Page 46 of Saving Forever
“No.” I nestle closer to him. “You were perfect.”
“Next time I will be more gentle.”
“I don’t need gentle, Viktor—and somehow you knew that.”
He strokes my hair, letting the silence and contentment wash over us.
“You will sleep with me tonight,” he says after a while.
“Haven’t I already been doing that?” I ask sleepily.
“Close to me. In my arms. So we are warm and you feel…safe.”
I can’t help but wonder if safe is a euphemism for something else, but I’m too sleepy and blissed out to think about it.
I’m going to sleep with my husband tonight.
Because he just told me it was safe.
And because I honestly can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather sleep than in Viktor Maslak’s arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Viktor
We have the next day off. Coach wants us to sleep, relax, and hydrate. A few of the guys are going to a Mets game but I have my parents to think about and I don’t particularly care for baseball. I know they expect to spend the day together but I’m still annoyed about them giving away Holly’s ticket to Moulin Rouge and the way Olga tried to ambush me last night.
The evening went in a direction I didn’t anticipate, but now that Holly and I have become physically intimate, I need to set boundaries, both with Olga and my mother. I think I was pretty clear with Olga last night but my mother will undoubtedly need more convincing. Since Olga had the audacity to question the validity of the marriage, I’m going to have to dig up documents when we get back to Atlanta. Which is fine. Just another annoyance.
Sometimes I wish my mother was like some of my teammates’ mothers. Kind. Supportive. Loving. I get very little of that from my parents. My father enjoys hanging out with me for the yearly dads’ trips or any time we’re with my teammates, but beyond that, he doesn’t say much. The flip side of that is my mother’s constant need to control as much of my life as possible.
Living far away helped.
Moving in with West—where she had absolutely no say in the way the house was run—was also helpful.
In retrospect, I know I let her manipulate me out of guilt.
My parents did sacrifice a lot so that I could become the hockey player I am today, but I’ve sent them more money in the last five years than they made in their entire lives before that. I take care of them and have no plans to stop. Hell, I’d give them even more to let me live my life as I see fit.
Instead, I’m playing a dangerous game with myself—and now with Holly. Our lives have already become entangled in almost every way, so I’m going to have to think about what to do going forward.
Sex with her was…intense. I like to get a little rough and apparently so does she. We’re compatible in so many ways, I’m having a tough time remembering that the marriage isn’t real. Because after last night, it sure as fuck feels real.
If only I could be the man for her.
I want to be.
I just don’t think I’m capable of it.
The fact that I’ve never been in love as an adult tells me that I’m either broken or just one of those men that doesn’t feel things that deeply. At least, not when it comes to women. I care about my friends and family, but romance and love and anything that requires getting my heart involved…well, I just don’t have it in me.
And that’s wholly unfair to someone like Holly.
Unless…I suppose I need to consider that I never felt that way because I never met the right person before. It’s strange to imagine that she might be the one I didn’t know I was waiting for. The one who’s special in ways I never considered.
I turn onto my side to look at her.
She’s fast asleep, on her side facing away from me, her hair a tangled mess around her head.
