Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(52)

He’d never been surer of a plan in his life, right up until he pulled into his driveway and saw Tess’s ridiculous car parked all cockeyed while still managing to look like it belonged there. Just like the woman who drove it, that car had become part of his every day, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to turn it all off and keep his distance from her, no matter how much sense it made. Little by little, he’d started to rely on Tess as being part of his formerly well-planned-out existence.

Fuck. He was so screwed.

…

Tess was using every deflection skill she had to keep Kahn away from the two postgame chocolate cupcakes waiting for Cole on the kitchen island, but the kitten was determined and crafty. It was a dangerous combination. Still, she was a woman on a mission. She had to at least see him before she went to bed—alone—and make sure he was okay. Since she’d gotten home, her never-shuts-up brain had already worked through a million scenarios for how hurt he’d be when he got home.

Bandaged even though he hadn’t bled once? Didn’t matter. She’d pictured it.

Hobbling a little, the way she did the day after a rare gym session when all her muscles spent the next day bitching her out? She’d totally imagined it.

Wincing with every intake of breath while holding his head with a goose egg protruding from the back? Oh yeah, she’d imagined that and more.

What kind of life was this for him? What kind of life would it be for the baby? She’d grown up in the eye of Hurricane Chaos. Nothing had been the same two days in a row. There was no one she could depend on to be there. Between Cole’s game schedule with only a few days off a month during their nine-month season, when would he even have the time to see their child? Was she just sentencing her baby to having an unavailable parent like she’d had?

The only thing keeping her from pacing the length of Cole’s kitchen while chewing her nails to the quick was the fact that Kahn hadn’t given up on eating a cupcake.

“For the last time, Kahn,” she said, picking him up and holding him so they were face-to-face, as if he could understand. “The chocolate will kill you, so stop trying to swipe one.”

“Can you blame him, though? They’re really good.”

Tess whipped around at the sound of Cole’s voice while Kahn leaped from her arms in that graceful way cats can do and landed on the island.

She was too slack-jawed at seeing Cole, searching his head for any signs of bruising and reminding herself that she couldn’t rip his clothes off to do the same for his body, to react. Of course, that’s where having a world-class athlete in the room helped. He blocked Kahn from the cupcake before Tess had even processed what was going on. In her defense, her brain was doing doubly duty taking him in and memorizing every line of him.

His hair was still damp, the blond a little darker for it, and tucked behind his ears. His white button-up was undone at the collar, his tie undone and hanging around his neck, and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. On anyone else, the look would be disheveled. On him it was barely constrained. She had no idea what had happened to his suit jacket but damn, she wished the rest of his clothes would join it.

Simmer down, Tess. It’s all just temporary. Don’t get attached. You know the danger of that.

Discombobulated, she picked up one of the cupcakes and held it out to him. “The world record for eating the most cupcakes in the least amount of time is twenty-nine cupcakes in thirty seconds.”

One side of his mouth lifted, and he stalked toward her, every movement with purpose. “There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere.”

“No there’s not.” Her chest tightened at the way his gaze traveled over her, hot and heady and hungry. “It’s a cupcake. It’s all frosting and sprinkles and goodness. They used to be called one, two, three, fours or numbers as an easy way to remember the ratio of ingredients.”

She might be frozen to the spot, her nipples puckered and breasts heavy with need, but he kept striding toward her, everything about him taut and ready.

“It’s also sometimes used as a euphemism,” he said, his voice a low, deep rumble.

Her breath caught. “For what?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You really want me to tell you or show you?”

Both. Yes. Please. Oh my God.

She grabbed one of the cupcakes and all but shoved it at him, her arm outstretched. “Eat it.”

“You’re killing me, Tess.” He accepted the cupcake and took a bite. Correction. He licked off the top point of the frosting and then took a bite. “Aren’t you going to have one? After all, it’s just, how did you put it, frosting, sprinkles, and goodness.”

The rat bastard. He had her and he knew it.

All she wanted to do was flee with her panties still attached, if not totally dry, and instead she was going to have to stay here and eat a cupcake while he continued to do indecent things with his tongue. When had eating the frosting from a cupcake become indecent? The moment Cole Phillips did it. And it shouldn’t be! Food plus naked good times had never gone together in her mental wank bank. So watching Cole take a final bite of the cupcake and then suck the frosting off his fingertips should be a total and complete turnoff. But holy oh-my-God-cupcake-euphemism tingles, it was the hottest thing she’d seen since she’d gotten the full view of his naked body the other morning.