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“Don’t worry about it.” He takes my question as permission and steps closer, lifting it to my face.
“Do you blow your nose with that?”
“Gross, Pepper. Just stand still.”
I exhale and close my eyes. “It better be clean,” I grumble.
After securing it over my eyes, he takes both my hands again and glides me along the ice. When my legs start spreading out of my control, he puts his hands on my hips and squeezes.
I gasp and tighten my hold.
“I’ve got you.” With his hands still on my hips, he skates backward.
I release a breath and the tension in my shoulders, putting all my trust in him.
“What do you feel?”
“Pain in my ass.”
“That’s not nice.”
“No, I mean my ass is still in pain from last night.”
A guttural noise, like a groan blended with a throat-clearing, oozes from his throat. “Jesus, Pepper,” he breathes.
“What?” I whine.
He releases a breath. “Let’s try this again. What do you feel…in your stomach, between your legs as you shift from one to the other. Where does your mind go?”
“Where is your mind?” I ask with a nervous laugh because I don’t know how to answer his questions.
There’s no humor in his tone. “You first.”
“Argh. Okay.” I exhale. “I feel blind but confident. A little cold—”
He gently digs his fingers into my abdomen and holds them there. “Here. What do you feel here?”
There are a million things happening in my stomach right now. Fluttering with excitement, buzzing with a need for him to drag me along the entire circumference ten times as long as he doesn’t let me go. An energy beyond words that has little to do with the ice.
“What…am I supposed to feel?” I ask, cowering away from my thoughts.
“Fair enough. I’ll go first.” He waits a beat, and I wish I could see his features right now. “Every time I hit the ice on game day, my veins pulse. With every stride. Every pass. Every goal. Every miss. I feel heat despite the cool air. I feel my focus sharpening, my senses heightening. I’m ignited, electrified. Like I’m flying and I never want to come down.”
A puff of air leaves my lungs. “That’s all?”
He squeezes my hips again as he picks up speed and we glide. “What do you feel?”
“Umm…” Say it. Just say it. “That my jeans are too tight? That I don’t know if I can balance on these without holding on. That I’m going to make a fool of myself?”
He stops.
The energy buzzing between us stops too.
He loosens the handkerchief from around my head. My eyes blink open and the first thing I see is the piece of fabric being stuffed in his back pocket.
When I look up, his expression is blank. Or maybe not blank. Maybe irritated? It’s a hard glare that says he expected more from me.
“What do you want me to say, Chase?” I whine.
