“Nothing’s wrong.” I had the words, but I didn’t have the music and he knew it. Especially when a lump knotted in my throat and had tears pricking at my eyes.
The bed creaked and dipped as his knee sunk into the mattress. Tatum braced his forearms on either side of my head. Pressing his lips to my forehead, he whispered, “Bullshit.”
I turned my head, pressing my cheek into the mattress so that the tears welling up in my eyes wouldn’t show. They’d trickle out and get soaked up by luxurious Egyptian cotton. “I’m just tired. I’m sorry I’ve been … distant this week. I just… I’ve had a lot going on.”
“Tell me you’re at least staying in Providence until the season ends,” he whispered.
My muscles tensed. “What?”
“You told Heidi that New York went well.” Tatum laid on the bed and dragged me across the mattress into his arms. His chest covered my back, and thick arms caged my waist as he pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Look. We can… Fuck, Wren—we can make it work. I can spend the off-season with you in the city. I mean, I’ll have OTAs and mandatory mini camps before training camp starts again, so I’d be gone in May and the first half of June, but that gives us the last two weeks of February. We’d have March and April, and two weeks in July.”
I sniffed as I tried to wipe away the embarrassing number of tears I’d shed. Truthfully, I had been avoiding him all week because after I had met with Colette in New York, I’d had the same thoughts. We’d get a few weeks here and there, but my work schedule would pick away at what little time we had. I couldn’t put my life on hold just because he had time off.
But a few weeks every now and then wasn’t a life. Not a full one, anyway.
“We haven’t been together that long.” It was a reasonable defense against the heartbreak that seemed to be looming on the horizon. But as much as I wanted to believe that Tatum and I not having been together for a long time meant that things weren’t that serious, I knew it was a dirty lie. I’d been with Preston the popped-collar-prick for years and never felt this scared about losing him. The only reason I had felt anything at all was because I was grieving my mom. The breakup had been a bullet wound into an already gaping hole.
Tatum’s arms tightened around me. “Don’t sell yourself short like that. Don’t sell us short like that, like my feelings about us don’t matter. It’s been five months, Little Bird. Five months without a day going by that I haven’t wanted you. So yeah. I’m thinking about the off-season. And if it’s me spending the spring jogging through Central Park while you’re building a fucking empire, then I’m game.”
I turned in his arms and buried my face in his chest. I caught the faintest whiff of his cologne. Even though we were almost two thousand miles from our houses, I was home. “New York could be big for me,” I murmured. In my heart of hearts, I wanted the meetings with Colette to suck. But with each new office space we toured, with each art gallery we perused and each furniture maker we talked up, visions of new design projects manifested in my mind.
“Talk to me about it,” he said.
So, I did. I talked, lying in his arms until I talked myself to sleep. I’d been too scared to admit to him that maybe I wanted out of Rhode Island. Maybe I needed the break from life in Providence—the firm, the Reds. Rhode Island was the size of my thumb. New York had a certain appeal—being able to lose myself in throngs of people chasing dreams far bigger than my own.
The one lingering question was whether or not New York was my dream or if it was an escape because I was too afraid to go after what I really wanted.
* * *
“Little Bird, Little Bird,”Tatum rumbled.
I stirred, groaning as I peeled an eyelid open. Bright streams of sunlight crisscrossed the room. I squeezed my eyes shut again. It was too freaking bright.
“Nah, don’t do that, beautiful,” he scolded. “Don’t go back to sleep.”
“Too early,” I mumbled as I pulled a pillow over my face.
Wait.
How did I get under the covers? I fell asleep in Tatum’s arms, still in my travel clothes. Ugh. Falling asleep in jeans was the literal worst. I shifted under the covers, but I didn’t feel the denim straitjacket strangulation of falling asleep in jeans. Instead, soft cotton floated around me. I peered out from under hooded lids and spotted my jeans on the floor. Warm hands slid up my legs. Tatum had a raspberry trapped between his teeth as he prowled up the bed.
He was shirtless and glistening. Droplets of water glimmered across his dark skin like stars in a night sky. A fluffy white towel was wrapped low around his hips. The V-cut muscles that made every woman absolutely stupid were on full display. Thick muscles rippled with each motion. He lowered his head, grazing my lips with his. He bit into the raspberry at the same time he slid his tongue into my mouth for a slow, soul-snatching kiss.
“Did I sleep strip?” I asked on a yawn when he finally pulled back. The fruity tang of the berry lingered on my taste buds.
Tatum sat back on his haunches and grabbed another berry from a tray that had been set on the bedside table. “I took the liberty of relieving you of your clothes.”
I looked around. My phone was probably still in my bag. “What time is it?”
“Ten,” he said with a smirk as he peeled back the covers, revealing my bare breasts. He drew one of my nipples into his mouth. Sparks bloomed between my legs with each deep pull. He bit down, slowly adding pressure until I was writhing beneath him. Heat throbbed in harsh pulses as he pulled back, drawing my nipple away from my breast then releasing it with a pop. He massaged the ache away with deft fingers.
I whimpered as my own fingers trailed down to my sensitive bundle of nerves that was begging to be touched. I was still half asleep and he already had me on the verge of coming undone.
“Nuh uh-uh, Little Bird. Orgasms are for good girls,” he murmured, nipping at my earlobe.
I whined as he laced our fingers together. “But I’ve been good.” I batted my eyelashes at him, hoping to tap into his baser instincts.
His chest rumbled with laughter. “Is that what you call giving me the cold shoulder for a week?” Tatum settled between my legs, parting my thighs with his knees. With one incredibly talented hand, he slid two fingers into my pussy and began to tease my clit with firm strokes of his thumb. “Because I call it being a brat and blocking me out when you should have been looping me in.” He pumped his fingers in twice, surging hard and curling up with each stroke. My thighs shook as he pushed them further apart.