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“Tickles, huh?” I smile as she shrieks a laugh and thrashes when my fingers dance down her sides to her hips. “A brutal tickle is the least you deserve after that—”
“You’re the one who threw flour at my head!”
“By accident!”
She yelps as I try for her armpit, then spins in my arms before I can keep her pinned to me and dives in for my waist. I catch her wrists and hold them, lifting them away from my sides. “I’ll give you this, Sigrid, you have fast feet, but when it comes to hand-eye coordination—” I shake my head, breathing heavily. “Don’t even try to best me.”
She’s breathing heavily, too.
We’re two professional athletes. We have no business sounding this winded after a quick chase and tickle wrestle around a kitchen island.
“Something you hockey players don’t understand,” she says, pressing into me until our fronts touch and I fall back against the island counter’s edge, “that soccer players do: there’s more to a winning strategy than hard hits and brutal speed.” I suck in a breath, barely holding back the impulse to arch my hips and rub myself right into her. “It’s all about timing and pacing. Patience until that perfect moment opens up and you have the perfect shot. Like…this.”
I’ve been lulled by her words, distracted, my grip slack on her wrists. She spins her arms, deftly freeing herself, before her hands fly into my armpits.
A string of curse words leaves me, and it takes five seconds, which is five seconds too long, before I manage to catch her arms again and stop her from tickling me.
Bending, I throw her over my shoulder, making her shriek. “Sebastian! What are you doing?”
“Being the bigger person. Throwing you in the shower.”
“I don’t need a shower,” she protests.
“Respectfully, Ziggy, you do.”
“Sebastian, be careful of your foot! I’m not small. Put me down—whoa, you’re strong.”
I take the first leap quickly up the stairs, holding her tight. “My foot’s fine. I’m insulted you’re this surprised by my strength.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t know many people who can chuck a six-foot-one woman over their shoulder and walk up the stairs, let alone with a barely healed foot.”
“Well, this person can, so get used to it.”
“Oh? Is the fireman carry going to be a new staple of our friendship?”
God, I wish. I could get used to throwing Ziggy over my shoulder and hauling her upstairs, tossing her onto my bed, kissing my way up her body—
I shake my head, banishing those thoughts from my mind. I promised myself and her that we weren’t going there. I just told her I was being the bigger person, and I want to be—my best self, for her, with her.
“If you’re this stubborn, in the future,” I tell her, “and you plan on trying that tickling shit again, then yes, the fireman carry is definitely going to stay.”
Gently, I crouch, lowering her to her feet in the guest bathroom. “I’ll bring you a towel and some clothes to change into, okay?”
She peers at me, a small smile tugging at her mouth.
“What?”
Her smile widens. “You look really funny.”
“I look funny? Sigrid, have you seen yourself?”
She turns, peering at her reflection in the mirror, then immediately busts out laughing. “Oh boy. It was worse than I thought.”
Her hair’s powdery white, flour still dusting her eyebrows, lashes, and clothes.
“See? I told you that you needed a shower.” I tear my gaze away, because if I stay here, I’m going to do something I’m not supposed to, like spin her around and press her against the sink, then kiss her until she’s sighing and pleading, until we’re fused so close, flour covers me the way it covers her.
“Be right back,” I tell her.
