He inclined his head until his lips were an inch from hers. “Your hands. My cock. So hot.”
His lips nuzzled hers. Kissing him back was all well and good when sex was the end goal, but this seemed different. This was cozy and a little too domestic.
“I like that you’re here,” he said, mind-reader extraordinaire. “I know you don’t want to be, but I like it. We both need this.”
He held her gaze, urging her to agree, perhaps. Sparks lit across her skin just from the way he looked at her.
It had never been like this with Kent. Sure, there’d been attraction—he was handsome, well-built, fit, and she enjoyed spending time with him. But he’d also been critical. Hinting about giving up her job, to get ready for all the kids he wanted (except he seemed to have forgotten the important part of the equation—the production of sperm in the vessel’s presence!). And while she assumed kids were something she wanted eventually, she wasn’t quite ready to give up her job just yet. But that was the lot of a hockey WAG. If Kent was traded to another team, a different city, she would have had to follow him.
She’d been fully prepared to do that at one time. Subsume her entire life to her husband. It was what her mother had done with her dad, and when he said he had no intention of changing up that dynamic, she decided to call his bluff.
This was her time, Mom had told him. Let’s travel and see the world.
But her father placated her mom as long as she could take it, then failed to live up to her expectations. Pepper hated to see her father hurting, but she understood her mother’s side of it. When a man’s career came before his family, or the woman he supposedly loved, it was hard to see a way through that.
That’s what Kent had done. Put himself and his career first with his PED use.
“Hey, what’s happening here?” Bast tilted his head.
“Just a flurry.”
He looked pleased that she remembered. She shouldn’t have done that call back, which implied a more complex history between them than they truly had. Yet it felt that they’d known each other for a long time. Might even be capable of becoming friends one day.
“Flurry be gone,” he whispered.
“Flurry be gone.”
24
The burgers were a hit. It would have been nice to grill them outside. But the charcoal grill—currently stored in the garage—would’ve taken too long to heat up. As it was, they made do with pan frying them and toasting the buns on a pancake griddle.
Bast had done his best mixing the ground beef with Worcestershire sauce and seasonings, but Pepper had to take over to form the patties, as that was definitely a two-handed job. Together they worked as a team to make dinner, and it was more fun than she’d had in forever.
After dinner, he took her by the hand and pulled her upright. “About my surprise.”
“Right, the surprise.” She’d hoped it was forgotten. “Is it … sexy?”
“Definitely.”
Okay. “Do I have to strip?”
“Absolutely. But first, wait here while I check on something.” He headed to the mudroom and put on his boots.
“You’re going outside again?”
“Just for a second. Gotta check on my boy, Chester.” He switched on an outdoor light, slid the patio door open, and stepped out, closing it behind him.
She watched him trudge through one of the paths he’d shoveled earlier—how had he done all that work with one good hand?—and vanish around the corner of the house. The lights shone, illuminating several feet of nothingness. There was a lake somewhere out there, but she couldn’t see it, not with the snow blanket covering the immediate view.
He came back in, dusting snow off his jeans. “Okay, there’s an outfit on the bed. You need to change into it and come back here. You’ve got two minutes.”
“I have to change clothes?”
He held up his phone, a timer already counting down. “Don’t make me chase you, Pepper. I’m fast and—well, you’d probably like what I do when I catch you, so that might not be the best threat I could come up with. Just hurry, okay?”
Alright, she’d play along. On the bed lay a fluffy bathrobe and a hat. She recognized the headwear—it was the beanie Bast wore the night she met him in Jimmy’s Tap, the one she’d made fun of.
“You’ve got one minute,” he called out.
Okay! Quickly, she stripped and put on the robe, then the hat.
“Fifteen seconds!”
When she returned to the kitchen, the timer was just going off.
“Lucky, but I’ll allow it.” He took a long hard look at her, his gaze straying to the hat. He had also changed into a winter coat that came to mid-thigh. He was clearly naked underneath. “Nice hat.”
“I’m always cold. Hence the headwear.”
He grinned. “Tough to be you. Okay, you can wear these snow boots.”
“Are we going swimming in the lake? Some sort of polar plunge thing?”
“God, no. Boots, Pepper. I also have socks.”
She slid her feet into the boots, which were a size too big, but the thickness of the socks helped.
“Ready?”
“No.”
Adding a fur-flapped hat to his head, he chuckled and opened the sliding door. “Come on, sweetheart. I won’t steer you wrong.”
She took his offered hand and stepped out into the night. It was cold but not nearly as bad as it had been yesterday. Snow crunched under her feet and was a little slick in spots; luckily the boots had a good grip and Bast’s hand wrapped around hers kept her steady. The thaw was already setting in, with mini-icicles dripping and forming along the edges of the patio, like a gallery of oddly shaped penises. Just seeing that—the thaw, not the ice penises—pinched her heart with sadness: this was about to end, the snow globe world she was living in was melting.
They turned a corner and came to a separate patio, a spotlight illuminating what must be Bast’s surprise. Steam whorls rose into the night, creating a magical, misty haze.
“A hot tub?”
“Yep. It took about five hours to heat it, but it should be perfect now. The key is getting in quickly.”
The tub was surrounded by slate and recessed in the ground. A cover lay to one side, along with the snow Bast must have brushed aside to clear a path. This is what he’d been working on earlier.
“So how do we do this without breaking our three remaining good wrists?”
“Teamwork.” He stripped off his winter coat and hung it on a hook, removed his wrist brace and did likewise, then pulled off his shoes. There he stood, gloriously naked, except for his fur-flapped hat. She couldn’t help her giggle.
“Really?”
“You and the hat, it’s quite the look. Wish I had a camera.”
“Pepper …” he warned.
Okay, okay. If he could be brave, not that a body like his needed confidence … she turned away and slipped out of the robe. Was her ass a better view than her breasts? Who knew and at this point, who cared? When she turned back, he ran an appreciative gaze over her.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered. “Off with the boots, it’ll just be for a second. Best if you get in first.”