Chapter Six
Kendall
His mouth finds mine again, and the world narrows to heat and want and
the feeling of his hands claiming skin I didn’t know was waiting for him.
I should stop this even though I’m the one who started it.
I should pull back. Remind him… remind myself, that I’m the team doctor
and he’s a player and there are rules, actual documented rules, about this exact
scenario.
But his palms are sliding up my bare ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of
my breasts, and my body has apparently staged a mutiny against every
professional boundary I’ve ever built.
“I should just tell you… it’s been a while for me,” I whisper, because lying
seems pointless and maybe I’m worried that fourteen months of abstinence
since I left the NFL isn’t going to feel quite like riding a bike. What if I’m
rusty?
And like most of the guys on the Hawkeyes team, Aleksi’s had his own
reputation with women before his NHL season. Though I haven’t witnessed
him bringing back women to the hotel after away games or taking home a
puck bunny from the bar after home game wins. All I know is that he had a
reputation before coming to play for the Hawkeyes. I’m sure he’s used to
experienced women, and I’ve only had a small handful of partners. Med
school doesn’t exactly lead to extracurricular activities.
“What does ‘awhile’ mean?” he asks, no judgment in his eyes, just curiosity.
He wants to understand.
“A little over a year…”
His breath heats over my collarbone.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he murmurs, words sinking against my skin.
My pulse trips up, the logical part of me scrambling to hold onto reason
while the rest of me melts under the quiet authority in his voice.
Then his lips find the spot just below my throat. His mouth is soft and hot.
Goosebumps rise all over my body.
“I’m a doctor. Thinking is my job.”
“Not tonight.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, those impossibly
blue eyes catching the weak bathroom light. “Tonight it’s just us. No job
titles–no responsibilities. Just two people who might not wake up tomorrow.”
The words land like a prescription I don’t want to fill. Because he’s right. If
this turns out to be some kind of infectious disease, if the fever starts in the
next few hours, if the CDC comes back with the kind of news that ends
stories—
I don’t want to die never knowing what this feels like.
So I kiss him again, harder this time, and he makes a sound low in his chest
that I feel in my sternum. His hands move to my bare hips, nothing between
us but his boardshorts.
“Off,” I say, tugging at his wet, cold shorts.
That sexy-as-sin grin flashes across his face before he shoves them down
and kicks free. And then there’s nothing between us except intention and the
hammer of my own heartbeat.
I let myself look. Really look.
Aleksi Mäkelin is six-foot-three of lean muscle and old scars, the kind of
body built for speed and endurance rather than show. Only his scars remind
me that he’s still flesh and blood, not some immortal being like his perfectly
sculpted body suggests. His thighs are impossibly thick from a lifetime of
explosive skating.
As the team doctor I’ve seen Aleksi bare-chested a few hundred times. His
entire body is only covered by a pair of boxer briefs. Dripping wet still from
the showers.
But then my eyes drop lower—
My breath catches.
He’s hard, flushed, the tip already glistening. Something low in my belly
clenches.
I’ve seen the bulge in his boxer briefs but this is the first time I’ve seen him
naked. I knew he’d be impressive but seeing him completely bare, his knees
positioned between my thighs, hard length waiting to fill me. I’m suddenly
more turned on than I can ever remember being in my entire life.
“Like what you see, Doc?” His voice is teasing but strained at the edges, his
eyes studying mine as I take every inch of him in, hovering above me.
“Yes…” I whisper, my tongue swiping to wet my lips. His eyes dilate at the
action and then he moves again.
He leans over the side of the bed, rummaging in his duffel. A strip of
condoms is placed on the bedside table. There’s enough for tonight at least.
He tears one free, rips it open with his teeth, and I watch those careful,
competent hands roll latex into place.
The athletic tape ring on his left hand catches the dim light. The one that
matches mine.
Something in my chest twists. It’s sharp and sweet… and terrifying.
Then he’s braced above me, forearms bracketing my head, and I can feel
him right there—blunt pressure to my center, impossible heat, his thick head
pressing into me.
“Tell me if I need to stop,” he says, and I love him a little for asking even
though we both know I won’t.
“Don’t stop.”
He pushes in—slow, controlled, giving me time. The stretch is immediate
and overwhelming, my body yielding in increments. I gasp, nails digging into
his shoulders.
“Okay?” His voice is tight, restrained.
“Yes. God, yes.” My hips tilt on instinct, drawing him deeper.
He groans, ragged and raw, then sinks the rest of the way home.
For a moment we’re both still, foreheads pressed together, breathing the
same air. His left hand finds my right, fingers threading through mine,
pinning my arm gently above my head. I feel the slight scratch of tape against
my knuckles—grounding me even as everything else threatens to spiral.
“Kendall,” he breathes. “You feel—”
“I know.” Because I do. This isn’t supposed to feel this right. This isn’t
supposed to feel like coming home to a place I’ve never been.
Then he moves.
The first stroke punches the air from my lungs. The second pulls a sound
from my throat I didn’t know I could make. By the third I’m wrapping my
legs around his waist, pulling him tighter to me, meeting him thrust for thrust,
my short nails raking lines down his back.
“Harder,” I hear myself say, barely recognizing the sound of my voice.
He complies—hips snapping faster, deeper—and the slap of skin on skin
fills the small room along with our ragged breathing. His mouth finds my
neck, my collarbone, the sensitive spot behind my ear. Every touch feels like
he’s mapping me, memorizing me… marking me.
“Look at me,” he says, and I do.
His pupils are blown wide, hair falling across his forehead damp from the
hot tub and now with newfound effort. He looks wrecked and beautiful, like
he’s trying to see straight through to my soul.
“Aleksi—” His name comes out like a desperate prayer on my tongue.
“I’ve got you,” he promises, and I believe him.
His hand slides between us, his index finger at my clit as he adds pressure,
his mouth wrapping around my nipple. His tongue swirls over my aching
nipple and I arch into his mouth, wanting more–so much more.
The orgasm builds fast, mutters of prayer spill from my mouth, coaxing
him on further, and he takes my encouragement, thrusting deeper, his fingers
swirling faster, his lips tightening around me.
Pleasure coils tight in my belly, electricity sparks up my spine. When it
hits, it’s white-hot and annihilating, my body clenching around him as I cry
out. He follows seconds later with a guttural sound, face buried in the curve
of my neck, hips stuttering.
For a long moment we stay tangled—trembling, gasping, hearts crashing
against each other.
Then he lifts his head, eyes soft in a way that makes my throat tight.
“Are you okay?” he asks again.
I can only nod, the rest of my body jelly to what he just did.
He presses a kiss to my temple before carefully withdrawing. I feel the loss
immediately—my body already mourning the connection.
He disappears into the bathroom. I hear water running, the snap of latex.
When he returns he stretches out beside me, one arm sliding beneath my
shoulders to pull me into his chest. I go willingly, draping myself across him,
listening to the thunder of his heartbeat slow.
“That was—” he starts.
“I know.”
His fingers trace lazy patterns on my shoulder blade. “We have all night.”
We do. And for once, being quarantined in a motel just provided its only
perk.
Three hours and four condoms later, I’m boneless and draped across Aleksi’s
chest like I might not move for a week. My body hums with the kind of
exhaustion that feels earned, muscles deliciously sore, skin sensitized, every
nerve ending still sparking.
I’ve lost count of the ways he’s touched me. The ways I’ve touched him
back.
The orgasm count, though? That I know. Five. Maybe six if you count the
one that blurred into the next without clear borders.
I’ve had more in the last few hours with Aleksi than I had in the final year
of my marriage.
That thought sobers me like ice water down my spine.
I need to say it now. Establish boundaries before this goes any further than
it already has—before I start believing in things that will only hurt worse
when they end.
“Aleksi,” I start, voice hoarse from overuse.
“Mmm?” He’s half-asleep, fingers still playing idly with my hair streaming
down my back, his pinky brushing down my spine every once and awhile,
making me squirm against him. And he likes it.
I push up on one elbow, putting space between us even though my body
protests. “We need to talk about what happens next.”
His eyes open, suddenly alert. “Next?”
“When we leave here. When we go back to Seattle.” I force myself to hold
his gaze. “This was amazing. But it can’t happen again.”
The lazy circles on my shoulder stop. “Hold on—”
“Listen.” My voice shakes despite my best effort to steady it. I sit up fully,
pulling the sheet across my chest like armor. “I’m the team doctor. You’re a
player. The medical board has explicit rules about fraternization between
medical staff and athletes. If anyone finds out about this, I could lose my
license. You could be suspended. Traded. The Hawkeyes could face
sanctions.”
He sits up but the confidence in his shoulders he had while he did
unspeakable wonderful things to me, have deflated a little. And I hate that I’m
responsible for that.
“I don’t care.” he counters.
“You should care.” The words come sharp but maybe they have to. “You’re
in the playoffs, Aleksi. You finally made the NHL after years of working for it
in Europe, in the AHL, the farm team before they moved you up to the
Hawkeyes. I won’t be the reason you lose that.”
His jaw tightens. “You haven’t even asked me about what I want.”
“What either of us want or don’t want when it comes to this isn’t part of the
equation.” God, it physically hurts to say it. “I’ve been down this road before.
With Tarron. It starts with promises and ends with me picking up the pieces
while he moves on to the next thing, leaving me with credit card debt and a
foreclosure on a house. Yes, the flirting has been fun but we’re talking about
our career for a one-night stand.”
“You’re not a one-night-stand to me, and I’m not him,” Aleksi says, low and
certain.
“I know you’re not.” And I do know that, somewhere beneath the fear. Not
that I know what Aleksi really wants. This could still be a cat-and-mouse
game. After all, I was off limits. A fun pursuit that he may never have
considered the consequences for. How could either of us have predicted what
would happen tonight on our flight?
Penelope’s advice that hockey players wouldn’t play the sport if breaking
the rules wasn’t part of the game has me considering that maybe the idea of us
was more exciting then the reality. The rings are made out of athletic tape
after all and the fear of death makes people do crazy things.
“But I also know what it looks like when a team doctor gets involved with a
player. I’ve lived it. The rumors start, a complaint gets filed with the board,
then the medical board investigates, and suddenly everything you’ve worked
for is questioned. I almost lost my license once. I can’t—” My voice cracks. “I
can’t go through that again. It took everything I had to get through med
school, to crawl out of where I came from, to defy every statistic stacked
against me.”
God, I can hear how selfish that sounds. But I’ve had to be selfish—
otherwise I wouldn’t have survived this far.
And truthfully? I don’t even know what Aleksi wants.
He said he had a crush, but a crush isn’t a promise. And that thing he said
about marrying me—well, that was under fluorescent lights with a CDC
official holding a clipboard. People say wild things when they think the
world’s ending.
Maybe that’s all it was. Maybe he just wants something temporary, a fling
to carry him through the season before he disappears back to Finland like so
many players do.
A fling with Aleksi isn’t worth my license. No matter how life-changing the
sex is.
The silence stretches, long enough that I can hear the air conditioner rattle
and my own pulse thudding in my ears.
He runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “We could be careful,” he says
finally. “Wait until the season ends. Talk to Penelope about protocol. Do it the
right way. I don’t want to pretend this didn’t happen.”
A terrible, traitorous hope blooms in my chest. I could kiss him right now,
curl back under the sheets with him and get lost in the idea of making this
work, but instead, I kill it fast. Penelope knows better than anyone that it can’t
happen while I’m the team doctor.
“Doing it the right way means not doing it at all.” I wrap my arms tighter
around my sheets. “Not while I’m the doctor making decisions every day
about your health. Not while you’re playing. The risk is too high for both of
us.”
He studies me and I see the moment he understands this isn’t just caution.
It’s terrifying. The kind that makes you choose safety over everything else.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “One night.”
Relief and disappointment tangle in my throat. “Thank you.”
His gaze drops to where my hands grip the sheet, then back to my face.
“But we’re making the most of tonight.”
Before I can respond he’s kissing me again, slow and deep and
devastating… and I’m melting into it, into him, giggling against his mouth
like a teenager instead of a woman with a medical degree and a half-dead fern
living in my studio apartment window.
He pulls back just enough to reach for the nightstand. I assume he’s
grabbing another condom from, but then I notice there aren’t any more sitting
there. Instead, he swings his legs off the bed and crosses to his duffel on the
chair.
“Are we out of condoms?” I ask, completely sex-drunk and dreading the
idea that our fun is over.
“I’ve got more, don’t worry,” he says over his shoulder.
I hear foil tearing in the dim room and then he’s back, settling between my
thighs, making me forget my own name for the fifth. Or is it the sixth time
tonight?
Darkness. Silence. The digital clock glowing 4:17 AM.
I wake with my heart already racing, adrenaline flooding my system before
conscious thought catches up.
I fell asleep. After another round with Aleksi. I was so utterly spent, so
flooded with endorphins, I just… surrendered. Passed out like my body finally
gave up pretending it had any willpower left.
Now panic sharpens everything.
I should check. Assess. Do what I’m trained to do.
I mentally inventory my own symptoms first: No fever. My throat feels
normal. No chills. No nausea. Breathing is steady: elevated only because fear
hasn’t learned to sleep. Pulse fast but strong.
Alive. I’m alive.
Then I register the solid weight of Aleksi’s arm beneath my neck, his chest
warm against my back.
But could he be—?
My hand trembles as I reach for his wrist. What if he’s not okay? What if
while I slept—
Warm skin. Strong pulse. Steady rhythm.
The relief nearly breaks me. I feel my eyes threaten to tear up. What if I
made it and he didn’t. Could I live with myself for that?
No… I couldn’t have.
“We made it,” I whisper to the dark.
“Were you checking my vitals, Doc?” His voice is sleep-rough and unfairly
sexy against my ear.
I jump. “God, you scared me.”
His other arm swings over me, tightening around my waist, pulling me
closer. “Professional habit?”
“You do seem to make a career of making me worry out on the ice.” My
heart is still trying to escape my ribs.
“See, I knew you cared.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and then kisses
the side of my throat.
“Just as much as I care about anyone else on the team. Doctor’s can’t have
favorites.” It’s 99% true but I’ll never admit that my heart pounds a little
harder when he takes a shift on the ice. I’ll take that to my grave.
“Come on,” he says in that sexy “just woke up” voice of his. “You have a
little bit of a favorite.”
“I can’t and I don’t. No special treatment. I make the same calls for each
player.”
I feel him give in just a little and change the subject.
“Were you feeling my pulse because you were worried I was dead?”
“Just… checking.”
“Would you have missed me?” His palm spreads warm across my stomach.
“If I’d been gone?”
“Do we really have to talk about this?”
“You would’ve cried at least a little, right?” His thumb draws lazy circles
just below my navel. “Because you have to admit, last night was pretty good.”
Good?
Good doesn’t even touch what last night was.
I’ve never felt that connected to another human. Never had that many
orgasms from penetration alone, never mind everything else he did with those
ridiculous hands and that criminally talented tongue. Never felt so completely
seen and wanted and safe all at once.
But we were both terrified. Convinced we might not see morning. That has
to be why it felt so intense. Trauma bonding. Adrenaline. That’s all this is.
“A tear, maybe, but only because the Hawkeyes need you to win the
Stanley Cup.” I tease.
He squeezes my hip and I jump with a chuckle. “You’re heartless, Doc,” he
says.
“Okay, maybe more than one tear.” I concede.
Though the truth is, I don’t think I would be the same if I had woken up this
morning and he hadn’t. Going on with the rest of my life knowing that Aleksi
was no longer in it would have broken something in me that would never be
repaired. And I have no intentions of digging into that any deeper.
“We have a couple more hours before the CDC comes back,” he mumbles
against my neck. “Sleep. Long day ahead either way.”
He’s right. I need rest. Need to conserve energy for whatever comes next.
I let myself sink back into him, into the warmth and safety of his body
curved around mine. His breathing evens out again. The room settles into
quiet.
Sleep doesn’t come for me. I lie there listening to his heartbeat against my
spine, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, memorizing the weight of his arm.
Storing it up for when I have to let it go.
When I wake the second time, pale morning light is prying at the edges of
the curtains. Aleksi’s arm is still around me, his chest rising and falling in that
steady rhythm that calms something in me.
Outside, hallway voices. The CDC team is back. I hear the knocks,
thermometers, the slow machinery of protocol down by the pool.
Reality crashes in like surf.
I just had the best sex of my life with a man who clearly wants more. Who
looked at me last night like I was something precious instead of a disaster
waiting to happen. Who made me a ring out of athletic tape and called me his
wife like he meant it.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it carefully, trying not to
wake him.
Nine new messages from Tarron.
My stomach turns.
Tarron: Maybe it’s fate we’ll both be in Seattle
Tarron: I’m different now, K. I’ve done the work
Tarron: Just give me an hour. That’s all I’m asking
K. His nickname for me.
I used to think it meant I belonged to someone–proof I mattered when half
the time my mother was too high to remember she had a daughter, let alone
my full name. After the divorce I learned he called the cheerleader R. The
Instagram model was L. Initials are easier than names when you’re juggling
lies.
I’ve been here before. The love-bombing. The promises. The absolute
certainty that this time is different, until it isn’t. Until I’m the one left trying to
explain to the mortgage company that he got the house in the divorce and that
they should be contacting him regarding foreclosure proceedings. Only,
neither him, nor his lawyer completed the paperwork so both of our names
were still on the hook.
Even if Aleksi seems different, and he does, how can I trust my own
judgment? My track record with men is a highlight reel of catastrophically
bad calls. All players, who knew how to play the game.
And it’s not just my heart at stake this time.
Our careers are on the line. The medical board’s fraternization rules are
clear, and the NHL will act. If anyone finds out what happened in this room, I
could lose my license. Aleksi could be suspended, traded—derailed right
when he’s finally living the dream. The Hawkeyes could lose their shot at the
Cup and not be allowed to take part in the next draft.
The playoffs are happening. His team needs him.
I need to protect him. Even if he doesn’t like how I do it.
Even if it means putting space between us now, clearly and quickly, so
there’s no confusion about what last night was… and wasn’t.
I extract myself from under his arm, moving like a ghost. He mumbles
something in Finnish, rolls onto his back, but doesn’t wake.
I dress in yesterday’s clothes. Pack my toiletries. Zip my bag.
Every small sound feels like theft.
My hand finds the door handle, then pauses.
One more look. Just one.
He’s sprawled across the bed, gloriously naked, the sheet tangled at his
hips. One arm is stretched into the space where I’d been sleeping, like his
body is still reaching for me. His face is unguarded in sleep, that perpetual
grin softened into something young and raw.
The space under his arm is still warm where I fit.
My chest squeezes.
This is what life keeps asking me to give up: the quiet after. The safe place.
The feeling of being wanted for exactly who I am.
But wanting isn’t enough. It never has been.
I grab a hotel notepad from the nightstand and write, “I promise this is the
right thing to do. See you in Seattle. —K.” I slide the note under his phone,
where he’ll see it first.
I lean down, careful, and press my lips to the corner of his mouth—the
same spot I kissed a dozen times last night.
“I’m sorry I’m not braver,” I whisper, pushing a few strands of his blond
hair out of his face. “Please don’t hate me.”
I straighten, grip my luggage handle until the plastic creaks and then my
eyes catch on the ring. The athletic tape circled around my finger with
Aleksi’s pen folk art engraving. I glance at his left hand on the bed, still
wearing his too. I know I should pull it off, leave it with him, distance myself
from everything that happened yesterday, but I’m too selfish to let go of this.
I just need to be able to keep one thing. Something to remember that
happened… we happened.
One last look at the six-foot-three giant sleeping like a fallen statue.
I don’t want to leave, but I have to. It would be too easy for him to
convince me to stay.
So I slip out the door as quietly as I can. Like a coward who doesn’t have
the strength to fight him face to face. He has to know, I’m doing this for his
career too.
The click of it closing behind me sounds final.
The desert morning is pink and cold, the sky painted in thin strokes of
apricot and lavender over the courtyard of CDC agents, none of whom are in
hazmat suits anymore, meaning that whatever tests they got back means
we’re cleared. I square my shoulders, turn toward the nurses’ station at the
end of the hall, and start walking—away from the warm, impossible room,
and toward whatever it takes to keep both of our careers safe.
And maybe my heart too.
