Caged (Gold Hockey #11) - Elise Faber Page 0,40

back.

And then his stare drifted up, collided with hers.

She couldn’t miss the hurt in his eyes, the misery, the despair. The trifecta of emotions was a literal gut punch, and her foot stopped its motion. Then moved forward to join the other.

Her throat seized.

Words exploded.

“Sara brought a beautiful woman named Roxanne to set you up with, and I freaked out. I thought that I couldn’t possibly measure up and shouldn’t get in the way of someone who clearly fit you better than me.”

His face turned . . . scary. That was the only way she could think to describe it, but instead of stoppering the words up, it only made them come faster.

“And I’ve always been quiet. My family is great, but they’re all big personalities, and it was just easier to blend into the background, to sit back and enjoy the show. I wasn’t ever the type of girl who’d battle to be in the front. I was just happy with what I had.”

A fierce expression.

Gentle fingers lifting to grasp hers, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist, tracing light circles on her skin.

And she found that the rest of it wasn’t so hard.

“Then I reached for more,” she whispered. “Then I dared to want something big and beautiful, and . . . the universe slapped me back.” Her eyes closed, and those fingers gripped tighter, tugging her away from the door, slipping an arm around her waist and bringing her body flush against the side of his.

Warm and strong, one hand wiping away the tears she hadn’t even known escaped, then drawing her even closer as voices came close.

“You coming, Eth?” Brit called from somewhere nearby.

Ethan shifted her, shielding her body with his, and she felt a piece of her heart chip away, slip right through the holes in her safety net and drift over to him, to his palm, to those gentle circles on her skin. “Another time,” he called.

“Okay. But just so you know,” she called back, “I’m pretending I don’t see Dani with you.”

“Stay in your lane, Brit.”

“That’s for race car drivers.”

A sigh. “Then between the pipes.”

“That I can do,” she hollered. “See ya.”

Then she was gone, and Dani was alone with Ethan again, only this time they weren’t standing in the shadows next to the arena, they were moving.

Or maybe they’d been moving the whole time.

Because by the time she processed they were walking, Ethan was beeping the locks on his car, opening the door. “Sit,” he murmured, plunking her into the passenger’s seat and reaching over her to buckle her belt.

Then he crossed around the front of the car, got in, and drove out of the parking lot.

He didn’t speak as he drove, navigating the bright lights of the waterfront, the semi-quiet streets. There were always a few people out in a city like San Francisco, but this late, it was a muted hum of activities, the traffic gone, most people tucked safely into their beds. She turned to look out at the water, wanting to explain more, wanting to apologize, to find something to make him understand.

Ethan reached out and squeezed her knee. “It’s okay.”

“That I freaked out or I can’t find the words to explain?”

Another squeeze. “Both. You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart. Explanation or words or otherwise.”

“But . . .”

When she trailed off, words lost again, he didn’t get impatient, just waited.

“I want to give it to you.”

His fingers convulsed.

She sucked in a breath.

He turned into a parking lot, the lights twinkling at regular intervals, the water of the Bay in the distance. It was a clear night, the moon shining down on the waves and their crests, turning them shades of black and gray and silver. But the beauty of that undulating mix of salt and water couldn’t hold her attention.

Not when every cell in her body was focused on the man next to her.

Not when he said, “I only want what you’re willing to give.”

And that unlocked the rest of it.

“I fell for the popular boy in high school.” The memories threatened to swell up, to overwhelm her, but she shoved them down. “The long and short is that I was the baby in my family, the quiet one, the protected one, and I fell for a boy who didn’t believe in protecting me in any sense. I was too weak or infatuated or stupid to recognize what was happening, and by the time I did, I was pregnant.”

Ethan sucked in a breath.

“It’s stupid, really,” she said,