“All-state third baseman right here.” He lifts a finger and points to himself. “I’d have probably ended up hating it too though in the long run. Tag. You’re it.”
I’m distracted slightly by his comment about hating it too, so my reaction time is off.
Shit.
I cry out in shock as the snow hits my cheek and explodes in a puff of dust all over my face and down the collar of my jacket.
“That’s it. You’re mine now, Maddox.”
The war begins. One snowball after another, we act like little kids having a snowball fight in the front yard instead of two adults in the dead of night in some random park in the middle of Boston.
“Time out,” I finally pant as my lungs burn and toes numb, my hands going up to form the time-out sign.
Hunter stops in his tracks, hands on his knees but eyes trained on me and a smile owning his face. “I never figured you for a quitter.”
“I am not a quitter,” I say and then wait for him to get a few feet closer before I launch the snowball I’m hiding behind my back at him.
He charges after me. I shriek and run, but I’m no match for him before he tackles me to the ground.
“No!” I laugh out, as he takes a handful of snow and tosses it on my face.
“You play dirty.”
“Always.” I giggle as he cuffs both my wrists. “No,” I groan as he pulls himself up to his knees so he’s sitting astride me with my hands pinned to both sides of my head. “Get off me.” There’s no heat behind my words, because as fun as the snowball fight was, as exhausting as our wrestling match becomes, all of a sudden awareness hits both of us as I stare up at Hunter, inches from my face. There’s clarity in his eyes that I haven’t seen in forever.
The cold of the snow beneath me begins to seep through my jacket but the smile on my lips feels so very good. The heat and weight of his body against mine even more so.
“Where’s that cocky mouth of yours now?” he asks as his gaze flickers from my eyes to my lips and then back up.
“This wasn’t part of the snowball fight,” I all but whisper.
I hold my breath as he leans forward, his lips near my ear. “There aren’t rules to a snowball fight. You don’t get to control it, Dekk.”
“I know . . . I just—” But I’m at a loss at what to say, and then can’t find any words as Hunter brushes his lips over mine.
“Missed me. You missed me,” he whispers. “Now you’ve gotta kiss me.”
He leans down to kiss me again. It’s gentle and tender and unexpected, since there has never been anything like it between us before.
Hunter isn’t gentle when it comes to kisses. He’s possessive and demanding and steals the breath from your lungs with the dominance everything about him holds over your senses.
But he just stole my breath with the simplest of kisses, and I’m not quite sure how to feel when I know I want to feel everything.
So when he releases one of my hands and runs his fingers down the side of my cheek before kissing me again, I don’t fight him like I should.
I don’t think of KSM and what’s right or wrong professionally. All I think about is wanting to forget.
Who I am. Who he is. The possible repercussions, and the throwing my own principles out of the window to just enjoy the moment.
The warmth of his lips.
The tenderness of his touch.
The taste of him on my tongue.
The sense of calm mixed with desire that he’s evoking in me.
How is it possible to want all of this without there being any fallout—professionally or emotionally?
The kiss ends, but the whirlwind of emotions sparking back to life inside me doesn’t.
“Now who’s playing dirty?” I murmur, my mind as scrambled as my hormones.
But when desire darkens his eyes and turns up the corners of his lips, I realize what we’re doing. Here. In the snow. One hundred feet from where his teammates could be coming out of the club at any moment.
I’d like to think reason takes hold, but it doesn’t. Nerves do. Pure, flustered nerves have me saying, “Snow angels,” in a spontaneous burst of words as I roll out from under him.
“What?” He laughs the word out as he runs a hand through his hair to shake the snow out of it and shifts to sit on the ground.
“Snow angels,” I repeat, “Come on”—I tug on his arm—“make an angel with me.”
“There are a million things I want to make with you right now, Dekker Kincade, and making snow angels isn’t one of them.”
Our eyes hold as I’m mid-angel—arms above my head, legs spread out—but I love watching his defenses crumble. I love that he gives in to the moment and plays with me when he flops on his back and starts making angels.
Our laughter is loud as it rings through the night, dotted only by the sound of buses air brakes and a horn way off in the distance.
The sound of our swishing stops and silence descends over the park. We stare at the stars in the sky above, clouded intermittently by the curl of white from our pants of breath.
“Christ,” he sighs, as his frozen hand finds mine at my side in the most casual of ways. “Why was that so fun?”
“Because being a kid again is always fun.” I giggle without caring how stupid it sounds.
“It’s easy to forget.”
“You know . . .”
“And here it comes,” he says. How easy it is to get his defenses back up.
“Nothing is coming.” I pause to choose my words as best as I can. “In fact, you don’t even have to respond, but if you need a friend, I’m here.”
His silence is deafening, but then again, I didn’t expect him to up and spill.
But I said it and I’ll let it rest. I know by the tightening of his hand on mine that he heard me.
“Truth.” One word. It’s all he says, and a part of me dies at the sound of it.
“Nah. I’m not playing this game with you. I remember what happened the last time you asked me that,” I say, and I do. It was the first time we hooked up. He asked me if I thought people could do friends with benefits. I told him no. He told me I was stubborn and questioned my resolve. The insults we flung at each other were heartless, the angry sex we had afterward, mind-blowing.
Truth.
That one word was the start of our six-month benefits-only affair. The one I walked away from with a broken heart he may or may not have known about.
So why would he say it now? Is he trying to get us back on an even footing? Or is he trying to cause a fight to push us further apart?
I’m not sure which I would be more surprised at.
“It’s not what you’re thinking”—he chuckles—“although that might be fun too, considering we’re actually being civil to one another.”
“At the moment,” I murmur. “You forgot to add that we’re being civil with each other at the moment.”
“Truth,” he says again, ignoring my comment. “Why are you here, Kincade?”
“Truth?” I murmur, knowing we need to have this conversation but afraid if I admit what he already knows then the moment will be ruined. I improvise. “Only if you tell me what’s going on with you first.”