Page 104 of Ruthless Game

I fucked her slow, obsessed with how wet and hot and perfect she was around me. For me. And when I scraped my teeth across the spot where her neck met her shoulder, she came, clenching so tight around my cock I swore I saw stars.

And every last one looked like her.

40

Emma

“Are we finally going to talk about it?” Max asked.

It was like there was a hand squeezing my heart. “Talk about what?”

“The appointment with the gynecologist. And your internship.”

I sat up. I’d been laying on his lap on the couch that faced the windows overlooking the lake. He’d been stroking my hair in the comfortable quiet between us.

No longer quiet. No longer comfortable.

“What’s there to talk about?” I asked, dreading this, but knowing it had to happen.

“I know this is a scary topic, and you’d rather avoid it,” he said, still stroking my hair, like he was trying to soothe an animal that wanted to flee. “But there are two things: one, that you want kids and you’re afraid you can’t have them, and two, that you aren’t sure you want this internship in the first place.”

“Max—”

“Let’s start with the easier one, okay? If you want to go back to England for your internship, I’ll go with you.”

I turned my head to look at him, and his hand stilled in my hair. “Just like that? You’d give up hockey?”

“I’ll give up everything as long as I have you. You’re the one non-negotiable in my life,” he said solemnly, and I believed him. And it made me feel more solid than I had in a long, long time.

Like I belonged to someone again. I’d missed that.

“I missed you,” I told him, and his eyes warmed.

“I missed you, too. You have no idea how much.”

And then we were kissing for a while, soft, sweet, steady in the way that knowing you had forever with someone could be steady, and the conversation at hand was briefly forgotten.

He released me, after a while, clearly not done.

“But,” he continued, “I’m not sure you even want this internship. You rarely talk about it, and when I bring it up, you don’t seem excited about it. Even now, your eyes look sad. So what’s really going on, Emma?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. For a while, I thought that internship and my planned career were everything. Everything I needed to prove⁠—”

I froze.

“To prove what?” Max prompted.

“I don’t …” I broke off. There was a wall there in my chest, something I didn’t want to admit to, something that felt too scary.

“To prove to yourself you’re capable? You’re the most capable person I know, Emma. To prove to the world you’re worthy of being here? I know there’s a lot of pain around your adoption, stuff you probably haven’t explored, but you are worthy of every single breath you take.”

Tears welled in my eyes, and I tried to blink them away.

“No, baby,” he murmured, wiping them away with his thumbs. “I know I’ve told you I hate when you cry, but you need to let it out. Let me be that safe place for you. Let me catch your tears.”

The floodgates opened then and I pitched forward, my head against his chest, tears soaking his hoodie. I bawled then, so much I’d buried deep making its way to the surface.

“What about my parents?” I sobbed. “They’re so proud of me for getting the internship. They’re so excited about my career path. How do I admit to them what I really want?”