Page 45 of Body Check

Jackson’s cheeks hollow out with an indrawn breath as he tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. His arms don’t move from their place around me. “We’re standing under an air vent.”

“A convenient excuse.”

“It’s called talking facts. I’m feeling a little chilled.”

“Talking facts?” My eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. “Factis, you’ve never been chilled a day in your life.”

Brown eyes zero in on my face. “I’m a hockey player, sweetheart. You think my nuts don’t shrivel and duck for cover every time I step out on the ice?”

Sweetheart.

Holy crap, holy crap, holy—

Jackson’s mouth firms and, before I can prepare for it, he swoops the backpack out from around me and slings it onto his back, letting it hang unceremoniously by one strap. He turns on his heel. The florescent lighting does nothing but illuminate each and every one of the scars that mark his spine like a mother celebrates her child’s growth with penciled lines on a spare wall in a childhood home.

The stretchmarks always marked a silent vulnerability that’s otherwise nonexistent in my ex-husband’s nature.

“Jackson. Jackson, where are you going?” Grabbing my other gear off the floor, my sneakered feet pick up the pace as I trail him. “And, excuse me, but can you give me my backpack? That’s theft.”

He doesn’t even glance back over his shoulder. “It’s not theft if I plan to return it.”

A groan slips from my mouth. “No,” I mutter, my hands lifting even though he can’t see me . . . which might be a good thing as I’m making a strangling sort-of gesture with them, the tripod and light reflector clashing against one another. Louder, I go on, “I’m not doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“The word games! The theft versus borrowing or the blackmail versus negotiating.”

Without warning, he turns left at the end of the hallway, away from where the elevators are located. “Holls, we aren’t playing games. We stopped all that a long time ago.”

Then what the hell are we doing here?

Pausing at a door, he digs around in his sweatpants and reveals a plastic key card that he swipes over the lock. An echoingclicksounds louder than it should, but I suppose that its only competition is the thudding of my heart.

When I don’t move to follow him into his hotel room, Jackson pauses within the frame, looking large and imposing and unfamiliar as he stares down at me. I blink, and recognize the crooked slope of his nose. I blink again, and know the specific sharpness of his jaw and the heavy slant of his brows. I blink once more, and there is not a hue in this world that I know better than the brown of his eyes.

And yet, he’s never seemed more like a stranger than in this moment.

“If we stopped the games, then what are we doing?”

He props one forearm up on the doorframe, giving it his weight as he drops his head to look at the floor. Shoulders rising with a sharp inhale, he stares down at his bare feet as I stare at him. “We’ve never lied to each other.” His head shifts just so, his temple pressing against his arm, so he can watch me instead of the threadbare carpet. “Eleven years, Holls. We were married for eleven years and not once in all that time did we ever lie to each other.”

My fingers curl around my equipment at the ragged note in his voice. And my calm—whatever’s left of it—vacates the premises. He looks at me like he’s torn between dragging me into his hotel room or slamming the door in my face, and I . . . I breathe like I’ve run a marathon and reached the finish line, only to realize that I’ve still got another twenty-six miles to go and the first stint was nothing but my imagination.

In other words, I’m screwed.

We’ve done this dance. We’ve done it, and we haven’t come out the other side intact.

“I’ve lied to you.” His dark brows furrow together, and I plow on regardless.We need space, humor, anything to break up this tension.“I used to say that I forgot your peanut butter M&M’s at the store when I went grocery shopping. I lied. I always caved and ate them all and had to throw the wrapper in the garbage before you saw the evidence.”

“You could have bought two bags, one for you and one for me.” His eyes narrow. “Or, better yet, a king-sized one for us to share.”

“I could have, but—” I swallow the rest of the words before they can further incriminate me. The truth is, Icouldhave done exactly that: buy multiple bags of the chocolate-covered peanuts and call it a day. But if I had, then I couldn’t have played thelet me make it up to youcard, which involved me on my knees, Jackson’s hands curved around the back of my skull, and the knowledge that he liked it best when I moaned around his dick.

None of that, however, is appropriate to mention in this moment.

You need to go. Now.

I step back, my gaze shooting to the right, toward the elevator at the far end of the hall.

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