Page 57 of Pucking Strong (Jacksonville Rays #4)

He pulls away, breathless, his blue eyes searching my face. Slowly, he nods. “I feel.” Taking my hand, he presses it to his chest.

I lean in, fingers brushing over his dress shirt as I feel the erratic pulsing of his heart under my palm. “Do you like it? I mean, do you like kissing me? Fuck—don’t answer unless the answer is yes—”

He silences me with another kiss, his beard tickling my mouth as our faces tilt, our bodies seeking more closeness.

I’m about to grind my dick against him again, but then I’m groaning, all but stumbling out of his lap.

“Okay— fuck —new rules.” I back away, shoulders heaving, adjusting my dick in these formfitting briefs. “Henrik, we need new rules.”

He sits forward, shirt untucked, hair a mess. With a practiced flick of his wrists, he undoes the buttons at his cuffs. Which is so fucking hot, I could probably come without even touching myself.

Focus .

No more pouncing. No more kissing. New rules, Teddy. This man is your fucking kryptonite.

“Teddy—”

“I need a minute,” I bark, raising a hand to warn him back. I swear to god, if he gets off that couch, I’m gonna be dropping to my knees, and then it’s all over. “Just … stay .”

He sits back, watching me pace in front of the TV.

So, here’s the deal. Intern Teddy would have done literally anything for this man.

Because Intern Teddy was weak, hopeless, and desperate for love.

But I’m Doctor Teddy now. There will be ramifications if and when this falls apart.

And I have a career to think about. I have a custody agreement with the little girl asleep in the next room.

And my family’s voices are all screaming like a klaxon alarm in my head: Protect yourself .

I mean, my god, we don’t even have a signed prenup agreement.

Or a postnup. There are no nups! No protections in place.

For me, for Karro. Worse, there are no protections for Henrik, and he has the most to lose.

The man is a multimillionaire. He owns real estate in two countries.

And don’t ask me how I know, but Florida is a nofault state.

If I divorced him now, I could walk away with half his earnings.

And alimony. And if I took full custody of Karro, we could throw in a little five-figure monthly child support.

Not that I would ever do any of those things. But we’ve never even talked about it. And now he wants to practice wanting me? He wants us both to be more deeply, emotionally entangled? What, so this can blow up even more spectacularly in our faces?

“What new rules do you require?” he asks, watching me pace.

I stop, spinning to face him. “Oh, don’t even pretend these rules are only for me.

They’re for you too. Because apparently, we can no longer be trusted to be alone in the same room.

I mean, fuck! If you tell me kissing is finally on the table, I’m never gonna stop.

And you said you wanted this to go slow,” I add, pointing a finger at him.

God, I’m worse than the judgy chicken!

“I do,” he assures me. “Teddy, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to ever say or do the wrong thing.”

“Well, that’s not possible for anyone. We’re both gonna say and do the wrong thing eventually. More than once. That’s just what it means to be human.” I spin in my socks, facing him again. “But there’s shit we definitely have to discuss, before this can go any further.”

“Like what?”

I cross my arms, staring him down. “Like, a postnup.”

“What?”

“A postnuptial agreement. It’s a legal contract that outlines how our assets will be handled in the event of our inevitable divorce. Because that’s where this is still going, right? This was all only meant to be temporary, right?”

He leans away, his expression impossible to read. “I said I wouldn’t trap you with me, and I meant it.”

Awesome. Ripping that arrow from my fucking spleen, I go on. “Right, well you have to call Laura. Tomorrow. I want a draft of a postnup on our kitchen island by end of day. We walk out of this marriage only with the assets we each brought into it. I want nothing from you.”

He sighs. “Teddy—”

“The only sticking point will be custody of Karro. Because I’ll be fucked if you think I’m walking away from that little girl,” I add, pointing a finger at him again. “She’s mine too, Henrik. What’s the Swedish for that? I’m gonna tattoo it on my fucking chest.”

A smile flits across his lips. “Karolina ?r mitt barn.”

“Right. Mitt barn, Henrik. You asked for my help, and now you’ve fucking got it. For life. Because that little girl deserves to have people in her life that love her and are gonna fight for her. And I will fight you, Henrik. I will fight you for her—”

He stands. The move is so sudden and deliberate that it stops my rant in its tracks. Sweeping around the coffee table, he descends on me, pulling me to him with both hands. But he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he just wraps me in his arms, hugging me with his whole body.

I suck in a breath, my hands going up to brace against his back. We stand like that for a moment, clinging to each other.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, pressing a chaste kiss to my cheek. “Thank you, Teddy.”

I blink back tears as he pulls away. He puts a little space between us, his hands brushing down my arms, until he lets me go. “What else do you need from me? What other rules?”

My mind is spinning. What other rules do I need in place before I can let Henrik Karlsson practice wanting me? “I’m on PrEP,” I blurt out. “Are you?”

“What’s prep?”

So that’s a no then.

“PrEP is pre-exposure prophylaxis,” I explain. “It reduces the risk of contracting HIV. And before you and I have any sex, I’ll want to get a clean STI scan as well … even if I haven’t had sex in, like, six months. Better safe than sorry.”

“I haven’t had sex in over six years. When I did, I only ever used a condom.”

As I hear him say it out loud, the reality of our situation hits me like a ton of bricks. Backing away from him, I sink down onto the opposite couch. “Well … so then maybe you can skip the STI screening.”

“And the other thing?”

“I mean, you don’t have to be on PrEP. That’s totally your call. Maybe talk to a doctor? I’ve never really considered going off it because I’ve never settled down with just one person. Condoms alone are definitely more convenient, but it was never worth the risk for me.”

He considers for a moment. “This prep is for having sex with many people?”

I shrug. “I mean, that’s a bit derivative, but sure. That’s one good use for PrEP.”

He glares at me, his arms crossed. “I’ll not share you, Teddy. You are my husband, or you’re nothing.”

Wow. How often have I fantasized about Henrik Karlsson saying those words to me? Swallowing my nerves, I offer a weak smile. “So, obviously that’s one of your conditions we need to renegotiate.”

“What?”

“When we married, you said I’d be free. You said you’d never hold me back. You said I can do whatever I want with whomever I want. It just can’t happen in this house. Would you like to renegotiate those terms?”

He stalks over to me and drops to his knees. Mirroring my position from moments before, he places his hands on my thighs, his dark blue eyes fierce in their intensity. “Look at me, mitt hj?rta.”

I look at him, heart in my throat.

“Jag vill ha dig. Do you know what that means?”

I shake my head.

His hands smooth up my thighs in a natural gesture of possession. “It means, ‘I want you.’ Teddy, I want only you.”

I melt for him, folding forward until our foreheads touch. “Henrik …”

“But I cannot want what can’t be mine.” Holding up my hand, he lets the gold of my ring glint in the lamplight.

“So long as you wear this, say only I will know your touch.” He takes that hand and presses it to his cheek, holding it there.

“I may not know much about intimacy, but I know I need this from you.”

“Only you,” I assure him. “Henrik, I only want you.”

He groans, wrapping his arms around me. The familiar weight of him pressing me back feels so goddamn good. I want to wrap my legs around him and stay like this forever. He nuzzles gently against my neck as he breathes me in, and I crow with happiness.

Digging my fingers into his hair, I pull his head back, desperate to see his eyes. “Say you’re mine too. Maybe with another, I could have shared. But not you, Henrik. Never you. You’re mine, or you’re nothing.”

He leans away, touching my face with searching fingers. The tips brush featherlight over my brow, down the bridge of my nose, along my jaw. It’s like he’s committing me to memory. It feels primal. Sacred. Finally, his hand drops away. “Whatever else I am, I’m yours.”

“Min man,” I whisper.

He nods.

“So … we should do away with that rule too? In English and Swedish?”

“I think it would be best.”

“And the kissing rule?”

He considers. “I meant what I said before. I want to take my time with you. Nothing needs to be rushed. Can it be enough? Can my vow to you be enough? A vow to try?”

Here we come to it. What if he tries and he doesn’t like it? What if all I ever get are a few really good kisses? Can it be enough for me? Can I accept him for who he is and love him in whatever capacity he’ll allow?

I take a deep breath and let it out. “I have one more new rule.”

He tenses. “Name it.”

I place a hand on his shoulder, mooring us together with a more platonic, familiar kind of touch. “No sex in the bed.”

His brow furrows as I’m sure he’s second-guessing his own translation. “What?”

“I mean it, Henrik.” I push him until he’s rocked back on his ankles and I’m fully sitting up.

“The bed we share is not for sex. That has to stay sacred. Because, regardless of whatever else happens, I have to stay here. For Karro, for the custody review. And the bed is where we sleep. It’s where you sleep,” I add more gently.

“I won’t rob you of your safe space. So … no wanting me in the bed. Agreed?”

He considers for a moment. “Agreed. Thank you, Teddy.”

“But the others go,” I repeat. “The no-kissing one, and the no sleeping in my bed, and the no saying husbands in English and Swedish.” I tick them off on my fingers. “But I still want to pay rent.”

He groans.

“I’m serious, Hen. I have to have some small feeling of autonomy here. Either accept my money, or I’ll start getting real creative with the shit I buy for the apartment. Ever heard of Dadaism?”

Using my knees, he pushes up from the floor and rises to his feet.

Bending over, he brushes a kiss to the top of my head.

“Keep your money, mitt hj?rta. I am not afraid of your ire. Besides, a print of jeune homme triste dans un train would look wonderful next to Karolina’s retrospective on rainbow unicorns.

” He leaves me there, clicking off one of the lamps as he walks away.

Did that gorgeous professional hockey player just weave English, French, and Swedish into a clever comeback about Dadaism?

Well, if I wasn’t already in love with my not-so-fake husband, I am now.

Rising from the couch, I click off the other lamp and follow him to bed.