When I calmed down, Lila was peering at me impishly over the rim of her beer, a small mustache of foam on her upper lip. “I’ve never heard you laugh like that before.”
I toasted her. “I’ve never heard you cuss like that before.”
I liked my princess when she was on the ice, gliding like an angel. I think I liked her even more surrounded by loud males, drinking beer, and grinning up at me.
She took a deep drink, then set the glass down as her tongue swiped over her upper lip. I watched the movement, suddenly jealous of that tongue.
I wanted to taste her.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and picked up one of the axes from in front of me. “What am I doing wrong?”
Focus. “Remember yesterday’s conversation about being the axe?”
Her nod was too serious. “Be the axe, got it.”
Gods below, I couldn’t stop smiling around this female, could I? “I meant, you have to commit. Commit to the throw, to the strength behind it.”
She wasn’t going to get it if I had to explain it. I plunked my beer down beside hers and stepped up behind her. Lila was so much smaller than me, but her body molded to mine as if we were meant for each other, her ass nestled between my thighs, my arms cupping her shoulders.
“Here,” I murmured, reaching around and taking her wrists in my hands. “Pull back over your head like this…”
I had to tip my own head out of the way in order for her to pull back as far as she needed. I guided her hands through the motions a few times, showing her how to swing forward.
“Good, now your legs…”
When I nudged them apart, I heard her sharp inhale and smelled the sweet, sudden burst of her arousal. I managed not to groan, but I couldn’t help the way I flexed my hips forward.
Could she feel how hard I was for her already? Fuck me.
“Your right leg needs to go forward.” My voice was hoarse, raspy with desire. “Shift your weight from the back foot to the forward one as you throw.” I moved her through the motions a few times.
“Commit,” Lila whispered.
I swallowed. “Yeah. This is the point”—I paused, her hands over her head, in the middle of helping her shifther weight forward—“that there’s no going back. Youhaveto commit here, you have toknowyou’re going to release the axe, because if you don’t, you’re going to bury the thing in your knee.”
I felt her shudder as I held her hands in the air and wondered if she felt helpless. “That’s…alarming.”
“But that’s the point. You know the target’s there and there are no obstacles to prevent the axe from hitting it.” I lowered my head slightly so my mouth was closer to her ear. “Just like you know I’m always going to be there to catch you. If you’ve committed when you’re here—” I squeezed her wrists, then let her go—“youhaveto release the axe, and itwillhit the target.”
I saw her swallow, then nod, as I stepped back just slightly. I was as nervous as Lila was as she took a few practice swings, then took a deep breath and settled into position.
She swung perfectly. She shifted her weight perfectly. Shecommitted.
The axe spun on its axis perfectly, and made a perfect fuckingthwunksound as the head embedded itself into the wood of the target, six inches from the center of the board.
“Aaahhh!” The noise Lila made when she pumped the air was pure victory, and I was already laughing as she turned to me, doing a happy little dance.
“Good work, Princess,” I managed, just before she threw herself at me.
She committed.
And as promised, I caught her.
I lifted her as if this had been part of the plan all along, and Lila’s legs went around my waist. Her mouth crashed down atop mine, and my hand palmed the back of her head, holding her in place as I finally—finally—got to taste her.
She tasted like hops and something sweeter underneath, like her desire and victory and adventure all at once.
My fingers threaded through that honey-gold hair the way I’d been thinking about for weeks, and she made a small noise against my mouth that did absolutely nothing to help me behave myself. I kissed her the way I’d been wanting to since that first afternoon on the ice—not carefully, not tentatively, but like I meant it, like I’d decided something and wasn’t taking it back.
