“Sorry, what?” I flick the ash on my cigarette.
“You were reading during the game—what book?” He sounds genuinely curious and a little offended.
“Tom Jones. I have to finish it for my book club on Tuesday.”
Wow. Do I ever sound like a winner. He must have been watching me while he was in the time-out box.
“Fielding at a hockey game? Kind of cerebral with beer and violence, isn’t it?”
I blink as if I’ve been high beamed with a flashlight. Alex knows who wrote Tom Jones, and he’s used the word cerebral in the appropriate context. I was right; he did get my Shakespeare reference. Alex Waters has singlehandedly obliterated my misapprehension regarding the inferior intellect of hockey players—with one sentence. In doing so, he’s become infinitely hotter than he was five seconds ago.
“You’ve read Fielding?” I take a step closer. My voice is low, as if I’ve switched into phone-sex operator mode.
“I-I-I—”
It’s adorable. He’s wearing an expression I’m familiar with: panic merged with fear. I sport the same one when I inadvertently revealed my extreme nerdiness. Most nights I would much rather be at home curled up with a book or playing solitaire than out at a bar. Hence the excessive beer consumption and the fake smoking crutch.
“I think literacy is sexy,” I whisper.
“Me, too.” His dimples make an appearance.
I have one of those rare moments where my brain fritzes and I do something completely out of character. It’s so outside of my personal code of conduct that I’ll probably relive the incident over and over trying to figure out what flipped the switch. For the time being, I’m blaming the beers, jetlag, and his accurate literary references.
I grab Waters by the shirt and pull his face to mine.
His mouth is soft and warm. The stubble on his chin scratches my skin, and I like it. I shove my tongue into his mouth. Well, that’s not true. I slide it across his bottom lip, touching the barely healed split, and he parts for me. Soft, warm, and wet meet more soft, warm, and wet. He tastes like chocolate and, more faintly, coffee liqueur.
His hand runs a hot trail along my side, and he pulls me tight against him. He’s all hard edges and heat, and I can feel . . . holy . . . there’s a massive bulge pressed against my stomach.
After far too short a time, he breaks the kiss, trailing his lips across my cheek to my ear. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“Buck will kill you.”
“I can take him.”VIOLETI hear my name in the distance and choose to ignore it.
Instead, I nibble on Alex’s lip, more turned on than I should be regarding his willingness to take on Buck. Alex takes the hint, kissing me again. I expect him to be all aggressive and hard, considering his performance on the ice, but the way his tongue moves with mine can only be described as sensual. This is by far the best kiss ever, which is unfortunate since he’s likely a hockey whore—albeit a well-read one.
I really shouldn’t entertain leaving with him. My past experience with hockey players tells me this unequivocally. The difference is, this is a fling. He’s not asking me on a date, and I’m not expecting one. The song “Let’s Make Out” is playing through my head. I want it to be my anthem.
“What the hell are you doing?” Buck yells in my ear.
I cringe away from the noise, separating my lips from Alex’s. Buck’s a cockblocking asshole. The few people on the patio have stopped talking on account of his unnecessary loudness. I’d forgotten we’re in a public place. I’ll attribute it to the beers I had earlier and my lack of clarity thanks to Alex’s tongue in my mouth.
“What’s going on here?” Buck asks just as loudly, gesturing wildly with his giant, hairy knuckled hands.
“I’m sucking his dick,” I say sarcastically. Sometimes I wish my mouth didn’t have a faulty connection to my brain allowing everything to come out unfiltered.
Alex coughs, his fingers twitching on my hip, and Buck’s face turns an unnatural shade of red. This is such an odd situation; the awkwardness causes me to continue to spew idiocy.
“Fine, you got me. I wasn’t sucking his dick. We were fucking each other’s mouths with our tongues. This is otherwise referred to as kissing, but mouth fucking sounds way dirtier, so I’m gonna go with that.”
Buck’s nostrils flare. I’m such a jerk. He’s probably going to lay Alex out for this.
Buck gives up rationalizing with me and turns to Alex. “Get your goddamned hands off my sister.”
“Stepsister.” I can’t help poking the yeti.
“It’s the same damn thing!”
“Don’t even!” I shake a finger in his face and throw in a head wobble. “You don’t have a say in what I do or where Alex puts his hands.”