Page 18 of Falling for You

I curse and look at Ezra, who nods and confirms, “I’ll go check with security to see if she’s still here and look through all the footage,” before rushing out of the locker room, I try to take deep breaths as I put my hands on my hips.

For over a month, I’ve been trying to find her and fucking nothing. If I didn’t have the security footage of us leaving the bar, her leaving my apartment building, and the fact I have her bracelet, then I would have thought I dreamt her, and here she may have been, right under my nose for the past few hours.

Fuck.

Everyone stays quiet, waiting on Ezra while I grab Penelope’s bracelet, which now has two more charms. The first one is a motorbike, indicating the first time she went on my bike, the second one, which I added last week, is a pair of skating boots.

I clutch the metal in my hand and eye the door, not moving a muscle.

For twenty minutes, no one says a thing, I stay standing with Pen’s bracelet in my hand, my brother and father watching me closely. I ignore them, listening to the boys rustling about getting dressed but not leaving the room, all wanting to know if this mystery girl they had no idea existed was here in the arena.

“Son,” my dad says, but I shake my head.

“Not right now, Dad. I gave you my word, and I’m keeping it, but it’s been a week. You’ve given me a year to find her,” I reply without looking at him, and I hear him sigh.

Last week, after another loose end, my parents, my sister, brother, Ezra, and Coach sat me down for what they deemed an intervention. They gave me a year to find her otherwise I need to move on. They’re worried about me, and I get it. I’ve never gone for a girl before, always wanting the easy life, while yes, I agreed but if I still feel like this after a year, it’ll just cement that she’s the one and the need to find her will double.

“Why not just give things a chance with Sonia?” my dad asks casually. It breaks the ice in the room as the men laugh their asses off, even I smile. I can’t fucking help it.

Sonia is a fucking nightmare, the fact Pen might believe I’m in a relationship fucking sucks, but as of yesterday, we ‘broke up’and only because it was pictured with her cheating on me with a rival team, so I came off smelling like roses.

The woman was fucking nuts. Every event Elena signed me up for, she clung to me and became too touchy-touchy, the more I denied her, the more persistent she fucking got.

The door to the locker room opens, and everyone shuts up and look towards a serious Ezra walking in, anger radiating from him, I stiffen.

Fuck me, she was here.

“It was her,” he confirms, “she stayed for the whole game with her sister, or that is what the girls in the seats behind hers stated. The seat tickets were under some lawyer name, Carl Vine,I called his firm up while we went through the footage, but his secretary refused to give any names out,” he shakes his head, everyone can see he’s trying to control his anger as I realize Vine was that nurses name Kaylah wanted me to date. “I spoke to security, apparently she tried to get access to the tunnels. She requested to speak to you, but they refused to allow her in because she didn’t have a pass,” he says. I growl, and he puts his hand up, admitting, “They were going to call through until Elena refused them and had the girls escorted off the premises, banning them.”

“Son of a bitch” I curse, then confirm, “So we have no way of finding her again because of Elena?”

He nods in confirmation, I scoff as my anger builds. I state, “I need a minute,” before I walk out of the locker room opposite where the cameras are waiting and head to the stands, knowing the ice will calm me—or I hope it will.

How in the fuck does this woman get away with ruining the player's lives?

“Why did you get this tattoo?” Pen asks as she gently traces the ace of spades on my forearm, which I got at eighteen.

I smile and inhale her as I put my face into the crook of her neck. I love that my smell covers her skin.

“I got it to piss off my mother,” I admit, she snorts and tilts her head to look at me, the water splashing around us with her movement.

We’re in the tub, her body leaning against mine. It’s intimate, but fuck me, it feels right.

“Why?” she asks with humor, her dark green eyes sparkling, I grin and admit, “Because she lost her favorite car during a poker game to my dad’s sister with an ace of spades, my aunt has never let her forget it, continuously driving it whenever she comes round.”

Penelope grins, her whole face lights up, making my heart race. I can’t help my reaction as I lean down and slam my lips against hers, shocking her as she gasps, giving me the perfect opportunity to shove my tongue into her mouth, tangling it with hers, tasting her.

I plan to pull back to ask her questions and get to know her more, but she moans and all thoughts leave me as I move my arms from around her stomach and grip her hips, gently lifting her before blindly guiding the tip of my rock-hard cock at her entrance, then slowly and carefully, aware she may be sore, glide her down my length.

I groan into her mouth and deepen the kiss at how tight she feels while I gently guide her with my hands, moving her hips up and down until she’s comfortable enough to take over. Instantly, I feel like I’m in heaven with how her pussy fits nicely around me.

I don’t know how long I sit here, but my body is cold. I’m soothed for the moment as my father sits down on one side of me and my brother on the other. They bring me out of my head, out of the memory. I squeeze my hand, clutching the bracelet, remembering it all.

“I know you’re frustrated,” Dylan says after a few minutes of just watching the ice with me. I grunt in acknowledgment as I sit forward, leaning my arms on my bent knees.

“I get it, little brother, believe me, I do. That is only because I have seen you struggle since your night with her,” he continues, “But today it proves she wanted to see you, meaning she could come back. Ezra spoke to the front desk and security. He’s removed Elena's ban on her and her sister and asked them to contact Vine’s Criminal Law. They’re sending her and her sister season tickets for the start of the season with passes to the tunnel and locker rooms. They’ve made sure to write that it’s for the women who came today.”

A little hope builds as my father continues, “I’ll continue trying to find her in the meantime, son. Ezra is sending me the photos so I can get a better image. We’ll find her, I promise you.”

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