Page 125 of Rookie Recovery

Words. Why couldn’t I words?

“You were worried,” he said, voice going quiet, the smile fading a little. “That’s why you did what you did. You were worried about me because—because of what happened to you.”

My teeth gritted together. “You Googled me.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No.” I huffed out a chuckle. And then the rest of the words spilled out, all the ones I should have said so much earlier. “You shouldn’t have had to Google me. I … I should have told you. About all of it. I’ve been trying so hard to put it behind me, so I never talk about it or think about it, but I should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” he murmured.

I kept going. “I let it affect my judgment. I was scared—I thought I was seeing the past happen all over again. But you’re not me, and I should have trusted you and … I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” His green eyes dropped to his hands folded into his lap atop his wrinkled dress pants—dammit he needed someone to press them for him. Or to teach him how to do it himself. I bet he didn’t even own an iron. Or a steamer. “But Jamie—”

“Yeah?”

“I know you did it because you didn’t want to see me end up like … like you. Because you saw yourself in me. Because you care.”

Those words hung between us, unspoken but almost tangible. The words I needed to say to him, regardless of whether he felt the same. Regardless of whether he’d laugh or let me down slow or say them back.

“I do care,” I murmured, stumbling. “I care a lot. I—”

“I love you.” He beat me to it. His green eyes snapped up to me, wide and terrified and earnest and beautiful. “I lo—”

I crushed my mouth against his.

“I love you, too.” I tilted my forehead to his so my words whispered against his lips, my voice soft and husky but not uncertain. I meant those fucking words. “I missed you. So much.”

“Me too.” His mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. “But you’ll be proud to know that I ate my vegetables. Well, most of them. Some of them.”

“Aw, Bowman, are you growing up?” I curled my hand around the back of his neck to wind my fingers into his hair. It was still damp from the shower. That’s where he’d been, why he’d taken so long to come out. He’d been showering after briefly donning his gear.

It was such a Jamie thing, not a Bowie thing, a me thing, to do. It made me chuckle. God, I loved him. How he could be so sweet and so—

“I missed you so much, I didn’t even wank. Well, I did once, in the shower, because I was thinking of that time when we—”

I silenced him with another kiss because, honestly.

Naturally, his response was to wiggle his tongue in between my lips, and what can I say. My defenses were weakened. I’d missed him, missed everything about him—from the bad dick jokes to the perpetual horniness to the quirky humor and the sweet moments—so much. I let him in. His tongue slid against mine, soft and sensual.

Which meant we were making out in the middle of a hockey game we were supposed to be paying attention to, caring about. Hockey was life. But right now, he was the most important thing in my world.

His tongue turned rough, demanding, and mine responded with equal insistence, forcing the pace to quicken. His fingers slid up my chest, and mine tightened in his hair, pulling him closer, wanting to feel the heat of him against my body as the kiss deepened—

The blare of the buzzer tore through my haze of lust.

A storm of noise followed in its wake: cheers, stomping, screaming, couple of horns and noisemakers. Someone beat a 10-gallon bucket with drumsticks. Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400″ filled the arena in a swell of celebratory electronica.

I jerked away from Bowie, swiveled to the ice as Aaron and Zac thumped together in a bro-hug. Fuck, I’d almost forgotten the game again. They’d scored.

“Damn. I missed it.”

I turned back to Bowie. We were both panting, chests rising and falling too quickly, and my body felt too warm. Luckily, I supposed, neither of us had gotten handsy. I had my limits on PDA, and once Bowman got handsy … There was no stopping him.

“We’re at a hockey game,” I said, like an idiot. “Who’d have known?”

“We were busy.” His fingers curled into my tie to tug me back towards him. “Kiss me again, Kitty.”

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