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"Finally!" he exclaimed when he saw us. "We've been waiting forever."

"How did you even get up here?" Caleb asked as he unlocked the door.

"Your doorman loves me," Max said, pushing past us into the penthouse. "Plus, I may have mentioned a captain-related emergency."

Zoe followed, rolling her eyes. "I told him we should have called first, but apparently patience isn't in the goalie handbook."

"What's the emergency?" I asked, dropping my bag on the entry table.

Max produced a bottle of expensive whiskey from his jacket with a flourish. "Emergency friendship intervention."

Zoe unloaded containers from a Hat Trick bag, the familiar logo making me realize just how much I missed being in my kitchen regularly. "We figured you could use some support after today's meeting with management."

"Diane told you?" Caleb asked, already retrieving glasses from the cabinet.

"She didn't give details," Max said, pouring generous portions of amber liquid. "Just that Vincent tried to blackmail you and Riley, and that you both had to talk to Whitman."

We settled in the living room, the food spread out on the coffee table between us. As we ate, we filled them in on the meeting and discussed contingency plans if the photos leaked.

"The real relationship angle is your best defense," Max said thoughtfully. "Anyone who's spent more than ten minutes with you two can see it's not an act anymore."

"Was it that obvious?" I asked, embarrassed at how transparent we must have been.

Zoe snorted. "Please. You light up like a Christmas tree whenever he walks into a room."

"I do not," I protested, feeling heat rise in my cheeks.

"Yeah, you do," Max agreed. "And this guy's not much better. Remember that away game in Toronto when Riley couldn't come? Moped around like someone stole his favorite stick."

"Team morale issue," Caleb muttered into his whiskey. "Nothing to do with Riley."

"Sure, Captain," Max laughed. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Throughout the evening, I noticed how Zoe and Max exchanged glances, their formerly antagonistic dynamic evolved into something with unmistakable undercurrents.

When Zoe reached for the last spring roll at the same time as Max, their fingers brushed.

Instead of pulling away, they lingered, their teasing argument about who deserved it more lacking any real heat.

When Max left briefly to take a call from his agent, I raised a questioning eyebrow at Zoe.

She shrugged, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "What?"

"Something you want to tell me?"

Zoe fidgeted with her napkin. "He's not entirely the entitled jock I assumed, okay?" she admitted reluctantly. "We started hanging out after the winter menu preview event, back when your leg got injured. He was the one who organized the team to help clean everything up. And..."

She trailed off, but her expression told me everything I needed to know.

"And?" I prompted, unable to resist teasing her a little.

"And nothing," she insisted, but her blush deepened. "We're just... figuring things out."

I smiled, recognizing the same careful hesitation I'd felt with Caleb—that space between acknowledging feelings and deciding what to do about them.

Later, after our friends departed, Caleb and I found ourselves on the balcony. The early spring evening carried a chill that provided the perfect excuse to sit close, sharing warmth and the last of Max's whiskey.

"You've been quiet," Caleb observed, his eyes reflecting the city lights spread below us.

I swirled the whiskey in my glass, gathering courage. “Are you sure about us? What if this is merely a fling or something born out of proximity after all this time together?” I paused, searching his face for an answer.

He set his glass on the ledge and held my eyes. “I’m completely certain. This is not a fling and it isn’t just convenience. Nothing matters more to me than you, not even the captaincy.”

My heart raced at his confession. “When did it become real for you?” I whispered. “When did it change from acting into something genuine?”

He leaned back, considering. "I can't pinpoint the exact moment.

It was gradual—your determination with the restaurant, how you handle the team families with genuine interest rather than obligation.

" His fingers traced patterns on the back of my hand.

"Somewhere between contract clauses and morning coffee, I realized I wasn't acting anymore. "

His admission resonated with my own experience.

"For me, I think it might have been your birthday," I confessed. "Planning that day, wanting it to be special for you—it wasn't about maintaining our image. I just wanted to make you happy."

The expression on his face then nearly took my breath away—open and vulnerable in a way I'd never seen before. He reached for me, his hands cupping my face with such tenderness that my heart stuttered.

"Riley," he whispered, and just my name on his lips felt like a declaration.

When he kissed me, it felt like honesty, like finally arriving somewhere I belonged. His lips moved against mine with deliberate intent, telling me things words couldn't fully express.

I melted into him, my hands sliding up his chest to wind around his neck. The balcony, the city, the world beyond us disappeared as we finally allowed ourselves to acknowledge what had been building between us for months.

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with desire, but there was something else there too—a question, a hesitation.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice rough. "This changes things."

"I'm sure," I whispered, standing and offering him my hand. "No audience, no performance. Just us."

"So," he said, his voice rumbling beneath my ear where my head rested on his chest. "Definitely not in the original contract."

I laughed, playfully pinching his side. "Definitely not. Though I'm pretty sure we just violated no intimacy clause."

"I think we threw that out somewhere around Christmas." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

I looked up, my gaze locking with his. "What happens now? The contract has an end date, but this—" I gestured between us, "—feels like a beginning."

His expression grew serious. "I don't want an end date with you, Riley.

Contract or no contract." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch infinitely gentle.

"But I need you to be sure. Your restaurant is finally thriving, and if you want to walk away when the year is up, I won't hold you to anything. "

I shook my head. "I don't want to walk away," I whispered. "I think I've been falling in love with you for months."

His smile then was like sunrise—slow, beautiful, inevitable. "Thank God," he murmured. "Because I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you too."

As his lips found mine again, I marveled at the strange journey that had brought us here—from a desperate business arrangement to something neither of us had expected to find.

Caleb broke the kiss only to gaze into my eyes, his own shining with a fierce, protective tenderness. His hands framed my face, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones.

He swept me into his arms. I gasped, my body surprisingly light against his strong frame.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, my lips finding his again as he carried me from the cool night air of the balcony, through the silent penthouse, directly to the bedroom.

Our eyes remained locked whenever our mouths parted for breath.

The moment we crossed the threshold of the bedroom, the carefully maintained composure of our public lives, and even our private, carefully navigated domesticity, shattered completely.

Clothes were discarded hastily. Each garment hit the floor with a soft thud that echoed the frantic, joyous beating of our hearts.

We fumbled with buttons and zippers, laughing breathlessly, our hands eager, urgent.

We fell onto the vast bed together, a tangle of limbs and seeking mouths, our bodies pressing close in an embrace that spoke of an almost painful need, a hunger to merge, to become one after being two separate entities for so long.

The air in the room grew thick with the scent of our arousal, with the sounds of our ragged breaths and soft, yearning moans.

He positioned himself above me, propped on his elbows, his gaze devouring every inch of me.

I met it with an openness, a vulnerability that I would have once found terrifying, but now felt like the most natural thing in the world.

This was Caleb. My husband. He lowered his head and kissed me, slowly, deeply.

He pushed his cock into me then. My body arched to meet him, to take his dick deeper. I gasped as his thick cock filled and stretched my pussy. It was a perfect fit, a feeling of coming home, of completion. For a moment, we were still, just savoring the profound sensation of being truly united.

Then, with a shared sigh, the rhythm began.

His thrusts were tender at first, yet powerfully charged. I met his fervor with my own, my hips rising to match his pace, my nails lightly scoring the hard muscles of his back as the pleasure began to build, wave upon relentless wave.

“Riley,” he groaned, his forehead resting against mine, his breath hot and sweet. “You feel amazing.”

“You too,” I whispered, my voice choked with rising sensation.

He whispered my name over and over, told me how beautiful I was, his voice thick with an emotion that resonated deep within me. I responded with broken murmurs of my own, my body alive with sensations I’d never dreamed possible, each touch, each kiss, each deep push an affirmation.

We transitioned through positions seamlessly, our bodies moving in a dance as old as time.

When I was beneath him, in the classic intimacy of missionary, our eyes never broke contact, our lips frequently meeting in deep, soul-searing kisses.

His strength was a comforting, enveloping presence, and my active participation, my hips meeting his every thrust, was a sign of my complete trust and unbridled desire.

Then, with a playful grin that made my heart soar, I urged him onto his back, rising above him, taking control. My hair cascaded around my shoulders. I looked down at him, his eyes heavy-lidded with passion as he watched me, and I felt a surge of power, of pure joy.

I rode him then, setting a pace that was both teasing and demanding, watching his reactions, listening to the way his breath hitched, the way his hands gripped my ass, guiding me, supporting me. He was mesmerized, I could see it, and I reveled in his gaze.

The shared orgasm, when it came, was a cataclysmic explosion of sensation and emotion.

It built with an unbearable intensity, a tightening coil of pleasure that finally, gloriously, snapped, sending us both over the edge into a state of blissful, star-dusted oblivion.

Cries were torn from our throats, our names mingled in the air, our bodies convulsing together in perfect, shuddering synchrony.

Afterwards, we lay entangled, limbs heavy, skin slick with sweat, our breathing slowly returning to normal. Our hearts beat in a steady, comforting unison against each other. Caleb held me close, his lips pressed to my hair, and I felt a peace, a rightness, I’d never known.