I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the man for a full week. And it’d probably be another month before I could even sit on my couch without the memory of what transpired that night distracting me.
He’d kissed me in places I didn’t think it was proper to kiss, and still my every thought burned for Adrian. I woke every night in sweaty desperation, and nothing I did for myself even compared to the magic he’d woven deep inside me.
One evening with him, and I was already a panting mess of humiliating curiosity and panting arousal.
What would happen after we had real sex?
Fortunately, Adrian and I were best friends.
And if best friends could survive puberty, our first prom, and a puck slapping Adrian’s baby-maker so hard our kid would be half-vulcanized rubber, it could survive a couple harmless, life-changing orgasms.
So, he’d ordered the pizza. I brought my fertile womb. And it seemed a fair trade. Hell, had he tempted me with enough garlic breadsticks, I might’ve tried for twins.
Still, it was the first time I’d ever hesitated when I knocked at his door.
Turned out, I should’ve come sooner.
Adrian greeted me with only a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still dripping water from the shower.
And I was done for.
The man was so gorgeous he even stunned the butterflies in my tummy. His presence was electric, like a damned bug zapper disintegrating each of those fluttering hesitations.
BZZT—there went my voice.
BZZT—and my ability to breathe.
BZZT—and any hope of surviving the night without vaporizing my dignity.
His dark eyes washed over me with a devious delight. But he still had the towel to protect his nudity. The last time we’d met, I’d been the one stripped completely bare.
And that memory spawned a crooked smile hidden beneath his neatly edged beard.
It was potentially head-over-heels, fall-on-my-face, this-is-a-mistake trouble to surrender to this man.
So why hadn’t I done it sooner?
“Practice ran long.” Adrian held the door open for me. “I just got home.”
I’d known this man since we were five years old. Why did he now render me speechless?
I tore my eyes from his only to panic as I spotted the gigantic black and blue bruise painting his left side.
“Holy Moly…” My purse plunked to the ground. “Did you get hit by the Zamboni?”
Usually, I would’ve poked him. He was never honest about his injuries, but a good jab of my finger helped to gauge how badly he hurt.
But today…I backed off.
Couldn’t imagine touching those hard-packed muscles, even if I’d lay beneath them later.
A warm shiver delighted my spine. I bit my lip, and Adrian mercifully spoke.
“It’s nothing…” He did his best to position his arm so I couldn’t see the brunt of the injury. “Cash did his job; I just got in the way. But at least he’s taking the workouts seriously.”
“Cash Harrington takes hitting people a little too seriously.”
“Yeah. Be glad he’s on my team this year.”
I tightened my grip on the coat, praying he couldn’t tell that I had very, very little on underneath…and what was hiding my shame had long since drenched in my own anticipation.
He guided me into his beautiful home. My heels struck the tile, and he turned on the overhead chandelier, cascading thousands of pearlescent droplets of light over the foyer.
…Just enough light to prevent me from stumbling into a stack of a dozen wrinkled and splitting boxes.
Good Lord. He hadn’t unpacked yet?
But what grand Tuscan foyer wasn’t complete without an intricate white marble floor, a double wrought iron staircase, and piles of U-Haul boxes haphazardly stuffed with whatever had happened to be within Adrian’s reach at the time.
Was he kidding me? He’d been moved in for weeks.
The house was a mess of packing tape and unused bubble wrap. He’d decorated with equipment bags and spare hockey sticks strewn about the entryway. Left to his own devices, he’d created a set of dresser drawers from cardboard boxes and left them in the middle of the hall. Shirts and jeans overflowed onto the patterned tile, and I hoped, for his sake, he’d packed them when they were clean.
Leave it to Adrian to move into a beautiful home full of elegance, style, and charm…and completely disregard all responsibility that came with it.
To love the man was to understand his uncompromising obsession with hockey. Life was the game. He woke up only to practice, he practiced only to win games, he won games solely for a chance at a championship, and he played each season so he’d be better than the last. This left no time for anything beyond hockey.
No dating. No homelife. No hobbies or friends beyond the team.
It’d made him a star player on the ice…but outside of the arena, it was like he didn’t exist.
Like he had no reason to exist.
Even worse, he ignored the horrendous bruise spreading across his miraculously unbroken ribs. Any pain from the game just reminded him of his purpose.
Which he believed was solely meant to be forged with the Forge.
I loved my best friend, and, because of that, I’d trusted him to help me have a baby.
But I never realized how much Adrian needed a family.
How much he needed something beyond the ice.
“Looks like a nasty bruise. Are you sure you’re…” I bit my lip. “Up to doing this tonight?”
“It’ll take another puck to the balls to stop me tonight.”
The man had a dastardly smile which was delivered just to torment me.
Great. My wobbily knees had a hard enough time meandering through his house. Last thing I needed was Adrian melting my ovaries before we got a chance to use them.
Adrian offered to take my coat. No way. Not yet. I knotted the belt even tighter.
“Hopefully, our night together will be relatively painless,” I said.
“You’re the only woman worth any pain.”
“Should I be flattered?”
“You’re the one who busted my balls day in and day out before the injury. I’m used to your abuse.”
“Gotta know what pain is to feel pleasure, right?”
Adrian’s rumbling chuckle tickled me with goosebumps. “And what would you know about pleasure?”
“Had a pretty thorough lesson the other night.”
“That was nothing in comparison to what’s to come.”
My mouth dried. “Again with the promises.”
“Have I disappointed you yet?”
That was an easy answer. “You’ve never once disappointed me, Adrian Alaric.”
It didn’t displease him, but his expression still darkened with severity.
“You have expectations for tonight. I want to defy those expectations.”
He crossed his arms, and his heavy muscles hardened. Somehow the towel still clung to his waist, secured with only a hap-hazard roll along his hip. I longed for it to fail, but gravity merely teased me.
“You must think I have a dirty mind…” I timidly smiled. “Because I don’t know what to expect.”
“You haven’t imagined anything?”
Fantasies were one thing.
But here? In proximity to the towel that hid the delights beneath the twin Vs of his hips? Overactive was an understatement. Problematic seemed a better word, and dangerous a far more apt description of the memories and fantasies blending into a haze of desire.