Page 146 of The Puck Stops Here

She swallowed and yup, there was her trademark squeak. Followed by his trademark smirk… he knewexactlywhat he did to her.

‘Is that coffee I can smell?’

Because if she was drinking coffee, she couldn’t be drinking him in again so soon. How could she still want him so bad?

‘Sure is.’ He gestured to the bedside table behind her.

‘You brought me coffee!’ She dived for it, addiction overriding modesty now as she sat back up and took a soul-satisfying sip. ‘You’re an angel, thank you!’

He chuckled. ‘NowthatI haven’t heard before… but I’ll take it. You might want to check your phone too. It’s been flashing like a strobe.’

‘It has?’ She glanced its way.

‘Good job too else I would’ve slept in.’

She wrestled one-handed with the tangled sheets to get to it, and he came to her aid, lifting it off the charging station and slotting it into her hand. ‘Your friend Sissi seems desperate to talk to you.’

She almost dropped both it and the coffee. ‘Sissi?’

Heart in mouth, she checked the screen. Three missed calls and a text.

‘She’s an early riser, ringing you at that time,’ he said, towelling off his hair, his rippling biceps threatening to disengage her panic from her brain as she gawped at him.

‘She’ll be on her way to work.’

‘Which is where I should be, though I hate to eat and run.’

He strode across the room, losing the towel as he went. No worries over modesty there. Though with an arse like that, she couldn’t blame him. Tight as?—

Eat and run, wait!

‘Have you eaten? Have I slept through all of that?’

He tugged his jeans on, zipped and buttoned them as he came back to the bed. Planting his fists into the mattress either side of her, he grinned into her eyes, their devilish glint and his proximity stealing her breath.

‘I was talking about feasting on you.’

‘Oh!’

‘Yes, oh…’ And then he caught her lips in his for the softest, sweetest, most tantalising of kisses. ‘But now I have to go before Aiden and Coach send out a search party.’

He straightened up and her body instantly protested the loss of his.

‘See you later, pre-game?’

‘I… I’m not sure. I have stuff to do, calls to make, packing to sort.’

An article to write, friends to call, a conscience to revive…or batter into submission.

‘Okay, Twinkle Toes, do what you need to do and call me if you change your mind. Else I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow.’ She nodded as her phone started to ring again.

‘Say hi to Sissi from me…’

He gave her a wink and walked out, his parting words making her gut writhe and her cheeks bloom. Guilty as…

‘Shit!’

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