Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(34)

That was not going to happen. Ever. He already had enough problems not thinking about Tess and orgasms in the same heartbeat as it was and that wasn’t going to change. However, while he was an asshole, he wasn’t so much of one that he’d rub that in her face. Instead, he kept his gaze on the road instead of her.

“Right,” he said as soon as he could trust his voice. “Because we’ve got rules.”

“Exactly.” She slowed down as they approached their—his—house. “This is just temporary—at least everything but the baby.” She pulled in and parked her car next to his in the driveway. “Time for bed.” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned the engine off with more force than necessary. “Alone. Bed. Alone. Sleep. Oh my God. Did you know—” She stopped talking and brought her hand to her mouth before shaking her head and getting out of the car.

Trying to ignore the way her curls bounced while she marched to his front door or how her ass filled out her jeans, Cole walked behind her up the stairs. He wasn’t ready for the night to end, which was weird. Usually unless there was sex involved, he wanted to be in bed—alone—and mentally prepping for the next day in, he glanced at his watch, twelve minutes. But tonight, he didn’t feel the need for that routine. Too bad he had no clue what to do about it.

He didn’t have a standard play for flirting with the soon-to-be mom of his kid who wanted nothing to do with him beyond co-parenting. So he unlocked the door and held it open for Tess with a little more force than necessary, all that frustration needing to go somewhere.

She started to walk inside but paused only a few inches from him. “All the trivia is like a reflex; sometimes it comes out before I can stop it or realize it’s happening. I’m sorry—I know it’s annoying.”

“We all have habits and routines,” he teased. “Even you.”

One side of her mouth curled up and she turned to him, bringing her even closer and making his entire body burn with anticipation—of what he knew wasn’t going to happen. She’d been more than clear on that.

“Et tu, Brute?” Tess asked with a sexy pout as she leaned in and rose up on her toes, bringing her almost eye to eye with him and definitely mouth to mouth. “You’d call me out like that?”

Those were not flirty words. They weren’t a come-on. They weren’t oh-baby-fuck-me-against-the-doorframe. Were they? Was flirting via trivia gems and Latin phrases a thing? No. It couldn’t be. He just wanted it to be. And even knowing the truth of it, being this close to her was like a lightning bolt of lust straight to his dick. And while the logical part of his brain knew she didn’t mean it to hit like that, the rest of him had very different ideas.

“You know,” he said, trying to sound cool as he stole her defense mechanism, “according to Plutarch, Caesar never said that. When he spotted Brutus while the whole stabbing was all going down, he just pulled his toga over his head.”

“And Shakespeare probably wasn’t the first to use the phrase in a dramatic play,” she said, one-upping him in what to her was probably just a trivia face-off and not some kind of bizarre mating ritual.

“You just cheated.” Damn, why did he sound like he’d just gotten done doing goal-to-goal sprints on the ice? “No factoids, remember?”

“You’re a bad influence,” she said with a chuckle and turned and walked into the house.

“I can live with that.” God, he’d love to live with that in a whole other way that involved no clothes and enough orgasms for the best night sleep ever.

“Good night, Cole,” Tess said as she ducked into her room, Kahn appearing out of nowhere and following along behind, and closed the door, leaving him alone out in the hall.

Like the fool he was, he stood there in the open doorway and watched, half hoping she’d come back out. She wasn’t going to. He knew that. She’d been clear on the rules and he’d agreed to them. Of course, that was before, and now he wanted to change the game.





Chapter Ten


Morning skate before a game always felt good. There was nothing but anticipation and possibility accompanied by the sound of blades on ice and the puck flying though the cool air. But after two days off? It was like Cole’s birthday, Christmas, and Halloween where all the neighbors gave out full-size bars of candy rolled into one. And he couldn’t wait to get out there onto the ice.

“Oh look,” Christensen said as soon as Cole crossed the threshold into the locker room. “The flower delivery guy is here.”

Helping out Tess yesterday had gone viral in a good way for the team, so unlike what had happened to Stuckey, Cole wouldn’t be forced into a public dating effort orchestrated by his mom to clean up his image. Of course, Stuckey had ended up falling for his date and they were currently in cohabitational bliss with that horse of a dog of hers, but that wasn’t the point.

What was the point?

Fuck if he knew beyond the fact that he was going to get a metric ton of shit from the guys about it today. That would be worth it if he’d actually managed to accomplish his goal yesterday. He hadn’t.

So much for trying to build that connection—the friendly connection, not the horny one that was going to give him calluses on his hand—and making her feel more at home. There was a reason why he stuck to his routine, and it was because he didn’t suck at it.