Page 33 of Bound

I know it. Just like I know he’s a good person—yeah, he’s cranky and tries to keep people at a distance and technically did something really bad, but he did it for the right reasons.

And I know something about keeping people at a distance.

I just…don’t want to do that, not now, not here, not?—

When I feel more alive in this stolen moment with Jackson than I ever had before.

“It wasn’t too much,” I tell him, turning the conversation away from what had made him so angry with me months ago, what had made me feel so freaking guilty for pursuing information that wasn’t any of my business. I was nosy and I was protective of the team and…I was wrong. But I don’t want to think about that, think about the circumstances that wrote that pain into the lines of his face, that left such a mark. I want him to…

Focus on me, I guess.

“I was surprised,” I say, my cheeks flaring again, but I push on. “And I didn’t think you liked me—and I guess…”

“What?” he asks gently.

Hide? Shrink into the embarrassment?

Or just…be honest and truthful andmyself?

I already know the answer.

“I certainly didn’t think you could like me like this.”

A random stranger turned and bolted upon sight of me.

A hot bachelor hockey player with his choice of women?

Why would he pick me?

“And,” I whisper. “I…don’t know what I’m doing. I—kissing and dating and—” My courage fails me, and I tear my gaze from his.

He’s silent for a long moment, but when he does speak, his words take my breath away. “So…we practice.”

I gulp. “Wh-what?”

His smile…good God, it makes my knees weak. “We practice, kitty cat.” He leans in, brushes his lips over my forehead. The tip of my nose. Each cheek. “We practice until you’re confident.” A kiss to the hinge of my jaw. “We practice until you don’t want to practice anymore.”

“Pr-practice k-kissing?” I sputter. “W-with y-you?”

His smile is…

Well, it’s something I know that will revisit me in my dreams.

Maybe that’s why I blurt again, “I know how to make myself come.”

His brows shoot up to his hairline, but his smile doesn’t fade. Instead, it transforms…

Into something wicked.

“You do, kitty cat?” He drops his head until our lips are almost aligned again, until I can feel the damp heat of his words against my mouth. “You’ll show me how you do that.”

Not a question.

A statement.

And…I shiver. Because I know that if he asks me to show him, I will.

Something I knowherecognizes because that wicked smile stays in place as he says, “Good, kitty cat. Now, stop overthinking it and just follow my lead.”

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