Hawke

Ordinarily, this would be a mouthwatering temptation. Now I want to nut punch him, so he’d be wise to keep the towel as is.

“What in the hell is your problem?” he asks me incredulously.

“Isn’t it kind of obvious?” I level a death glare at him.

“All evidence to the contrary, it’s actually not obvious to me,” he says with what sounds like honest confusion.

“Well, let’s see…maybe that another woman showed up at your house with the intention of having sex with you while I was still here,” I grit out with fury.

Hawke shakes his head as if what I said saddens him. He looks at me with almost pitying eyes. “Poor Vale,” he practically coos at me, and it’s not done in a comforting manner.

He’s fucking mocking me.

I buck up, trying to dislodge his body and push at his legs with my hands. He doesn’t budge an inch. “I don’t get why you’re so mad.”

“Because there’s a woman down in your living room that wants to have sex with you,” I snarl at him.

“I don’t want to have sex with her, though,” he says simply.

I wasn’t expecting this and it actually takes a little bit of the wind out of my sails. But it doesn’t remove the anger I’m feeling. The fall from joyous elation as I came down those stairs just a few moments ago to utter disappointment stings badly.

“And I didn’t invite her here tonight,” Hawke adds.

“She said you talked about it last week,” I point out triumphantly.

“That’s right,” he admits without reservation. “Before you and I ever got intimate with each other.”

My anger suddenly deflates out of me. I suspect this is not only because with just a few simple explanations from Hawke I’m feeling a little off base in my assumptions, but probably more due to the fact that tonight has just been exhausting all around. Fighting with Hawke. Revealing truths to Hawke. Watching Hawke get angry in one breath and grieving in another. Having him fuck me…twice, and then finding another woman in his house. It’s really probably more than one person should have to endure in one night.

“You know, Vale,” Hawke says, and his tone is censuring as he looks down at me. “You sort of did the same thing just now that you did all those years ago.”

I gasp in shock. “Pardon me?”

“You just thought you had it all figured out. Let your emotions rule your actions. You were on your way up here without a real clue as to what was going on, going to get your clothes and cut me out again.”

“No,” I deny that adamantly. “I was not going to cut you out again.”

“Looked that way to me,” he counters.

“Looked to me like you manhandled me on your bed and sat on me so I couldn’t cut you out again,” I tell him petulantly.

“You should have just asked what was going on down there. I introduced you to her for God’s sake; shouldn’t that have been a clue that I felt comfortable enough with the two of you in the same room?”

“That was totally awkward,” I argue.

“Well, fuck yeah it was,” he says in exasperation. “But had you given me a few minutes, I could have explained it all without you childishly stomping away.”

And, he almost had me. Had me feeling small and on the verge of levying the world’s biggest and most shamefaced apology, when he had to go and call me childish.

So as not to deny him what he truly thinks about me, my hand shoots out, pinches his inner thigh where I take a hunk of skin and hair, and twist it viciously. Hawke yelps and flies off of me, his hand going to down to rub at the injury I just inflicted.

This gives me the room I need to fly up off the bed, but if he thinks I’m running again, he has another thing coming. Instead, towel forgotten and laying on the mattress, I crawl back onto the bed, right up to him, and raise up on my knees. I poke him hard in the chest and annunciate clearly, “I was not acting childishly. How about giving me a little empathy for what I just walked in on. You and I had just mended fences not half an hour before. You and I had just shared the greatest of intimacies not five minutes before. And I walk in to find her hand in the waistband of your towel? Did you honestly expect me—or any sane woman for that matter—to act with anything less than outrage?”

Hawke is now the one who is taken aback. He blinks at me in surprise while red creeps into his face as he realizes the truth of my words. We stare at each other, my gaze now harsh and condemning, his on the defensive with embarrassment.

I wait for him to mutter an apology, but instead he shakes his head. His lips curve upward slightly and his eyes twinkle. “Goddamn, but we make quite a couple, don’t you think?”

Now I blink at him for just one second of disbelief, and before I can help myself, I start laughing. Hawke joins me, our mirth coming from deep in our bellies as our arms go around each other. He pulls me in tight, still chuckling, and kisses me on my shoulder. When he pulls back, we look at each other with sparkling eyes and wonder over what we’ve found here with each other again. It’s old, for sure, but most of it’s new and like walking on a craggy precipice waiting for the land to just slide out from under you. So much still to learn about each other.

Hawke picks me up, rolls from the bed, and stands me on my feet. “Come on…get dressed and let me go down and officially introduce you to Michelle. You’ll like her.”

I snort and he laughs again.

“Seriously, you’ll like her. She’s cool and she’s got absolutely no designs on me in a committed way. We need to figure a way to get her to a hotel for the night and back to the airport tomorrow.”

This mollifies me greatly, and I think to ask, “How did she know about me?”

“The tattoo of your name…on my hip. She knew you were important to my history.”

“You told her about us?” I ask incredulously.

Hawke shakes his head. “When she asked about who Vale was, I told her it wasn’t any of her business. That’s how she knew you were important to me.”

Chapter 21

Hawke

There never was a time in my life that I considered a reconciliation with Vale was possible. She so thoroughly crushed my young, naive heart when she told me she didn’t love me anymore I had no choice but to believe her.

Without love, there was no hope.

Without love, came anger.

Without love—Vale’s in particular—I decided to concentrate on my career first and foremost. Some would call me callous, and that may be true, but I put her out of my mind. Not once did I consider trying to reason with her. It never crossed my mind to try to change her mind. I accepted what she told me, and I’m thinking that all has to do with stubborn pride, and I left her behind.

It wasn’t intentional on my part, at least I don’t think, to stay away from committed relationships. It was sort of a natural progression. At first, I was caught up in the excitement and fame of playing with the Titans. Women threw themselves at me and I was swimming in so much diverse pussy it almost seemed sacrilege for me to commit to just one. With the obligations of playing professional hockey, it’s not easy to form relationships, so I didn’t try. I’ll go one further. It’s not easy to keep relationships either. Case in point—Oliver. I let that friendship go because I didn’t have the time to make it work. It actually makes me wonder if I would have done the same to Vale.