Mister Hockey (Hellions Angels #1)(17)
“I make a batch once a week when I’m home.” He cleared his throat. “Do the vanilla bean ice cream on the slowest setting. Then slap it between two fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.”
“Jed West the baker.” She appeared to have lost the ability to blink. “Got to say, I’d never have taken you for that.”
“What did you take me for?” He’d hate for her to think of him as a high-paid meathead.
Instead of answering, her gaze dropped to the car key clutched in his hand. “Oh.” She made a small face, ducking her chin. “Look at me, jabbering away when you must have a lot to do. And, yeah, so, okay then. Thank you for everything.” She stepped forward, extending her hand. “It was nice to meet you. Unexpected, but good. Really good.”
Instead of giving her a simple handshake, he laced his fingers with hers. Her skin was soft and smooth against his rough calluses. “My pleasure.” And that’s when the truth hit him with the force of a cartoon anvil.
This afternoon had been nothing but pleasure. Even patching her leaky roof. Meeting her strange relatives. Talking about appliances.
For these past few hours he hadn’t been famous, or stuck on a pedestal, which was good because being alienated got old. So did getting treated differently just because he happened to do a job he loved.
Nor did he have that low-grade stress that had been dogging him since his head injury. His fears about karma.
None of it. Instead, he felt . . . normal.
For so long he’d fought tooth and nail to be extraordinary. The best of the best. A champion. But an ordinary heart beat in his chest, one that yearned for simple things. A home, not a high-rise condo with a fridge empty except for beer and protein shakes.
The air vibrated as if someone had struck a tuning fork. She let him go first, releasing him in slow inches before wrapping her hands over her chest, hugging herself. “Guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
He cocked his head, peered harder. Screw the double vision, this was like trying to read invisible words between the lines. “You will?”
“Um. Yeah.” She mashed her lips, trying and failing to stamp out a flicker of amusement. “Not sure if you’ve noticed but your face happens to be on about a jillion billboards, plus that new commercial.”
“Ah. That cereal one.” He glanced to the door. He knew what would happen if he walked out. He’d head to the gym. He’d take out this mounting sexual frustration on free weights. Do a few seven-minute miles. Sweat the poisons out.
“Sorry. Let me get that.” She jumped to the door, mistaking his confusion for a sign to leave.
Shit. He didn’t want to go, but he didn’t know how to be a fucking normal guy. He gave her a curt nod and slung on his jacket. “Goodbye, Breezy Angel.” He stepped over the threshold.
“Goodbye, Jed West.”
And just like that, the door snicked shut. He turned and strode to the edge of the porch, rain came down hard, the sky breaking open. A strengthening wind stole through his sweatpants, the coolness on his tensed quads a stark contrast to the snug warmth of the cottage to his back. He flipped up his hood. A quick wet dash to his Land Rover and he’d be on his way, racing back to his real life.
It wasn’t a conscious thought that caused the pivot. He was knocking before fully registering what he’d done. The door swung open and she leaned against the frame, brow wrinkled with uncertainty. “Forget something?”
“Yeah.” He stepped forward, catching a whiff of her shampoo’s perfume, the sweet coconut. “I’ve got a question.”
“Shoot.” Her two top teeth fastened to her lower lip.
“What’s it like?” He reached for a tousled wave escaping her top knot and coiled the lush strands around his finger with a gentle tug. “Kissing that pretty mouth?”
A shy gleam flared in her eyes. “Some mysteries you can never unravel unless you try.”
He took her smiling answer as his cue and drew her close, bending her head against the crook of his arm.
Her surprised, husky laugh ended in a breathless sigh that hit him someplace deep inside the chest. He slowed, offering her nothing but a gentle press of lips, innocent, sweet, not even a hint of tongue. She tasted like tea and toothpaste.
Reaching out, she cupped one of his cheeks, tracing a thumb over his scruffy jawbone and he suppressed a shudder.
Way he saw it, there were two choices. Ravage her in the doorway in full view of her entire neighborhood or pull back and take a breath, figure out how the fuck the chastest kiss he’d had since the ninth grade just rocked his goddamn world off its axis.
Of course, he knew what it was to want a woman—how to satisfy and get satisfaction in return. But as her lips tentatively parted, deepening the kiss, a new kind of hunger grew within him, sweetly ravenous. This was a mouth a man could lose himself in. But could he afford to get more confused than he’d been of late? The only way he succeeded in his world was to anticipate the next three steps ahead.
That game seven hit and the resulting ramifications sure as shit hadn’t been in the cards.
And Breezy Angel? He’d wanted to know what it was like to kiss her, had suspected it would be good, hoped for great. But as far as firsts went in his life, it was unsurpassed.
He pressed her up in the doorway, a hint of grind to his hips, wanting, no—needing—those perfect tits crushed to his chest. She was a wild card. He dipped his hands to frame her flared hips, the dip to her hourglass waist.