Page 128 of Slap Shot
“No.” Slowly, hesitantly, she looks back at me. Her eyes are wide with a scorch of heat behind the brown. “When you call usfriends, it makes the things I’m thinking about you—the things I’mfeelingfor you—seem wrong.”
I don’t know what’s going on. I might be dreaming. “What kind of things are you thinking about?”
“Kissing you.” Madeline grabs my shirt like she did on New Year’s Eve. She wraps her fingers in the cotton, cementing herself to me. “Doing more than that.”
“You said that’s not something you want. You told me you wanted to be friends.Justfriends.”
“That’s what I wanted before, but it’s not what I want anymore.”
“What do you want?” I ask, terrified to hear the answer.
“You,” she says, and it’s my favorite word she’s ever spoken.
“I’m not kissing you unless you tell me to, Madeline. And if I do, it’s not going to be a one-time, casual thing. It’s not going to be a two-time thing. It’s going tomeansomething, just like it did on New Year’s, because I’m done pretending like I haven’t thought about that night every single day that’s passed. I have. Excessively. But I don’t act on it because I don’t want you to hide from me again. I don’t want to mess this up. You mean too much to me.”
The words fly out of me. In the morning, I might regret them. I’ll probably want to take them back and kick myself for being so honest, but I’m done playing games.
She’s ingrained on my soul, and life is too short to not tell the people you care about exactly how you feel.
Madeline’s grip on my shirt tightens. I wonder if she’ll walk away or disappear again.
She surprises me when she stands on her toes. I reach for her, cupping her cheeks on instinct, blissfully aware of how fuckingsoftshe is and needing to touch her like I need air.
Her lips pull up into a grin. She lifts her chin, a dare there, before she says, “Fuck it,” and crashes her mouth against mine.
The planets realign.
The earth stops rotating, and this is different from how we kissed on New Year’s.
This is intentional. Something that has purpose and something she’s doing without any provoking.
The rational part of my brain is screaming at me to stop. To cool my fucking jets and think about this for half a second because we’ve been down this road before, and we decided it wasn’t the path we—she— wanted to take.
The other part of my brain?
The other part of my brain is telling me to walk her backward until we reach the island. To lift her onto the countertop and touch her however I want.
So I do just that.
“Hudson.” Her head tips to the side when I set her down. I kiss her neck and the spot below her ear. She smells like the roses she couldn’t stop admiring at dinner, and I think I’m already addicted to her. “Please.”
I don’t know what thatpleaseis asking for, but I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to find out.
“What do you need?” I nudge my way between her legs, resting my hands on her knees. She leans back, palms on the counter, and knocks an apple into the sink. “What do you want? What can I give you?”
“Anything. Everything. Just—” She wraps her legs around my waist, urging me closer. I’d tether myself to her if I could. “Don’t stop.”
“The last thing I want to do is stop. I want to make you feel good.” I hesitate, the last piece of my rationality coming to the forefront of my brain when I realize we’re not alone in the condo. “Should we do this here? What about Lucy?”
“She’s a heavy sleeper unless there’s a storm. She won’t wake up until morning. If she needs me, she’ll go to my room first. It’s probably best we do this out here.”
“Okay. Yeah. We’ll stay here.” I move my hands up Madeline’s thighs until I reach her waist. My fingers tease the hem of her shirt, and I untuck it from her jeans. I graze the pad of my thumb along her bare skin, smiling when a soft gasp tumbles out of her. “What do you like, Madeline?”
“It’s been a while.” Her laugh is resigned. The hint of shyness, the cusp of embarrassed. “I don’t remember. I’m not sure.”
“We’ll go slow. We’ll figure it out. It’s been a while for me, too.” I rest my palm on her stomach, listening to her blow out a breath. I trail my touch up to her ribs, and her heart races. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah. That’s nice,” she whispers.
