Page 30 of Offside Possession

“Okay.”

“If you get tired of me or need your space, you’ll tell me. I know who I am and how much I can be. I’ll come back. I just…”

“We communicate,” he pitched in with a soft smile and warmth in his gaze. “We communicate what we need and compromise. This is my last season, and after this, all my days, all my nights, for the rest of my life are all yours.” Unshed tears stung my eyes, but all I could see was Scott as he lifted me up, my legs wrapping around his middle.

“Kiss to seal the deal?” he asked in a raspy tone. I didn’t bother to nod as I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his. I wasn’t sure how kiss after kiss only seemed to be better and sweeter than the last. The two of us were breathless when we pulled away, and he started to walk with me in his arms.

“You know I can walk, right?” I playfully argued, my arms happily wrapped around his neck.

“You gotta conserve your energy,” he rumbled into the crook of my neck. I wasn’t sure how he managed to carry me up the bleacher steps to wherever he was taking us without losing his breath after just playing an incredible game, but I was going to enjoy it.

“To pack?” I asked and felt his hand squeeze my ass cheek through my jeans.

“For that, too.” The dirty unspoken promise clung in the air between us like the most sinfully beautiful promise I’d ever heard.

Scott didn’t lie when he said he was a man of his word. When my man set his eye on something, he never gave up until he conquered it. And once he did? He cherished and took care of it for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER 13

SCOTT

I watched my old buddy walk towards me like some kind of conjured image. I was sleep deprived after the night Stella and I’d had, but something told me the guy coming towards me was all flesh and blood.

“Sam?” I asked, looking around the airport.

“You have something to tell me, bud?” He crossed his arms over his muscular chest.

Sam might not have played professional hockey like most of the men I knew, but he worked hard with his hands, day in and day out. The guy was built like a brick house with slabs of muscle he’d earned manually and only added to at the gym.

“I was going to call you.” I put my hands out to try and keep him calm.

“And?”

“And…” I shrugged. There was no use in putting off the inevitable. Like him punching me.

“I love your sister,” I confessed and shut my eyes, not wanting to see one of my oldest friends clock me.

But nothing happened.

I peeked through one eye and stared at Sam standing there, arms still crossed, biceps bulging as he stared at me. With a huge shit-eating grin. The type of smile I’d never not once seen on his face after over two decades of friendship.

“You’re not going to hit me?”

“Na.” He shrugged. “Not when you were smart enough to see what you had when you had it in front of you.” His arms dropped. I was man enough to admit I might have flinched when he moved forward to give me a hug and pat me on the back. Who the hell is he, and what fucking aliens have snatched my friend?

“You love Stella?” he asked, but there was no surprise in his tone. No worry in his features. He was almost… relieved? Like a man who…

“You set this up?” I rasped, looking around, needing to make sure Stella was nowhere near us. “You set us up?” I asked, looking at Sam through new eyes.

Sam. The over-protective older brother of three sisters who, according to him, were a constant pain in his ass. Sisters he’d had stepped in and helped raise. Sisters who had kept him up late at night with worry they’d end up with the wrong guy.

“Maybe not when I first suggested she meet you when she told me she was moving to Houston, but…” He shrugged. “The more I thought about it, the more I thought you two would… make sense together. She likes to say she’s the psychic one in the family, but I had a feeling about the two of you.”

“But… me?” I touched my chest, and his gaze softened.

“You’re a good man, Scott. You’ve always been a good one, from before you went pro to now when you’re about to… you know,” he said softly to make sure no one overheard.

“You know? That I’m going to retire?” He gave me a knowing look.