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37. Darcy

CHAPTER 37

DARCY

The next weekend, Georgia and I are out shopping again when she leads me into a quiet store.

It's a sea of lingerie. I clutch my shopping bags harder. I've already bought a pair of "fuck-me" heels, as Georgia calls them, and a couple of tops from her favorite consignment store.

My gaze goes to a velvet chair at the back of the store, near the dressing room. "I'll be over there. Take your time."

"Um, no. I've seen your underwear." She gives me a pitying look, referring to the time she helped me with a zipper and used the phrase budget potato sack with regard to my panties. "This is an intervention."

I give her a wounded look. "What's wrong with my underwear?"

She flips through a rack of gauzy thongs. "Do you want me to answer that, or do you want to feel pretty and hot?" She finds my size and hands it to me before searching through the matching bras.

"I don't need expensive underwear to feel hot." My face is warm as I think about last week, when I woke up in Hayden's bed and ground against his thick erection .

With that thing, it's no wonder he has no problem with women. I swallow.

"You don't," Georgia muses as she flips through more incredibly sexy garments that I will look like a total fool in, like a kid playing dress-up. "But it helps."

"I don't think I'm ready to start hooking up with people." I don't mention how Hayden and I kissed at the cast party or how I definitely felt ready for that.

"Lingerie doesn't have to be for other people. It's for you." Her mouth tilts in a sly smile. "There's power in having a secret. Sometimes, when the Russian is making his bitchy comments or glaring at my feet, I think what I'm wearing under my clothes would melt your eyes out of your head ." She stares off into space for a long moment before she jerks out of it and smiles at me. "Try a few pieces on. If you don't like them, you don't have to get them."

We browse the quiet shop for a few more minutes, and nerves flutter through my stomach at the idea of wearing these items. I don't know why; it's not like anyone will see them.

Maybe because I feel like it's another way I'm leaving my old self behind.

Or maybe because every time I consider one of the lacy garments, I wonder whether Hayden would like it. I stare for a long time at a cream-colored garter belt, picturing his big hands undoing the tiny clips, and a shiver rolls down my spine.

"It must be nice having the place to yourself when the guys are away," Georgia says.

The team's been gone for five days, traveling for away games, and no, it hasn't been nice having the place to myself.

I miss Hayden.

"We slept in the same bed," I blurt out.

Her hand stills over a table before her interested eyes cut to mine and a smile forms on her mouth. "Go on. "

"Because my window was jammed open."

She gives me a flat look. "Are you kidding me?"

"I'm serious," I choke out, laughing. "My window wouldn't close and it was cold and I wanted him to have a good night's sleep for the game and—" I cut myself off as Georgia smiles wider.

"Uh-huh." Her tone is loaded with disbelief, and she's grinning like a cat. "You wanted him to have a good sleep? How kind of you."

My face burns. I can make every excuse in the book, but the truth is so obvious: I wanted to sleep in the same bed as Hayden again. The way he smelled the next morning and the feel of his hard, broad body wrapped around mine threads through my memory, and my skin prickles.

"And, um, we woke up spooning and he had a boner and I accidentally ground against it."

I've been thinking about all of this nonstop and it's all bubbling to the surface.

"Mmm." She nods, satisfied. "That's the stuff I want to hear more about."

I still haven't used the toy he got me. If I do, I'll think about him, and I'm worried about what'll happen next. I'll like it too much.

I already like him too much. Maybe I have for a long time. I don't know anymore.

Our eyes meet and something in my expression causes hers to soften.

"He's my best friend and my wingman and there are a million reasons why we shouldn't get involved."

She makes a thoughtful noise that sounds like reluctant agreement.

"I'm still figuring things out." I'm still finding myself is what I want to say but don't know how. "I don't want to derail that."

She hums, nodding with understanding. "Can't argue with that." A tight smile pulls across her mouth. "Men ruin everything."

There's an edge to her tone. I want to know more, but she waves me over to the dressing room.

"No more stalling," she says over her shoulder.

Fifteen minutes later, I stare at my reflection in the dressing room.

It's the warm, flattering lighting that's making me look so good. Or the backdrop of the thick velvet curtain behind me. Or maybe it's the way the store smells fresh and comforting, like vanilla and lemon.

Or maybe this is just how I look in high-end lingerie. Delight and pride spread through me as I take a deep breath, watching my cleavage rise over the bra. The delicate purple of the embroidered flowers matches my hair and the fit is perfect. The fabric is soft and luxurious, like someone put time and effort into crafting this item. Something in my chest expands, swelling and making me stand a little taller.

I think my other bras are the wrong size, because my boobs don't normally look like this.

"Am I a genius or what?" Georgia drawls from across the curtain.

Although I can't even imagine it, I'll eventually need to take dating seriously again. A player is always confident and chill, the list said, and wearing something like this under my clothes would definitely give me a much-needed boost.

What I'm wearing under my clothes would melt the eyes right out of your head , she said earlier. A thrill shoots through me at the idea of Hayden seeing me in it. Or even just wearing it around him, without him knowing.

That would never happen, but it's fun to think about.

"Yes," I call back, biting down on a smile.

I step out of the elevator on our floor at the same time Hayden's leaving the apartment across the hall.

"Thanks for your help, love," our elderly neighbor, Greta, says to him before she sees me and smiles with warmth. "Hayden was helping me with the upper windows I can't reach." She gives him a proud nod. "He's a good window cleaner."

Hayden and I chuckle. The guy makes millions as one of the best hockey players in the world but isn't too proud to clean his elderly neighbor's windows. My heart squeezes with warmth.

"He is a good window cleaner," I tell her with a grin.

"What a nice young man you have here." Her eyes crinkle with a smile. "They don't make them like this very often."

He shifts, uncomfortable with this praise, and I beam at him. "I know. He's one in a million."

"Don't let this one get away." She winks before closing the door.

In the quiet hallway, Hayden and I start laughing.

"How was your flight?" I ask, holding our door open for him. He arrived home earlier today.

"Good." He tilts his chin at my bags. "Doing some more shopping?"

"Georgia and I went after work."

He makes a pleased noise. "What did you get? "

"A few tops, a pair of shoes." And some wildly sexy lingerie that I can never tell him about.

He takes a seat at the kitchen island as I set the bags down. "Show me."

I nudge the bag with my lingerie aside—thankfully, the paper bag is plain white with no identifying store name—and pull out the two tops I bought. He watches with interested amusement as I flip the shoebox open, but when I lift a pale blue velvet heel, his smile drops.

"Georgia convinced me to buy them. I know they're different from what I usually wear, and they're velvet so I can wear them like, two days a year here, but—" I shrug. "They're kind of fun for spring."

And I wanted them. I felt sexy, grown up, and stylish in them.

"I think those are called fuck-me shoes." He stares hard at them, with a rough edge to his voice that makes my skin prickle.

Heat careens through me. "Are they?" My voice goes high. "I didn't know."

He swallows, blinking, and looks away. "What's in this bag?" He reaches for the white paper bag, and alarm shoots through me.

"No, don't?—"

He pulls out a delicate balconette bra—cream with pretty soft-purple flowers carefully stitched onto the gauzy fabric—and I freeze at the sight of the lingerie in his strong hand.

For a long moment, he just stares at it before he drops the lacy garment back into the bag. Our eyes meet; his cheekbones turn an adorable shade of pink; my face is burning.

I shrug with an embarrassed smile. "Georgia made me buy it."

"Yeah." He rakes his hand through his hair, the long line of his throat moving as he swallows. "That's great. Lingerie is great."

"Dressing like a player and all that."

A muscle ticks near his temple and his gaze moves over me, flickering with something. Is he picturing me wearing it?

No, of course he isn't.

He rises to his feet, glancing at the lingerie bag again before he jerks his gaze away. "Have you had dinner?"

I shake my head.

His eyes spark, and he wiggles his eyebrows at my new heels. The tension dissipates, and I can breathe again.

"Let's take your new shoes out for a spin."

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