She took Beckett so off guard, he didn’t even close his eyes as she kissed him. He was shocked into stupefaction and froze, as if he’d forgotten what to do with a woman.
The moment seemed to pass in slow motion. Her long lashes lowered as her gaze focused on his mouth, and when her lips touched his, her breath whispered out and her lids closed.
It was the feel of her sweet body softening, her belly, her hips, her thighs all rubbing against his, that finally made Beckett’s eyes fall closed. His heart kicked into a sprint. His hands lifted automatically, but he wasn’t sure where to lay them. Did he wrap his arms around her? Should he rest his hands on her arms?
Shit, he had forgotten what to do with a woman. If this were a normal hookup, he’d know exactly what to do. But he wasn’t particularly interested in just a hookup, yet he couldn’t give any more of himself with the demands of his career and Lily and the custody issue…
While he’d been lost in all that indecision, he’d missed the kiss. Eden pulled back. Air drifted over his lips, and disappointment clouded his chest.
But she retreated only far enough to shoot a sassy little smile up at him. “To make this convincing, you should probably participate.”
God, he was a dumb shit. He’d jumped way the hell ahead of the situation. But he cut himself some slack. It had been a solid four or five months since he’d had sex. Hell, maybe six. He couldn’t even remember the last woman he’d been involved with who hadn’t been a puck bunny. Even the French bicoastal model-slash-actress he’d been seeing steadily before he’d taken custody of Lily had been a fan first, a lover second.
He huffed a laugh and laid his hands on her shoulders, then let his forehead rest against hers. “You blindsided me there. I turned fifteen again for a few seconds, the prettiest girl in school took me under the bleachers, and I didn’t know what the hell to do.”
She laughed. A light, quiet, little giggle that utterly charmed him. And the urge to really kiss her overwhelmed him.
He stroked his hands down her arms, then back up, tempted by the sweater’s softness, tantalized by her warmth beneath. Then he cupped her face with both hands. “Let’s try that again.”
Her hand tightened in his shirt. The spark in her eyes turned hot. And Beckett held her gaze until their lips touched again. Then he let his eyes close and explored her lips with his. Soft, supple, warm, responsive. In less than ten seconds, he was licking her lips, silently asking her to open. And when she let him in, Beckett’s brain did a little spin.
Their tongues touched, stroked. Warm, wet, soft. And his cock stiffened to attention. She tasted like lemon and sugar and vodka. A delicious kind of hunger bloomed inside him. The kind he hadn’t felt in a really, really long time. The kind that encompassed more than his cock.
He let one hand slide into the silky soft strands of her hair. Opening wider, tasting deeper, he let the other roam over her shoulder and down her slim back, then wrapped his arm low on her hips. Circling his tongue with hers, he pulled her in, letting her feel what she was doing to him. Her quick, soft intake of air felt like lightning through his body.
She pulled back a little, just enough to break the kiss. But she held on tight and looked at him with a dazed kind of hunger that gripped Beckett by the groin and wouldn’t let go. “Aren’t you one surprise after another?”
He licked her taste from his lips. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Her gaze drifted past his shoulder. “Looks like one of your problems is solved.”
Still holding her, he glanced that direction. All the guys had turned back toward the bar and refocused on their own conversations. He returned his gaze to her with a grin. “I owe you.”
A sexy smile brightened her face. “I plan to collect.”
“God, I hope so.”
He stroked both hands over her back from shoulders to hips. She was trim and tight, with subtle curves that tempted, and his mind darted toward all kinds of naughty, beautiful, sexy things he hoped they had to look forward to tonight.
“About dessert,” he murmured. “Are you still off the menu? ’Cause I’ve got a craving that won’t quit.”
Eden’s gaze turned thoughtful. Her gaze lowered. While one arm remained curved around his waist, the other slid down the front of his dress shirt, where she slipped her fingers beneath his tie and toyed with the buttons. Her tongue stroked her lower lip, leaving it shiny and making Beckett so damn hungry.
“My body wants to jump. Wants to trash all caution and good sense and run with whatever you’ve got in mind.”
The hesitation in her voice dampened his edge of excitement. “But…?”
She lifted her gaze to his, and something new floated there. Something…nervous. She smiled, but that too was the slightest bit shaky. “Let’s start with chocolate, and see how that goes.”
This wasn’t the reception he’d expected. Not the reception he was used to. He might be turning the puck bunnies down to go home to Lily now, but that didn’t mean nights out at local haunts weren’t usually filled with a lot more of what the two women who’d hit on him earlier had offered—a little two-on-one action, no small talk, no foreplay, no follow-up required.
But Eden wasn’t a puck bunny, which was why he was standing here with her when he’d turned the other women down. Lily’s presence in Beckett’s life had changed more than his knowledge base about things like educational toys and girl clothes. Lily had changed almost everything, including how he related to everyone in his life—especially how he treated women. And at some point over the last year, Beckett had—unfortunately for his sex life—outgrown puck bunnies.
He smiled at Eden now and gave her waist a reassuring squeeze. “At least one of us has their head on straight.”
A waitress skimmed past them and set down the chocolaty dessert, then glanced at Beckett. “Hey, Beck. You were on fire tonight.”
“Thanks. How are you doin’, Toni?”
“Can’t complain. Can I get you two anything else?”
“I’m good,” Beckett said, then looked at Eden. “Eden? Another drink?”
“Oh no. I’m half a drink over my one-drink limit. Water would be great, though.” When the waitress disappeared behind the swinging door into the kitchen, Eden looked at Beckett. “You do come here a lot.”
“Used to come after every home game. Now I stop by once in a while.” He glanced at the table where Eden had been sitting and picked up the martini glass, half-filled. He sniffed the drink. The sugary lemon scent made him grin at her. “I thought you tasted kinda like a Lemonhead.”
She gave him a silly frown. “Lemonhead?”
“The candy.”
“Oh wow.” She laughed. “Haven’t thought of those in a long time.”
“But way sweeter.”
“And spiked.”
“Amen. You certainly make my head spin.” He set the drink down and picked up the cash.
“No.” She covered his hand with hers. “That’s for the—”
“Tonight’s on me.” He curved his free arm around her waist and eased her against him. Man, she felt great, all warm and curvy. She smelled good too, a soft floral fragrance that filled his groin with blood. His gaze slid over her pretty face and rested on her plump lips. “Showing up is your only required contribution.”
When he pressed the bills into her hand, appreciation shone in her eyes. “Thank you.”
He lowered his head for a feathery kiss. “Thank you. Seeing you again is the highlight of my night.”
That made her smile deepen. Damn, she had a beautiful smile. This woman was racking up points.
But he forced himself to pull his gaze away and glanced down at his second choice of desserts tonight with a contemplative “I think I might be able to swim in that.”
Eden laughed. “They said it served two.”
“Two hungry hockey players, maybe.” This small table wasn’t going to work for the cozy chat Beckett had in mind. An open corner booth caught his eye, and he picked up the dessert plate in one hand and slipped his other arm around Eden’s waist. “Let’s take this somewhere more comfortable.”
At the booth, he set the plate down and ushered Eden onto the padded seat. Toni came by with the drink Beckett had left at the table and Eden’s fresh water. He pulled his wallet and offered her his credit card. “Can you put this together with her earlier drinks? And those idiots are all mine tonight.”
She shot him a knowing smile, took the card, and smacked his arm. “You deserved MVP tonight.”
Beckett was returning his wallet to his pocket when Eden said, “Why are you picking up their drinks?”
“It’s tradition. In the locker room, after every win, the MVP from the prior win passes on the ceremonial hat—in our case, that’s an ugly leather tricorne, à la Rough Riders from the 1800s—to whoever that person deems the MVP for that night’s game. Tonight it was me. Since we were going out after, I’m also buying.”
“That’s pretty cool. Why were you MVP tonight?”
“Record hits in one game.”
Her chin tilted up, and she offered a less than impressed “Ah.”
Before he’d given it much thought, he said, “I’m going to warn the guys that if they bother us, they’ll regret it at practice.”
She nodded and grinned, but it was an obligatory kind of smile, and a shadow flitted through her eyes. It lasted only a millisecond, but he’d seen it.
Beckett turned toward the bar, with odd connections firing in his brain, trying to pin down these strange mixed messages he was getting from her. His body was telling him one thing, his brain another, and his gut still another.
While he’d spent decades developing his hockey skills, his true successes lay largely in his finesse. Reading cues, studying human behavior, and understanding habits were as important to him on the ice as knowing how to control the puck. He’d only realized how valuable those skills could also be off the ice in the last few years.
He’d gotten so good at figuring out what women were looking for within a few minutes of conversation, a lot of the guys asked him to screen women before they invested emotional real estate. Women all looked at members of the team differently. Some saw money, some sought fame by association, some simply wanted a good time, quite a few were downright crazy-ass bitches, and others were big-game hunters, shooting for the rock on their finger. And, yeah, he had to admit, a few of the guys had been lucky enough to find women who were truly in love with them despite the shitty schedules, lousy moods, and perpetual career instability.
But whatever he’d seen in Eden’s eyes, he didn’t recognize.
He stepped up next to Donovan and interrupted his bullshitting with Hendrix. “Hey.”
Donovan glanced at Beckett, then immediately looked behind him. “Did you lose her already? Your moves off the ice suck as bad as mine. You have to think about getting a nanny for Lily. You’re never going to find a mom for her like this.”
The guys all thought that was funny. They thought the way Beckett slapped Donovan upside the back of his head was even funnier. But Beckett wasn’t laughing, and he lowered his voice when he told his friend, “You know not to talk about Lily in public.”
“Oh shit,” Donovan said, glancing around to see if anyone other than the team was sitting nearby. “Sorry, man. I forgot.”
Beckett wasn’t going to be able to keep his daughter a secret forever, but until the custody hearing was over, Beckett wanted to keep Lily out of the press.
“And I’m not looking for a mother for Lily.” His daughter had plenty of wonderful women in her life, Beckett’s mother and sister, chief among them. “But I am looking for some quality time with this very hot woman, so don’t even think about bugging us. I already gave my card to Toni. Try not to max my limit, would you?”
“Got it,” Savage said.
“Don’t blow it,” Hendrix added. “You need some good pussy to keep you fresh for this out-of-town run.”
“But not so much that you forget I’m picking you up for the flight tomorrow,” Donovan finished.
Beckett rolled his eyes. “If I leave here before you, would one of you grab my credit card, please?”
They made a bunch of jokes about what they planned to do with his card on their trek home—things that included strip joints, drug dealers, and hookers—for which he called them a bunch of dumb fucks and returned to Eden with a chorus of fresh laughter following him.
She had her elbow on the table and her head resting on her hand. Her other hand twirled a fork in the cake. And when she looked up and saw him coming, she brought the fork to her mouth and licked chocolate off the tines in a slow, fluid sexual move. His groin tingled with an influx of heat, and his head filled with Hendrix’s “You need some good pussy.”
Crude but accurate. His newly acquired single-father status wasn’t the only element in his life that had interfered with sex. The truth was, casual sex held a lot of risk for an athlete at Beckett’s level. Lily and the complications surrounding her custody were proof of those risks. But there were others too—allegations of abuse, defamation of character, lawsuits. So, yeah, his sex life sucked. Big-time. But if his cock’s radar was on target, he might have found exactly what he needed in this beautiful Garden of Eden.
He slid into the booth next to her as she lazily filled the fork with decadence. “Are you playing with that? Or eating it?”
“Little of both. What are they laughing about?”
He narrowed his eyes as his thoughts drifted back to the troublemakers that made up his second family. “Drug dealers and hookers haven’t started taking credit cards, have they?”
“What?” She laughed the word.
Beckett grinned and shook his head, dismissing the sideways thought. “Nothing.”
The teasing mood vanished when she lifted the fork to his lips and watched him take the cake into his mouth. By the time he pulled back and licked his lips, his groin was heavy and hot with an infusion of lust. He let the chocolate decadence melt in his mouth. Rich, sweet, moist. His eyes closed on the raw deliciousness of the dessert.
“Mmm.” He swallowed and smiled. “Good call, gorgeous.”
Beckett picked up a fork and mirrored her position. He collected cake on the tip of the fork, dipped the dark chocolate in whipped cream, and brought it to her lips. “Open for me, Eden.”
A slow, sensual smile turned her lips, and she opened. He slid the cake into her mouth and watched those full lips he wanted in so many ways purse around the fork. Her lids grew heavy with pleasure, and his cock throbbed at the sight.
Oh yeah. This woman had seriously great pussy potential. If the way he craved her right now was any indication of how sex between them would be, he’d take a leap and predict it would be explosive.
“I don’t think I got a chance to tell you how absolutely gorgeous you look tonight.” He took in the way her dress outlined her toned upper arms and shoulders, curved over her full breasts, and lay flat against her abdomen. “That dress is making me crazy.”
“Thank you.” She glanced down. “It’s one of my favorites, but I wasn’t sure…”
“It’s perfect. Except that it makes me want to run my hands all over you.”
She met his eyes again with a little laugh. “Then you’re right. It is perfect. Tell me about the suits.” Her gaze slid over him. “This is the last thing I expected to see a bunch of hockey players wearing after a game.”
“It’s partly tradition,” he told her. “Something all kids do from the very start—shirts and ties in and out of the rink on game day. Those become suits in high school and the leagues. It’s a show of respect—for the game, for your team, for yourself. A symbol you take your job on the ice seriously.”
“Interesting.” She lifted her finger to his lip, rubbing away some chocolate. Beckett closed his hand over hers and took her finger between his lips, sucking the chocolate off the tip. Her lids went heavy, her eyes dark, and her tongue touched the corner of her mouth.
“Mmm,” she murmured, watching his lips as he kissed a path over her palm.
Then he took her hand between both of his as he worked on a let’s get out of here suggestion that sounded at least a little smoother. As something relatively respectable came to mind, he reached up to push a honeyed curl off her forehead.
But before he even touched her skin, she flinched.
The movement was so quick, so subtle—the soft jerk of her head, the quick flicker of lashes, the slight intake of breath—Beckett almost sensed the recoil more than experienced it. He froze, fingers millimeters from her face. His eyes cut to hers. Any doubt over her reaction vanished at the sight of her averted gaze, the way her lashes hid her pretty eyes.
A cold sensation seeped through the warmth inside him like tendrils. He passed a featherlight touch along her forehead with one finger as he’d initially planned. And when she exhaled and relaxed, his tension eased a little too.
“Sorry,” she murmured, almost a whisper.
Beckett put that let’s get out of here on hold.
“Hey,” he said softly, then waited until she met his gaze again. When she did, the woman he’d met in the Rough Riders’ locker room was somewhere way, way in the background. “Don’t apologize for…”
He sucked back words that came out sounding like a reprimand and reeled in all his thoughts, searching for a new starting point. In that instant, he saw a distinct correlation between his attempt at diplomacy now and all Lily had taught him about patience and compassion and humility since she’d come into his life.
“Okay,” he said, “Let’s get real for a minute.”
She leaned back with an oh-great-here-we-go expression. “Look, I should probably just—”
“Don’t do that.” He slid his hand over hers. “We’ve gotten this far. I’m willing to talk a little to see if we can get past this blip. I think you’re worth it.”
“You don’t know me well enough—”
“I know the woman who had the guts to shove around an angry hockey player for his own good. I know the woman who took control of that situation in a professional and, ultimately, compassionate way, then managed to make a friend of that bitchy hockey player by the time you dropped him off at the hospital.”
She laughed at the last part.
“And now,” he continued, “I know the woman who, despite something less than pleasant in her past, is here taking a chance on connecting again. So, I may not know the little things about you, like what your favorite color is or what you prefer to do on a Saturday night, but I know you’ve got character. The kind I admire.”
“You know my tough side. That’s not really who I am.”
“You know my tough side too, and you don’t even like it, but you’re still here, giving me a chance. Which means, like me, you believe there’s more than one side to a person. Unless, of course, you’re so hot for my body, you’re willing to forget everything you hate for a couple of hours to experience my godlike sexual prowess.”
Eden broke into laughter. A relieved smile lifted Beckett’s mouth, and his shoulders relaxed.
“I love your laugh.” He stroked his hand up her arm, over her shoulder. “Let’s make tonight all about you. What we do, what we don’t do, how fast or slow we go or don’t go is completely up to you. Like I said, you’ve already met your required contribution to the night by showing up.”
Her grin was soft. She lowered her chin into her hand again. “You’re a lot sweeter than I expected.”
“If you were expecting the asshole in the locker room, why’d you come?”
“I…” She held his gaze for a moment, searching his eyes as if he had the answer. “I guess I was ready to take a chance. And I guess I was hoping there was more to you than what I heard on the news.”
“The news.” He let his gaze drift to her high cheekbone and brushed his knuckles across her skin, pleased when she didn’t flinch or shy away. But his mind was searching the latest newscasts for negativity that might have been thrown his way. “I haven’t committed any felonies lately, at least none that I know of. What were they saying about me now?”
She gave a little shake of her head as if blowing it off as no big deal. “The sportscaster was as impressed with your hit count this season as your teammates were with your hits in the game tonight. In fact, he and the news anchor marveled at your lack of injuries over the length of your career.”
The dots were definitely connecting. He proceeded with honesty but caution. “I’m careful, and I’m good. I’ve spent all my life practicing to be careful and good. And I have to stay careful and good because my performance as a defenseman determines my salary, my future contracts, and the longevity of my career. And while I may have been more zealous when I was younger, my dad always kept me in check. I was never one of those guys who slammed players without a purpose.”
Thoughts churned behind her eyes. “Your dad?”
“Yeah. He coached for decades. Was my coach for most of my life up until I went pro. Even coached me in the minor leagues. He put me on skates at two years old and stayed with me until I got drafted. I was accountable to him for every hit after every game. If I fucked up, I had to look him in the eye and tell him I fucked up and why. I lost control of my speed, I made a bad judgment call, my timing was off, my blade caught on the ice—whatever it was, I had to own up to it.”
He laughed, thinking back. “God, it was awful. At the dinner table, we used to argue over what was or wasn’t necessary. The rest of our family would—literally—put in earplugs so we could all get through dinner together. No joke. There was this plastic box of foam earplugs on the kitchen counter. Once, my mom and my sister tried to double them up and put two in each ear.”
That made her smile deepen, and the darkness gave way to the woman Beckett was so drawn to.
“Anyway,” he said, “if you’re wondering if there’s more to me than the number of my hits—”
“I think you’ve answered that question in a lot of different ways.” And apparently she liked the answer, because she picked up another piece of the cake between her fingers, leaned close, and brought it to his lips. And as she let him lick chocolate off her fingers and watched every move of his lips, she said, “Where does your family live? Is it just you and your sister? Are you as close to your mom and your sister as you are to your dad?”
He was licking her thumb when her questions plucked a strange chord inside him. No woman ever wanted to know about his family. For that matter, no woman ever wanted to hear about Beckett’s early playing days either. They wanted to know about his present and his future. They wanted to know about his teammates and their girlfriends and wives. They wanted to know about his salary, his signing bonuses, the big events he attended, what famous people he’d met, where he’d been, and what he did with his money.
Family-smamily.
Beckett lifted his gaze to hers. Those light blue-green eyes were heavy lidded and hot but soft. As soon as he pulled her thumb from between his lips, she leaned in and pressed hers in their place, then sighed as if she’d been waiting forever to rest her mouth against his.
A wild little sliver of desire snaked down his spine. Beckett closed his eyes, slipped a hand around the back of her neck, and opened to her. She responded like she’d been reading his mind. Her tongue slid right into place against his. The rhythm of their kiss was instantaneous and hungry and took Beckett’s already interested cock to half-mast. He leaned into her, losing himself in the sweet, erotic taste of heat and woman. The slick, smooth stroke of her tongue. The supple suction of her lips. And, God, the little purr in the back of her throat made Beckett want so much more.
She pulled out of the kiss and pressed her cheek to his, leaving Beckett dizzy. “You sure can make a girl forget her own name.” Her nails scraped gently along the back of his neck, and she rolled her head to press kisses to his jaw. “What were we talking about? Your family…right. Where do they live?”
“Wow,” he breathed, “that was so not where my mind was.” He had to force himself to refocus. “They’re all in and around the DC Metro area.”
“They’re so close.” She leaned away just enough to smile up at him, a new light in her eyes. She scraped her wet bottom lip between her teeth, then moved even closer and draped one thigh over his. Do they come to your games? And where was your mind?”
He automatically covered her thigh with his hand. Her soft dress felt sinfully delicious. “When they can. They have busy lives too.” He couldn’t keep his hand still and found her thigh toned and supple and warm beneath the soft fabric. “Eden, I’m having a really hard time thinking about anything other than you right now.”
“I’m having the same problem.” She pressed a flat hand to his tie and slid it slowly down his abdomen. “But at least I’m trying.”
He took a gooey chunk off the cake with his free hand and braced his elbow on the table as he lifted the chocolate to her lips. “Trying to what? Think about nothing but me? Because I would support that decision two hundred percent.”
She was laughing when her lips parted to take the chocolate, but the humor faded as soon as her mouth closed. Her warmth tingled through his hand, and then the gentle suction of her lips tugged on his fingers.
“Damn, you are so beautiful.” He listed forward, leaning his head against hers. Watching her lick and suck his fingers clean made his cock flinch and throb, begging for the same attention. Not only had it been a long damn time since he’d had decent sex, but it had been fucking forever since he’d had a woman give him this sort of focused attention. Only now, when the promise of that kind of pleasure glittered on the horizon, did he realize how badly he needed it.
“Fuck, you’re good with your mouth.” His other hand flexed and released on her thigh. He turned his head and put his lips at her ear whispering, “Will you tell me what you have on under your dress tonight?”
She licked the tip of his thumb. “I could, but that would ruin the surprise.”
His heart did a three-sixty. He was probably pushing the envelope, but he really didn’t know how else to live. It was what he did. It was who he was. “What if I felt it? That wouldn’t be looking.”
He bent his head and pressed a path of kisses along her jaw. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt. He tasted the sensitive hollow behind her ear, and Eden tipped her head toward him and sighed.
“God, you are sweet.” He lifted an arm over the back of the booth and brushed the hair off her neck, kissing her there. Then he slipped his other hand beneath the edge of her skirt, opening his hand over the soft suede of her boot top before spanning the inner thigh of her leg draped over his own.
His palm hit the warm, bare skin of her thigh, and the shock of intimacy traveled through his body like lightning. “Fuck.” In this cold weather, he wasn’t prepared for skin-on-skin contact. He pressed his forehead to her neck and let his fingers sink into the supple muscle. “Baby, I think your sexy just blew my circuit.”
Her laugh started as a giggle and grew until it shook her whole body. Her happiness added to Beckett’s joy until he couldn’t stop smiling. And he knew this short time with Eden would count as one of the best dates of his life, even if they never got any further than this.
Then she went and blew another fuse by whispering, “Go ahead. Touch me.”
