Page 3 of Melting the Ice

This was going to be a disaster. I may have told myself that I’d forgotten our kiss, but it flashed in my brain like it had just happened yesterday.

She pulled back in my arms and gave me another blinding smile. “This is going to be so fun. And I can make all your favorite meals. Oh, wait, you have a food service, I bet. To stay on that healthy hockey player diet and everything.”

Then she patted my chest, and I swore my damn heart rate picked up speed.

I dropped my hold on her before quickly splaying my hand against her upper back when she started to fall backward.

“Jeez, don’t drop me, Micahtron,” she teased. “Anyway, we’ll figure out foods and stuff. I have my bags near the bar. Just two of them. You know I travel light. I left them there when I spotted you. Not that we have to rush out or anything. You guys are celebrating your win. I watched it on my phone. You were so good, just like always.”

Pride sparked in my chest at her words. Well, after I caught up with everything she’d just thrown at me. I loved that she’d watched the game.

She laughed. “Overwhelmed?” Then she stepped fully out of my hold, and I shouldn’t have missed touching her.

“Earth to.” She tapped me on my nose.

I swatted her hand away. “Yeah. Yep. Okay. Let me finish this, and we can head to my place.”

“Great.” She beamed. “And Ray?”

“For now, I won’t tell him, but if he asks if I’ve seen you, I’m not going to lie, okay?”

She sighed. “That’s fair.”

Then she wrapped her arms around me again.

“Thank you so much. I really mean it. I’ll make you the best dinner tomorrow night.”

I hugged her back, still wondering what the hell I was getting myself into.

JOSIE

I followed Micah out of the bar as he carried my two bags to his car. I hadn’t really had a game plan when I’d found the note from Blaine earlier this afternoon saying that he didn’t think we were going to work out and that he was heading to New Mexico with some friends. And I wasn’t going to stay at his friends’ placewithout him, so I’d packed my shit and tried to figure out what to do next.

Men were the absolute worst. I should’ve known better than to fall for a guy named Blaine. Not that I was too hurt about our time ending. It probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. After all—Blaine.

“Hop in.” Micah’s gravelly voice cut through my brain, bringing me back to the present, as he held open the passenger door of his gleaming black SUV. He’d already put my bags in the back seat.

I shoved my backpack at the footwell and climbed in while he walked around the hood of the car, looking ridiculously hot in his game day suit. I was going to live with this man. A man who had featured in my fantasies since well before I’d kissed him four years ago.

I bit back a grin. I couldn’t wait.

He slid into his seat, and I turned up the volume on his stereo. Hard rock vibrated through the vehicle.

“Steelwolf. My favorite. I saw them on tour last year. So fucking good.”

He chuckled. “You mean you drooled over Jax. Still got a crush on him?”

“Everyone with a pulse has a crush on that man.” Jax was sex personified. Not that Micah wasn’t, but I couldn’t drool over my brother’s best friend like I could over a rock star I’d never meet.

“Whatever you say. Your taste in men is clearly questionable.”

I pretended to act offended. “Ouch, Micahtron. Going right for the kill.”

He rolled his eyes. “Am I wrong?”

I shrugged. “I’m not looking for Mr. Forever. I’m young and having fun.”

“You moved halfway across the country for this last one. What was his name? Blake? Brad?”

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