Page 92 of Breaking the Ice

“You can keep them.” She grabbed her keys and tossed them in his direction. “I won’t need them at the shop.”

Someone wolf-whistled in the background and Bob spun around, his eyes narrowed, looking for the culprit before turning back. “You’re really going to waste your life, your talent, in a second-hand bookshop, makingminimum wage?”

Samantha could feel Nick’s arms tighten a little and she wondered if he was worried she might change her mind? But he really needn’t worry. Sure, Bob had been an influential person in her life but not anymore.

“That’s right,” she chirped. “And I’m going to love every minute of it.”

Nick strode away then leaving a gaping Bob in his wake and her eggs chantingthe end, the end, the end,in maniacal fervor.

31

They rushed back to the shop and two minutes later Dulcie walked through the door, followed closely by Kelly and Sally. Nick went and bought some champagne and they had an impromptu party.

“To the new manager of Birdie’s,” Nick said, raising his drink in the air. “To Samantha.”

They all clinked their glasses together and Samantha mouthed, “Thank you,” as she swallowed the lump of emotion with a mouthful of bubbles.

They shut the shop early and had celebration sex against the wall in the back room. They went to his apartment and had frantic sex on the kitchen bench. Later that night in bed he buried himself deep inside her and they had slow, intense, leaving-on-a-jet-plane sex.

Their noses were touching and he was looking right into her eyes and she loved him so much she knew she’d do anything to make him stay.

Anything but ask.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said instead as he withdrew and entered her again slowly on a deep satisfying groan.

Him. Notthis. Not sex. Although she was definitely also going to miss the best sex she’d ever had at the hands of the G-spot whisperer.

Buried to the hilt, he raised himself on his elbows and stared into her eyes intently. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

He moved to pull out again but she clenched her pelvic floor muscles and held him inside, grasping a naked buttock to keep him there. “No, don’t move. I want to remember what it’s like to have you inside me.”

He chuckled. “I’m about two seconds away from coming.”

“Me too,” she admitted as she loosened her hold and he moved inside her again, kissing her as he withdrew and groaning as he plunged back in, pushing them both into the abyss.

Nick flew to New Brunswick the next day. Samantha didn’t see him off at the airport and he’d been grateful. Saying goodbye at the apartment had been hard enough.

It was full-on once he hit training camp, running through a full battery of physical tests, putting his recovery through its paces as he trained with the team off-ice. He knew his injury would bench him for the first month or six weeks but the residual weakness on his turns was surprising and there was alotof discussion about that among the team.

He missed Sam.Terribly.But the schedule the first two weeks was grueling and by the end of the day he was too exhausted to dwell on what he’d left behind.

And his knee hurt like a son of a bitch.

But he doubled down, pushing himself because this was the only thing he’d ever want to do, right? So he worked out, traded smack talk with the team about his knee and attended everyallied health appointment. He was fitter in three weeks than he’d been the last four months but then it came to getting back on the ice for their first team shinny andeverythingchanged.

Nick stood inhaling the cold, removing his skate guards as he stared at the freshly Zammed surface waiting for the rush. For the buzz that always stormed through his system like a force-ten gale at the sight of the glossy ice, the lights reflecting back a blinding white, the net at the end ready for the puck.

But it was curiouslyabsent.

Instead, with the sounds of his teammates’ blades slicing through the ice surrounding him and their ribald banter bouncing off the walls of the empty arena, Nick felt… apprehensive.

Not afraid but not confident either. And lack of confidence on the ice could kill a career far quicker than a bung knee.

What the fuck was even happening now? And why the hell was he not panicking about the fact that for the first time since he’d laced on a pair of skates at the age ofthreehe actually had no desire to step on to the ice.

He’d been through a knee operation, four months of physio and recovery and over two weeks of intensive training to get to this moment and he… didn’t want it.

Not as much as he wanted Samantha.

---