Page 93 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

Just look at her. My chest thumps at the mere sight of her sitting up in my bed, taking the coffee from me and stretching her legs out under the covers, blond hair falling forward overone shoulder.

The thought of waking up to this vision every morning is a whole new kind of thrilling.

It’s also a thought I can’t allow myself to have right now.

She hovers her nose over the drink and inhales it. “Mmm.”

It’s a soft low hum of satisfaction, like the sound of a cat stretching out in a ray of sunshine on the carpet.

“The honey.” She raises the cup to her lips. “You remembered.”

“Of course.” I shift so my back is against the pillows on my side and stretch my legs out beside hers. But mine are on top of the covers. I am most definitely stayingon topof the covers. If one inch of me gets under them, I would never want to get out and never want to let Natalie leave.

“You got dressed.” She pouts out her bottom lip and runs a finger down the sweatpants over my thigh.

“Yeah, I’m video-calling into the team meeting in an hour. Then I have to work out and have another remote session with our head of PT. So I thought I’d better drive you home.”

Her face, which has been the picture of softness, hardens a little, the bright blue of her eyes darkening.

My stomach lurches. Christ, I don’t want her to think I’m a total dick who’s just banging her and running. Though, if you look at the facts, I can see that on face value it would be an easy assumption to make.

But that’s not what’s going on inside of me. That’s not what’s in my heart.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I tell her. “No rush.”

“No rush, as long as it’s in the next twenty minutes so you have time to take me home and get back here again.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

She clunks her coffee down on her nightstand, next to the pink pig she won last night, and swings her legs out from under the covers.

With her back to me she bends over and picks up her clothes from the floor and dumps them on the bed next to her.

“I’ll be out of your hair just as quickly as I can,” she says, picking the socks out of the pile and yanking them on.

“Natalie, look, it’s not like that.”

But what is it like? What’s the truth here? I don’t want a long-distance relationship.

Not that New York City and New Orleans are a whole continent apart.

And right at this moment, as it looks like she might walk out of here and I’ll never see her again, the clenching in my stomach says that taking the three-hour flight back and forth is maybe totally doable.

Knowing I can’t let myself have her is one thing. Executing it when it feels like my guts are being ripped from my body, is entirely another.

She stands and hitches up her jeans, giving me a glimpse of her panty-clad ass before it’s covered by the denim.

My eyes rove over the smooth, fair skin of her back. Skin that my hands were all over yesterday and itch to be all over again.

She snaps her bra closed over it and pulls her T-shirt and sweatshirt on at the same time—they’re still exactly as I took them off her last night, one inside the other.

“Okay.” She spins to face me, pullingher hair out of the shirts and flicking it over her shoulder. “Get me out of here.”

The hurt in her expression kills me. The way it tears at my heart is unbearable.

I’m being ripped in two—the practical side knows I need to focus on my career to set myself up for a good future after the game, while the emotional side just wants to curl up naked with Natalie for forever.

And I simply can’t stand it.

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