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“What if I want you to just hold my hand while I cross it?”
He hums against my skin, the sensation buzzing my nerve endings to life. “I’d be honored.”
“You’re so lovable, Dere-Bear.”
“That’s honestly such a bad nickname.” His hand is playing with my fingers beside my hip. “But I actually have an idea to run by you?”
“I’m listening,” I say, wiggling my fingers free from their captivity of his big hand and sliding them under the fabric of his shirt. His skin is a hot iron pulled right from the fire.
“What do you think about letting me date you for a while?” He nips at my earlobe before his lips slide down my jaw, headed back for my mouth. “You live at your place, and I’ll live at mine, and I’ll pick you up for dates. We’ll have sleepovers. We’ll take things slow just purely for the fun of it because we can. Because we have forever. Because I hate that I didn’t get the time you deserve to win you back before we inked these bands on our fingers—and I want to give you that time now.”
I pull away slightly to look him in the eyes. “I think that’s an amazing idea. Especially with training camp coming up.”
He cups my face—smiles, and then presses another kiss to my lips. Harder. The intensity growing with each one. “And I have a feeling you’re going to be very busy over these next few weeks jetting off to sign every athlete under the sun. Dating is the practical solution right now. And I know you love being practical.” He takes my bottom lip between his teeth.
“Practicalis the sexiest word in the dictionary,” I say before wrapping my arms around his neck.
He puts his mouth right next to my ear and whispers, “And maybe we could even…coordinate a calendar schedule.”
I moan theatrically. “You’re so dirty.”
“You haven’t even seen the beginning of it, Ginger Snap.”
It doesn’t take long before my hands are in his hair and his hands are fisting the front of my shirt, dragging it higher and higher each second. His tongue sweeps over mine and an explosion of heat rushes through my stomach, my limbs, my head. I put my hands under his shirt and run them up his muscled abdomen and over his pecs, feeling the raised lines of his tattoos under my fingers. He presses me firmly to him and his kiss melts me from the inside out. Every sweep of his tongue, caress of his hands, press of his lips seems to sayI love you, I love you, I love you.
“I’ve missed you all these years, Nora. My friend. My love.”
I want to swim in a pool of those euphoric words. I want to turn them into blankets and nap inside them every day. “I’ve missed you too, Derek. All’s well that loves well.”
He whispers in my ear, “That’s not the phrase.”
“It should be.” I’m arching. More, more, more.
“One more thing. I know you hemmed each of my pants up an inch on one leg.”
I press my lips together, frantically trying to gain control of my expression. “I will not answer any further questions without my lawyer present.”
“Menace.”He kisses my temple once, then rises to stand in front of the bed with a smile. And then a heated, promising look flares in Derek’s eyes before he grasps my hips, pulls them to the edge of the mattress, gives me his trademark wink, and drops to his knees.
—
The next morning, Derek goes back to my place with me, where we eat breakfast with my lovely new utensils while I sit in his lap at the table.
It’s finally game day.
My game day.
We’re all in the locker room getting ready to enter the tunnel and then run out onto the field. The crowd is wild out there. The first game of the season is always nuts—especially when it’s at home like this. We won two preseason games and lost one, all of which I had to watch from the sidelines. They rarely start veteran players for preseason games, and especially not when we’re coming off an injury.
Today, there’s a lethal undercurrent in the locker room while everyone suits up. It’s a fresh season. A clean slate. You can feel the anticipation of it like a cloud of smoke in the air. But for me, it’s even more intense. I finally get the chance to prove myself for the first time. And I feel ready.
The last two months have been…incredible. Not just because my job has been ramping back up again and filling my days, but because my mornings and nights have been devoted to Nora. Nora. I can’t think her name without smiling. Without heat gripping my spine.
We’ve both been wildly busy—Nora even more so than me. And it’s been the greatest privilege to watch her absolutely shine. The magazine article was published last month, and ever since, athletes have been banging down her door for representation. Not because our love story has gone viral and put her on the map—but because of the advice she gave to young women during the interview. Since then, her roster has been filling up with eighty percent female athletes. Because of it she’s been out of town a lot, traveling all over the country to scout athletes and take meetings with others. I didn’t see her once this past week because she was in Illinois scouting a female college soccer player—the last one she wants to add to her roster before closing it off to new clients.
Yeah, I miss her like hell when she’s not around, but I’ll sacrifice getting to see her every day in favor of witnessing that beaming smile on her face each time she returns home. She’s living her dream and it shows in her laughter, in her smile, even in the way she makes love with me. Nora is truly happy. And I’m happy too because of it.
We haven’t moved in together yet. We’ve been operating more like a monogamous, serious dating relationship than marriage just to give ourselves time to adjust. We did literally everything backward and so it’s been fun to simply date Nora these last two months—forgetting entirely about the tattoo rings on our fingers sometimes. But even though we don’t technically live under the same roof, we spend most nights we’re in town together. Either at my place or hers, but rarely separate. Her mom comes over a lot for dinner or a game night along with the guys and their wives. Pam is honestly one of my favorite people in the world. She gives us all shit over everything in the way a friend would. She’s great.
