Page 31 of From Coast to Coast

“It is,” he murmurs, trailing his thumb across my throat again. A slow burn comes alive in my pelvis—the simple touch doing more for me than anything that happened on the dance floor.

When he leans down to kiss me, he stops little more than a hair’s breadth away from my lips. If he thinks I’m not going to close that distance, he’s got another thing coming. Bringing both hands up to cup his jaw, I tip my chin up, leanforward, and kiss him. The very first thing I notice is the facial hair, and the way his stubble scratches across my palms and the smoother skin of my face. The second thing I notice is his mouth.Soft, I think, brushing my lips across his gently.

I step closer to him, wanting to have a better angle on his mouth, and press our chests together. He’s so unlike anybody I’ve ever touched in this way—solid and so much bigger than me. My heart has kicked up another notch, beating so fast I could be running wind sprints. I can’t even remember the last time kissing has been this exciting.

Grayson is barely moving. Only one hand is touching me and he’s kissing me carefully, like he’s tiptoeing over boundaries and trying not to freak me out. When I tease my tongue through the seam of his lips, I’m rewarded with a small gasp and a tightening of the fingers on my neck. It’s masculine and sexy, and I think my stance on finding Grayson attractive has been madeveryclear.

He’s the first to pull away and I embarrass myself by rising up on my tiptoes to chase after him. I’m not done kissing him. I don’t think I’ll ever be done kissing him.

Because it would be strange to keep my hands on his face when we’re not making out, I slowly slide them down over his shoulders and arms, all the way to his hands. Regretfully, I let him go even though what I want to do is shove him back against the wall of the club and eat his face.

“Well, fuck me,” I breathe, looking up into Grayson’s blue eyes.

“Not here,” he quips, and I smile up at him.

The back door of the club opens, music spilling out before the door slams and it’s cut off again. Grayson looksover his shoulder toward the noise, his face falling at the reminder that we’re in public. There goes any hope I had of picking up where we left off.

“Gray,” I whisper, not wanting to raise my voice and ruin the integrity of the moment.

“You good?” he asks warily.

“Sure, except now I’m a little worried that was a one-time thing. It wasn’t, right? We’re going to do that again?” I’m proud that I don’t sound half as desperate as I feel. I want to rub my cheek against his scruff again. If everyone knew how fucking good that felt, nobody would kiss a woman again. “Because I’ve got to tell you…that was nice. That was really fucking nice.”

“Nice,” he muses. “Well, after glowing praise like that, I suppose we’llhaveto do it again.”

I laugh. “Shut up, you can’t expect me to trot out five-dollar words after introducing me to my gay awakening. Give me a damn minute.”

He smiles, shaking his head and looking down at his hands as he shoves them back into his pockets. He looks a little bashful. Before I can open my mouth and suggest we ditch Zolkov and head back to his place to fuck like rabbits, his phone dings with a notification.

“Dating app?” I ask lightly. He gives me a wry look.

“I deleted that.”

Good, I think, but manage not to say it out loud.Pump the brakes, Remy, you’re not looking for a relationship and this shit is fraught with issues.

“Z is leaving,” Grayson says, tapping out a message on his phone. “He’s riding with Natalia.”

I’d be lying if I said this disappointed me. Evidently this is clear on my face, as Grayson smirks at me.

“So, that means we can leave too, yeah?” I ask, and he nods as he puts his phone back into his pocket.

“Yeah,” he replies. “We can go home.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grayson

It doesn’t hitme until we’re halfway home that I’ve probably done something irreversibly stupid. You can’t go around kissing teammates, no matter that they have unkempt, sun-bleached hair, hazel eyes, and a tan. No matter that their collarbone is prominent and creates a series of hollows that you want to suck on. In fact, probably best not to kiss people like that at all, because people who look like that are probably too good to be true.

“So.” Remy’s voice is quiet in the calm dark of the car. “On a scale of one to ten, how much are you freaking out right now?”

Despite the slightly manic pace of my heartbeat, he gets a chuckle from me. “A solid six, well on my way to seven territory.”

“It’s like you’re having my gay panic for me,” he notes, making me laugh again.

“Sorry. I’ve always been comfortable keeping mysexuality hidden, though. For a long time, only a handful of people knew I was gay. The only person in the NHL who knew was Troy Nichols. And then when I finally decide that maybe it’s time to come out, I find out I’m stuck with a group of guys who apparently aren’t as cool as I thought they were. Kind of hard not to regret ever doing it in the first place.”

“I’m not planning on walking into the locker room tomorrow and making an announcement.”

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