Page 55 of Romancing the Grump
Summer laughs. “I told you!”
“How do you even fall asleep when they’re that cold?”
“Sometimes I lay cross-legged so I can tuck my toes behind my knees, but mostly I just…ignore it? I’m pretty used to it by now.”
“I think you need to see a doctor,” I say. “Here.” I scoot closer to the center of the bed, turning onto my side. “Slide them under my leg.”
“Nathan. You don’t have to warm up my feet.”
“You’re liable to ice over the entire bed if I don’t. Come on. I’m braced. Go ahead and do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you take too much longer, I might change my mind.”
“Okay, okay!”
As her feet nudge their way under my thigh, their coldness immediately permeates the thin fabric of my joggers. My muscles tense at the cold—you’d think as a hockey player I’d be used to ice, but her feet are something else entirely—but then she breathes out a happy sigh and my muscles relax. I’ll deal with the cold all night long if it means hearing her make sounds like that.
“Better?” I ask, and I swear, the air between us changes. Like someone snuck in and cranked up the tension with an invisible knob.
She hums softly. “You’re so warm.”
Right now, I’d say I’m running much morehot,but I don’t correct her.
She nudges her toes a little deeper under my leg, and I reach down, loosely wrapping a hand around her ankle.
She lets out a low whimper. “Mmm. Your hands are as warm as the rest of you.”
I brush my thumb across her skin, slowly stroking up and down until her breathing shifts, and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep.
But then she asks, “Hey, should we talk about the rules?”
“Rules?”
“Mmhmm. Like, our dating rules.”
“I’m still not following,” I say.
“I just mean when we’re out in public and people need to think we’re together. What are we comfortable with? Are we always good with kissing? Holding hands? That sort of thing.”
She shifts her leg, moving it closer, and my hand slips slightly higher, inching toward her calf. Her skin feels like silk under my palm, and I suddenly wonder what my hockey-rough fingers feel like to her.
The thought almost makes me laugh out loud. In the past forty-eight hours, my relationship with Summer has gone from zero to sixty. We were friends before—sort of.
Now, the entire world thinks we’re together, we’ve kissed, we’re sharing a bed, and she knows about my brother, something I hadn’t even told my teammates before the reporter brought it up and forced my hand.
I don’t need a rule book with this woman, I need a survival guide.
“Okay,” I say. “Rules make sense. Where do we start?”
“With kissing, I think.”
“Wow. Going right for it.”
“Because it’s the most important one. When my older sister Audrey was faking it with Flint, they had a no-kissing rule. She didn’t want to kiss him unless it was real. But you and I have already kissed, so…”
“Wait. Back up,” I say. “Your sister faked a relationship too?”
