his hoodie. His grip clamps on my hips, guiding me until we’re flush, breath tangled.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he pants.

I kiss him harder.

“Tell me this is just stress relief,” he growls.

“It’s not.”

He backs me toward the bedroom, still kissing me like he’s starving, like I’m the only thing that can fix this ache under his skin.

And I feel it too.

I don’t know how this ends.

But I know exactly how it begins.

And it starts with him. Right here. Right now.

We fall onto the bed like we’ve done this a thousand times, but we haven’t. It’s still new and wild. His hands are on my thighs, pulling me closer as I straddle him, both of us breathless and shaking, not from nerves but from pure emotion and confusion that is happening right now.

“You drive me insane,” I whisper against his lips.

“Good,” he growls, flipping us without warning. I gasp as my back hits the mattress, and his body cages me in all the best ways. “Because I think about you all the damn time.”

His mouth traces a path down my neck, slow and possessive, like he wants to learn every inch. I arch into him, fingers threading through his hair, caressing until he groans.

“You don’t play fair,” I say.

He grins against my skin. “Neither do you.”

We’re a tangle of limbs and curses, gasping out each other’s names like confessions, as we claw at fabric. His hoodie is the first to go—I shove it up his chest and he helps, yanking it over his head and tossing it to the floor. My fingers dive under the waistband of his joggers, feeling the heat of his skin, the flex of his muscles. He growls when I palm him through his briefs.

“Fuck, Nina,” he hisses, hands already under my shirt. “Take this off. Now.”

I pull the shirt over my head in one motion, and his hands are on my back immediately, unclasping my bra with practiced ease. He groans as he drags it down my arms, mouthing over the swell of one breast while his thumb teases the other.

“You’re unreal,” he mutters against my skin. “Every damn inch of you.”

My leggings are next. He kneels and slowly peels them down, kissing the inside of each thigh as he does, his scruff scraping lightly in a way that makes me shiver. Then his mouth is on my stomach, tracing a slow line up to my chest again, pausing just long enough to drive me insane.

When I reach for the waistband of his briefs, he grabs my wrist.

“Let me,” he says, voice rough and dark. He peels them off slowly, and on his way back up, he deliberately, drags his tongue over my hipbone before kissing up between my breasts, along my collarbone, and then my mouth again.

We’re naked, fully, finally, and he looks at me like I’m everything.

He takes his time—his hands exploring every curve, every arch. He tongues my nipple, then trails lower, tasting, learning, claiming. By the time his mouth moves between my legs, I’m already a shaking, moaning, and desperate mess.

I tug at his hair as his tongue circles and presses. He flattens it, groans into me, and I cry out. “Alex—oh my god—”

“I’m not stopping,” he growls. “Not until you come for me first.”

I do. With his name on my lips, thighs trembling, nails digging into his shoulders as he holds me through it.

And that’s before he even enters me.

“I don’t want to want you this much,” I whisper.

He stills for half a second, gaze locked to mine. “Then stop pretending you don’t.”

The kiss that follows is brutal—tongue, teeth, gasped breaths—and it’s everything I need. His hands are everywhere, and mine are no better. I reach down between us, fingers wrapping around his hard length, marveling at the heat and weight of him in my palm as he grinds against me.

“I hate that you make me forget everything else,” I pant.

“Good,” he says again. “Because I want to be the only thing you remember today.”

He shifts over me with a wicked glint in his eyes, bracing his forearms on either side of my head. Then he lowers his mouth to my ear.

“Keep your hands above your head,” he murmurs.

My breath catches, but I do it, threading my fingers into the pillow behind me.

His lips trail down my neck, and then he slides lower, mouth worshipping each breast, teasing my nipples until I’m gasping. He doesn’t rush. It’s a slow, consuming taking. His hand grazes down my stomach, stopping just above where I ache for him.

“You’re already shaking,” he whispers, voice husky. “And I haven’t even started round two yet.”

I squirm beneath him, but he pins my hips with one strong hand. His tongue follows his fingers as he kisses a slow, deliberate path down to my inner thigh—then bites, gently, just to hear me moan.

“Alex,” I gasp.

“Yeah?” he says, voice rough. “You want me to stop?”

“No,” I groan. “God, no.”

“Then don’t move your hands.”

I don’t. I can’t. Not when his mouth finally finds me again and drives me straight over the edge.

Only when I’m boneless and breathless beneath him does he slide back up, positioning himself over me, lips brushing mine.

“Now I’ll show you what it means to not be in control,” he says, and thrusts two fingers into me with one deep, claiming stroke.

I spread my legs and pull him closer. “Take me,” I whisper. “I want you to take control. Just… take me, Alex.”

His eyes flare. “You sure?”

I nod, breathless. “I don’t want to think right now. I want to feel you. All of you.”

He smirks, slow and sinful. “You’re going to feel every second of this, Nina.”

His mouth on my chest is fire. His fingers find their way lower, slow at first, then confident, coaxing moans I can’t hold back. I writhe beneath him, no longer sure where I end and he begins.

When his cock enters me, it’s a stretch, a shock, a homecoming. We move together in fits and starts—rough and then slow, like we’re learning each other all over again.

“Say it,” he murmurs, lips at my ear.

“I want you.”

“Louder.”

“I want you. I want this. I want—”

He cuts me off with another kiss, hips slamming into mine in rhythm that steals the air from my lungs.

There’s nothing but sensation now. No job. No fear. No future. Just this. Just us.

His thumb finds my clit and circles it until I’m shaking.

“Come again for me, Nina,” he commands.

And I do. Hard. Clutching him, crying out his name, clinging like I might lose everything if I let go.

He follows moments later, groaning into my neck, collapsing onto me with a final, shuddering breath.

We lie tangled together in the silence, hearts thudding, bodies slick with sweat.

His fingers trace the scar on my shoulder.

“I didn’t know I needed this until I had it,” he murmurs.

I close my eyes, trying to steady my thoughts. “Me neither.”

He doesn’t ask me to stay. He doesn’t say a word. But I feel it in his touch.

He’s hoping.

But he’s also bracing.

Because we both know this moment doesn’t fix the future.

At some point, I must’ve drifted off. We both did.

The room is warm and quiet, afternoon sunlight cutting across the bed in long golden rays. My head rests against his chest and his arm is slung loosely over my waist. I can feel the rise and fall of his breath against my back.

It’s peaceful. Disarmingly so.

But when I shift, my eyes land on the clock on the dresser.

Shit.

I sit up gently, trying not to wake him as the weight of reality returns. Work. The team. The offer.

Everything is still waiting for me outside this room.

I sit up, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I should go. I need to get to the office.”

He nods without argument, watching me dress like he wants to memorize every movement.

I reach the door when my phone buzzes.

League Office – Follow-up: Pending Decision

My stomach twists.

I gave him my body.

I gave him my truth.

But I still haven’t given him my choice.