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He brushed a kiss across her lips. “And you love it.”
“I love you,” she said, her heart filling with the absolute truth of it.
“Just like I love you.” Taking her hand, he started for the door. “Mr. Lucas, can you lock up when you leave?”
“As always,” Mr. Lucas said with a gruff chuckle. “Just wait until I tell Ruby Sue that—”
Whatever came after that, Aubrey didn’t hear, she was too busy kissing the man she loved who loved her right back—and plotting how to steal every single pair of his pants without any plans on returning them until he had to report back to the set of his next movie.
Want to know what Benjamin was up to during the cruise? Check out Beguiling Benjamin by USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Robin Covington!
And be sure to check out the other shenanigans that the residents of Salvation get into in Enemies on Tap, Hollywood on Tap, Trouble on Tap, Betting the Billionaire, and Balls Out!
Bonus!!! Here’s a sneak peek at Loud Mouth my upcoming Ice Knights sexy hockey RomCom. If you haven’t gotten your grabby hands on the other two books in the series Parental Guidance and Awk-Weird, go dive right in and get yourself some hockey hotties!
Loud Mouth: Ice Knights Book 3
Shelby Blanton was never going to sleep again.
She should have known better than to watch a double feature about possessed houses while staying alone in a rented cabin out in the middle of the snowdrift-covered nowhere. Yeah, that had definitely been mistake number one. The other big, bad move had been her after-dinner espresso. She was a green tea drinker, but the cabin came with an espresso maker and it seemed fancy and fun and oh my God she could practically hear her heart beating from all the caffeine in her system and her eyes were all, “Blinking? It’s for the weak!”
So now here she was, starfished on a king-size bed, practically vibrating from caffeine, and wondering if every creak and groan of the cabin in the dark was actually a malevolent force waiting for her to fall asleep so it could steal her soul. The tick, tick had to be the huge grandfather clock—complete with antlers—in the living room. The intermittent hum was the heat kicking on and going off. The shuffle of steps had to be— Shelby jackknifed into a sitting position, one corner of the thick down comforter clutched to her chest, and told herself it wasn’t an ax murderer.
Steps? It was her imagination. Or the wind. Or the pipes. Or—holy fuckballs, there it was again.
The noise was coming from downstairs. All of a sudden, the back-to-nature thrill of being in a cell phone dead zone without a landline became a cold blanket of dread that covered her from her chin to the little hairs on her toes. Focus glued to the bedroom door that was open—of course—she reached over to her purse on the nightstand and fished around in it until her fingers brushed by the cool metal of her flashlight stun gun. It wasn’t a rock salt safety circle and a blowtorch, but it would at least give her a running start as long as the intruder was human and not a one-eyed ghoul with a grudge.
Okay, she knew the whole haunted thing was just in her head, but tell that to the lizard part of her brain that was doing the ultimate freak-out right now. That was it. She was never watching another scary movie again. Ever.
Slipping out of the bed, stun gun in her tight grip, she held her breath, straining to hear something over the sound of blood rushing in her ears as she tiptoed to the door. Taking up a spot just to the left of the open door, she flattened her back against the wall.
One of the stairs creaked and then another as someone who sounded very un-ghostlike let out a long sigh that under other circumstances would have sounded tired as hell, but considering it was made by a house burglar serial killer, she wasn’t about to give him any sympathy.
A nervous giggle started working its way up from her belly. Gritting her teeth, Shelby tightened her abs, hoping to stave off the very inopportune timing of her most hated reflex.
Fuck.
This was not the time for making noise—especially not the high-pitched sound that had resulted in her having the nickname The Squeaker growing up. Okay, it hadn’t just been the giggle. She’d never gotten rid of her little-girl voice—no matter how many voice lessons she’d had—and now it was that sound that had telemarketers asking if her mommy was home when she answered the phone that was going to get her straight-up murdered.
Focus, Shelby. Be the badass your tats promise you are.
She had several, but her biggest was a detailed leaf tattoo the length of her forearm. It wasn’t exactly a skull and crossbones with a bloody dagger tough, but getting it had hurt like a bitch and she’d survived. That meant she could live through this.
The steps got closer, and she pictured a Goliath of a guy, maybe with a little drool stuck to the corner of his mouth and wild black eyes, walking toward the open bedroom door. She adjusted her sweat-slick grip on the flashlight stun gun—thank you, nerves, for adding that to the mix. Letting out a deep breath, she put her thumb on the switch that would turn on the super-bright light and her finger on the button that would turn on the arc of electricity.
According to the self-defense course she’d taken after the threats got more than the usual you’re-a-real-bitch-and-I-hope-you-get-raped variety of being female on the internet, the light would momentarily startle her attacker so she could get in close enough to jab the electric arc into a sensitive spot. The jolt wouldn’t be enough to knock him out, but it would incapacitate him long enough for her to run down the stairs, grab her car keys, and get the hell out of this Stephen King book in the making.
He walked through the door, pausing just inside, presumably looking at the tumble of sheets and blankets on the empty bed.
Too bad, asshole, I’m not waiting for you to attack.
Shelby let out a banshee shriek—okay, squeak. The man whirled around, hands curled into fists. She flipped on the flashlight on the inhale as he reared back, and then she shoved the arcing end into his stomach. Technically, she was supposed to hold it there for three seconds. She got maybe half of one before her grip slipped and she lost contact. He stumbled back, letting out a low rumbly yowl of pain.
That’s when she was supposed to run, sprinting away from death and danger. But she didn’t, not once her flashlight’s beam landed on the man’s face and her stomach dropped down to the cabin’s wine cellar.
Ian Petrov. Hockey player. Curly haired, bearded sex god. The one person in the world who hate
d her more than anyone else in the world.
