Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) (34 page)

EVEN THOUGH I’D
texted Paige this afternoon to be sure she was still planning to bring all of the girls to the game tonight, I spent about the first twenty minutes after arriving at the arena up in the owner’s box, anxiously chewing my fingernails. Then some of the other wives and girlfriends started showing up. Several of them had been trying to distract me and calm me down, but it was no use.

“You’re going to say yes, aren’t you?” Katie asked, settling into the chair next to me and giving me a kind but hopeful smile.

Dani brought over a few bottles of water and joined us. She had just come home for spring break, and there wasn’t a chance she’d pass up an opportunity to sneak another kiss with Harry. Or whatever she was planning for tonight. Who knew what it might be?

She screwed off the lid of her water and took a sip. “You’re not supposed to be making any important life decisions for a while, you know. They told you that in the hospital. Not until you’re relatively concussion-free or something.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “She was already living with him before the concussion.” Then she turned to me. “I mean, I’m not saying it isn’t a big decision. Just that you’d already made part of it well before all of this.”

“I want to say yes,” I said, hoping it would be enough for them to stop hounding me. “I need to talk to Sophie first.”

A happy softness came into Katie’s eyes. “You know she adores you, right? She’s going to be fine with this, so stop messing up your manicure.”

“Too late for that,” Dani said, giving my hands a once-over.

“They’re here.” I bounded out of my seat and caught Paige’s eye as she ushered her girls inside.

“Go do your thing so we can enjoy the game,” Katie said, shooing me away.

As it was, the guys had already finished their warm-up, and they’d be back for the national anthem and other pregame stuff any time now. I knew I’d lose all of Sophie’s attention once they skated out—she’d be too focused on Levi to pay me any mind—so I needed to get this done.

I crossed over to the girls, and Sophie flung herself into my arms.

“Are you all better now?” she demanded, squeezing so hard it was difficult to breathe. “Mom said you were coming tonight, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Not all better, but I’m getting there.” I hugged her back. “Listen, I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute before the game.”

“Okay.” She smiled and put her hand in mine.

I led her to a quiet corner, completely aware that two of her older sisters were discreetly following a few steps behind. They found somewhere to sit not far from the two of us, and both of them no doubt had their ears trained on me.

I could appreciate that. Being the baby in my family, I’d spent years with Cam and my sisters constantly hovering to be sure I was all right. Sophie certainly needed it more than I did. Still, I had no intention of hurting her, and I hoped they knew that.

“Sophie Bug,” I said, sitting across from her. She grinned from ear to ear when I called her that. I only hoped she was still smiling when we were done talking. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Shoot,” she said.

“Well, you know I love Levi, right?”

“Yep. We both love him.”

“We do. We absolutely do.” This was becoming far more difficult than I’d hoped.

“We’re his best girlfriends. But you’re the one who does all the yucky kissing stuff.”

I laughed out loud. “I am, that’s true.”

“Zoe kissed her new boyfriend. I saw her last week. He put his tongue in her mouth. It was gross!” Sophie used her hands to emphasize exactly how gross she thought it was, which kept me in stitches.

“So no kissing for you,” I said. “At least not any time soon.”

“Nope. No kisses. Yucko.”

Zoe snickered behind me, but Sophie seemed oblivious to it.

“So here’s the deal,” I said, trying to bring the conversation around. “I wanted to know how you’d feel about it if I married Levi.”

“You’re gonna marry Levi?” she said so loudly that half the heads in the room turned to stare at us. Then she stood up. “Mom! Cadence is gonna marry Levi! We get to go to the wedding.”

“I guess that means you’re all right with it?” I said, laughing as she threw herself into my arms again.

“We can come to the wedding, right? ’Cause I just told Mom we could.” Then she let go of me and pulled back enough that she could look in my face. She dropped her voice low. “Zoe told me that when you get married, there’s lots of kissing. I don’t wanna kiss Levi. I just want to love him. You can do all the kissing.”

“Well, in that case”—I pinched her nose until she giggled—“I guess we’d better go ask your Mom if you can be my junior bridesmaid. If you want to be, of course.”

“Mom!” she shouted again. “I’m gonna be a bridesmaid.”

I supposed that settled that. Now all I had to do was tell Levi, and convince Sophie to bite her tongue about it long enough for me to be the one to tell him. Sophie and secrets were a complicated equation, but I had a feeling she would do her best.

BY THE TIME
the guys made it upstairs after the game, my head was definitely pounding. I probably shouldn’t have come to the game tonight. Watching it on TV at home would have been much more sensible. Still, I was glad I’d come, since it had given me the opportunity to speak with Sophie face-to-face.

It didn’t matter how glad I was of it, though. The second Levi walked in and saw my face, he said, “You look miserable.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to laugh it off. “Here I was, about to tell you that you look good enough to eat, and you tell me I look miserable. Really gives a girl a jolt of self-confidence.”

He reached for my hand to help me up. Then I thought he was going to draw me in for a hug or a kiss, but instead he lifted me into his arms. “I’ll take you home and make it up to you,” he said softly in my ear.

“Is that a promise?”

“Mm hmm. Now let’s get you out of all the noise, okay?”

I didn’t complain. Not even when he carried me over to Sophie and Paige to collect a hug from his other best girlfriend, and then proceeded to carry me out of the owner’s box, through the corridors, down the elevator, into the parking garage, and all the way to his car.

He opened the door and set me in the passenger seat, pecking me on the nose before closing the door behind me.

I pouted when he climbed in on his side.

“What’s the pout for?”

“Don’t I deserve a better kiss than that?”

“I don’t know.” He started the car and backed out of his space. “Have you done anything to deserve a better kiss?”

I shrugged and nibbled on my lower lip, doing my best to look innocent. “Well… I had my talk with Sophie tonight.”

He gave me a questioning look. “And?”

I fiddled with the zipper on my purse, drawing out my response as long as I could. “And she’s agreed that I should be the one who does all the yucky kissing stuff with you, and she knows that when you get married you do lots of yucky kissing stuff, so she’ll be my junior bridesmaid at our wedding as long as she gets to love you still.”

About halfway through my answer, Levi slammed on the brakes in the middle of the parking garage to turn and stare at me. Now his jaw was hanging slack, but his dimple was out alongside a huge grin.

“So what are you saying?” he asked.

“I guess I’m saying yes, I’ll marry you. Is that worth a better kiss?”

In answer, he leaned over, cupping a hand behind my head and drawing me in to kiss me senseless. With the way he was kissing me, if we hadn’t been in a car in the middle of the Moda Center’s parking garage, I might have straddled him and insisted he make love to me right then and there.

Good thing someone behind us laid on their horn, shocking us back to our senses.

Barely in time, too. Levi slammed his foot back down on the brake right before he hit a car that was parked along the wall. “Shit! I lifted my foot, I guess.”

My heart was about to pound through my chest, both from the exhilaration of telling the man I loved with all my heart that I would be his wife and from the adrenaline of nearly crashing into a parked vehicle.

Levi put both hands on the steering wheel and took a couple of deep breaths. The car behind us—the one whose driver had honked—pulled around to pass us. Levi rolled down his window and waved in thanks.

It turned out to be Koz, who rolled down
his
window and flipped us the bird. “Get a room, fuck face,” he shouted before zooming off ahead of us.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Levi said. He rolled up his window again and drove us back to his apartment as fast as he could without breaking too many laws.

We were barely inside before he had me pinned against the wall, kissing me with an intensity that cleared my headache and melted any resistance I might have otherwise felt. It had been a long time since we’d had good, frantic sex—ever since my trip to the hospital, Levi had been treating me as carefully as ever—but I was ready for it. I wanted him any way I could have him right now. Maybe even on the kitchen counter again. I was due for a new sex injury or two.

I started ripping at my clothes, but he put his hands on mine, stilling me.

“What?” I said, searching his eyes.

“My turn to ask for what I want.”

The way he said it, staring at me with such heat and desire turning his baby blues to the same color as the midnight sky, left me shaking with the need to do whatever he wanted from me.

“Okay,” I said, my voice quivering. “What do you want?”

“You.” He twirled a strand of my hair around his fingers. “Naked. In my bed. Letting me make slow, sweet love to you and watching you come again and again.”

I would have had to be out of my mind to argue with that suggestion.

Needless to say, I didn’t.

Later, still spooning, with Levi’s arm draped heavily around my waist, I twisted around in his arms until I could tease the few bits of hair on his chest. He kissed me, as slowly and languorously as he’d made love to me, and I fell a little deeper in love with him.

“I forgot something,” he said, rolling away from me.

I instantly felt the loss of him—his heat, his strength.

He rolled back almost immediately, with the ring box in his hand. “You ready to put this on?”

I grinned and took the ring out. Even in the moonlight coming in through the window, the diamond glinted. “It’s beautiful,” I said, sliding it onto my finger. Then I kissed him again, coming around to fully face him.

He wrapped both arms around me, drawing me deeper into his embrace. “Mischief managed?”

“And then some.”

“
EVERYONE SETTLE DOWN
for a few more minutes,” Bergy said at what we’d all assumed was the end of our meeting. We’d had an optional skate today, as it was getting close to the end of the season, and we were still really banged up. At this point, rest was easily ten times more important than practice. Still, we’d just had a long film session, and most of us were restless to get away from the team facilities and enjoy the rest of the day off.

I shifted in my seat, itching to get home and see what card Cadence had selected from her box today. I hoped she wanted to go for a walk in the rose gardens or something like that. Spring had arrived, along with all sorts of new life. Not only that, but the weather was amazing today. I was itching to get out in it, and I had no doubt she must be, too.