Page 152 of The Overtime Kiss

We leave with Luna and Parker. We don’t have to make a plan to know how to act. Intrinsically, we’re on the same page. I don’t want to confuse them either. My life’s been so topsy-turvy and I need time to adjust to whatever this means. So Tyler and I don’t hold hands in front of the kids. We don’t kiss in front of them, and we don’t make little inside jokes.

But after we enter the arena and take our seats right by the ice for the skating extravaganza, he stretches an arm across the back of the seats, squeezes my shoulder, and whispers, “Merry Christmas, Sabrina.”

I turn to my boss, who doesn’t seem like my boss right now. He seems like the man who put his heart on the line. For me. “Merry Christmas, Tyler.”

And as the four of us settle in and watch the show, I feel like a new label fits.

Family.

39

WATCH ME

Tyler

It’s a little like playing hooky in my house.

I pull Sabrina close to me on the couch one afternoon in early January when we’re both free in the middle of the day. She’s heading to pick up the kids from school in twenty minutes, right around when I’ll leave for a game. For a little while, though, it’s just us.

This feels like a new kind of lesson—in living together, maybe. In quiet, lazy moments. In togetherness when we can get it.

“Tell me something, Snow,” I say, fiddling absently with the silver snowflake that snuggles against the soft skin of her chest. I love to touch it. To steal kisses on it when I can. To run my finger across it when no one’s looking.

“Something,” she says saucily.

I slide my hand down her belly. I am undeterred by her sass. “What else is on your sex list?”

She rolls her eyes and looks up at me. “Don’t you have to go to work any minute?”

“I do. But I’m still asking.”

“And you still get sex off-list with me,” she says, then gestures to the kitchen counter, which I bent her over minutes ago—at her request—for an afternoon quickie. Well, we had a free hour. Of course, we made use of it. “You just did.”

“But I love off-list sex and on-list sex. Can you blame me?”

She taps her chin, then flashes me a naughty smile. “I guess I can’t.”

“And I still want to work my way through your list.”

We made it through those four lessons before the holidays, but finding alone time for extended romps through her checklist has been challenging since then. Shortly after we returned from New York, I had to hit the ground running and take off for a long road trip, including over to Toronto to play the Terror and to Tampa Bay to play the Ospreys. A week and a half later, I returned. But we didn’t even crack open the tiny sex diary when I slipped into her room the night I landed back in town and showed her exactly how much I’d missed her.

But still, I’m dying to know what else is in that little book. “Just tell me,” I whisper in her ear, then lick the shell since that always gets her. She shivers against me.

“You’re trying to weaken my resolve,” she says.

I flick my tongue against her again. “You like it when I weaken your resolve,” I say.

“I do. But I thought you liked surprises.”

“I like giving you what you want more.”

She sighs heavily, but not like she’s annoyed. More like she’s…breaking, and I love it when Sabrina breaks. She turns around and fixes me with a serious stare. “Remember the night outside your room? When I was getting my laundry from the dryer?”

Heat flares in me. I remember it perfectly. “When you almost came in?”

She licks her lips. “Yes. You were watching the video of me,” she says a little breathily. Like that turns her on. Well, it fucking turns me on too.

“And I was getting off,” I add, owning it completely. My bones buzz from the memory.

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