Page 27 of The Rebound
“The luckiest.” She giggles, reaching out to wipe a bit of sauce from my lower lip.
It feels so natural being this close to her, almost as if the last time we sat here didn’t end with her brother almost vaulting over the table to strangle me.
“So,” she says, pausing to pull the noisy plastic cover off the cake, “why didn’t you tell me you played hockey? If you’d said that earlier, we would have been able to put two and two together much earlier on.”
“When I tell a woman that I play hockey for a living ...” I pause when her eyebrows lift, then clear my throat to start again. “Usually, when people figure out who I am, they look me up and immediately know everything there is to know about me. It’s crazy what you can find online. My stats for the seasons, which teams I’ve played for. Where I was born. My height, my weight, my salary. It’s all people want to talk about. It’s all they care about. I didn’t want it to be like that with you. You’re new to the city and you didn’t know who I was. It was nice to have a fresh start with someone.”
Nodding, she gives me a soft look. “But eventually you were going to have to tell me.”
“Yeah, eventually. But I wanted to keep you away from the tabloids while I got my life in order.”
“Do the tabloids not like you?”
A little reluctantly, I chuckle. “No, they actually love me. I do a lot of stupid shit, which makes the team look bad. The tabloids have people who follow me around the city to clubs and bars and whatnot. That’s why I’ve been laying low for the past month or so. It’s part of the reason why your brother hates me so much.”
“What’s the other part?”
I shrug. “I’m prettier than he is.”
Kinley snorts out a giggle. “That you are.”
Her gaze lingers on mine, and I try to ignore the way my jeans grow tighter. Now is reallynotthe time for an inappropriate boner.
“So, am I forgiven?” I do my best to sound casual, but a hint of desperation bleeds through.
I don’t know what I’d do if Kinley cut me out of her life for good. I haven’t had a connection with someone like this before, and I’m not about to lose it over some dumb hockey squabble.
“Of course. Cake heals all wounds.”
The tightness in my chest eases a little, and I give her a grateful grin. Sure enough, eating the bakery-bought cake is an experience that’s damn near spiritual.
I make the mistake of smearing a dollop of icing on Kinley’s nose, which very quickly escalates to nearly getting a face full of cake myself.
I catch her hand, now covered in buttercream frosting, and draw her fingers to my mouth one by one to lick them clean. Kinley’s giggles stop as she becomes breathless, her pupils wide. With a sexy little smirk, she smears some icing on her lips, an invitation I’d be a damn fool to reject.
We’re a little sticky from the sugar, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing sweeter than Kinley’s warm mouth. My tongue caresses hers, eliciting a heady moan that sends a wave of excitement down the back of my neck. My dick presses hungrily against my zipper as my hand wanders up the length of her leg, squeezing her thigh and pulling her close to me.
“I missed you today.” She sighs between languid kisses along my jaw, her hands wandering the expanse of my shoulders.
I want to tease her, remind her we weren’t separated for more than half a day, but her tongue must be laced with some sort of truth serum because I whisper, “I missed you too.”
With that, I’m tugging Kinley into my lap, pressing our bodies together in an electric embrace. She rocks her hips against me, grinding against my swollen shaft, which is still shoved unpleasantly against my zipper.
“Am I too heavy?” she asks a little nervously.
“You’re perfect.”
Pulling away the straps of her dress, I occupy myself with the taste of her collarbones, her breasts, her perky little nipples. Kinley knots her fingers in my hair, leaning back in her pleasure to give me full access to wherever my lips choose to venture next. My hands are the real explorers, though, sliding beneath the thin cotton of her panties to cup her ass and squeeze.
God, this woman has a good ass.
“Let’s move somewhere more comfortable,” I say softly.
Panting, she nods. “The bedroom.”
With one hand under her ass and the other around her waist, I stand and carry her toward her room.
Kinley’s mouth presses to the stubble on my throat. “I can walk, you know.”
