Page 131 of Blindside Sinner

“A dial tone makes you hot.”

Leaning down to brush my lips against her ear, I whisper, “Only for you, baby.”

I hunch down a little further to start kissing her neck, but before I can make actual contact, she wriggles free with another giggle and skips over to the door. She undoes the latch and starts to step through onto the ice.

“Sloan, wait, that’s?—”

Her giggle turns into a yelp as she immediately goes ass over teakettle and hits the ice with an ungainly thump.

“… slippery,” I finish. “That’s slippery.” I eye her with a smirk. “You alright?”

“My ego is bruised, as is my ass. But both will live to see another day.” Her eyes are bright as she looks at me. “Got any skates around here?”

Grinning, I go check behind the counter in the office. Sure enough, there they are: rows and rows of skates older than I am. The leather is beaten and faded, the plastic scuffed, the blades barely sharp enough to spread butter. I wonder how many generations of kids have soaked their sweat into these things.

I grab a pair for each of us and go to meet her where she’s waiting on the lowest bench. “Here,” I say as I hand her a pair. “These should fit.”

She takes them from me, slips her shoes off, and starts to wiggle one foot in. But the laces are knotted badly and she can’t get it to cooperate. I let her struggle for a minute before I swivel smoothly to my knees in front of her and pluck the skate out of her hand.

“Let me.”

Her eyes do that flushed flashing thing again, the thing that makes my chest throb with that feeling that doesn’t have a name. She exhales through slightly parted lips. The air in here feels hotter and denser already.

I pry the knots apart until the laces are loose, pull the tongue of the skate forward, and then hold it open with one hand while Icup Sloan’s ankle gently with the other. Her skin is warm under my touch. Her calf is so bare and delicate and beautiful.

What the hell is this, the Middle Ages? How can touching a woman’s damncalfmake me feel like I’m going insane? It shouldn’t be, but it is. It does.Shedoes.

That’s probably why I look at her and blurt, “I want to be with you.”

She doesn’t know how serious I am. That’s why she answers with a laugh. “You already are, dummy.”

“I mean…” I swallow so my voice doesn’t come out quite so strained and croaking. “Be my girlfriend, Sloan. Be with me. Like,with me, with me.”

She stops. The breath catches in her chest. “Your… girlfriend?” Her hands where she’s gripping the bench are suddenly white-knuckled and trembling. “Beck, we… we… We can't.”

In my entire life, I’ve never had to convince a woman to want to be with me. I’ve never asked for something long-term, but isn’t that the thing women always want?

On second thought, fuck that. I’m not doing this for her—well, notentirelyfor her. Sure, I want to make Sloan happy, and the sight of her smile has suddenly become the most important thing in the world to me.

But what matters just as much is how muchIwant this.

So that’s what I say to her. “I want this so fucking bad, Sloan.Us. And I intend to do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

“And what about whatIwant?”

I take my time answering. I fit her foot into the skate and let it slip from my grasp so her leg dangles freely. Then I look up at her. “You want this, too, Sloan. So just say yes. Let me make you happy.”

She bites her lip. The silence stretches, lingers, crackles. The whole time, my body feels like it’s on fire.

Then, at last, she stands. “Let’s just skate, okay?”

65

SLOAN

It’s not so easy to skate with jelly legs and weak knees. I know because I have both. When a man like Beck looks at a woman and tells her that he wants her to be his, there’s no way for her to brace herself for such a thing.

And once the words are out there, that isn’t the time to arm said woman with a blunt object like a hockey stick.

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