We fall into silence again, our heartbeats back to normal, our breathing slow and mellow. I love how he greeted me at the door about an hour ago. With a sprig of mistletoe in his hand, he held it over my head and gave me a sweet kiss.

Then he dropped the mistletoe right there in the entryway, picked me up, slammed the door behind me, and carried me into his bedroom. And now, here we are.

“Zack’s proposal last night was pretty epic,” I say, just to start some conversation. We’ve only been together a few times, and each time we’ve had sex or done some type of sex act multiple times. But there’s also been a lot of conversation between us as we start to discover more about each other personally.

“Yeah…didn’t think he was going to pull it off for a minute,” Ryker says with a laugh.

“I’m glad to see him so happy. I really, really liked Gina, but seeing him with Kate…you can just see it so clearly. How they are meant to be together.”

“I didn’t know Gina, but I can see what you see in Kate. She’s amazing and she couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“Did you feel that way about Hensley?” I ask him, and wait to see if he tenses over the question. While he’s talked plenty about Ruby and Violet, who frankly scare me in a way that I can’t quite understand, we haven’t discussed his marriage much. In fact, I’m not even sure if he’s legally divorced.

Ryker doesn’t tense and I find that causes my heart to crack a little wider where he’s concerned. He’s such an open book that it’s easy to put faith in him. “I don’t know, to be honest. Before I found out she was screwing Sutter, I would have said yes. I had nothing to compare it to, so the way I felt about her when we got married…yeah, it felt like she was meant for me. But now, something like that makes you question the truthfulness of your own feelings. You know what I mean?”

“You know, I actually don’t know what you mean,” I tell him with a laugh.

I feel him lift his head from the pillow to look at me so I angle my face up. He’s staring at me with shrewd eyes. “You’ve never been in love? Or had a serious relationship?”

Laying my head back down on his shoulder, I shake my head. “Never had time, I guess.”

Ryker snorts and I lift my head again to look at him. “What? I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve never found the right person,” he says with a wisdom that perhaps I should have since we’re the same age but seems to be failing me. “If you did, you would have made the time.”

I go ahead and push off of him, leaning on my right hip and locking my right arm to support myself so I can look down at him. My eyes briefly cross over the tattoo he has on his left upper arm. It’s a partial brick wall in homage to his hockey nickname, but personalized with the words Violet and Ruby in graffiti-type lettering. It’s tough and sensitive all at the same time.

It’s totally Ryker.

Playing with the edge of the sheet that’s pulled up to my hips, and keeping my gaze averted, I admit, “I don’t think I really understand the concept. My mom died when I was so young, so I was raised by a single parent. I never saw my dad in love with a woman. He was always devoted to just me and his business. I really have no other frame of reference to go by.”

“But you’ve had friends, other family members in relationships?” he prods.

I look up at him and give him a smile that says, Oh you gullible man, you.

“Ryker…I was more interested in figuring out advanced physics problems by the time I hit puberty than boys. Even though my dad held me back a bit, I was still way far behind in emotional maturity than the people I went to school with. And once I sort of figured out what was going on, no one was really interested in the young, nerdy smart girl.”

“Nerdy my ass,” Ryker interjects.

“The point being,” I talk right over him. “I didn’t have a conventional upbringing. Some of this is just…foreign to me.”

He reaches a hand out and trails his knuckles over my bare breast while he stares at me thoughtfully. “I don’t get it. You’re vibrant, warm, passionate. You’re the type of woman built for a relationship.”

“Except I channel all of that into my career,” I point out.

“Maybe it’s time for you to change that,” he counters with a cocked eyebrow and a lopsided grin.

“With you?”

Ryker’s hand moves from my breast to cup me around the back of my neck. He tugs me down on top of him, slides his lips across mine. When he pulls back to look at me, he makes my heart clench. “I told you once I don’t do flings, but I find it frustrating and odd that you and I work so very closely together, and yet we are still worlds apart.”

“Because our professional careers don’t let us mesh our personal lives together,” I finish.

He doesn’t respond to me right away and I can almost see his brain processing something within his eyes. Finally, he says, “If we both want it enough, we would find a way to make it work. And I know it would be very easy for me to just say, ‘Fuck what people think about us being together,’ but the truth is that I could never do anything to jeopardize your position as our GM. It’s too important. Too historical. I think you’re necessary to this team, and if being with me, in public, would hurt you or this organization, I will always step back.”

My eyes sting, because other than my father, I’ve never had another soul put my well-being before theirs. It’s overwhelming to me. I place my hand on his chest. “I’m sorry that I can’t give you more. I think I’d really, really like to see what ‘more’ with you would be like.”