When I Need You

  The woman gave good hugs. And she smelled great.

  She patted my cheeks. “No more Mrs. Lund, yah? Call me Selka.”

  The door to the playground opened and kids rushed out. I stepped to the side and waved so Calder could see me.

  He skipped over, happily singing to himself.

  That familiar burst of love expanded in my chest. I crouched down to hug him.

  “Astrid said you were out here, Mommy.” Then he noticed Selka Lund standing next to me. He tipped his head back and studied her.

  “Calder, this is—”

  “Hey, you’re Rocketman’s mom. He showed me your picture in his kitchen.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. Do you really got your very own pool?”

  She laughed. “Yes. With a slide and everything. Come over to swim anytime.”

  Calder started to bounce. “Really?”

  “Really and truly.”

  “And you’ll make cookies? Jensen said you make the best Swedish cookies in the world.”

  I started to remind him of his manners, but Selka spoke first.

  “Of course. All boys need cookies.”

  “That would be awesome!” He launched himself at Selka, giving her an impromptu hug. “I can’t wait to tell Jensen!”

  When he stepped back, I noticed he’d left black smears on her pants. In three places.

  Selka noticed too. She tried brushing it off.

  In five seconds Calder had ruined a pair of pants that probably cost more than I made in five weeks. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the dry cleaning, and if they’re stained I’ll pay to replace them—”

  “Hush.” Selka trapped my face between her hands. “Hugs from sweet boys are always worth more than fabric and thread.”

  My jaw would’ve dropped if she hadn’t held my face.

  “I miss messy little boys. This is happy reminder of those days.” She kissed my forehead and released me. She crouched in front of Calder.

  He blurted out, “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay. How about you ask your mama if I can push you on the swings?”

  “Really?”

  “Really and truly.”

  Calder looked at me. “Mommy, can I?”

  “Sure. But we have to leave in ten minutes.”

  Selka held out her hand, and I’ll be damned if Calder didn’t take it and start chattering to her like he’d known her for years as he skipped away. I said, “Unreal,” out loud.

  “She has a way with little boys. Not surprising since we had three of them.”

  A shadow fell across me. I turned and came face-to-face with Jensen’s father.

  He smiled at me. “My wife wasn’t too hard on you, I hope.”

  I smiled back. “She caught me off-guard, but it’s all good. Unless you’re here to play bad cop to her good cop?”

  He laughed. He had a great laugh and now I knew where Jensen had gotten it. “I imagine Selka played both good and bad cop. I had no idea she planned to ambush you until my daughter-in-law called to tell me Mama Bear was on the prowl. So I’m here to bat cleanup.”

  “You Lunds and your sports analogies.”

  “Par for the course with all of us.”

  “Omigod. Jensen gets his love of puns from you!”

  He laughed again. “Guilty.” He offered his hand. “I’m Ward, by the way. It’s great to finally meet you, Rowan. Jensen hasn’t told me much about you, but his happiness the last two months tells me all I need to know.”

  And . . . there was the charm my man had inherited too. “Jens and I are twin beams of happiness, according to our neighbors on the second floor.”

  “So you and Jensen are out, loud and proud, as a couple?”

  “Yes . . . and no. Jensen has lived at Snow Village longer than I have and he knows everyone. He claims they’re trustworthy, so we hang out at the pool and the playground with Calder’s friends’ parents. As far as us going out together? Either as a couple on a date or with Calder? Right now we’re content to stay home. I work all day and Jensen is dealing with pretraining stuff. We’re happy to flop on his ridiculously large couch and chill.”

  “And here at camp?”

  “The staff knows we’re . . . close. The kids don’t pay attention. It’s not like we’re even here at the same time most days. My parents know we’re involved, but they keep it to themselves.” Guilt hit me. I shot him a look. “Shoot. I’m sure Jens meant to tell you sooner—”

  “He did tell us. But that was weeks ago and we’ve been out of the country. So now we’re back and Mama Lund tends to take matters into her own hands.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Now I’m going to sneak off before Selka gets back and chews me out for spying on her.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Hope to see more of you, Rowan.”

  “You will. It was nice meeting you.”

  When he reached the side door, I said, “Ward? Can I ask you something?”

  He turned. “Of course.”

  “What’s Jensen’s middle name?”

  He laughed. “Ask his mother. It was her idea.”

  Twenty-two

  ROWAN

  The hot summer days and hotter summer nights with my man flew by.

  Camp Step-Up was winding down even as Vikings training camp started in two days.

  The more I worked with Astrid, the more she impressed me. I wished I had the budget to offer her a paid position scheduling practice and workout times at the campus training center, because we needed someone who could multitask.

  Jensen returned home every night exhausted. I’d never overstepped my bounds and told him to train less or not push himself so hard, but I was sorely tempted after he’d nearly fallen asleep at the dinner table.

  In addition to the physical demands of being a professional athlete, with the impending opening of the new stadium, it seemed the team PR machine had hit the overdrive stage. All of the players were in demand for interviews and appearances at community events. The only good thing about the accelerated promotion schedule was that no one questioned why the players and the cheerleaders were together so often. Jensen and I didn’t avoid each other, but we also weren’t making out in the locker room or walking hand in hand to events. I wasn’t sure how things would change once we’d passed the preseason; I just knew things would change.

  Whether that would be a good change for us . . . only time would tell.

  I still hadn’t heard from Martin about when he and Verily planned to return. Part of the deal with us subleasing from them? I was supposed to be looking at houses to buy. But besides occasionally browsing online, I’d pretty much blown off the house search. Did I have visions of moving into Jensen’s apartment after Martin returned? I wasn’t ready to answer that honestly. Since Calder was starting at a charter school, the school district we lived in was irrelevant.

  The main issue for me was that I’d been an apartment dweller since I’d lived in the dorms my first year of college. It sounded weird to a lot of people—my folks included—but I liked living in an apartment complex. I’d heard the “throwing your money away on rent” argument more times than I could count. But the thought of being responsible for even more things in my life—yard work, shoveling snow, home repairs and maintenance—sent me into panic mode. I hadn’t mentioned my aversion to becoming a homeowner to anyone except Martin. That was how I’d ended up subleasing his place: because he understood. He’d told me unless he moved out of the Cities completely, he planned to live at Snow Village indefinitely.

  Since starting the child-care co-op, I felt we were part of a community. I liked that Calder had friends and a pool and safe playground. I liked the location. I’d be content living there.

  Thanks to Jensen, we now knew everyone in the complex and there was a certain bond among athletes and former athletes in Snow Village. The turnover among renters was very low; the list to get vetted for consideration to rent a place there was years long, according to everyone I’d talked to.
So the open apartments on the first floor bugged me.

  Needing a break from the never-ending paperwork as a new semester loomed, I’d ducked out of my office to grab a soda for my caffeine fix. In the vending area I showed immense willpower by not adding a package of M&Ms and calling it lunch. Carrying my Diet Mountain Dew across the mats, I stopped when I saw Bree talking with a big guy in a ball cap—a very familiar big guy.

  What was Jensen doing here?

  I started toward them.

  Immediately Jensen homed in on me and his lips kicked into a half smile that meant he was thinking dirty thoughts.

  He didn’t wait for me to come to him; he half jogged toward me.

  Bree yelled, “Wait. You can’t just—”

  “It’s all right. I was expecting him. We’ll be in my office.” I motioned with my head for him to follow me down the short hallway.

  My office was on the small side, but I loved the coziness of it. And it seemed particularly cozy with a six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound football player crowding me against the door the instant we were alone.

  Jensen was all over me. Wrapping his hands around my face and kissing me with a hunger that stole my breath.

  He didn’t stop kissing me until he was damn good and ready. By that time, my thoughts were fuzzy, my skin sizzled and my body had gone wet and achy with need.

  Jensen buried his face in my neck and muttered “Fuck” on a soft sigh.

  I slipped my hands under his shirt because I could. It still made me giddy that I had unfettered access to this amazing body, belonging to this amazing man.

  He shuddered as I touched him. My fingertips tracing the grooves of his rock hard abdomen. My palms following the sides of his torso up and over his rib cage to the thick slabs of muscle that defined his chest. I swept my thumbs over his nipples and nudged his face with my shoulder so I could kiss the underside of his jaw.

  “God. I needed this.”

  “What?”

  “You.” He groaned and pressed into me with more intent. “Is this a sturdy door?”

  I tweaked his nipple before pushing on his chest. “It’ll rattle like a freight train with as hard as you thrust. I don’t need my students standing outside the door wondering what the hell is going on in here.”

  Jensen blew a raspberry against my throat and I squealed. “Dream killer.” He stepped back. “No problem. I can adapt. I’ll just bend you over the desk.”

  Framing his gorgeous face in my hands, I hated seeing the dark circles of worry and exhaustion beneath his usual sparkling eyes. “You okay? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but it’s rare that you just drop by.”

  “I miss you.” He closed his eyes. “That sounds stupid because I see you every day. But it’s been hit-and-miss the past few days—”

  “And you really want to hit this”—I thrust my pelvis into his—“doncha, big guy?”

  “Am I that transparent?” He laughed softly. “But yeah. I want to lose myself in you for a little while, Ro.” He rested his forehead to mine. “Can you play hooky for a couple of hours?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?”

  “I’m playing hooky too.”

  If Jensen had blown off practice to spend time with me, then there was more going on than him missing me. Calder wouldn’t be done with camp for three hours, so we could have uninterrupted time alone. “Your place or mine?”

  “Mine.”

  “I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

  After another toe-curling kiss, Jensen picked up his hat and took off.

  Technically I could come and go as I pleased, especially this time of year when there were minimal students in the training center. So I changed the hands on the clock on my door, indicating I’d be back after three.

  • • •

  We didn’t make it into his bedroom for the first round.

  I suspected Jensen had been pacing in his apartment while he waited for me. The instant I opened the door, he was on me. Kissing me as he stripped me. Impatiently tearing off his clothes when he’d gotten me naked. Dropping to his knees and using his mouth and his hands to send me soaring. Then bending me over the back of his couch and giving in to his need to take me hard and fast with a passion that rocked me to the core.

  And after he’d found his release, he carried me into his bedroom, where he started all over again.

  The room stayed dark, only a slight glow from the hallway through the crack in the door.

  As much as I loved Jensen the impatient, intense lover, this tender, thorough side of him loving on me did me in. His hands gentled as they caressed every inch of my skin. His kisses were soft and sweet as he teased the hot spots that drove me crazy like the small of my back and the crease of my knee. His reverence with every sweeping caress . . . I didn’t deserve it even when I was thrilled to have it.

  His stunning masculine form deserved its own worship. So I mapped the dips and valleys of his musculature, but I also paid particular attention to gently stroking my fingertips across the wide expanse of his shoulders, down the middle of his back and lower to his firm ass. After the brutal training and physical impact he inflicted on his body every day, he deserved a soft touch from someone who understood that tactile pleasures of the flesh were just as important as that hard-driving rise to release.

  We lost ourselves in the cocoon of darkness. Reveling in the luxury of indulging in this ultimate intimacy without the urgency. There wasn’t a choreographed need to take turns tasting, touching, teasing. We wound each other up and then let go.

  Afterward, Jensen kept me wrapped in his embrace, my back to his chest, our legs tangled, our bodies at rest, even when I knew his mind was back to racing a million miles an hour.

  “Jens?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  The only time he called me baby was when we were alone like this. “You owe me—”

  “Hey, you wanted to blow me, sweetheart, I would’ve been fine—”

  “Not that, dumbass. You ripped my yoga pants in the living room. Dude, that’s the second pair in two weeks.”

  “Oh. Well, sorry, not sorry.”

  I elbowed him.

  He laughed. “I’ll buy you four new pairs. Two to replace the ones I ruined and two pairs that I can ruin at will, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s pretty obvious how much I missed you if I’m ripping your clothes off.”

  “Or you don’t know your own strength.”

  “Or you’re my weakness, baby.”

  I melted.

  He nuzzled the back of my head. “I’ve never had this. I know you haven’t either. That’s why I love that it’s this way between us.”

  “Were you worried it wouldn’t be?”

  He hesitated and I felt my stomach tighten. “I didn’t know it could be like this, so my worries were more along the lines of . . . would this be a priority?”

  For you went unsaid. Don’t take offense. He’s being open and honest and that’s what you asked of him.

  Jensen turned me to face him. “That’s why I came to you today.