Page 133 of Blindside Sinner

It breaks my heart that I can’t.

Just another gift my father’s death has given me.

Beck’s voice rattles me from my thoughts. “You want facts, Sloan? Here’s a fact: I want you. I want you in my life, in my bed, in here.” He takes my hand and lays it over his heart.

Mine flutters.

He reels me in even closer. “Fact: I am a man who gets what he wants and I want you. Fact: I can give you anythingyouwant.” He lets the stick fall to the ice and pulls me in, close to him. “Fact: I can’t get you out of my head. Fact: I don’t want to.”

And then he kisses me. The ice around us should be melting into a puddle from the heat of this one. His tongue parts my lips, teasing at first and then more and more demanding, until I’m open to him and putty in his arms and thoughts of saying no seem so distant and ridiculous that I can’t believe I was thinking them just a few seconds ago.

Eventually, reluctantly, I pull away. My lips are swollen from Beck’s love.

“Well,” I mumble, “it sounds like you have your facts in order.”

“There are more. But they have to be shown, not told.”

“You don’t say?”

God, I love playful, flirty Beck. I love—well, shit.Loveis a strong word. What I mean is Ireally likeBeck.Ireally likeplayful, flirty Beck. Ireally likewhen he kisses me and insists on buying me clothes and when he rolls over in the middle of the night and grabs me by the hips and pulls me onto him, all without ever waking up. Like he doesn’t even have to be conscious to want me near him at all times.

“I do say. But it’s not quite time for that.”

I frown in confusion. “Then what’s it time for?”

He bends down gracefully, scoops up the stick he dropped, and hands it back to me. “It’s time for you to learn how to shoot a puck.”

His hair is tousled, his grin irresistible. He’s a vision in that checkered button-down shirt and black jeans, the garments stretched to the maximum to accommodate all that muscle and charisma.

He’s so perfect for me, and so, so wrong.

I consider him with a shaking head. “Well, then, we’d better get at it, hadn’t we?” But when he picks up the stick, I breathe out, slow and easy. “Beck?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“We’re going to keep this quiet, right? Between us?” Then, because that sounds so horrible and I would be hurt if he’d said it to me, I add, “Just until I can figure out how to get Vivian on board.”

He nods. “Between us.”

An hour later, I’ve shot my first puck into the net in a way that meets Beck’s obscenely exacting standards, and we’re on our way out. He kisses me at the door, again as he locks up, and again as he helps me into the car.

When we get back to the house, he kisses me a fourth time. Softer, without any urgency.

It’s one endless kiss from then on. He brushes my hair off my face as he walks me into the living room and strips off my coat, then coaxes me down onto the sofa.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to get enough of his touch. He doesn’t yank my clothes off. Doesn’t throw me around. There’s a time and a place for that kind of thing. Tonight, he’s as sexual as always, but he’s different.

He skims his hands under the straps of my dress and pushes it off my shoulders. His fingers make quick work of the buttons holding the front closed together. The wisp of cool air hitting my bare skin when it falls open makes me gasp. Beck’s hot mouth takes away the chill as he presses kiss after kiss down my collarbone.

I never want to lose this. But I know that if he finds out how much I’ve lied and concealed from him, he’s never going to forgive me.

But I can’t think about that now.

Not while his hands are kneading my skin.

Not while his tongue is caressing mine.

“Get undressed for me.” I’m surprised to find out that I’m the one who said that.

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