Charming as Puck(90)

If she was stuck at the clinic, she would’ve texted me. She would’ve called. She would’ve—oh, fuck.

That’s her car.

In the parking lot.

Right next to a beater I don’t recognize.

Someone’s holding her hostage at the clinic.

“The fucking hell they are,” I snarl.

I don’t know if I put my car in park, or if I shut off the engine, or if I shut the door. All I know is that I’m banging on the back door of the clinic, and if that fucker hurts her, I will tear him limb from bloody limb and then I’ll use his bloody limbs to beat his face until it’s pulp, and then I’ll— The door swings open, and a woman in animal-print scrubs leaps back. “Oh!”

“Kami,” I say.

Say. Order.

Bark.

Growl.

She backs up and flicks a finger down the hallway to the left.

So maybe I don’t look as terrifying as I do terrified, because if I were facing me invading a building, I’d put up a fucking fight.

I’m charging down the hallway so fast, I go right past her the first time.

It’s only as I’m passing the doorway that I process she’s sitting at a desk in a cramped office, her head bent over paperwork.

I spin and charge into the room, my lungs heaving, because fuck, she’s gorgeous. And in one piece. And alone. And safe.

And safe.

She blinks up at me with big, disconcerted brown eyes that go slightly wide as her nose quivers.

Fuck, I smell like ass.

“You weren’t at the game,” I sputter, because my brain’s still processing that she’s here. And she’s safe. And she wasn’t at the game.

But she’s Kami.

She had a fucking good reason.

She probably has ten million fucking better things to do than me.

Her lips draw down like she’s drawing the same fucking conclusion. “Muffy’s cat swallowed a battery and needed emergency surgery,” she says slowly. “Mom’s at a conference. If we’d waited, it would’ve died.”

“A…what?”

“Right?” She rubs her eyes. “Most cats won’t even take a pill. Muffy’s swallows a freaking button battery. A watch battery.”

I’m dropping to my knees in front of her desk, because she’s okay. She’s fucking okay.

She’s better than okay.

She’s a perfect fucking superhero.

“I thought something happened to you.” I can’t shut up. I tell myself to shut up, but I’m babbling like a lunatic. “A car accident, or a robbery gone wrong, or just…something. And I couldn’t breathe at the idea of this world without you in it. Of my life without you in it.”

She blinks at me through heavy pink eyelids. “My phone died,” she says. “It’s been—Nick, I’m so—”

“Oh, fuck. The cat. Is she okay? What can I do?”

“What can you…do?”

Now she’s looking at me like I’m an idiot, because what the fuck can a dumbass jock do to save a cat who needs emergency surgery?

“For…you,” I finish lamely.

It’s Kami.

She doesn’t need me. She’s smart and strong and capable, and I’m just the guy who can’t let her go.

“Or Muffy,” I add. Maybe she needs a comforting pat on the shoulder. I can be the hero who patted a woman who almost lost a cat.

She stares at me a minute longer. “How was the game?” she asks.

“The game? Fuck the game. You were here saving a cat. I was just—just—trying to stop a puck from going in a net and watching a bunch of puckheads fight over a fucking game. Christ, Kami, I don’t know why you don’t get arenas full of people screaming your name. You’re the real hero. I was just playing a fucking game, and you’re here saving people’s pets.”

She’s still staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

But I don’t care, because I’ve finally found the most important part of life, the one thing that money and fame and fake hero worship can’t touch, and I’m done putting the wrong things first and ignoring what matters. “Kami—” I start, because I’m not putting this off one more minute.

But before I can finish, she’s holding my cheeks and leaning over her desk and kissing me.

Soft, peppered kisses all over my lips that turn into long, slow, deep kisses, her hands anchoring my head while I grip her arms, because this.

This is everything I need.

She’s safe.

She’s not breaking up with me.

She loves me despite me. And I’m the idiot who almost lost her because I took too long to notice.

I pull out of the kiss, because this cannot wait another minute. I caress her cheeks and hold her where I can look into those beautiful soft eyes. “I love you,” I tell her.

It comes out on a strangled whisper, so I try again. “I love you.”

Stronger. “I. Love. You.”

Her eyes are crinkling at the corners and getting shiny. “Nick,” she whispers, and fuck, I love my name on her lips. “I know.”

“You—”

“And I love you too.”

So maybe life can get better, because my entire world just went technicolor in 3D.