Page 95 of Offside

“I’m suggesting FaceTime.” I kept my expression completely innocent despite wanting to laugh. “For the architecture.”

“Ryan Lindqvist.”

“Calgary has a very impressive skyline. Lots of tall, erect structures.” My chest shook as I tried to hold in a laugh.

“Oh my god.” She buried her face in her hand, shoulders shaking, and I smiled at her and knew nine days was going to be absolutely brutal and I was going to enjoy every second of making it good for her.

Later, after we’d cleaned up, she made me sit on her living room floor while she knelt behind me and worked on my shoulder with focused hands, her thumbs finding the points of resistance and working through them with the patience she brought to work she loved. I sat with my forearms on my knees and my head dropped forward and let myself feel it. The release of muscle I’d been quietly ignoring for weeks, the warmth of her hands, the fact that she was taking care of me in the way she did, which was without fuss and without making me feel managed. I was incredibly lucky to have these moments with her.

“Nine days,” I said to the floor, well aware I was whining.

“It’s not that long.” Her thumbs found a knot and I exhaled. “I have four guys on the IR who aren’t going anywhere. Rehab protocols don’t pause because the team is on the road. I’ll barely notice.”

“Callahan.” Even though I knew she was teasing me, I wanted her confession. To hear she’d miss me, miss this. The calm domestic evenings we had together brought me more peace than I could explain.

“I’m serious. I’m extremely busy.”

“You’ll notice,” I grumbled.

She pressed into the muscle and I felt it give. “Maybe a little.”

I reached back and caught her wrist. She let me turn, and I pulled her so she was in front of me, her knees on either side of my thighs, her hands resting on my shoulders, her face close. Her eyes were doing the careful thing. Choosing, measuring, and I knew this look well enough to know she was at the edge of a feeling she wasn’t sure she wanted to say.

I didn’t push her. I brushed my thumb along her jaw and she leaned into it slightly, guard gone, her whole face soft for a second and then softer, and I pulled her in and kissed her slow and unhurried, my hands in her hair. She made a quiet sound and kissed me back and that was the end of the conversation about the road trip for a while.

When we finally surfaced, she had her forehead against my jaw and her hands in my shirt.

“I’m going to make sure you don’t forget me,” I said quietly, into her hair.

She pulled back enough to look at me. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and held her gaze and let her see I meant it.

She studied me for a moment, her expression going soft in a way she didn’t try to stop. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to.”

She watched me for another moment, then kissed me again, brief and warm and deliberate, and stood up, pulling me to my feet. “Come to bed,” she said. “You have an early morning.”

I followed her down the hall.

She reached for the lamp and I caught her wrist and turned it off myself, and then I took my time with her in the dark. I had made her a promise at her kitchen table and I intended to keep it.

I undressed her slowly enough that she said my name twice before I got her shorts off, and I did not hurry for either one. I put my mouth on her collarbone, the soft skin under her breasts, and when she reached for me, I caught her hand and put it back on the mattress.

“Stay still and let me enjoy,” I said.

"Ryan."

"Nine days," I said against her hip. "Let me."

I put my tongue on her clit and she made a sound that reverberated through me. Low, surprised, like she hadn't planned on it. I worked her open with my tongue, unhurried, until I found the spot just left of center that made her hips come off the mattress, and then I stayed on it. Slipped a finger in, then a second. Flat tongue, same pressure, same rhythm, over and over until her voice climbed and cracked and I was so hard it hurt.

I stayed there until she stopped shaking. I quickly put a condom on then climbed up over her and pushed inside her tight, wet, heat. She made a sound against my mouth that I was going to be hearing in my fantasies for the rest of my life.

I went slow. She tried to push me faster, her heels at the back of my thighs, and I did not let her.

"You're doing this on purpose."