Hard to handle, p.16
Hard to Handle, page 16
“And you’re even prettier with all that snow in your hair.”
Shit. Don’t do that, Hunter. Don’t . . . break down my defenses that are weak enough already.
“You owe me an apology.” I make a stand with my hands on my hips and my feet firmly planted, more than sure there’s no way he’s going to throw that at me.
“That’s what you want to say right now when you’re at my mercy?”
I’ve been at your mercy since I first laid eyes on you at Tank’s.
Another laugh falls from my lips—nerves mixed with an anticipation I can all but feel—as I take a step in retreat. “One hundred ninety-two goals in this season alone. Twenty-three shy of Gretzky’s single season record. One hundred twenty-four assists. That’s fourth all-time in a season and you still have over ten games left to play. Too bad you weren’t a baseball player, because all of those pretty stats don’t do shit to bolster my confidence that you’re going to actually hit me when you throw it,” I tease, his arm pulling back faltering slightly.
“All-state third baseman right here.” He lifts a finger and points to himself. “I’d have probably ended up hating it too though in the long run. Tag. You’re it.”
I’m distracted slightly by his comment about hating it too, so my reaction time is off.
Shit.
I cry out in shock as the snow hits my cheek and explodes in a puff of dust all over my face and down the collar of my jacket.
“That’s it. You’re mine now, Maddox.”
The war begins. One snowball after another, we act like little kids having a snowball fight in the front yard instead of two adults in the dead of night in some random park in the middle of Boston.
“Time out,” I finally pant as my lungs burn and toes numb, my hands going up to form the time-out sign.
Hunter stops in his tracks, hands on his knees but eyes trained on me and a smile owning his face. “I never figured you for a quitter.”
“I am not a quitter,” I say and then wait for him to get a few feet closer before I launch the snowball I’m hiding behind my back at him.
He charges after me. I shriek and run, but I’m no match for him before he tackles me to the ground.
“No!” I laugh out, as he takes a handful of snow and tosses it on my face.
“You play dirty.”
“Always.” I giggle as he cuffs both my wrists. “No,” I groan as he pulls himself up to his knees so he’s sitting astride me with my hands pinned to both sides of my head. “Get off me.” There’s no heat behind my words, because as fun as the snowball fight was, as exhausting as our wrestling match becomes, all of a sudden awareness hits both of us as I stare up at Hunter, inches from my face. There’s clarity in his eyes that I haven’t seen in forever.
The cold of the snow beneath me begins to seep through my jacket but the smile on my lips feels so very good. The heat and weight of his body against mine even more so.
“Where’s that cocky mouth of yours now?” he asks as his gaze flickers from my eyes to my lips and then back up.
“This wasn’t part of the snowball fight,” I all but whisper.
I hold my breath as he leans forward, his lips near my ear. “There aren’t rules to a snowball fight. You don’t get to control it, Dekk.”
“I know . . . I just—” But I’m at a loss at what to say, and then can’t find any words as Hunter brushes his lips over mine.
“Missed me. You missed me,” he whispers. “Now you’ve gotta kiss me.”
He leans down to kiss me again. It’s gentle and tender and unexpected, since there has never been anything like it between us before.
Hunter isn’t gentle when it comes to kisses. He’s possessive and demanding and steals the breath from your lungs with the dominance everything about him holds over your senses.
But he just stole my breath with the simplest of kisses, and I’m not quite sure how to feel when I know I want to feel everything.
So when he releases one of my hands and runs his fingers down the side of my cheek before kissing me again, I don’t fight him like I should.
I don’t think of KSM and what’s right or wrong professionally. All I think about is wanting to forget.
Who I am. Who he is. The possible repercussions, and the throwing my own principles out of the window to just enjoy the moment.
The warmth of his lips.
The tenderness of his touch.
The taste of him on my tongue.
The sense of calm mixed with desire that he’s evoking in me.
How is it possible to want all of this without there being any fallout—professionally or emotionally?
The kiss ends, but the whirlwind of emotions sparking back to life inside me doesn’t.
“Now who’s playing dirty?” I murmur, my mind as scrambled as my hormones.
But when desire darkens his eyes and turns up the corners of his lips, I realize what we’re doing. Here. In the snow. One hundred feet from where his teammates could be coming out of the club at any moment.
I’d like to think reason takes hold, but it doesn’t. Nerves do. Pure, flustered nerves have me saying, “Snow angels,” in a spontaneous burst of words as I roll out from under him.
“What?” He laughs the word out as he runs a hand through his hair to shake the snow out of it and shifts to sit on the ground.
“Snow angels,” I repeat, “Come on”—I tug on his arm—“make an angel with me.”
“There are a million things I want to make with you right now, Dekker Kincade, and making snow angels isn’t one of them.”
Our eyes hold as I’m mid-angel—arms above my head, legs spread out—but I love watching his defenses crumble. I love that he gives in to the moment and plays with me when he flops on his back and starts making angels.
Our laughter is loud as it rings through the night, dotted only by the sound of buses air brakes and a horn way off in the distance.
The sound of our swishing stops and silence descends over the park. We stare at the stars in the sky above, clouded intermittently by the curl of white from our pants of breath.
“Christ,” he sighs, as his frozen hand finds mine at my side in the most casual of ways. “Why was that so fun?”
“Because being a kid again is always fun.” I giggle without caring how stupid it sounds.
“It’s easy to forget.”
“You know . . .”
“And here it comes,” he says. How easy it is to get his defenses back up.
“Nothing is coming.” I pause to choose my words as best as I can. “In fact, you don’t even have to respond, but if you need a friend, I’m here.”
His silence is deafening, but then again, I didn’t expect him to up and spill.
But I said it and I’ll let it rest. I know by the tightening of his hand on mine that he heard me.
“Truth.” One word. It’s all he says, and a part of me dies at the sound of it.
“Nah. I’m not playing this game with you. I remember what happened the last time you asked me that,” I say, and I do. It was the first time we hooked up. He asked me if I thought people could do friends with benefits. I told him no. He told me I was stubborn and questioned my resolve. The insults we flung at each other were heartless, the angry sex we had afterward, mind-blowing.
Truth.
That one word was the start of our six-month benefits-only affair. The one I walked away from with a broken heart he may or may not have known about.
So why would he say it now? Is he trying to get us back on an even footing? Or is he trying to cause a fight to push us further apart?
I’m not sure which I would be more surprised at.
“It’s not what you’re thinking”—he chuckles—“although that might be fun too, considering we’re actually being civil to one another.”
“At the moment,” I murmur. “You forgot to add that we’re being civil with each other at the moment.”
“Truth,” he says again, ignoring my comment. “Why are you here, Kincade?”
“Truth?” I murmur, knowing we need to have this conversation but afraid if I admit what he already knows then the moment will be ruined. I improvise. “Only if you tell me what’s going on with you first.”
His sigh is long and drawn out and is at odds with how relaxed and comfortable we are with each other . . . excluding how cold we are. “Is this all there is, Dekk?”
I open my mouth and then close it as I hunt for the words to appease or soothe or commiserate. But all will sound placating. Nothing will answer a question I’m not quite sure he’s getting at. “What do you mean?”
“You said it earlier. Hockey. Party. Fucking. Repeat. Is that all there is?” I want to brush away the pain I can hear, but know I don’t have the right to.
“No. It’s not. Maybe it’s what there is for you right now—what you want there to be—but there is so much more.”
“Says who?” he asks. God, he sounds lost.
“Says . . . says whoever it is you listen to, I guess.” My answer is stupid and feels inadequate at best but without knowing more, I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know how to put to rest whatever it is he’s struggling with. “Maybe you just reach a point where hockey, party, sex, repeat, isn’t enough anymore. Maybe that’s when you realize you want more.”
“Maybe I don’t deserve more.” His words fade off as my surprised laugh breaks the silence.
“That’s ridiculous. Why would you even say that?”
“You were right.”
“About?”
“Being burned out.”
My breath catches. I exhale as softly as I can so he doesn’t hear it. I know how hard this admission is. “Okay.”
“It’s . . . it’s a long story, but you were right.”
“I never needed to be right. I just needed you to know it’s okay if you are.” I squeeze his hand to reinforce my words. “If you ever want to tell the story, I’m a good listener.”
I focus on the swirl of white from our breaths above as a small part of me sags in relief inside. Not because I’m an agent trying to make a breakthrough with a client, but because I’m a woman finally being let in by a man I can’t help but care about.
Finally, a breakthrough.
“Hey?” he says after a beat.
“Mmm?”
“I appreciate the romp in the park, here . . . but uh, there are parts of my anatomy I’m fearing I’ll lose to frostbite.” His laugh is forced, but I also know this conversation has given more of himself than he’s ever given me before, so I don’t push.
I let him help me up to a standing position. We laugh and threaten more snowballs as we dust the snow off each other’s backs and admire our sloppy angels.
But it doesn’t go unnoticed to me that he doesn’t ask for my truth in return.
It only makes me wonder. What is he afraid of?
DEKKER
“YOU’RE KIDDING ME?” MY TEETH chatter and my body shivers.
Even with the heat on high, the constant blowing of my breath into my hands, and Hunter’s arm around me in the rideshare, I still can’t feel parts of my body as I stand in front of the reception desk in the lobby and stare at the after-hours clerk.
I’m sure we look like drowned rats—hair plastered from the snow, clothes wet, boots making squishy noises on the expensive floor.
“We’re so sorry, Miss Kincade,” the clerk repeats, as I stand where he stopped me to tell me the news.
“What seems to be the problem?” Hunter asks as he comes in behind me.
“It shouldn’t be more than an hour or two,” he explains as his eyes grow wide when he realizes who he’s speaking with. “I’m sorry, Mad Dog—er, Mr. Maddox. A pipe has leaked on Miss Kincade’s floor. The rooms are fine, but the hall is closed off so we can fix the problem quickly.”
“Then move her to a suite,” Hunter demands, and I should be miffed he’s speaking for me, but I’m too freaking cold to care.
“We’re completely booked. I don’t have any vacant—”
“You don’t have rooms set aside for emergencies like this? You don’t—”
“We do, but they’re all taken already. We can try to find and comp you a room at a neighboring hotel. Just give me a moment to—”
“It’s fine,” I say with a tight smile, on which I’m more than certain are blue lips.
“My room then,” he says.
“No, I can wait,” I stutter, more than cognizant of the unrequited sexual tension continuing to reverberate between us, even when we’re half frozen.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He rolls his eyes and puts his hand on my back to usher me to the elevator as the clerk stares at me, waiting for me to tell him anything more. “You can at least get out of these wet clothes so you can warm-up.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I say drolly and lift my eyebrows.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” he mutters and then turns to the clerk. “She’ll be in my room.”
“How should we inform you so we don’t wake you up in case you’re asleep?” the clerk asks.
“Text her cell,” Hunter says as he gives him my number from memory that has me quite surprised. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and runs a hand up and down my arm.
“Please,” I finish for him when he doesn’t say it.
And without waiting for a response, Hunter directs us to the elevator. We’re in his room within minutes—top floor, great view of the city, but all I can think about when he closes the door behind us is getting warm.
He turns the heat on as high as it can go. I’m stuck in that dilemma between wanting to take my jacket and my wet clothes off and not being in my own room.
“Sooooo cold,” I say as I rock back and forth under a vent with my face tilted up and eyes closed.
I hear the click of something and then the sound of ringing. “Hi. Yes. This is room eight-oh-five. I want to order two hot chocolates, two grilled cheeses, um . . . and any dessert you have that’s hot.” He murmurs something. “I don’t care if the kitchen’s closed. Figure a way to get it made and I’ll make sure to tip accordingly.”
“Hunter—”
“No. It’s the least they can do after not having access to your room.” Then he turns back to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Yes, we’re one of those rooms . . . thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it.” He hangs the phone up. “It’ll be about thirty to forty minutes.”
“What are we going to do?” I ask with a chattering laugh as the heat stings my face. “Have a frozen picnic?” It does sound perfect though.
“Why not? Get out of your jacket,” Hunter says as I hear a zipper and then a thud as his falls to the floor.
He moves into my line of sight, and of course he didn’t just remove his jacket, but his shirt too. Him standing before me shirtless in all his chiseled ab perfection doesn’t do anything to help erase the kiss on my lips and his taste on my tongue from the park.
At least he’s sobered up now. There’s that.
Refusing to give him the satisfaction of staring at him or acknowledging that he’s half-naked, I focus on undoing the buttons of my jacket. “Crap,” I mutter, my fingers so numb I keep fumbling with them as my teeth chatter and my body begs for some hot water to sink into.
“Let me.”
“I’ve got it.” I slap at his hands when he reaches out to push mine out of the way and help me, but it does nothing to deter him. Within seconds, he has the front of my coat opened and is yanking it off my shoulders and then fighting to get my hands out of the bunched ends of the sleeves as if I’m a little kid.
“There,” he says as it drops to the floor before enveloping me in his arms. I accept the warmth—even though his body is as cold as mine—and accept the rare moment of magnanimity from him after the night we’ve had. It feels like an apology without words, and I didn’t realize how much I needed this from him until now.
I close my eyes momentarily and absorb the feel of it.
This is a bad decision all around. Me. Here in his room. Our past. Our future.
Christ.
It’s a double-edged sword that reminds me just how good the good is when it’s with Hunter and how there’s no way I can let myself fall back into this trap when I have to try and win him over as a client.
“I can’t. Hunter, I can’t,” I say as I push against his chest and step back even when he tries to keep me close.
“You’d rather freeze?”
I eye him. “Last time—we weren’t—”
“Shh,” he says and holds his very cold finger to my lips. “Don’t ruin the moment. More civility is afoot.”
A sigh falls from my lips that matches the shake of my head. I stare at him. At the breadth of his shoulders and the wave to his hair. At the blue of his eyes and the lopsided smile. At our past, and what I’m trying to make our future. I take in the whole and let his words from earlier hit my ears again. Is this all there is?
“This is too complicated,” I say when I finally find the words.
“What is? You standing here in my hotel room? It’s only complicated if you make it,” he says, batting around words with double meanings that I try to ignore. “Besides, you’re the one to blame here.”
“Me?” I laugh the word out. “How am I to blame?”
“You’re the one following us from city to city on this road stretch.”
“Okay.” I draw the word out and toe my shoes off one by one, trying to buy time to figure out where he’s going with this. Is this his way of realizing what he said to me in the park and being uncomfortable that he had a moment of vulnerability?
“You’re the one who hit me with a snowball.”
That’s definitely what this is.
“I’d do it again.” I laugh and play along. “And your point is what?”
“Why exactly do you know my stats?”
“What?”
“My stats. In the park you recited them off the top of your head like you’d been studying them, so I wanted to know . . . why do you know my stats?”
Here’s my chance. To finally be honest . . . professionally. But because he just opened up to me, was real, I loathe to ruin it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to share more. He’s standing there shirtless. We just shared a kiss that’s still very fresh in my mind and on my lips.
