Page 16 of A Loser by Christmas
“You said I should try harder to convince you.” Another firework splinters his face into handsome angles. “Did you mean about how badly I want out of my contract?”
I shake my head. I already believe he wants an escape route. I know so because I see the same wish in my own mirror every morning. He doesn’t want an out. Heneedsone like I do.
Calum’s why is less transparent.
Believe me, I double-checked his reason for crossing the Atlantic mid-season on my phone between each of tonight’s final test drives. The press release put out by his club now seems bogus. Any injury bad enough to keep him off the ice until the new year shouldn’t let him jump aboard like he just did. Or to stride through Kensington as fast as we did this evening.
I blink, and he confirms that suspicion by moving way too fast for someone with anything like a groin strain, an injury that the part of me with a death wish wants to offer to kiss all better for him. He’s suddenly close enough that his growl is a warm gust across my ear.
“Or did you want me to convince you that I wasn’t faking what we did right before Seb and Jack interrupted?”
When we kissed.
I swallow dryly. “Yeah, that. Because it was totally unconvincing.” An internal siren screams that I’m in danger all over again. Of course, I hurtle straight towards it. “Call yourself a pro? You definitely aren’t at kissing people you shouldn’t. Little bit amateur to be honest.” I hold up invisible scorecards and grade his effort in French.
He knows enough to translate those numbers into English. “Three out of ten? Fuck you, Juno.”
Yes, please.
I sniff. “I’m just saying that you’d need to put in a whole lot more practice to be persuasive. Especially with me.”
“Because?”
I raise my chin. “Because you didn’t exactly kiss me like you hate me.” Another firework explodes overhead. So does something deep in my chest when its glitter lights up his grin. “Try again to convince me.”
Our mouths meet, and this kiss is rougher. It also lasts for longer now there’s no one around to interrupt it. To interruptus.We must be the only souls not staring upward at pyrotechnics.More fireworks explode with camera-flash brightness that would show him pinning me against the cabin hatch to devour me like he’s hungry. Like he’s starving. And like he resents a mutual attraction I’m all aboard with.
“Nope. Still unconvincing,” I pant. “Try harder.”
He does, while I give thanks that at leastlaSylvie’shatch is still good and sturdy. He hoists me up against it, and I kiss him back with both legs hooked around him. They barely hold me up after he lets me down abruptly and one quirked eyebrow asks a silent question about his performance.
I lie. “A very generous three point five. That kiss wouldn’t fool anybody watching. Maybe try hating me with fewer clothes on.” I open the hatch to head below deck, certain I’ve pushed my luck too far when he doesn’t take up my challenge.
I’m alone in a space I usually don’t want to share with anybody. Tonight, my heart sinks. Then it trips and spirals when he follows me down to where an incubator’s glow showcases a hockey player putting on his second striptease of the evening.
Calum loses his coat and yanks off his suit jacket as if he holds a personal grudge against Armani. He unknots his tie and loops it around his fists like he’s about to strangle me with it, his gaze fixed on me the whole time as he paraphrases what Jack’s other bestie called me. “You’re heartless. The worst person to trust with anything important. And the very last one I’d ever choose to be with.”
Damn.
He really does hate me.
There has to be something seriously wrong with me to keep poking. “Nope,” I tell him as he stalks towards me. “Not even close. Take another shot, rookie.”
He casts aside his tie and crowds me. His teeth graze my throat like killer whales once attempted, his growl doing something so visceral that my insides turn liquid. “How aboutthis?” He nips my neck sharply. “You convinced about how much I hate you yet?”
I croak, “Maybe.” This is important enough that I clear my throat to speak more clearly. “But I thought you said no to a sex tape being your way out?”
He pulls back and nods. “It wouldn’t be.” Calum still gets to work unfastening his shirt buttons. “Doesn’t stop me from being an overachiever.”
He laughs then, and I join in, our playacting over. I also get moving. My camera harness tangles as I undress, and I shrug out of it, not caring where it ends up. I can’t care, not when Calum sits on the narrow bench that serves as my bunk, his shirt open to show chest hair glinting with the same dark gold as his beard.
He spreads thick thighs and pulls me between them. Unlike with Lito, I wouldn’t say no if he pushed my head down. Even without a dangling sprig of green leaves and white berries, Calum is a million times more appealing. And arousing.
So is him taking my hand. He doesn’t place it over the hard-on his suit trousers barely cover, nor does he demand I give his dick a kiss for Christmas. Instead, he presses my palm on the incubator. “It’s still warm.” So is his smile in contrast to all his growling.
It makes me wonder what else he’s faking, because the internet didn’t once hint at gentleness I get to see from close-up, another contradiction that activates the curiosity working for Dad has left pent-up.
Until now.
