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He shrugs. “Haven’t wanted to.”
“I know a superb dating app you could try.”
He laughs and there’s that frisson of excitement again. I feel it curl around me like a chiffon blanket. Soft. Teasing.
Enticing.
“I’m more of a long term kind of guy,” he says softly.
My heart is hammering against my chest. “So you don’t usually go around dropping to your knees in front of women then?” I keep my voice light. Teasing.
Because I’m afraid. There is a weird vibe between us. My heart is hammering against my chest.
I want this man and it’s not right.
“No. Just with you.”
I want you to do it again.That thought hangs in the air like a flashing neon sign between us. Can he read it? Does he know what I’m thinking?
His eyes turn even darker. I think he does.
“You look beautiful in that dress, Mackenzie.”
His words feel like seduction. Praise has always been my weakness. I didn’t get enough as a child. Textbook Freud.
Doesn’t stop my skin from tingling though.
“I wish I hadn’t worn it,” I tell him. Because I do. I’m embarrassed that I made the effort for a guy who only saw me as a dollar sign.
“I’m glad you did.”
My heart is galloping now. Like a racehorse desperate to win. “He offered to have sex with me.” There’s the last confession. I didn’t tell him that before. It was just too mortifying. “When I said I’d dressed up for him he said we could have sex if I wanted.”
“If you wanted…” Eli repeats my words. He looks like he’s about to explode.
“I guess in return for… payment.”
“Don’t go there, Mackenzie,” Eli says. “This is on him, not you. It’s not a reflection of who you are, or of your attractiveness. Because you’re fucking beautiful.”
His words are like honey, making every part of me feel soft. Sugary.
Is this why I came here? For Eli to make me feel better? To make me feel wanted? Honestly, I’m not sure. I could have driven home. I could have gone to another bar and drowned my sorrows.
Instead, I drove right here and looked for him everywhere until I found him on the ice.
Hitting the puck into the goal like he was on a mission. Not wearing a helmet or padding. Just this man and his body, perfectly aligned with the hockey stick he was holding.
“The other night. When you were between my thighs, when you breathed me in,” I say, my voice husky. “I liked it.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
ELI
We’re standing by the boards on the edge of the rink, but there’s only the two of us here, nobody else. Once we leave I’ll call security and they’ll lock up and patrol the way they do every night.
But for now, we’re alone.
I smell of sweat. I wasn’t wearing padding when I was doing my anger management version of hockey, but I’d still worked up a lot of heat by slamming the puck into the goal.
