Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Down on the ice, Sumner takes off his helmet and gives me a serious nod, shoving one of the guys who chants my name with a little too much enthusiasm. I curtsy to the team by way of thanks, and they graduate to smacking their sticks against the glass before returning to practice. Sumner doesn’t go with them, though. He skates to the bench area, leaves his stick and helmet behind, and exits the ice, throwing one thick leg over the white waist-high board and then, still wearing his skates, climbing the stairs to where I’m sitting.
I try hard to keep my pulse ticking along at a normal pace, but there is no use pretending I don’t find this quiet giant appealing, with his hockey pads and sweaty hair. Someone in the bar referred to Sumner recently as a motherfucking powerhouse and that’s exactly what he looks like now. Strong enough to carry a baby elephant on each padded shoulder. Ready to crush someone. And apologize afterward.
I’m not volunteering to be crushed, I remind myself, but I can’t help but feel a very distinct tug low in my belly when he gives me a half smile. And the world slows down as he grabs the front of his shoulder pads and pulls them off over his head, taking the practice jersey with it. He’s wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt underneath, but my God, it rides up all the way to his collarbone, and my ears begin to ring, my ovaries performing a complicated tango.
My husband is ripped to shreds.
And thick with it.
Uhh. Daddy? questions my brain.
There is hair on his chest. Like a really nice amount—and this is a weird observation that I wouldn’t normally make on a man, but he has great nipples. They look like they’ve been stretched tight, along with the rest of his skin, to accommodate all that pesky muscle, the edges slightly puckered from the cold.
“Hey, Britta,” he says, tossing his gear onto a seat and then swiping back his sweaty hair.
“Hi,” I respond, trying to sound cheerful, but I sound like my throat is being stepped on instead. “Good practice?”
“Yeah.” He indicates me with a jerk of his chin. “Better now.”
My skin starts to tingle ominously, the organ in my chest pumping a little faster.
Uh-oh.
Sumner drops heavily into the seat beside me, bending forward to remove his skates, and his triceps flex in a way that makes me bite my lip. Usually, when Sumner comes into Sluggers, he’s wearing a sweatshirt, but he’s not wearing one now. All that muscle definition is simply out in the open for public consumption. Or private consumption, really. Mine.
Objectively speaking, of course.
I mentally shake myself and cross my legs, finding a more comfortable position in the seat. “Are you ready to study?”
Sumner straightens, gives a quick scan of the immediate area. “You want to study here?”
“Yeah,” I say, retrieving the notebook from my bag and flipping open to the first page. “Where were you thinking?”
He shrugs one of those huge shoulders. “My place. Yours. Or we could go out.”
My throat tightens. “Like a date?”
“We don’t have to call it that.”
“Isn’t that what it would be, though?”
He exhales slowly. “We can study here, Britta. That’s fine.”
A weird combination of relief and regret clings to my insides. For the last three months, I’ve been careful to keep my relationship with Sumner professional. We meet in public—and only in public. He recaps his meetings with the lawyer. I update him on my progress in having my name added to the liquor license and deed to Sluggers.
We exchange necessary information . . .
. . . and I try not to notice the longing in his eyes when he looks at me.
One crook of my finger and this Goliath of a man would probably rush me to the nearest dark corner and take out a treasure trove of pent-up sexual frustration on me, those powerful hips pumping like a jackhammer. But I’m definitely not looking at the laces of his hockey pants and wondering how fast he could get them undone. I’m absolutely not doing that.
Words bleed together in front of me on the page of my notebook. “Um. Okay, I figured we would start with middle names. Mine is Lark.”
“Lark? Really?” He turns as much as possible in the seat that is half his size, considering me with interest. “Britta Lark Mayfield.”
A gust of warm wind travels through my middle. “My grandmother on my mom’s side was a bird-watcher. I can’t really remember her face, because it was usually hidden behind binoculars. Anyway, larks were her favorite species. She used to say they sing the sweetest song.” He doesn’t blink once as I’m speaking, almost like he doesn’t want to miss something. “What’s yours?”
“Wade,” he says.
“Is there some special significance to it?”
“Yeah.” He lounges back in the chair, resting his linked fingers on his stomach. “My parents met while their families were on separate vacations at Lake Louise. My dad was seventeen; my mom was sixteen. The first time he ever saw her, she was wading into the lake. He said that was the moment he started believing in magic. That’s where the middle name Wade comes from.”