Page 103 of Shutout
“I’m sorry.” He drops a kiss on my head.
I sniff against his chest. “And I can’t believe you finally want me back when you’re freaking leaving.”
He buries his face in my hair, inhaling deep. His hands run up and down my back, warming me. “I’m leaving but I’m not leavingyou. Ever.”
“What if you meet someone else?”
“What ifyoumeet someone else?” he counters.
“I mean, of course I will. Life is a constant parade of people.”
He yanks my blouse out of my pants and sneaks his hands underneath so fast that I can’t even react.
And then he tickles me.
I squirm and try to elbow him, but the attack only stops when he hugs me tight once more.
His hands are still under my blouse, and I pant against his chest. “My point is, you might meet a stunning woman in your new town who makes you realize that your childhood best friend is a cleaning mop in comparison.”
“Olivia Rodriguez, how dare you speak that way about the woman who makes me wake up sweaty and gasping in the middle of the night?”
The one who gasps here is me, because he says all that wild stuff while at the same time, fisting his hand around my hair and pulling my head back to look up at him. His touch his gentle but unyielding.
“You make me take cold showers in the winter, Liv.” He dips his head, saying the words against my lips. “I didn’t lie when I said you make me feral. If you’ve seen me skate funny, it’s because I started thinking about you in the middle of a game.”
“Brooke!”
He grins. “No one else can, or will ever do that to me.”
I’m ashamed to report that my knees buck and I only keep standing because of his arms around me. “I had no idea,” I whisper.
He casually lowers a hand to my butt to press me flush against him. A little sound escapes from my throat that makes him grin even more. “What I want to know is… do I make you feral too?”
“I—ugh. Are you seducing me in a dirty storage closet?”
“Is it working?” His lips feather against the corner of mine. Brooke tilts his head to the other side, our noses brushing for a second, but instead of peppering a soft kiss against the opposite corner of my lips, he runs his tongue against them.
I push him against the door, hard enough that it stuns himfor a moment. Then I grab two big fistfuls of his crisp white shirt, and in perfect imitation of a hockey enforcer trying to throw their opponent down on the ice, I yank it up so hard it comes clear over his torso, his head, and off his body.
“U—Um, Liv?”
I toss his shirt over my shoulder and say, “The answer is yes.”
Brooke’s eyes are as wide as saucers, intent on my hands as I place them against his bare chest. Just that contact is enough for his skin to break into goosebumps all over, for an unmistakable flush to settle on his chest and neck. He swallows hard as I trail my hands down, tracing every ridge of muscle, my nails softly raking against his velvet-soft skin until they hook around his belt.
His hands close around mine. “I want to continue this some place else where no one will hear us.”
“You’re right,” I say, but neither of us moves. “Can I kiss you, though?”
“Oh yeah, please.”
I grab the sides of his face until our lips smash together. His hands find the bare skin of my sides, and not even a second later he’s yanking off my blouse too. I don’t even have time to gasp before he’s kissing me again.
His body pushes against mine, walking me back until I’m against a rack. Hooking an arm around his neck to keep him close, I run my other hand up his arm, mapping the shape of his muscles, his shoulder, his clavicle, feeling the strain of his neck muscles as he devours my mouth. We breathe hard, our lips smack and suck, hungry for each other. But the best part is where our fevered skins touch. We’ve kissed before, but this part is new.
I guess all of it is.
Brooke tears apart, his chest expanding and collapsing fastas he gulps for air. And I’m not faring any better, except my vision is a blur of his face and exploding lights.
