Page 68 of The Beautiful Collision
But he doesn’t. He just keeps those devastating fingers moving inside me while his thumb finds my clit, circling with perfect pressure. The pleasure builds differently than usual—not the sharp spike toward release but a slow, deep wave that seems to originate from somewhere behind my sternum.
The orgasm rolls through me like thunder rather than lightning, deep and resonating and seemingly endless. I’m dimly aware that I’m saying his name over and over, that tears are leaking from the corners of my eyes, that my hand on his cock has stilled because I can’t focus on anything but the pleasure and emotion.
He holds me through it, fingers gentling but not withdrawing, drawing out every last tremor until I’m limp andgasping against him. Only then does he carefully remove his hand, bringing his fingers to his mouth to taste me with a reverence that makes my spent body clench with renewed desire.
“Your turn,” I manage.
I resume stroking him, matching the tender pace he set. I watch his face as I touch him, cataloguing every expression, every caught breath, every flutter of his eyelids. When his hips start to move with more urgency, when his breathing goes ragged, I maintain the same steady pace, drawing it out, making it last.
Then his eyes fly open, locking onto mine as his orgasm takes him.
He comes, spilling hot over my hand and his stomach, his whole body shuddering with the force of it. I work him through it, gentle but thorough, until he’s completely spent and trembling in my arms. It’s real and it’s messy and it’s hot.
We lie there afterward, neither of us moving to clean up, neither of us pulling away. The moonlight has shifted, no longer cutting across the bed but painting the entire room in silver. In this light, in this moment, with our bodies still humming from release and our hearts laid bare, everything feels possible.
“Stay,” he says quietly, though it’s not really a question.
“I’d like that,” I tell him.
I know we should probably talk about what this means, especially after what I said and he couldn’t. But right now, held in his arms with our bodies cooling and our breathing syncing up, I just want to exist in this moment where everything is simple and warm and safe.
I think back to the night at the bar, when he defended me, and showed me how much effort he’d put into learning aboutme. And that speaks volumes, even if he won’t mouth the same words I had just before. But it also makes me realize, with a small jolt, that I want to learn more abouthim.
“I want to watch you play,” I hear myself say, the words surprising me as they leave my mouth. “I mean… reallywatch.”
His arm tightens around me, and I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I confirm, tracing idle patterns on his chest. “I want to see that part of you. The performer, ahtlete, the Maine Show in its natural habitat.”
“It’s not a show when I’m on the ice,” he says quietly. “That’s when I’m myself. Everything else is the performance.”
The admission feels huge, this revelation that the loud, chaotic, attention-seeking Maine might be the mask, while the focused athlete is the real him. It makes me want to know everything, to catalog every version of him until I understand the whole picture.
“Then I definitely want to see it,” I tell him.
We lie there in comfortable silence, his fingers playing with my hair while mine trace the lines of his abs. This feeling settling in my chest—warm and scary and undeniable—I know what it is. I’ve known for a while now, if I’m honest. And I’m pretty sure he does too.
And, for now, that’s enough.
twenty-four
MAINE
The fluorescent lightsin the locker room feel like spotlights burning into my retinas. My hands won’t stop shaking as I tape my stick, a routine that should be automatic. But my mind is swimming with those three words that changed everything, and the fact that I choked on my response like a fucking coward.
I need you.
The words echo in my skull, bouncing around with all the things I didn’t say back. Couldn’t say back. Because how do you tell someone you love them when you’re actively lying to their face and your teammates have money riding on whether you can make her fall for you or not?
When the whole thing started as a bet you can’t afford to lose but now can’t bear to win?
“You good?” Mike’s voice cuts through my spiral, and I look up to find him watching me with a concerned expression.
“Never better,” I force out, flashing the signature grin that feels like wearing a Halloween mask made of broken glass.
Around me, the team goes through their pre-game rituals. Schmidt meticulously arranges his gear. Kellerman bounces nervously on his toes. Cooper sits motionless, staring at nothing,probably running chemical equations in his head or whatever the fuck he does to stay so eerily calm.
And I’m sitting here feeling like my chest cavity has been scooped out.
