Page 22 of Hat Trick

“I’m not breaking anything.” With a palm to her lower back, I direct her to the next sculpture. “I’m not kissing you yet. But you can start your tally now, if youwant.”

“Oh, I want. Now stop talking so I can find the sexiest damn thing about this block of ice. One butt-whooping is about to beunderway.”

Laughter reverberates in my chest. “Yes,ma’am.”

I don’t miss her grimace. “Please don’t call me that. It reminds me thatI’m—”

“Old?” I offer, finally letting my hand drop from her back. “Ready for your social security to kickin?”

She flashes me a surly glance but I see straight through the icyveneer.

I face the sculpture, a God-knows-what slab of frozen liquid that Ithinkmight be a Christmas tree but looks a lot like Jabba the Hutt fromStar Wars. It’s woefully lopsided, and I’m careful to keep my attention on the ice when I respond. “I think you like that I’m younger thanyou.”

With sharp motions, she jerks her glove back on. “I think you’redelusional.”

I rock back on my heels, and I can feel a grin threatening to break free. “You gotta be how old by now, Gwen? Thirty-five, at least? Which would make you, what? A decade older thanme?”

Her side-eye would be withering to a lesser man but I stand strong. One redhead won’t do me in, no matter how gorgeous she is. “So, if you had a kid, would that make you aMILF?”

It’s that comment that doesit.

She turns to me with gloved hands raised, miming strangling me. A moment later, she’s bent over, hands on her thighs, feminine laughter slipping from her lush mouth. In between gusts of joy, she grinds out, “You’re ridiculous, Marshall. Utterly ridiculous. And you know I’m twenty-eight, youjerk.”

I match her stance, planting my palms on my thighs as I slide up next to her so that we’re shoulder-to-shoulder. “I should probably take the time to point out that our Christmas tree sculpture looks like it’s into someBDSM.”

Thumbing a tear from her eye, Gwen stands tall, hip popping out, arms crossing over her chest. “Those are supposed to be holiday lights,Marshall.”

“You sure?” I point out the frozen etchings crisscrossing over the shaved ice tree. “Looks like chains tome.”

“Garland,maybe?”

“Chains, Gwen. Like the kind the media likes to think I have in mybasement.”

With another quick glance at the BDSM tree, she skirts around another couple and heads for the next sculpture. In two strides, I’m at her side, just as she asks, “How did that rumor evenstart?”

The old-fashioned way—with a lick of truth to it. Not thecompletetruth, mind you, just asliver.

I rub the back of my neck, debating the best way to tell the story. “It all started when I first got on with the Blades, back when I was on the farm team. We had this . . . I don’t even know what you’d callit.”

Her brows arch with curiosity. “A sexshop?”

I chuckle. “No, not a sex shop—cutouts. We had cardboard cutouts of every player who’d been recruited by the Blades but hadn’t been called up yet. They usually stayed at the rink, but one night a couple of the guys got wasted and they stole afew.”

“Yoursincluded?”

I nod, slowly. “Yeah, mine included. Well, bastards that they are, the idiots brought them down into my buddy’s basement. He dimmed the lights, got some candles, chained all that cardboard up to the wall like something out ofFifty Shades of Grey. Pretty sure rose petals were an addition. I don’t even know how many photos they snapped, but before the end of the night, those pictures were hitting every tabloid site on theinternet.”

Her smile is slow and tempting. “And,voila,” she murmurs, “a sex fiend wasborn.”

“Exactly.” I meet her gaze without a hint of shame. “You disappointed I have no plans to lock you up in my lair,Gwen?”

“Considering that you have no plans to lock me up at all, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not any more disappointed now than I was an hourago.”

Fuck, I love her dry wit. It hooked me years ago and has the same powerful effect on me now. I desperately want to take her hand and pull her in close to see if she’s got just as much attitude between the sheets as she does out ofit.

But the point of the challenge I issued her isn’t just to cut us off from sex. I meant what I said about wanting her heart. It’d be all too easy to take her home tonight and strip off her clothes. She’d let me, I know that. And we’d both thoroughly enjoy what would happennext.

The thing is, it’s easy for her to accept our mutual attraction. Lust, however inconvenient at times, isn’t rocket science. It’s human nature to look at someone and find attributes about their body that turns youon.

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