Marek (Cold Fury Hockey 11)

I'm going to hurl. Vomit my guts up right here on her bed. My hand slides out of my pocket, the condom seeming like the worst idea I've ever had.

"I don't understand what that means." My hand curls into a fist and I want to slam it into a wall. "You told my mom you went into labor when you were in class."

"No, I didn't say I went into labor. She asked how the delivery was and I said it was fine. But I was in class when I started bleeding, so that started everything..."

"I don't understand. What's a placental abruption? Why does it happen?"

"No clue why it happens," she says as she picks at the hem of her frayed shorts. "But it's where the placenta detaches from the uterine lining. This disrupts the flow of oxygen to the baby. It's very dangerous. Luckily, an ambulance got me to the nearby hospital and they were able to get Lilly out in time. She's perfectly fine, if you're worried about that. She was close enough to the due date that her lungs were developed well enough."

I shake my head hard, opening my fist and closing it again. "I know Lilly's fine. I just...I can't believe you didn't tell me that. I mean, fuck...you went through all that by yourself?"

Another shrug as she lifts her gaze to me. "Why would I tell you? It has nothing to do with you."

That shouldn't hurt, but it does. She's right. It's none of my business, but damn it, it should have been my business.

And fuck.

Just fuck.

She had a hysterectomy. She can't have any more children. Lilly is it for her unless she adopts, and she can't ever get pregnant again by me.

I shake my head hard and push up off the bed so fast Gracen lets out a little gasp. Why in the fuck I'm even thinking about getting her pregnant is beyond me, but I need to shut that shit down fast.

Taking a breath, I wipe my hand over my face. Gracen looks at me guardedly.

I have no clue what to fucking say. I feel wretched that Gracen went through that, and that she did so alone. For perhaps the first time, I feel true guilt for breaking up with her and for the way in which I did it. For telling her that I wanted my freedom and didn't want the responsibility. I created a situation where Gracen had to face that pregnancy alone, and she and Lilly almost died from it.

"I'm sorry," I manage to croak out. "I'm sorry you went through that alone and that you can't have any more kids."

Gracen's expression softens and she looks at me with empathy.

At me with empathy.

Me.

Fuck. I don't need that to make me feel worse than I already do.

"Marek...it's fine," she says quietly. "I've made my peace with it and I have Lilly. I'm blessed."

So easy for her to say that. She's had years to process it, but I just had my guts metaphorically torn out of me two minutes ago.

"I, um...I gotta go get packed for my flight tomorrow," I say lamely as I move to the door. All thoughts of kissing that beautiful face and sinking into that gorgeous pussy are long forgotten. I turn to face her just before I step out of her room. "We good about last night, though?"

Understanding dawns on her face as she immediately gets what I'm saying. Last night was truly a one-time-only thing. There's no way I can continue that shit with Gracen.

Not when she provokes the most amazing--and also the worst--feelings within me. I can't ever let my heart get tied back up with her like that again, as I'm finding out that it fucking hurts when the person you care about hurts.

Chapter 20

Gracen

I feel my bed dip and I come awake. It's what moms do. We're trained to awaken at the slightest disturbance when you have a child to consider. My first thought is of Lilly, but then a hard male body presses in to my backside. A strong arm comes across my stomach and pulls me in tight.

Marek.

His lips go to the back of my head, pressing a light kiss there before saying, "You awake?"

"What are you doing?" I ask, answering his question and asking one of my own. My heart is hammering from his closeness and pure shock he's in my bed. After he walked out of my room four days ago, I thought the boundary lines had been drawn deeply.

At least by Marek. He was making it clear that intimacy between us was off the table. For the four days he was gone, which included a game in New York and one in New Jersey, I've talked to him every day. Light conversations focused on updating him on how Lilly was doing. They were short and not really necessary, as he video chatted with her a few times a day whenever he could get the time, so he was able to see for himself how she was doing.

"I thought I could walk away from this," he says from behind me. "But I can't. I don't want to."

My head spins from his words and his nearness. My pulse pounds from need in his voice. Marek's hand inches under the band of my sleep shorts and my breath catches. But his fingers slide no lower than the scar that runs horizontally just above my pelvis where they took Lilly from me. It's thin and barely noticeable, yet Marek's fingers find it as if he's examined it a million times before.

He strokes the skin there and murmurs, "It kills me what you went through. That you almost died. That Lilly almost died."

I try to swallow but my throat is clogged up.

Marek widens his hand to cover my entire lower stomach and he pulls me back into him. I feel his hardness at my backside.

"It kills me that you can't have another child," he rasps out, and I can tell it took effort on his part to push those words past the thick emotion hanging between us.

My hand covers his and my fingers curl to give him a squeeze. "It's okay."

Marek's hand slides free of mine and comes to my jaw. He grips it gently and twists my head so I'm forced to look over my shoulder at him. He raises up on an elbow and then his lips are on mine.

He kisses me ever so gently.

More gentle than I can ever remember in the hundreds of times we'd kissed. Whisper soft, barely touching. His breath flutters across my mouth, and for a brief moment--a weird moment--I feel cherished by Marek.

And then he's gone.

Pulling away from me, rolling to the opposite side of the bed. I hear a click and then the room is flooded with warm light from the bedside table. He rolls back to me and I take a moment to notice he's in a pair of dress pants and a slightly wrinkled but bright white shirt. They must have left the arena in New Jersey and headed straight for the airport to come back to Raleigh.

I gasp with surprise when he rolls right on top of me. My legs spread without any thought to let him settle in between them, and before I can take a breath, his mouth is back on me. Not as gentle, definitely deeper.

But more brief.

His lips are gone again and then he's sliding down my body. He pushes my tank top up, folds the elastic down on my shorts, and lowers his head to look at my scar. My face heats up from the way he studies it critically, his mouth set into a grim slash across his stubbled face.

Marek lifts his eyes to mine and I think my heart stops when he says, "I'm sorry for leaving you. The way I left you. For making you think you couldn't trust me with being there for the pregnancy. I'm just...sorry for all of it."

A surge of shock and adrenaline flows through my veins over his admission, something I never thought I'd hear.

Something I never thought I deserved to hear because my sins were so great that Marek's didn't really matter.

"Mar--"

His name on my lips is cut off as his mouth comes to my scar and he kisses it. Brushes over the thin pink line, only to trace it with the tip of his tongue.

My breath gushes out of me so forcefully I struggle to take air back in through my flattened lungs.

Marek's eyes come back to mine. "Do you want me to stop?"

I shake my head frantically.

"Good, because I don't think I can."

"But what does this mean?" I ask him in bewilderment.

His return stare is intense, as if this may be the most important conversation of our lives. "It means I want to be with you."

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"In bed," I say for clarification.

"Yes, in bed," he says gruffly. "And out of it as we raise Lilly."

I raise up to my elbows so I can look at him better. "And in between bed and parenting?"

"I don't know," he answers after a brief hesitation. "I mean...what else is there?"

Well, at least he's honest.

I scramble out from underneath him to prop myself up against the headboard. I pull my feet in, knees to my chest, and wrap my arms around my shins. Marek sits up, leaning toward me with a palm to the mattress.