“Is everything okay?” She stepped close, looking up at him with concern, her attention focusing in on his latest injury. “Do you need help? Is it your eye? That was such a cheap shot from Evanston. Total high stick.”
“I’m fine.” He managed to stifle the urge to touch the heart of the bruise where Doc had given him two quick stitches before sending him back out for the second period. “I couldn’t sleep.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her gaze, the little vee of worry wrinkling her forehead smoothing out into are-you-kidding-me annoyance. “I am not currently accepting booty calls.”
Way to go, Petrov. So smooth. Amazing. How are women not falling at your feet wherever you go?
“It’s not that.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. If I invite you in, the next step in the plan is to tell me that you just want to stretch out and we’d both be more comfortable on the bed?”
“Is that the kind of guy you think I am?” He wasn’t. He was a grown-ass man, not a frat boy.
She looked down at her bare wrist as if she were wearing a watch. “It’s after midnight and you just knocked on my hotel door to tell me you couldn’t sleep.”
Okay, she had a point. And if he understood why in the hell he was there instead of watching episodes of The Office that he’d seen a million times already, per usual for a road trip, he would have told her. Instead, the best he could do was try not to sound as lame as he felt at the moment.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “These will stay here the whole time.”
She sighed and shook her head, but instead of closing the door in his face, she opened it up farther and stepped back. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Never.”
At least not on purpose.
…
Shelby had just hit post on her latest dispatch for The Biscuit, so everything was scattered in her room—yeah, that was definitely her bra in the middle of the bed—and her head was equally a mess, which was the only sorta reasonable explanation she could give for letting Ian into her hotel room at one in the morning.
There was no way this was a good idea, but there was no way she was turning him away.
The truth was that she didn’t want to.
It was their last night on the road. Tomorrow after the game, they’d be back on the team plane and headed to reality and Harbor City. No more late-night ice-skating lessons or dinners together or riding up in hotel elevators so close that they could touch but keeping their distance because once they did, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Ian glanced over at her silent TV with the captions turned on. “The Office?”
“Comfort watch.” She needed something in the background to distract her or else she would have been thinking about him instead of finishing her last post from the road.
He nodded, then his attention was centered back on her—hot and intense. “It’s what I had on, too.”
“So tomorrow night after the game, we fly home,” she said, floundering for something to talk about when chitchat was the last thing she wanted with Ian in her room.
“No more dinners at the kiddie table.”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
Wow. Amazing repartee, Shelby.
Really, it was the best she could do under the circumstances. Ian Petrov was here in her hotel room and all she wanted was to finish what he’d started with that kiss.
Because I like you.
Who said that and then walked away? Ian Petrov, the hottest and most frustrating man she knew.
They stood next to each other, barely a few steps apart. His hands were still stuffed in his hoodie pockets, but that didn’t make a difference. Every nerve in her body was tuned in to him. The urge to be closer to him had her taking another step toward him before she realized what she was doing. His hands were still in his pockets. Hers should be, too.
Instead, her fingertips burned with the need to touch him—to trace the line of his jaw, glide over the hard planes of his chest, to stroke and feel and memorize him. It was all she could do to ignore that need building inside her, making her whole body melt when all he was doing was looking at her.
“We can’t,” she said, sounding as if it wasn’t a statement but a breathy question even to her own ears.
He stood still as a statue while the air between them was heavy with anticipation. “I know.”
“I want to.” Like a scuba diver needed an oxygen tank. Her lungs were tight as desire whipped through her, a wildfire on the verge of getting out of control.
He nearly closed the distance between them, still not touching her but coming oh so close, and gave her a half grin. “My hands have to stay in my pockets.”
That was all it took to break her. The smart-ass response accompanied by the small lift of one side of his lips into that crooked smile of his—cocky and teasing all at once. It gave a glimpse of the man beneath the grunts and the growly attitude he tried to project as his true self. But she knew better. It was a cover, just like going cold around the media. The real Ian Petrov had layers.
“Are you saying you’re only good with your hands?” she asked.
He dipped his head lower until his lips nearly brushed the shell of her ear. “You know that isn’t true.”
Desire, hot and needy, made her breath catch. “Why don’t you remind me?”
He took a step back. It was only a few inches but it felt like miles.
“You sure about this?” he asked, his body tense and hard, the outline of his thickening cock visible against the soft bottom of his joggers. “I can leave right now.”
One last night. One final time. That’s all this would be.
