Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

LEMON

I t feels like a cool breeze runs over me when Hansley rolls away. The loss of his body heat makes me cold and I shiver. For a minute, I don’t move as I catch my breath. Getting my hands under me, I push myself up and shift to look at him.

He’s lying on his back with his arm over his face. My heart sinks because I have the very weird impression that he regrets this. I nearly tell him I’m sorry and that I’ll go, but his lips part and he takes a deep breath, holding it so his chest is wide.

“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice quiet. Maybe he doesn’t want to hear it right now.

Hansley lets the breath out in a rush. “My marriage is over,” he says.

I stare at him because I’m pretty sure he already knew this. He told me days ago that he told his wife about us. Well, not about ‘us’ because that would imply that there’s an us, and I know that’s not what he meant.

“Did something happen?” I ask and then shake my head. “I mean… you told her almost a week ago. Did something else happen?”

Turning my body, I fold my legs under me. I sit close but don’t touch him. I’m not sure if I have permission to now that we’re not having sex. My eyes trail down his damp body to where his softening cock still in its wrapper, is laying against his thigh. I want to discard it for him, but I’m unsure where we are right now.

He has one of the most spectacular bodies I’ve ever seen. Such thick thighs. Hairy legs. Pronounced abs. Big chest that I’m kind of dying to squeeze.

“I filed for divorce a couple days after,” he admits quietly, dropping his arm off his face though he doesn’t open his eyes. I hold my breath because he’s actually telling me things. Important, personal things! “I gave her everything in it. Every single asset we have together.”

I’m ready to get mad on his behalf, anticipating where this is going. She wants more. She doesn’t get more! She doesn’t get to ruin him. Not even because he cheated on her.

“But she doesn’t want any of it. She said no. Then she called me this morning crying because she doesn’t want to get divorced. She wants to work it out.”

My heart drops as I stare at him. I swear, I ate a live fish and it’s desperately trying to get out of my stomach now.

“But I told her,” he continues, his eyes squeezing shut. “I told her I’m not going to stop this.” He waves his hand between us before dropping it at his side again. “And this woman, she says that we can work it out.”

My eyes widen, mouth forming an O. “What?”

Hansley laughs. “Right?! That’s what I said. She can’t be serious. I’ve been having an affair for two months and she doesn’t care. I mean, of course, she cares… But she doesn’t think that’s enough of a reason to get a divorce. She loves me.” I can hear the bitterness in his words and I’m not sure where it’s directed.

Honestly, I’m at a complete loss here. There haven’t been many times in my life when I’m left speechless, but right now is definitely one of them. I’m not sure what to say. Which is probably fine because I don’t think he needs me to say anything. Maybe he just needs to get it off his chest. To say it in the open. I’m really touched that he chose me to talk to about it.

He gives a heavy sigh and finally opens his eyes to look at me. He looks open and vulnerable. I can see the misery in his eyes.

“I don’t want to stay married to her, but how the hell am I going to keep telling her I need a divorce when I know it’s going to hurt her over and over again?”

“She doesn’t care?” I ask, still befuddled.

He chuckles. Not in a haha funny way, but bitterly. “Yeah. She said it was fine if I kept a side piece.”

My eyes widen and I immediately become indignant. “I am not a side piece!”

Hansley laughs. He grips my arm and brings me down so that I’m sprawled slightly on top of him and beside him. I feel his movement under me and then I hear the squelchy splat that tells me he dropped the condom on the floor before rolling us onto our sides so we’re facing each other. “You’re not,” he confirms. His fingers move up my chest, over my shoulder, and along my neck. He plays with my curls as he stares at me. “I told her as much. When I tell you she’s suggested everything under the sun that results in us staying married and including you, I mean it.”

“This is going to sound… mean, and I promise I don’t mean it that way, but why? Is she afraid to be alone? Afraid of what the world will say? Afraid of change?”

His smile is sad. “No. No other reason except that she loves me.”

I stare into his eyes wondering if that’s the real reason or if that’s just the one she tells him. “I’ve never known love like that,” I murmur.

His lips curl a little. “She’s an amazing woman,” he says. “The absolute best person I’ve ever known. Jess is kind and loving, thoughtful, charitable, sweet. So damn beautiful—both inside and out—it brings tears to my eyes. She’s just… good. Once, I thought we were the perfect couple. I thought there was no better place to be than in her love. So many times, I thought how lucky I am that she turned her radiant love and devotion to me.”

I swallow the lump in my throat because I will never be that person. I’m nothing like her.

“At some point over the last couple months, I realized that perfect love is not where I thrive. It’s not where I belong. I need something messy and passionate, something with loud feelings and… suspense? I need drama. Not this kind of drama but?—”

He pauses and I can see the frustration in him as he tries to put into words what he’s feeling. Eventually, he gives up and sighs, closing his eyes. “I guess my point is, at some point over the last couple months, we just became incompatible. Couples are supposed to grow together. To face challenges together and enter each new chapter together. We didn’t. We grew separately.”

“She doesn’t accept that?” I ask.

Hansley sighs again. “She’s hurt, so she’s not thinking clearly. Although I shouldn’t be entirely surprised by her response because that’s the kind of person she is. She forgives when she shouldn’t. She loves with her entire soul.”

“I think she sounds like an angel,” I say. “She’s too pure to exist in this world.”

I’m surprised by his wide smile. He opens his eyes to look at me. “Exactly. I agree. And for a while, I lived in the shine of her halo.”

“It’s awfully bright there, isn’t it?”

Hansley laughs. “There’s nothing I don’t like about Jess. Nothing I’d change. But the issue is that I’ve changed and I no longer belong there. I don’t want to be there, which is heartless and cruel and just… unforgivable. She refuses to see it that way.”

“How does she see it?”

“That I have too much love to give to just her.”

My eyes widen. “I…”

He nods. “Yep. That was exactly my response. Speechless. I had exactly zero retort and then I had to get off the phone for hockey and I’m sure she’s now thinking that maybe we’ve stepped forward together, but no, that’s not what’s happening.”

What’s happening is that I showed up at his hotel door and climbed onto his cock. I’m a terrible person.

“I should have called her after the game and set her straight, but it’s exhausting. Which is so stupidly inconsiderate of me because she really is the sole victim in this and I should have balls enough to actually fucking talk to her. To keep repeating it until she understands and accepts it. But fuck, I can’t stand to hurt her like this. I can’t keep listening to her cry, knowing that I’m the one who made her feel like that and there’s nothing I can do to make us both happy right now.”

The arm that he’s laying on slides under me and he pulls me to his chest. I wrap around him, taking this as the request for a hug I think it is. His other hand still plays in my hair, messing with my curls.

We lay there for a while.

“Not wanting to hurt someone doesn’t mean you don’t have balls. Maybe it means you have the biggest balls.”

Hansley laughs.

After a while longer, I say, “So…” but trail off because I’m not sure where I’m going with that. I just feel like the silence is a little long, and he doesn’t feel any better. All I want is to make him feel better, though I have no idea how to do that. I probably can’t, but I desperately want to.

As if he knows what I’m asking, which is quite remarkable since I don’t know what I’m asking, he says, “I don’t have a plan. But logically, my first order of business should be finding my own place, so I can stop sleeping in Alka’s guest room before I wear out my welcome.”

I bristle immediately. My entire body tensing. “You’ve been staying at Alka’s?” I ask, attempting to keep my voice neutral.

He chuckles, his arms tightening around me. Clearly I didn’t succeed at neutral. “I have. You know he’s married, right? And has Roux too.”

“Yeah,” I grit out, though that doesn’t make me less… stiff.

“Are you jealous, Lemon?” he murmurs, his lips brushing along my neck.

I huff, refusing to answer.

“Why don’t you like Alka?”

“I just don’t,” I mutter.

“There must be a reason.”

“It could very well be a reason like the one where I didn’t like you,” I say hotly.

“You were attracted to him,” he says.

Scowling, I refuse to say anything. I’m not even going to correct him on the fact that’s not why I didn’t like him. I was just angry that his presence took my team’s money. And pissed that he was always one step ahead. That everyone just instantly liked him. That he was good at fucking everything .

He rolls us so I’m on my back, a big smile splitting his face. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“No,” I growl and try to get away. He doesn’t let me. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not his type, anyway. I’m not tall and fit and naturally pretty like he is. Like all those jerks are.” I think I mistakenly just admitted far more than I ever intended to. And now it’s out there. I can’t take it back. Fuck my life.

Hansley’s smile softens. “Queens are perfect, just as they are,” he says quietly.

I press my lips together, feeling exposed right now. I’m sure I’m a sloppy mess. My makeup is probably gross and smudged and melting down my face from sweat. My hair is likely wild and untamed. I smell like sex and sweat. Let’s not even start on my body image!

“Do you know what my first thought was when I saw you without your clothes on just now?” he asks, and I can’t take a breath as I shake my head. “That you’re absolutely exquisite. Everything about you. The long lines of your toned legs.” He runs his fingers over my thigh, moving toward my hip. “The shapely planes of your stomach.” His fingers dip in my navel before trailing further up my torso. “Your sexy arms have so much power in them.” His lips press to one bicep.

I take a shaky breath.

“Your eyes are so beautiful that I’d love to look into them for as long as you let me. Your smile, on those rare occasions that I get to see a real one, is breathtaking. I am obsessed with your curls.” He lifts my hand and between us, twining our fingers together. Tears sting the corner of my eyes as I look at where our hands are connected. “Do not compare yourself to anyone else, Lemon. You’re right that you aren’t anything like them. Because you’re not supposed to be. You’re you, exactly as you should be, and stunning for it.”

My breath comes out wobbly as I look at him. “Stop saying nice things,” I whisper.

Hansley smiles, bringing his body down on mine. “You’re the only man I’ve ever been attracted to and as humbling and soft as your personality is, I know it’s not just that which drew me to you.”

I snort, which I know he was going for.

“It’s you,” he murmurs, pressing soft kisses to my skin. “All of you.”

He keeps my hand in his, pressing it to the mattress above my head as he kisses along my neck and collarbone, his other hand moving over my body. I get the distinct impression that his touch is worshiping. It’s difficult not to give into the tears that are trying to push out of me. I won’t cry. I don’t want to be that person who cries at compliments.

I also don’t want to be that guy who refuses to accept them. Even if I don’t necessarily believe them. Hansley is a nice guy. He is. He says nice guy things. But why does my heart keep racing like this? I’m going to have a heart attack.

I fumble blindly and scooch us until I can grip another condom. It’s not easy one handed, trying to get it out. Especially when he’s trying to jerk himself into my hand as I struggle to roll the condom down.

It’s another frustrating minute later before I finally find the lube and make a mess all over us because he sucks on my neck and I gasp, squeezing the lube so it spurts like a happy dick everywhere.

Finally, finally , he’s pushing his cockhead against me as I wrap my limbs around him. Gripping him tightly to me and letting all the things he just said about me run through my head on repeat, trying to believe them. Attempting to convince myself that he means them.

This time we alternate between slow and quick as we roll around. Our mouths rarely leave each other as we fuck. We don’t stop groping, touching, memorizing. It’s magic. Everything about it is better than I’d ever dreamed I’d experience in my life.

And it’s here. It’s mine.

I’m not sure how to keep it, but I really hope I can get my shit together, so I do. He might think he’s not worthy of the kind of love Jessica gives, but I think he’s wrong. Maybe Jessica is just the wrong person to give it to him.

Maybe I can be the right person.