Page 42 of Blind Side
For the first time in my life, I was just here, just me. A man in bed with the person I loved, laughing because my shirt was stuck. The moment was absurd. The happiness was so enormous it had to come out as laughter.
"You have a bruise," I said, tracing the yellowing mark on his hip where a puck had caught him during Thursday's practice. I pressed my mouth to it gently and felt his stomach clench under my hand.
"I've had worse."
"I know. I've been keeping track." I kissed along the line of his hip, down to the hollow where thigh met body, and his breath caught. His hand found the back of my head, fingers in my hair, the weight of it request and permission at once.
I took my time. I knew what he liked now, knew the rhythm and pressure that would bring him to the edge. I knew the exact moment his composure broke. The sound he made was raw and honest. I'd learned this in two nights, and I intended to spend the rest of my life refining the knowledge.
His thighs tensed under my palms. His breathing went ragged and shallow, and when I looked up, his head was back against the pillow. His eyes were closed, and his face was so real, stripped of every pretense.
"Jamie." My name came from his mouth, half-wrecked and half-wondering. "Jamie, I need— Come here."
I moved back up his body. He pulled me down and kissed me, deep and unhurried, tasting himself on my mouth. His hands slid down my back, fingers digging into the muscle along my spine with a possessiveness that still surprised me from a man this controlled. He rolled us.
He was above me now, his weight braced on one arm as he looked down, entirely focused on me.
Then his mouth was on my neck. His hand worked between us. I arched into him.
I wasn't quiet. I hadn't been quiet with him since the first night. It still surprised me, the sounds that came out of me when Clay Abbott touched me.
"You're doing the thing," I managed.
He grinned against my throat. "What thing?"
"The goalie thing. Where you read the ice."
"Am I reading you?"
"Comprehensively."
"Good." He kissed the spot below my ear that made my whole body tighten. I felt him smile when I shuddered. "I'm going to keep reading you. For a very long time."
I pulled his mouth back to mine.
I kissed him the way I'd wanted to for years—deep and unhurried, with the full weight of what this was behind it. His hand was still between us, still moving, and I was losing the ability to form sentences.
But there was one I needed to say.
"I love you," I said against his mouth. It was the first time I'd said it to him, his body against mine and his hand making it impossible to think. "I love you, Clay."
He went still. Just for a second. Then his forehead dropped against mine and his breath shuddered out. "Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you. I've loved you for—"
He kissed me hard enough to shut me up. I didn't need to finish it; he knew.
I ran my hands up his back and pulled him down against me. The full-body contact was electric, even after nights of learning each other. His hips pressed into mine. I wrapped a leg around him, and the friction drew a sound from both of us, his low, mine loud enough to make him grin against my mouth.
"Neighbors," he warned.
"I don't care."
"You will tomorrow."
