55. DMITRI

55

DMITRI

Kavi doesn't blink at my lose it all prediction, but questions clearly circle her head.

She's tapping her thumb against her mouth. "Lose it all… Lose hockey? Lose happiness? Lose all your money?"

My knee is excruciatingly tender, but somehow, my lips twitch. "I don't sound like that."

"Like what?"

"So dramatic."

"I didn't say you did."

"You implied." I plunge my leg back into the cold. This is where I usually countdown the minutes, grappling with mental techniques to sit longer, even as my whole body screams at me to get out. But for once, I don't care. "To answer your earlier question, no. My money won't ever run out. I've diversified."

"So, it's about not playing hockey again." She wrestles her fingers harder. "Sorry. I need to take this seriously. Just because I don't hold the same love for hockey, probably because of the absent dad issues I never talk about, it doesn't mean you don't." She brings her knees up and rests her head on them, observing me sideways. "What I really mean is that I hate that you're hurting. How do you get better?"

I open my mouth, then close it. She's sneaking glances toward my bad knee and blinking. Her eyes shine as if wet with unshed tears.

Over me? I reach over, forgetting that I'm dripping water, my arm long enough to caress the side of her cheek with my wet thumb. "Don't worry about me, Princess."

Kavi's mouth thins. "Don't do that, Dmitri. Don't tell me I can't worry about you." She pulls away from my touch and stands up. "Talk to me. Tell me more."

She walks over to the foot of the tub and swings her leg as if about to slide in.

"You don't want to do that," I warn.

One leg dips in. Kavi blanches and yanks it until only part of her foot is under the water. "Talk to me or I'll lose circulation and my toes will fall off."

My mouth twitches again. "You would have to keep it in for longer for that to happen."

"Do you want me to be uncomfortable?"

Her efforts at emotional blackmail would work better if she didn't immediately backtrack.

"I ask the man in a tub full of ice," she says, "whose knee looks angry-pink. I'm the worst. Sorry. It's not about me."

"Don't say sorry."

She offers me a half-smile, wiggling toes that must be going numb. "I forgot you don't like them. The sound of my apologies. I'm not giving you them on purpose. I would hate being that woe-is-me type of person. And this—" She gestures at me. "Your pain is not about me. It's about you. What happens if this gets worse? If you can't play professionally anymore, what happens? Dmitri, we can talk about it."

Kavi Basra is in plan-mode. It's why the firm in Seattle wanted to snatch her up. It's why Smith and her dad pushed her to help them for so many years. Kavi sees other people's problems and works to solve them.

Her lips catch my attention. Are they losing color? Unacceptable.

When I get out of the tub, her eyes widen. I'm dripping everywhere as I stand, leaning to my uninjured side. Her neck turns, following my movement until it can't, for I've lumbered behind Kavi.

Big palms close around her waist. "Up you go. You're shivering."

I guide her to her feet. The floor will get slippery if I keep leaking onto it. She could fall. Grabbing a towel, I start to dry off.

She snatches it out of my hands. Warm hands gently push me back until I reach the bench in front of the sauna.

"Sit," pleads Kavi. "You have to keep weight off your knee."

I'm so unstable her nudge has me dropping down. Instantly, she's toweling me dry. My shoulders, arms, the breadth of my back, down my spine.

When Kavi goes down on her knee to reach my legs, my hands shoot out. "No."

She shimmies away. "Yes."

"You don't have to?—"

The towel slides along my inner thigh and rests against my groin. I suck in a ragged breath.

"Do you usually keep your shorts on?"

"No." My voice is thread-bare. I wasn't shivering in the ice-bath, but I'm fucking shivering now.

The towel drops. Her arms stretch until her fingers reach the waistband of my shorts. I'm large. There's a lot of space I take up with my sprawling, densely muscled body. But Kavi is quick and the nerves around my scar scream at me. I'm not playing defense right now.

All I can do is help her take my shorts off.

When I'm naked, I lecture my cock. Don't you fucking dare get hard.

My cock doesn't listen. Kavi is here. That's all that matters.

Before she can see it rise to full mast, I snatch the towel and wrap it around my waist, bunching it in the front.

"Now what?" Kavi asks, breathless. "What's next?"

"You don't have to."

"Don't," she warns. "I'm not in the mood to argue."

A chuckle rolls out of me.

Her hands go on her hips. "What's next, Dmitri?"

I point where the ointment and bandages are. The next few minutes aren't real. They can't be. So many nights I've done this alone, sometimes easily, sometimes crawling to finish. Even when my dad was training me to recover, he didn't tend to my pain afterward. Kavi's fingers barely brush against the swelling, as if she's so scared of making it worse. In the lightest of strokes, she covers the injury with ointment. Bandages are rolled on at a snail's pace. For some reason, I don't rush her. I don't want it to end.

The pain is there, unforgivably there, but she's touching me as if I matter. Fuck , my throat clogs.

I confess into silence. "I don't know what happens after it gets worse. I'm afraid I'll turn into my dad if I lose hockey."

Her head snaps up. Our eyes clash, and I watch her features rearrange. She mouths ah as if understanding.

"When I bailed him out of jail," I tell her. "I told him I wouldn't turn into him."

"What did he say?"

My jaw flexes. "He thinks I will."

Her hand reaches for mine. She squeezes it. "You won't."

"Maybe. But if I don't win the Cup, he'll be disappointed. More than that. Devastated. "

"Shit." Her cheeks flush with emotion. "What a terrible burden to put on your kid."

My lower half is shrieking, but I've easily got enough upper body strength to lift Kavi until she sits on the bench beside me.

She doesn't belong on her knees.

"It's a burden," I agree. "So is telling your kid they aren't good enough or that they won't be successful, right?"

That surprises a faint laugh out of her. "Look at us. Two members of the bad dad club. Though mine never pressured me into any sort of grueling training."

"No." I lightly bump my shoulder against hers. "He bruised your heart." My tone is whisper-soft, even though I'm furiously serious. "I won't say more words about him for your sake, even if I have a lot to say."

"I also have a lot to say about your dad, but I won't. Unless you want to talk about it?"

I don't. We head to bed, Kavi insisting on supporting me there. There's an argument about whether I need to get my knee checked out by a doctor right now, but I don't let her call one. What I need is to sleep it off like I've always done.

I'm dressed in threadbare sweatpants and settled in bed, but I don't let go of her hand.

She stands above me and strokes my head.

I'm a broken mess, needing her help like this. She deserves more. Better.

But I can't let go of her hand.

Even worse, I tell her to stay.

Kavi climbs onto the mattress and carefully arranges herself to lie beside me. Her body posture is wary. She doesn't want to jostle my bad leg, but her chin comes to rest against my back. Against my skin, she stutters an inhale.

"Don't. You can't cry."

"I'm not," she insists, far too quickly. "I'm just thinking. How often are you in pain? And please, don't lie to me."

I shut my eyes, grateful she can't see my face. "It's getting worse," I finally admit.

"Don't hurt yourself." Her voice pitches. "How do we make sure it doesn't get worse? Play-offs are coming soon."

"I don't know."

Gingerly, her arms come around my torso. She's hugging me from behind. "Worst case, there's a life outside of hockey, I promise. I'm finding a life outside of being my parent's daughter, and an assistant, and someone who broke off her engagement and thought her life was over."

There's that sniffle again.

"If you got really hurt, it would kill me," she whispers. "Got it? If you care about me at all, you have to take care of yourself."

If I care? Is she serious? I've been falling for Kavi Basra for longer than I care to admit to myself. It's getting way past the point where I can turn back. I don't think I can escape it anymore.

"I want to be strong for you, Princess."

She groans. "Is this a man-protector pride thing?"

"Man-protector?"

"You know. I'm a man." Her voice is exaggeratedly deep. It makes me swallow an out-of-nowhere laugh.

"It's not a man-thing," I say.

"What is it then?"

We're speaking into the dark. Light-canceling drapes cover the room with velvet softness, but it's not pitch black. The glimmer of the hallway light comes in under the door. It reminds me of candlelight. Moonlight. Pretty magic.

It's that, somehow, but also just us. The smell of ointment, ice, and the tipsiness that comes when Kavi touches me. It spins my senses.

"What is it?" I say, repeating her question. "It's a you thing, Kavi."

Only you. I don't care about other women and being anything for them. It's about being enough for her.

"So it's my fault?" she teases, stroking a line down my biceps.

"Not in that way." I have to explain, unable to stand her taking on any blame, even as a joke. "When you've spent your whole life taking care of someone, you don't want to do that to anyone else, because you know what it feels like."

"You can't always be strong, Dmitri," she murmurs. "And that's okay. "

It terrifies me that I want to believe her. That I don't have to guard this secret weakness of mine.

She knows about my knee, but she's still here, helping, giving me her support.

Is that what happens when you let someone in? Can you expect them to stick around, even when you're hurting?

A stray thought comes to me.

What if I told the team? What would they do?

I'm thinking—then my mind blanks, for she's rubbing my arms, soothing me. Her touch goes across over my hips, thumbs stroking bliss into those tight muscles. I groan.

It pushes her on. She massages more and more until her wrist runs into the bulge of my erection.

I buck my hips before I can help myself.

She presses kisses along my back. "Let me."

Her hand dips into my sweatpants and finds my cock.

Fuck.

"You don't have to," I rattle out, my words staccato. "Not when I can't?—"

"What did you tell me before?" She strokes up and down. "Oh, yeah. This is my turn."

"I need to touch you."

"I absolutely don't care. You can't. You have to rest."

"I thought the pain in my knee was torture. This is torture," I growl, my hips moving without permission, pushing me into her hand.

"Is this good for you?" There's a smile in her voice, finally.

"It's so good, love."

Against me, Kavi's heartbeat spikes. I'm not thinking straight. I've called her love, probably not for the first time, but back then we were both mindless. Now she hears it properly. Shit.

She's not pulling away. If anything, Kavi's hand picks up speed.

"I won't last," I warn her. My voice is guttural.

"Good."

"If you sit on my face, it won't hurt my knee. Come sit on my face."

"No."

"Just for a few minutes, Princess. Sit on my face."

"No," she moans out. Her thumb goes over the head of my cock, and then she pumps me harder.

My head presses into the pillow, pleasure erasing pain. I don't know how to tell her what this does to me. I don't know how to tell her what she means to me. How much she matters.

All I can do is release, so I do. All over both of us, incoherent and groaning?—

No tangible words make it out. Such a close fucking call. I almost said it out loud to her.

Mine, mine, mine.

You are all mine, Kavi.