Cold Snap Recovery

Somehow, we ended up on the table. A knot of limbs and fevered kisses. My mouth traced the line of her jaw. Down her throat. Her head fell back, a soft sigh escaping her as I nipped at the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulder.

Her hands were just as busy. Just as greedy. They skimmed down my back, nails scraping lightly over my skin. Sending shivers down my spine. Then lower. To the waistband of my sweats. Tugging. Demanding.

I helped her. Kicked them off, along with my boxers. Then I was reaching for her scrubs. Pulling them down her legs. Revealing inch after inch of smooth, golden skin.

She was beautiful. Flushed. Perfect. I wanted to take my time. To explore every curve. Every dip. But the need was too sharp. Too urgent. And when she reached for me, her hand wrapping around my hardness, I nearly lost it right there.

"Spencer," she breathed, her voice husky. Needy. "Please."

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I reached for my wallet. Fumbled for the condom I always kept there. Rolled it on with shaking hands. Then I was pushing inside her. Slowly. Carefully. Giving her time to adjust.

She was tight. Hot. Perfect. I groaned, my head dropping to her shoulder as I sank deep. Felt her clench around me. Felt the way she trembled.

"Okay?" I rasped, my voice rough. Barely recognizable.

She nodded, her fingertips pressing into my back. "More than okay. Spencer, please. Move."

I did. Slowly at first. Savoring the feel of her. The way she fit around me like a glove. Then faster. Harder. Driven by the little sounds she made. The way she moved beneath me, meeting me thrust for thrust.

The training table creaked under us. The sound loud in the quiet room. But I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Not with Ellie wrapped around me, her breath hot against my ear. Not with the pressure building inside me, coiling tighter and tighter with every stroke.

"Spencer," she gasped, her voice breaking. "I’m close. So close."

I knew. Could feel it in the way her body tightened around me. In the way her nails dug into my skin. I reached between us, my thumb finding the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. Circling. Pressing. Driving her higher.

She came apart with a cry, her body clenching around me. Pulling me over the edge with her. I followed a second later, my release hitting me like a freight train. Wiping out everything but the feel of her. The sound of her. The perfect, impossible rightness of the moment.

We stayed like that for long minutes after. Me still inside her. Her wrapped around me. Our breathing slowly returning to normal.

"Spencer," she murmured finally, her voice soft. Sated.

I raised my head. Met her eyes. Saw the same stunned wonder there that I felt.

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice rough.

She smiled. A real one this time. One that reached her eyes. Lit them up from within. "You’re doing great," she said, echoing her words from weeks ago. But this time, they meant something else entirely.

I laughed. A soft, rusty sound. "Am I?" I asked, the question hanging between us, heavy with all the things we weren’t saying.

The weeks that followed were a blur of stolen moments and secret looks. Of late nights in the training room that had nothing to do with rehab and everything to do with the heat that arced between us whenever we got too close. We were careful. Discreet. But the tension? That was building. Coiling tighter and tighter with every passing day.

It all came to a head on the night of my comeback game. Millhaven was buzzing, the old barn packed to the rafters with fans hungry for a win. For a miracle. For me to be the player I’d been before the injury. The player I wasn’t sure I could be anymore.

I felt the pressure like a physical thing. A weight on my shoulders that had nothing to do with the healed joint and everything to do with the expectations of a town that had seen too much disappointment. Too much loss.

Ellie found me in the locker room before the game. Her eyes met mine across the crowded space, a silent question in their depths. *You okay?*

I nodded, the movement stiff. Jerky. I wasn’t okay. I was a mess of nerves and doubt and something else. Something that had everything to do with the woman watching me with those dark, knowing eyes.

*You’ve got this, Spencer,* her expression seemed to say. *I believe in you.*

I wanted to believe her. Wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in a long time. But wanting wasn’t enough. Not on the ice. Not in this league.

The game was a battle from the first puck drop. Fast. Physical. The kind of hockey I’d always thrived on. But I was rusty. Slow. My timing off by fractions of a second that felt like lifetimes out there.

I could feel the frustration building. The doubt. Could hear the whispers in the stands. The ones that said I was done. Washed up. A has-been who couldn’t cut it anymore.

And then I saw her. Ellie. Standing behind the bench, her eyes locked on me. Watching. Waiting. Believing.

*You’ve got this,* her expression said again. *I know you do.*

Something clicked inside me. A switch flipping from off to on. The next shift, I jumped over the boards like a man possessed. Skated like my life depended on it. Because it did. Because *she* did.

The minutes ticked by. The game stayed tied. The pressure mounted. And then, with seconds left on the clock, the puck found my stick. A bouncing, impossible pass that I had no business corralling.

But I did. Pulled it in. Looked up. Saw the net. Saw my chance.

I didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. Just shot. Watched the puck sail past the goalie’s outstretched glove. Heard the roar of the crowd. Felt weeks of doubt and fear and pain vanish from my shoulders in an instant.

I’d scored. Won the game. Proven them all wrong.

The celebration was chaos. A blur of hugs and backslaps and deafening noise. But I only had eyes for one person. One pair of dark, shining eyes that had never stopped believing. Even when I’d stopped believing in myself.

Ellie.

I found her in the hallway outside the locker room after the game. Pulled her into a darkened alcove before she could say a word. Before anyone could see.

“You did it,” she breathed, her voice rich with feeling. With pride. With something else. Something that matched the fire burning inside me. “Spencer, you—”

I kissed her. Hard. Hungry. Poured every ounce of adrenaline and triumph and need into that kiss. Into her.

She met me halfway. Matched my fervor with her own. Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling me closer. Deeper. Her body arched into mine, every curve fitting against me like it was meant to be there.

“Ellie,” I rasped, tearing my mouth from hers just long enough to speak. To breathe. “I need—”

“I know,” she cut me off, her voice just as rough. Just as needy. “I need it too.”

We didn’t make it back to the training room. Didn’t make it anywhere but that darkened alcove, hidden from prying eyes by shadows and the deafening roar of the crowd still echoing through the rink.

It was fast. Frantic. All grasping hands and eager mouths and too many clothes in the way. I pushed her against the wall, my hands rough as they shoved her scrub bottoms down her legs. Her fingers fumbled with my belt, my zipper, freeing me with a haste that bordered on desperate.

“Please,” she gasped, her leg hooking around my waist. Pulling me closer. “Spencer, please.”

I didn’t make her ask again. I thrust into her, hard. Deep. Swallowed her cry with my mouth as I began to move. As I lost myself in the heat of her. In the perfect, impossible feel of her clenching around me.

It was over too soon. A handful of frantic thrusts and we were both coming apart, her name a broken groan on my lips as I spilled inside her. As I claimed her. Made her mine.

We stayed like that for long moments after. Foreheads pressed together. Breathing ragged. Everything faded but the two of us and the lingering echoes of the crowd and the scent of sex and sweat and something more. Something that felt suspiciously like forever.

“Spencer,” Ellie murmured finally, her voice soft. Sated. “That was—”

“Necessary,” I cut her off, my voice just as rough. Just as wrecked. “Ellie, I—”

I stopped. I gulped. Tried to find the words. The ones that had been building inside me for weeks. The ones I hadn’t let myself say.