Page 114 of Pucking Revenge

I won’t be able to handle that. Losing him after experiencing perfection with him would destroy me. I have very un-high-school-level feelings for Brooks. I like him. A lot.

He can’t possibly love me love me, though. He doesn’t know what else is out there, so how could he?

I’m spiraling. And now I’m hiding. If I don’t hide in here, I’ll probably blurt this all out and then tell him I really, really love him, not just high school–level love him, and he’ll go running for the hills.

Or toward the actual puck bunnies. Not just a woman who wears a hat that declares her as one.

His only one.

Brooks knocks on the door. “You feeling okay?”

And now he thinks I’ve got an upset stomach.

Shit.

Literally.

“I’m fine. Just?—”

Just what? Freaking out because sex with Brooks is the best of my life? Because the man on the other side of the door is the best man I’ve ever met, and I’m so scared he’s going to realize I don’t deserve him?

Yes. That’s exactly it.

Heart pounding in my chest and stomach churning so violently I might actually have to spend another thirty minutes locked in the bathroom, I force myself to open the door.

At the sight of him, some of my anxiety ebbs. He’s standing close, hands in his pockets, hair loose and wavy around his chiseled jaw—because, oh yeah, the man cut his hair and donated it to charity, for me, then posted about it on social media and challenged every other guy in the league to do the same—and green eyes glassy and swimming with worry.

I fucking melt. How could I not? He’s perfect, and he’s mine.

“I’m freaking out,” I confess.

His responding smile is knowing. And it’s kind, and understanding, and perfect. Just like he is. “C’mere, crazy girl.” He opens his arms to me.

With a frown and a humph, I step into his embrace. The second we connect, I feel lighter.

He bands one arm around me and smooths the other down the back of my head. I love when he does that.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“I really like our sex and I really like you and what if you get bored with me because you can’t only ever want to have sex with me and you high-school love me and I didn’t love high school and I really like your penis and no one else is ever going to compare but for you I don’t have a bedazzled anything—I guess I could bedazzle my vajayjay but I don’t really love needles and would you even want that?” The words float out in one long, incoherent sentence. That’s what I do. I spill all my thoughts to him all the freaking time, like an insane person.

With a tug on the ends of my hair, he forces my head back. When I begrudgingly look at him, he’s not smiling. He’s not laughing at me. There’s no teasing humor in his expression. And he most certainly doesn’t seem annoyed by my ridiculous monologue. No, his face is marred with a concerned, thoughtful frown.

“I don’t high-school love you. I love you love you.” Now he’s smiling. It’s soft and kind. “What else? Oh right, your vajayjay is perfect. No bedazzling necessary. And Sar, I waited years to find the person I wanted to give my virginity to. I could have gone out and screwed around like the other guys, but I chose to wait for perfection. And I found it. Now that I have it, why the fuck would I want to test it out with anyone else?”

“But what if you do?” I whisper, though my concerns are seriously waning. The way he’s holding me, the way he’s caring for me, force them further from my mind by the second.

Brooks presses his lips to mine. Then he kisses my cheek. Then he moves to my chin and up to the sensitive spot below my ear. “I’m in love with you, crazy girl. Trust me to love you.”

“But what if you only think you love me because of the sex?” My voice is void of any real concern.

Brooks tips my chin up and waits for me to focus on him. “I know that for you this all seems new. These feelings, my obsession, my love. I can understand why you think that my feelings for you could be high school–level shit. But I’ve spent a year getting here. It didn’t happen on Sunday night when I sank inside you. I knew I loved you when I claimed you as my girlfriend. I fell in love with you while we sang Lake songs in my truck on the way to the beach this summer. When we made fajitas and watched Dawson’s Creek on that Wednesday night when you spilled tequila all over my lap. The day you got poked in the eye with my ‘massive dick’ and ran around my apartment like a crazy person.”

My heart squeezes so tight it aches. “It really is a monster of an appendage.”

He chuckles and caresses my chin with his thumb. “I’m in love with you. I have been. I’m in love with who you are, the way you make me laugh, the lightness that hits me when I’m around you. You’re my favorite person in the world. If we’d never kissed, if we’d never had sex, I would still love you.”

The vise that’s been clamped around my chest loosens, and I let out a light sigh. “But the sex is a nice bonus, right?”

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