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She hummed a note of laughter. “You’re okay I guess.”
“If this was just about what I wanted, you and I would be in the back of my car right now, fogging up the windows.”
Her fingertips pressed against my chest as she grabbed two handfuls of my shirt. “Really?”
“Oh yeah.” I tilted my head to the side and kissed her softly. “You’re all I thought about on the road. I’m wound so tight, and I just want to work that long, sexy body of yours until we’re both exhausted.”
She laughed lightly against my lips. “You’ve taken a dramatic turn over the past five minutes. I thought you were done with me.”
I slid my arms around her waist and she melted into me, neither of us seeming to feel the ice-cold wind around us. Just this—having her in my arms—made everything feel right again.
“I thought about things a lot on my road trip,” I said. “And I need a few days to talk to my agent and my financial planner, so keep this between us, but…if it comes down to it, I’m prepared to leave the team and retire.”
She pulled back, pressing her hands against my chest and giving me an incredulous, open-mouthed look.
“Quit hockey?”
I nodded. “It might not be forever. Maybe it will be. I don’t know. I just know, deep down, that if my brother doesn’t make it, I’ll never look back and wish I’d devoted more time to hockey. I play for a coach that doesn’t give a shit about me. My teammates will be part of my life forever, whether we still play together or not.”
Jolie looked stunned. “But you’ve worked so hard to get here.”
I shrugged. “And it’s been good to me. I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough money to take care of my family and that’s all I really need.”
She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “You’ve got my support, no matter what. I know this thing between us can’t last. It’s just…timing, I guess.”
She was right. Not only was she fresh off of a broken engagement, but I wasn’t planning to stay in St. Louis, one way or another, and soon she’d be applying for jobs all over the place. It was unfair that I’d met the best possible woman at the worst possible time.
“Well, listen,” I said, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. “I’m out of here at the end of this season, either through a trade or because I’ll quit. So why don’t we make the most of the time we have together?”
She smiled playfully. “Are you going to suggest the back of the car thing again? Wes and Hadley might have something to say about that.”
“Yeah, because they’re jealous,” I said, winking.
“Maybe we could meet up for lunch tomorrow,” she said.
Tomorrow was so damn far away. I wanted her now. Here. Everywhere. Hard. Slow. Fast. But it wasn’t in the cards.
“Yeah, I guess I have to get Joey,” I said, coming back down to earth.
“He tried so hard to stay awake until you got here.”
I’d missed him, too. I was used to him asking me at least two hundred questions a day, and life on the road without him was too quiet.
“He didn’t make it?”
She shook her head. “We watched a movie and had hot chocolate, then drew pictures. He practically fell asleep in his coloring book.”
“Thanks for hanging out with him. He really likes you.”
“I like him, too.” She broke out in a grin, her eyes sparkling happily. “You want to hear something funny?”
“Always.”
“Benny can’t pronounce your name right. He hears Joey talking about you, so he talks about you, too, but he calls you Uncle Poon.”
“Oh shit.” I cringed and laughed at the same time. “Wait until Wes hears him say that. They’ll literally never refer to me as anything else in the locker room again.”
“Just don’t ask me to call you that in bed.”
I kissed her once, softly, and then again. It was so damn hot finding a woman who was smart and quick and funny. She didn’t just make eyes at me and laugh at everything that came out of my mouth. Jolie and I were equals. Well, close enough, anyway. She was probably smarter than me if I was being real about it, but I wasn’t exactly a slacker.
“Come on home with Uncle Poon,” I teased. “I’ll make you feel real good.”
“Oh my god. I cannot.” She shook her head and laughed. “Don’t bring this up over lunch tomorrow.”
“Speaking of lunch…it’s not going to be a sex lunch because I’ll have Joey.”
I kept forgetting about my little cockblocking nephew. Wes and Hadley scheduled sex—it was actually in her planner and on their shared online calendar, and now I understood why.
“Oh, right.” She shrugged. “Well, there’s always Chuck E. Cheese and some under-the-table groping.”
