Cold as Ice – Playing For Keeps Read Online Nichole Rose

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Sports, Virgin Tags Authors: Nichole Rose Advertisement

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Theo and Wes are pissed about being kicked out before she's awake. Jonas pouts like an overgrown baby. Eventually, Coach manages to kick them all out, threatening to make them practice tomorrow even though they won tonight.

I sit quietly then, just waiting for her to wake up. I need to see those endless blue eyes again. I don't think I'll be able to breathe fully until I do, regardless of what the doctors say.

"Kris."

I jerk upright in my chair, blinking.

Kelsey's awake, watching me through wide, frightened eyes.

"Princess," I rasp, sliding from the chair to my knees beside the bed. "I'm right here."

"What happened?" she whispers.

"You fainted."

"Oh." She grimaces, reaching up to touch the bump on her head. "Is that why my head hurts?"

"Yeah. You bumped it when you fell." I carefully brush her hair back from her face. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I think." Her brows furrow as she takes stock. "Better, actually."

"That'd be the fluids." I nod toward the IV bag hanging over the bed. "You were dehydrated."

"I haven't been able to keep much down lately."

"How long?"

"A couple of weeks," she whispers.

I trace her bottom lip with my finger. "You'll have to eat more."

"I know." She yawns. "I've been trying to make myself eat, but I usually throw it right back up. It's kind of a pain. I like food."

"You'll like it twice as much now."

"I hope not." She smiles sleepily. "My hips may not approve of your plan, Kristján." Her gaze flits around the room before coming back to me. "What…um, what did they say?"

"That you need to eat twice as much."

"Kris, I'm serious."

"So am I. Scoot over."

She grumbles at me and then scoots back on the tiny bed, allowing me to crawl in with her. There's no room with both of us in the damn thing, but I don't care. I want to hold her. No, I need to hold her right now.

Once we're as comfortable as we're going to get, I drag my hand through her hair.

"You hear that?"

She listens for a minute, her head cocked to the side.

"What is it?"

"Your miracle, princess," I whisper, lacing our fingers together to cup her belly.

She frowns when she feels the band stretched across her abdomen, and then her eyes widen as realization dawns. "Kris," she breathes, her voice strangled. "Kris, are you…?"

"That sound is our baby's heartbeat, Kelsey. You aren't falling out of remission. You're pregnant, princess."

"Kris." Her expression crumbles. She crumbles, falling to pieces in my arms. A giant sob wracks her body.

I bury her face in my throat, holding her as the news sets in. She's having my baby.

Chapter Eleven

Kelsey

"If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up," I whisper. If it's a dream, it's the strangest one I've ever had. Never in a million years did I think I'd want to be back in the hospital, in the hardest bed known to mankind. And yet…the gentle murmur of sound filling the room around us is magic. A kind I never thought I'd know.

"It's not a dream, princess." Kris runs his lips across my forehead and then down both cheeks. "You're wide awake."

"How did this happen? The doctor told me I wouldn't be able to have kids!"

"Well, when a man and a woman—"

I poke him in the stomach.

He chuckles, smirking at me. "A lot of cancer patients are able to have kids after chemo or radiation. The same goes for your medications. Nothing is ever set in stone, Kelsey."

"The baby is healthy?" I ask, the only question that really matters. Well, one of the only questions. I have about ninety more. "What about my medications? I've been taking them the whole time. Did I hurt the baby? Oh, God, Kris. What if I hurt the baby?"

"Breathe, elskan mín."

I suck in a deep breath, and then exhale it in a rush. "I'm so worried!"

"The baby is healthy." He narrows his eyes on me. "Aside from the fact that you're dehydrated, haven't been eating enough, and need a lot more sleep, so are you. They're waiting for more test results, but your numbers look good so far."

Relief courses through me, so profoundly it takes my breath away.

"That doesn't mean this is going to be easy, though, princess," Kris says gently. "This pregnancy is going to be tough on you. You'll have to come off of a lot of your medications and slow down a lot."

"But the baby…?"

"The doctor is optimistic. The baby is strong."

I blink away tears. "I'll do whatever it takes. I won't do anything to put our baby at risk, Kris. Had I known…"

"Don't," he growls with a sharp shake of his head. "You've spent most of your life believing you couldn't have kids. You've spent years mourning that fact. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't know. We know now. That's what matters."

"I'm pregnant." I marvel at the words. At the fact that they're not just words but reality. There's a little life growing inside of me right now. It's part me and part Kris, created in the conference room of the arena where we first met two years ago. Created in love.

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