Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
"It took you long enough to get here," she says ten minutes later, carefully adjusting her skirt as I slip her panties into my pocket. She'll get those back a quarter to never.
"Blame your dad." I quirk a brow at her, leaning back against the door. "I ran into him in the hallway."
Her eyes go wide.
"He wanted to know where I was going." I crook her chin up. "Do you know how hard it is to stretch the truth without breaking it just so you don't outright lie to a man you actually respect, baby girl?"
Guilt flickers through her expression. "Nash, I–"
"But I keep doing it because I'm fucking crazy about you," I continue, holding her gaze. "You drive me insane, Emilia Lariat."
"You drive me crazy too," she whispers.
I brush my lips across hers in a soft pass.
"I'm sorry," she whispers miserably.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you confident enough in what's between us to feel like you can tell him," I murmur. "If I haven't made you feel that way yet, that's on me."
"Nash, that's not what this is about."
"No?" I quirk a brow. "So you aren't scared you're going to lose me?"
She bites her lip, not answering…which is answer enough. That fear still exists for her. She still thinks there's a way this ends with me breaking her heart.
"That's what I thought, princess." I lean forward, brushing my lips across hers. "I gotta get to practice. Come to the house tonight."
"Okay," she whispers, regret heavy in her voice. And I fucking hate that for her. I don't want her feeling guilty. I don't want her to regret a damn thing. I just want to know why the fuck she's so worried about him finding out about us so I can fix it. Until I do that, we're stuck in this limbo. And as much as I enjoy stolen moments and fucking her anytime, anyplace, she deserves a whole helluva lot more.
"Did your dad ever play hockey?" she asks later that night as we're sprawled across my bed, our legs tangled together and the sweat still drying on our skin.
My fingers pause against the softness of her stomach before I clear my throat. "He did. He played all the way through college, but he says he wasn't cut out for a professional league, so he gave it up when he graduated."
"I'm glad you guys shared that," she whispers.
"We did. He's the one who taught me to skate. He was at every game he could get to right up until…" I swallow a wave of pain. "They were on the way to my last game when they were killed by the drunk driver who hit them. Aspen barely survived the accident."
"Nash," she whispers, craning her head back to look up at me.
"You want to know the truth about why I skipped the draft?"
She nods quietly.
"I couldn't step out onto the ice without feeling like the accident was my fault," I admit. "They were on the road because they were coming to support me. It took a whole metric fuckton of healing to get back into a headspace where I felt mentally ready to play again."
"I'm so sorry, Nash," she whispers, wrapping her arms around me. "I wish you hadn't lost them. But the accident wasn't your fault. They were on the road that day to support you because you mattered to them. They died on their way to one of the people they loved most in the world, and I imagine they're probably at peace with that. They loved you enough to be there, and that's a piece of them you get to carry with you forever."
"Yeah," I murmur, brushing my lips across her crown. "Took me a while to get to a place where I could see it from that perspective, but I finally got there."
She places a sweet little kiss to the tattoo over my heart, resting her head against me again. For a long moment, she doesn't say anything, and then she sighs. "I barely know my mom. My dad was wild about her, but she wasn't as wild about having a kid. He chose me over her by refusing to put me up for adoption. So as soon as she gave birth, she signed over her rights and walked."
"Jesus."
"I see her a few times a year when she isn't busy, but she's never really been a mom, you know? I guess it's hard to look at her as one when she's always been honest about the fact that she never wanted me."
"That's fucked up, Emilia," I growl, my heart clenching for her. How the fuck do you know this woman and not want her? It defies explanation.
"Maybe, but I have one parent who changed his whole life to keep me. It's always been us against the world."