THE POWER HAD come back after about twenty minutes. By then, the storm had died down, so after I took a cold shower, I let Snoopy out of his Thundershirt. He followed me into my bedroom, and once I dragged on a pair of sweat pants and crawled into bed, he barked and jumped up to join me.
“You never sleep with me,” I muttered, even as I shifted to the side so he could squeeze in. That dog always slept in Carter’s room, even when Carter was with his mother.
I supposed all the storms we’d been experiencing lately were getting to him, though. He needed some companionship, and his boy wasn’t here to give it to him.
I needed some companionship, too, but of an entirely different sort. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good Natalie had felt beneath my hands, how soft her skin was, how passionately she’d responded to me. Not to mention the silky feel of her mouth on my cock. Fuck, but I’d never be able to forget how hard I’d come, how sweet she’d tasted, and how much I wanted to be inside her.
But that damned dog wouldn’t get still. He kept nosing at the blankets and squirming to get closer to me, until he finally worked his way beneath the sheets and shifted all the way down to the foot of the bed to curl up around my feet. When I moved my toes because his wet nose was up against them, he barked and bit them.
“Pardon me for trying to get comfortable in my own fucking bed,” I muttered. Not that I imagined I’d be very comfortable anytime soon. How could I be with the taste of Natalie still on my tongue and the memory of her silken skin imprinted on my brain?
He grumbled in response.
There wasn’t much chance I’d be getting to sleep for hours. My mind was spinning too fast, too many things screaming for prominence in my brain: all the ways I’d fucked up by taking things too far with Natalie, all the ways my father could fuck up both her life and my own, how the hell I could protect her from Hayes, whether I’d landed myself in serious trouble with either the team or the league by spouting off in the press conference, what all of this would do to Carter, and possibly most importantly, how the hell I could ever give Natalie what she wanted without hurting her in the process.
I’d already allowed things to go too far. I should never have given in. But how could I tell her no when she asked me for what she wanted? The truth was, I didn’t think I had the strength to deny her anything.
I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, but I couldn’t sleep. I doubted I’d ever sleep again. Snoopy seemed just as restless as me, but maybe he was simply picking up on my own nervous energy and the electricity still in the air following the storm. But then a soft knock sounded at my bedroom door, and my heart turned over in my chest.
I froze, debating what to do.
“Ethan?” Natalie called out timidly. “Are you awake?”
Snoopy barked like a lunatic in response, jumping down to the floor and scurrying to the door, so whether I had intended to answer her or not, I couldn’t feign sleep now.
I threw off the covers and glared at him on my way across the room to answer the door. In the dim light of my lamp, I could just make out the anxiety creasing Natalie’s brows.
That felt like a punch to my gut. I wanted to kiss her tension away. But I was probably the cause of it. Or at least one of the causes.
I forced myself to keep my arms at my sides, my hands to myself.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said after a pregnant pause.
I should never have touched her. I should have kept my fucking hands to myself. I’d probably hurt her leg, or maybe her lung, or lord only knew what else. “Are you in pain? We still have more of your meds some—”
“I can’t sleep because I need to be with you,” she cut in, and all the air whooshed out of my lungs in a single breath.
“You need…” I couldn’t make myself finish the sentence because every nerve in my body was screaming to do things with her I had no business doing. More than we’d already done.
“I need to be with you,” Natalie said, smooth and calm. “I need you to hold me.”
Well, hell. I couldn’t very well deny her that. In fact, I didn’t think I could deny her anything. I’d been trying to slow her down, but that wasn’t going very well so far. I nodded curtly and backed up so she could slip past me.
Her hand trailed along my abdomen as she entered my bedroom, just a brush of her fingertips over my T-shirt, but it set every nerve ending in my body on edge. Especially when it combined with the sweet, delicate floral scent of her hair.
Just like that, I was hard enough to pound nails again. I closed my eyes, trying to get my dick under control.
But her scent was all around me. It wasn’t just her hair. It was her. And now that I’d had a taste of her, I was like an addict—one taste would never be enough.
“You didn’t put on your brace,” I said.
She shook her head. “Didn’t think I’d need it.” She must have recognized my thoughts on the matter, because she pressed on before I could interrupt her. “I was careful—held on to the stair rail and everything.”
“What if you need it in the morning?”
Natalie sat on the edge of my bed and shrugged. “Maybe Snoopy will go get it for me.”
“More like I will.”
She bit her lower lip, which drew my eye and made me think about how those lips tasted. Then she held out a hand for me, beckoning me closer.
I was powerless to stop my feet from closing the distance between us. When I took her hand, she drew me down onto the bed beside her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes, not even when I tried to tip her chin. “Natalie…”
“Please,” she whispered. “Let me stay with you. I need your arms around me. I need you to hold me.”
My stomach in knots and my heart in tatters, I did the only thing I could: I pulled down the sheets, shoved Snoopy out of the way, and settled Natalie in my bed beside me. She rested her head on my shoulder so the sweet scent of her hair tickled my nostrils. Snoopy nosed his way under the covers again and curled up around my foot, and Natalie settled a hand over my stomach. Within minutes, they were both asleep.
But I lay awake for hours.
Because now, if Hayes’s lawyers tried to come after me saying everything I’d claimed that asshole had done was all a lie and it was only because I’d wanted to get Natalie in my bed, there wasn’t much I could say to dispute it. Maybe that wasn’t what had been behind it initially—but here she was. In my bed. Curled up around me with a post-sex glow.
I might have just destroyed my own credibility.
If that fucker got off because I’d given in and taken things to another level with Natalie, I’d never be able to forgive myself.