Page 39

THIRTY-ONE

DANIEL

“Do your boobs hurt?” With a grimace, I rub at my nipples.

It’s week three of training, and we’re still finding our groove now that Camden is gone. We’ve been adjusting the lines, and from what I can tell, Noah has settled in well with Aiden and War. That means I’ll most likely remain on the second line with Keegan and one of the rookies. I’m putting effort into remaining positive, focusing on becoming a dad rather than on the changes in my career I can’t control. Which, I guess, is why I’m rubbing my sore nipples in front of my teammates.

Standing in front of the locker next to mine, War glares. The look says go fuck yourself and you’re an idio t all at once. It’s impressive, really.

“And the heartburn. It’s fucking killing me.” I move one hand to the center of my chest and push on it like the guys on the vlog suggest. It helps. I swear it. “Tell me I’m not alone here.”

Brooks looks up from lacing his skates. “Uh. Shouldn’t the pregnant person in your relationship be the one having heartburn?”

“Nah, they’re called sympathy symptoms.”

I can list every one of Hannah’s symptoms front to back now that she’s no longer hiding from me.

“So the two of you are spending time together?” Brooks asks.

War’s still watching me out of the corner of his eye like he can’t figure me out.

“Yeah. When she’s not traveling, we’re together. Though it feels like she’s never off the clock. Does Sara ever stop?”

Brooks straightens, brows pulled low. “What do you mean?”

“She’s dealing with an emergency just about every night. If it’s not one of the rookies, it’s fucking Jasper Quinn. I never considered myself a jealous guy, but the way she runs when his number flashes on her phone is concerning.”

“I’d kill any of you if you caused Sara headaches like that,” Brooks says without so much as blinking.

War nods. “Yeah, I’m not against bodily harm if it means my wife sleeps at night.”

“But this is Hannah .” My girl is a bit crazy. And not in the same way Sara is. Sara’s harmless, while I’m pretty sure the term she could kill a bitch was coined just for Hannah. “I don’t even know if we’re actually together together ,” I add because it seems pertinent.

I sleep over there when she’s in town—and sometimes when she’s not because Noah and I have been hanging out, and he and Oliver have been teaching me how to play Dungeons and Dragons—the kid version, obviously. Besides, her bed is softer than mine, and it smells like her. I haven’t actually told her that I sleep there when she’s not there. I’m afraid she’ll think it’s creepy, or that it goes against the agreement we’ve made—which is that I come when she calls, and then she comes. Sorry, I had to, and besides, it’s true. It’s a guarantee: within an hour of walking in the door, my girl is writhing beneath me.

“What are you going to do when the baby is born?” Aiden bounces on his toes, stretching his muscles.

“What do you mean?”

“She can’t possibly do her job with a newborn,” War points out.

I roll my eyes. “She’s Hannah. Of course she can.”

“Does that mean you’re going to quit your job and stay home with the baby when she has to run out at all hours of the night to deal with bullshit?” War cocks a thick, dark brow. “What about when she’s traveling for thirty weeks out of the year? Our seasons overlap. How’s that going to work?”

Gut twisting painfully, I eye Brooks. Sara and Hannah both work in PR, just for different teams. “What will you do when that happens?”

“We don’t plan to have kids yet. Neither of us wants to give up what we do.”

I turn to Aiden, my chest tightening.

He shakes his head. “Lex and I are enjoying our baby-free lots-of-sex marriage. I’ll let ya know if the plan changes.”

Short of breath, I focus on War. “You have kids. Hell, you’re about to have four of them, and you’re making it work.”

“My wife’s job doesn’t require her to travel. That’s how we ended up married in the first place. I needed someone home with the kids.”

“You sure you want to phrase it that way?”

War doesn’t look the least bit ashamed. “It’s our story. Can’t change it, and honestly, I wouldn’t. I love my wife, but the truth of the matter is that had I not been trying to figure out how to raise three kids on my own, I doubt we would have ended up together. The kids are part of our love story, and I’m okay with that. Now your child is part of your story, so what do the two of you have planned when it comes to raising him or her?”

I shrug and inhale deeply, forcing my nerves to settle. “I guess we probably need a nanny.”

“I guess you should probably talk to your baby ma?—”

I point at War with a glare. “Do not finish that sentence.”

War smirks. “Thatta boy.”

“I’ll talk to Hannah.”

“You do that. And while you’re at it, do not complain about any of those pregnancy symptoms. You sound like an idiot.”

I blow out a breath. The guys on the vlog would understand. “They’re called sympathy symptoms. Maybe I’m just more in tune with my woman than you are.”

He turns and faces me full-on, shoulders pulled back. “You don’t even know if you’re in a relationship with your woman. I promise you, the two of you are not more in tune than me and my wife.”

Deflating, I yank my jersey from its hanger. He’s right. And I fucking hate that he can use that term so freely, while I can’t even call Hannah mine.

Because she is. She just doesn’t know it yet.

“Oh, god. Right there. Yes!” Hannah wraps her legs around my head and bucks her hips, chasing her orgasm.

She’s on the precipice, clenching around my fingers, when her damn phone rings.

She growls and slaps the mattress, her thighs relaxing as she reaches for it. “Hello?”

I swipe at my face and suck in the first deep breath I’ve had in a good ten minutes.

Hannah’s expression darkens. “No, Jasper. Don’t do that. No, dammit. I’ll handle it. Just”—she pulls the phone from her ear and glances at the screen—“give me thirty minutes.” She slides her legs off my shoulders and settles on the edge of the bed as she ends the call.

“What’s the problem?” I’m proud of myself for keeping my tone even when all I want to do is fucking growl.

She reaches for her robe, her words clipped. “Jasper got into a fight at a bar. I need to go down there and take care of the security footage and the guy he fought with.”

“Absolutely not,” I grit out, sitting up.

Hannah tenses and slowly turns my way. “Excuse me?”

Maybe I should be scared by the death glare she’s wearing. Maybe I don’t have any sense of self-preservation.

“There is no way my pregnant girlfriend is getting out of bed at ten p.m. to deal with some asshole in a bar.” I hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

She rolls her lips in like she’s fighting a smile as she drops the device into my hand.

“And yes, I called you my girlfriend. You’re going to have to deal with it.”

Tongue in her cheek, she averts her attention. The girl who always has something to say has suddenly gone silent. I laugh. I’m a fucking idiot. She’s clearly my girlfriend, and she doesn’t mind when I take control, yet I’ve been too afraid to try until now. Too afraid to push the relationship boundaries.

I pull up Jasper’s information and text him. I remind him not to say a word to anyone and just hang tight.

“What did you say?” she asks, her expression guarded.

“I told him exactly what you did. That I’ll be there in thirty.” I also told him to make sure his baseball buddies stick around. I’m only doing this once.

Hannah studies me, lips turned down. “The bar is around the block. If you went right now, you could be there in five.”

“Right, but I’m not leaving until my girlfriend comes.”

She shakes her head but at the same time drops her robe. “This is very unprofessional. It’s my job that you’ll be doing.”

With a growl, I pull my naked girlfriend onto my lap. “Baby, my job is to take care of you. Can you let me do that, please?”

Biting her lip, she grinds against me. “Call me your girlfriend again.”

I flip over, laying her flat on her back, and push her thighs apart. “Look at how beautiful my girlfriend looks begging for my cock.” I line myself up and fill her in one thrust. “Can my girlfriend be quiet?”

She moans loudly in response. “Fuck no.”

Chuckling, I grab the headboard with one hand and cover her mouth with my other. “Then I’ll just have to find a way to keep my girlfriend quiet.” I thrust into her warmth again, relishing the way she tightens around me. “Don’t want your brother to hear.”

The vixen moans loudly—she loves being loud—and nips at my palm. “Oliver isn’t even home.”

I slam into her hard enough to make the bed shift. Luckily, I’m gripping the headboard hard enough to keep it from hitting the wall. “Yes, but Noah is,” I grit out, trying to regain some sense of control. “I can’t look him in the eye when I walk out of this room if he knows I’ve been in here fucking you.”

She bucks her hips, chasing her orgasm. My eyes roll back, and a tingling sensation starts at the base of my spine. She feels so fucking good. So tight and hot. But it’s those blue eyes and the way they stare into mine, the way she’s begging for me to claim her, that have me releasing my hand so she can scream as she does it.

I tweak one nipple, then the other. Her tits are a full size larger now and even more sensitive. I twist and pull on them in the way that sends electric bolts straight to her core. She squeezes so hard around my cock, stars dance in my vision. Breath held, I rein myself in and slide my hand down to her clit. I set a languid pace, rolling the little bud in time with my thrusts until she’s shattering around me again. Only after she’s come for a third time, and yelled about it, do I finally unload inside her.

When Hannah comes out of the bathroom, asks for a kiss, then curls up in bed while thanking me for handling Jasper, I’m pretty sure I’ve slipped into an alternate reality. Either I fucked the sass right out of her, or she really is tired of dealing with the guys.

Either way, I take the win and head out of her room, determined to handle this once and for all.

Light filters out from beneath Noah’s closed door, so I suck in a lungful of courage and knock.

“Come in,” he hollers.

He’s propped up against his headboard, black-framed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, a book in hand and headphones on the mattress beside him.

And the world’s sourest expression on his face.

I hold up my hands. “Don’t blame me. She’s insatiable.”

He shakes his head. “Yeah, I’d really rather not hear about it.”

“Good, I don’t kiss and tell. Now grab your shoes. I need your help.”

To his credit, Noah doesn’t hesitate to hop out of bed and follow me.

As we take the elevator to the lobby, I fill him in on our task.

His eyes are wide. “You actually got Hannah to agree to let you handle her problem?”

I waggle my brows as I hold the door open for him. “I’m very convincing.”

He gags.

“And you’re welcome. She would have been a hell of a lot louder while I did all my convincing if not for my efforts.”

Noah strolls by me, giving me a wide berth. “A week after we moved in, I got noise-canceling headphones. For me and Oliver.”

I chuckle as I run to catch up with him. “Mind if I ask why you stay?” His presence doesn’t bother me at all. I actually love it. Gives me somebody to hang out with while Hannah’s traveling, and Noah and I actually have a lot in common. We like the same shows and we’ve gotten into the habit of working out together. And since we have friends in common, it’s easy to hang out in a group setting. The relationship he and I have created is exactly what I used to wish I had with my older brother, Paul. But Noah doesn’t need to stay here. Guy makes way more money than me, so I’m not sure why he hasn’t found himself a nice big apartment with a view.

“Hannah needed me.” He jabs a finger at me. “And don’t you ever tell her I said that.”

I hold up my hands. I’m not saying a thing.

“But now that you’re around…” He hums, side-eyeing me. “We’ll see. You stick around and prove you can take care of her, and I’ll think about getting my own place.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you.” Shit, I hope he doesn’t think that. “But I intend to do all those things, so when the time comes, you don’t have to worry about her. I’ll be there for her and our baby.”

Hands in his pockets, Noah nods. “I’m beginning to believe that.”

As the bar comes into view, I smile. “Ready to go scare a few baseball players?”