Mild resistance, this she could tackle. “It’s thirty minutes of your time.”
“Wednesday?” At least four guys elbowed each other. “That date’s not good for us.”
Hmm, she’d expected denial from most of the jocks but thought she could hook a few of them. Mini skirt here, request from the owner’s fiancée, charity credit, one of those should have worked. “Okay, up to you, think about the offer.”
Dead silence.
She shivered.
“Ready?” Mikah asked.
Piper nodded. He lifted her carefully, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
He skated to the exit. The motions of his body moving hers set off a chain of tingles that heated her front half, while her back half experienced chill from the icy breeze. Interesting sensation, fire and ice. She wished he’d take her once around the rink like this, but she didn’t ask given the audience of twenty-four onlookers. “You coming to the charity gig?” Piper looked into his dark-lashed cobalt blue eyes, putting a fair amount of appeal in her own, this would give her a hint as to whether or not he was feeling their connection. He cradled her against him voluntarily, he had to be into her, right?
Mikah made a masculine dismissive sound.
Hmm, so, a twenty-five-year-old millionaire athlete didn’t want to attend a purity rally. “Was that a when-hell-freezes-over noise?”
“There’s no ice in a hockey player’s hell.”
Hah. “So, I can put you down for Wednesday?”
They arrived at the exit, Mikah made the noise again, shifted to swing her into his arms, and lifted her over the half-door. “No deal, puck.”
Not the worst nickname, but she wanted to make sure he remembered her real name. She gained her balance, missing his warmth. “Piper.”
“No deal, Piper.”
“Think about it.”
“I don’t need to.” Mikah turned away and then spun back just as quickly. “You signing that purity form?”
“Nope.” Stupid form had dimmed his ardor. “I’m a paid hostess.”
His cobalt eyes held a wicked edge. “You going to make sense out of that purity acronym for me?”
“Never.” But she did like that he sounded educated. What was his degree in? What else did he know? Where’d he go to college? Why hadn’t he asked her out for coffee already?
“You’ve got your answer then.”
Ouch. “Wait.” Piper got a pen from her bag, scrawled her name and phone number on the bottom of the purity sheet, and tore the strip off. “I’ll be expecting a list of volunteers.” She extended the slip. Okay, she was half just wanting to give him her number.
He stared her down.
“I should rephrase that, the owner will want that list of names. You will give them to me.” She winked to soften the demand, leaned forward, and tucked the paper into his large, calloused hand.
He whooshed away but kept her digits. She called that a win.
CHAPTER 4
Mikah, quickest on the ice, reached the locker room first. Muscles aching after practice, but in the good way, not in the coach had been too pissed to be reasonable way. He shrugged free of his jersey and started yanking off his gear as the others filed in, muttering about the statistician who had predicting their ability to take the season, and also about Wednesday’s purity gig.
Rookie went to his poorly placed first-season locker. “What’s the big deal about Wednesday? Why is that the weird part of that announcement?”
Liam bent to untie his laces. “It’s the same date as the Puck Bunny party.”
Rookie canted his head. “Do you think the owner’s new fiancée knows that?”