Page 135 of Get Me to the Starting Line
“You’re staying?” She doesn’t sound like she believes me.
This woman. My smile can’t be contained, not when she looks at me as though she’s dreamed of me too.
“Mon rêve, l’amour de ma vie,”I whisper right before my lips touch hers.
It takes her a second and then she’s kissing me back. Her arms come around my neck as I lift her so she doesn’t have to stretch. I could kiss this woman for the rest of my life.
As it happens, I plan on doing just that.
We get lost in each other—it could be five minutes or five years before we pull apart.
And because I can never guess what she’s going to say or do next, when I place her on her feet, she smacks my chest and shoves me away. Hard.
“Why the fuck would you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“‘I can’t give it up, not yet,’” she imitates my deep voice, and I can’t stop my snort of laughter. Her hands go to her hips.
“Don’t you dare laugh. My heart was breaking!”
That sobers me.
“I never want to break your heart, Leah,” I say before kissing her again. She lets me only for a second before pushing me away again. “I knew the Whales wanted to keep me, but Montreal was making a big play. I don’t want to move back to Montreal and even though I’m not ready, I’d retire before that happened. So I may or may not have leaked the notion I was thinking of retiring.
“I’m not sure why everyone was so surprised—I’m thirty-six. Once they heard the rumour, Montreal backed off and the Whales offered me a one-year extension. That’s why I was so late today. I was waiting for the contract to come through so I could sign it and get to you.”
“So you have one more year and then you’re done?”
“No, I have one more year to figure out what I’m going to do after, while hopefully showing you and Levi how much I love you.”
Her breath hitches. “You love me?”
“Yes.”
And again, I cannot predict her next words.
“Then you have to translate everything you’ve said to me in French because it’s been driving me crazy, and you always say it so low and so quickly I can’t even type it into a translation site.”
I laugh, my entire body relaxing, feeling so comfortable taking up all the space. As long as the space I’m taking up is right beside this woman, I’m home.
“Ma têtue,my stubborn one,” I say before kissing her neck.
She rolls her eyes. “I knew that one.”
“So impatient,” I mutter into her skin. “When I gave you my jersey, I said:Toi, ma têtue, tu vas ouvrir cette boîte, sans ajouter un mot.” She goes molten in my arms, looking at me as if I’m her dreams come true and not the other way around.
“You, my stubborn one, are going to open this box without another word.” She laughs and I move my lips across her skin, down to her collarbone.
Her voice is breathless when she speaks. “You said something else that day too.”
“J’ai hâte d’avoir tes jambes enroulées autour de moi pendant que je m’enfuis en toi. I can’t wait to have your legs wrapped around me while I bury myself inside you.”
My hands run up the length of her body, grazing the sides of her breasts. I capture her mouth with mine, wanting to taste the sound when she gasps.
“I knew you had a dirty mouth,” she teases. “Why did you hide it from me for so long?”
I don’t answer. I’ll tell her later I didn’t want to be too much for her, not understanding at the time I couldn’t be too much. Not for her.
