Page 65 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

Nothing so simple has ever made my heart thud against my ribs like this.

Nor has any such completely ordinary action made my lips crave contact with another person’s.

Maybe it’s not only the kids I’m getting more comfortable being involved with.

Maybe I am more ready to be involved with someone than I thought—as long as the someone is Natalie.

I certainly want her.

Christ, do I want her.

I stride toward her, my pulse increasing with every step, my desire to kiss her again growing with each and every crunch of myboots in the snow.

And I don’t stop until my breath brushes her face.

“Nice job, Bugs.” My voice comes out hushed.

Half expecting her to back off, I’m pleasantly surprised when she doesn’t. Instead, she checks over her shoulder, as if making sure all the kids have gone and no one can see us standing so close.

“Thanks.” Her bright smile has a touch of a nervous twitch to it.

My eyes refuse to leave her lips.

She turns her body slightly, just a fraction, but it means she’s fully facing me. “And thanks for helping Prema with that turn.” Her voice is quiet. “Your way is safer.”

“I did my best to keep my eye on them. But it was kinda hard when all I wanted to look at was you.” Fuck, that was cheesy.

She giggles and looks at the couple of inches of snowy ground between our feet.

“You didn’t think that was a smooth line?” I ask.

“You don’t seem like a smooth line kind of guy.”

“What kind of guy do I seem like?”

She lifts her gaze without lifting her head, so she’s peering at me from under raised brows. “One who would just grab someone and kiss them if they wanted to.”

“You mean like this?”

I circle one hand around her waist, pinch her chin with the other, and pull her close to bring her smiling lips up toward mine.

“What the fuck are you doing with my cousin, Woods?”

Natalie bounces away from me like she has springs on her feet, and I turn to see Wyatt Stone walking toward us.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask my ex-best friend.

Then I process not just the surprise of his presence but what he said, and turn to Natalie.“Cousin?”

“Yeah.” She says it casually and walks toward him. “Gabe asks a good question, Wyatt. Whatareyou doing here?”

They share a quick hug. The kind of hug that family members have when they haven’t seen each other for a while and aren’t that close.

“Had a few days off between games, and Mom asked me to bring some special fancy Christmas macarons from a special fancy bakery in New York up to Aunt Lou. She didn’t trust the delivery service to get them here in one piece.”

Look at the two of them. Acting completely normally, having a completely normal family conversation, while my brain rattles like a noisy maraca.

“Hang on.” I press my fingers to my forehead to try to stop what’s behind it from exploding. “You two arecousins?”

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