Without a word, with those eyes burning a path all over my breasts and face, Aiden sat up reaching for my hips. His lips caught my nipple in the process. I was on my hands and knees straddling him a moment later, dragging the seam between my legs over the straining erection at the center of that endless body.
And then I was reaching back, aligning that broad tip against me, fully aware of how wet I was from him coming in me and loving the idea he didn’t care. His moan got lost in mine as I sank onto him slowly, his mouth hovering over the nipple he’d been sucking on. Aiden’s hands guided me to move over him. His lips urged me on, catching one breast and then the other, moving to the space between them with peppered kisses.
When I rocked back, sheathing him in me completely, Aiden laid flat on his back. His chin went high, the tendons along his neck straining. I swallowed up the sight of him naked, those wide shoulders against the pale gray of his covers, his sculpted pectorals rising and falling with his choppy breathing. My two favorite things to take in were the ridged muscles of his six-pack flexing on and off, and seeing my thighs along his hips and sides.
I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward, planting one hand on the mattress beside his head, the other going to the center of his chest, his skin was hot, his muscles hard. One of his hands went up to cup the back of my head, bringing my face down for him to catch me in an open mouth kiss. We were in that position, still linked with our lips when he started drilling his hips up. We were still making out when I came, my inner muscles rippling, lost in my orgasm, when his penis twitched and he let out a hoarse groan, coming again.
I pretty much collapsed on him at that point, breathing harder than after I’d finished the marathon, more euphoric than ever in my life. Our bodies being aligned was overwhelming. His heart beating under my chin was more than I ever could have imagined.
His arms wrapped around my back, keeping my breasts against his slightly sweaty chest. Aiden hummed above my head, “I love you.”
And I hummed right back, my entire soul swelling. “I know.” Because I did. “I love you, too.”
“I know,” he said in return. The closeness between our bodies more apparent than ever in that moment.
“You really want me to go to Colorado with you?”
“What have I told you about stupid questions?” he asked. “Yes, I want you to.”
I smiled. “Sheesh. I just wanted to make sure. I want to go. I want to be where you are.” Before I thought twice about it, I told him what I would realize later was the most significant absolute truth in my life. “Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me to be there.”
One of Aiden’s palms slid down the length of my spine, ending at the small of my back. He seemed to talk into my hair. “I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”
Maybe that was the thing about love I never understood before Aiden. Like football and art, like anything that anyone in the world has ever wanted, love was a dream. And just like a dream, there were no assurances behind it. It didn’t grow on its own. It didn’t blossom without food to feed it.
It was the greatest in its subtleties.
It was the strongest in its selflessness.
And it could be forever with someone who wasn’t afraid to never give up on the possibilities it presents.
Epilogue
“IT’S OVER. THE SAN DIEGO GUARDS HAVE MADE THE COMEBACK OF A LIFETIME. THEY’RE GOING TO THE SUPER—”
I smiled, and bounced the two butts on each of my thighs as the television anchors went over the game that had finished an hour ago. Most of the game hadn’t gone the way anyone in the box wanted it to. Hell, I thought at least 70 percent of the audience hadn’t wanted things to go the way they had.
Because the Guards had been losing by fifteen up until the last quarter. The disappointment in the team’s family box had been tangible. Heavy and sedated, I thought we were all some degree of numb up through the beginning of the fourth quarter.
We all wanted them to win, but for me, I probably wanted it at a little more than everyone else in the room besides the worried mothers.
This was Aiden’s last season, and I’d known how badly he wanted to win. How much he wanted to go to the biggest game of them all. For once.
He was arguably the best defensive end in the league and had been his entire career. He’d won player of the year three more times since we’d gotten married, been to every All Star Bowl, and won achievements on television award shows… But he still hadn’t gotten a ring. The Ring. He had made it to the playoffs but the teams he was on had never made it to the championship before the big game until now.
And in this last season, the team had been doing so well, everyone had assumed this would finally be it. Then, it had all started to go terribly wrong, and the dream began to slip away. One of the linebackers had dislocated his shoulder. A cornerback had limped off the field after a play. The team’s defense had been in shambles. But in some sort of miracle, the Guards’ offense staged the comeback of the century, the defense got it together, and they won.
Seeing it with my own eyes didn’t help make it more believable.
They had won. They’d fucking won. I felt like I’d won. As if I’d be the one going to the big game in two weeks.
“You want me to take one of them?” one of the wide receiver’s girlfriends asked from her spot in the seat next to me as we hung out in the room that had been assigned for team members’ families.
I gave her an appreciative smile and shook my head. “I got it, thanks. I’m sure they’ll be out in a minute.”
The younger woman nodded, wringing her hands as she smiled wide. “Yeah. I can’t wait.” She bit her lip and looked around, her knees bobbing under the table. The energy coming off of her was infectious.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah.” She smiled. An early-twenties brunette, I knew she hadn’t been with her boyfriend for long. Last season, there had been a different woman who showed up to the family room for number eighty. “I want to scream. I can’t believe they did it.” Her voice had started to rise in volume before her eyes strayed to the two little monsters on my knees. “Matt said Aiden was planning on retiring after this season.”
There it went.
“Yep.” It was a bittersweet thing. For one, I was relieved. I’d read too many articles about the long-term effects football had on players’ brains and bodies over the last few years, and I knew Aiden had been more than relatively lucky in his career. He’d never really had any injuries that weren’t minor since that incident with his Achilles tendon so many years ago, and that was better than most other people had it. On the other hand, no one knew how much he loved playing better than I did. Football had been everything he worked hard for, and he was hanging up his cleats and jersey, and retiring at thirty-five years old.
A huge chapter of his life was closing, and I was just slightly worried about how the transition would go in the months to come. Over the years, we’d found a balance in our relationship that worked, that thrived more and more every day despite his schedule and my workaholic tendencies, but… well, he was quitting football. His great love.
“Oh! Look! They’re coming,” the girl said, already pushing back and getting to her feet.