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Crying out his name as pleasure and relief fist within me, gripping and releasing in wave after wave, until I fall limp and Vaughn goes tense above me. Another thrust and he holds himself deep inside, pulsing hot as he follows me over.
Sliding my knees up his sides, I lock my ankles around his hips and hold him to me, just for a minute. I’m not ready for this to end and I don’t want to have to face what’s coming next. But all too soon I am.
“Give me a second to take care of this.” He’s halfway to the bathroom when he stops and looks back at me with a hitch at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“My place.” I laugh. “Where am I going to go?”
“Don’t make me find out.”
A minute passes and he’s back. Wearing only the marks of my hands on his skin, he sits beside me on the edge of the bed and traces his thumb along the line of my ribs, down and around my navel.
“Regrets?”
It’s easier to follow the light touch coasting across my skin than meet his eyes. “No,” I answer quietly. Honestly.
What just happened wasn’t a mistake. It was perfect. All the things I wish I could find with someone who wouldn’t make me break every promise I’ve ever made to myself. “But…”
He nods. “But you still don’t date hockey players and I’ve still got a career on the line. I get it. I do.” He stands, and my heart starts to ache. But instead of reaching for his clothes and leaving, he reaches for the edge of the sheets and gestures for me to get in.
And then he climbs in behind me. “But I’m going to hold you tonight.”
And that’s what he does.
Chapter 11
Vaughn
It’s barely after four. I ought to be dead to this world, but I’m wide awake, lying in Allie’s too-small bed, breathing in the scent of her hair as it spills across my chest. Just one more minute and I’ll untangle our legs and slip out from beneath her. Drop a kiss on her cheek and get out of her place before anyone catches me doing it.
One more minute. Because this—Allie tucked into my side, her soft breath washing over my skin, her arm draped across my stomach—this is what I thought I’d be waking up to after that night in Vancouver. This is the glimpse of the future I thought I might actually be able to keep. But now, it’s just the final moment of a night that was supposed to be about getting the wrong girl out of my system.
Natalie, not Allie.
Natalie Baxter.
Shit, even reminding myself who she is isn’t enough to make this suck any less. She might be the absolute worst woman I could pick, but it physically hurts to let her go. So yeah, her plan to work this thing between us out of our system? Total fail.
Not that I really expected anything else. Butdamn, this sucks.
She murmurs my name, reaching across the sheets for me.
Leaning over, I kiss her, soft and slow. Watch as she blinks up at me with sleepy eyes and sifts her fingers into my hair.
“Time to go?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, baby. Don’t want anyone to see me leaving.”
She nods but doesn’t let me go. I turn my face into her touch, pressing one last, lingering kiss along the smooth skin of her wrist.
And then I back off the bed and force my legs to move until I’m out of her room, out of her place. Gone.
It’s for the best.
She might not be out of my system, but we had our night and now I’m going to let her go.
I have to.
Morning skate comes and goes. I give it my all, pay attention when we watch tape, and eat lunch with the team. I work out. But something’s off. Hell, when Baxter bumps into me outside the locker room I don’t even think before mumbling a “my bad” and heading out to my car.
