“Yeah, you win, okay? You’re right. I don’t want you to go home just yet.”
He lets out a shocked breath, and it’s almost unbearable—this guy who just schooled an entire hockey team, now completely undone by a simple yes. “Wow. Okay. Let’s round some bases. Kinda annoyed that’s a baseball metaphor, when hockey’s the better sport, you know?”
I chuckle. “You don’t think we can do sex metaphors in hockey? And here I thought you wanted me to score in your crease.”
He opens the door of the Jeep and somehow leaps out in one fluid motion. “Yes. Yes. Do that.”
I don’t rush. I climb out of the vehicle and retrieve my gear from the back. “Let’s go through the garage.”
Beck follows me like a puppy. A tall, strapping puppy with a sexy gleam in his eye.
I discard my hockey bag in the garage and fit my key into the lock. He doesn’t have any idea how huge this is for me. Because the last time I opened the door to a hookup, I lost so much. Money. Electronics. My faith in humanity.
Tonight, though, I’m not going to think about any of that. Instead, I herd Beck into my kitchen. “You want...” the words “a drink” snag in my throat. “...anything?”
He shakes his head. “Unless it involves your naked body, I’m really not interested.”
“Good to know.” Then I add, “You’ve done this before, right?”
Beck leans against the kitchen counter and frowns at me. “Barely. But that shouldn’t matter, right? I know what I want.”
Record scratch.
“Wait, you’re a…?” The word gets stuck on the tip of my tongue. Because it can’t be true.
He squints at me. “A virgin. Like, it isn’t obvious? Do I strike you as someone with a lot of seduction experience? Or, like, any?”
My cock shouts, Noooo.
Okay, so maybe this was a truly bad idea. Or a bad joke—did you hear the one about the ex-party boy with PTSD and the virgin?
I must be telegraphing my discomfort on my face, because Beck actually rolls his pretty eyes. “What, like that’s scary to you?” He takes two steps forward and is suddenly right in front of me. “Everyone is a rookie at some point, right? You must have been, too.”
“I suppose,” I murmur. But it’s hard to remember any of that with Beck advancing on me, a determined look in his bright eyes.
“Maybe you’re worried that I’ll be terrible in bed,” he says as he unzips his coat and tosses it on a chair. “But I know you’re attracted to me, Forest.”
He’s right, and I’m not about to lie. But that misses the point. “Beck, I…” Whatever I’m about to say gets lost as he lifts the waffle-knit shirt he’s wearing over his head and tosses that onto the chair, too.
His abs ripple into view, and I can’t look away from washboard bumps that I’d like to test with my tongue, and a dusting of sandy-blond hair gathering above his navel and disappearing into his track pants.
“Maybe I’m not that good at reading people,” he says, a smirk in his voice. “But you might literally be drooling right now. Besides…” He takes a step closer again, and I feel my breath hitch.
There’s a pause. His intelligent eyes measure my reaction, and I see the moment he decides to go for it. Two warm hands land on my chest, and he licks his lips. “I’m shit at talking,” he says quietly. “But I’ve always been good with my hands.”
Before I’ve even digested this announcement, he leans in and drops a kiss on my shoulder, and it feels like a fucking lightning strike. My whole body tenses—not from discomfort, not even close—but from the sheer jolt of sensation. His palms are curious, reverent, like I’m something worth exploring. And maybe I forgot what that felt like.
Heat surges low in my belly. My cock stirs in a way that’s sudden and inconvenient, because God, I want to let him. Want to close my eyes and let those hands keep going and to go wherever they want.
But that’s not how this works. Not for me. Not tonight. If I’m going to survive this experience, I need to be in control.
I reach up, gently but firmly, and cover his wrists. “I’ll take it from here, rookie.”
He blinks, a little breathless, maybe a little proud of himself.
A second later I’ve got him pinned against the cabinet, my body crowding his. Not to intimidate—just to assert who’s in charge here.
He exhales like he’s been waiting for this exact moment.
