Page 51 of Slapshot Bride

The thought that he might have spent the night in here, watching over me, makes me smile as my eyes slowly open.

I look around, and the first thing my eyes land on is the photo frame on the nightstand. Easton on the ice, from a game.

I’m in Easton’s bed. And I just had the best night’s sleep of my life.

Oh god, this is not happening.

But it is, because everything from last night arrives in pieces. The couch. The credits rolling. The way I shifted on his lap, the laugh dying in his throat, and the four words I said with my hand on his chest.

I want to forget.

The way he had carried me up the stairs after, and I had said stay in the dark, half asleep, and felt him lie down on top of the covers next to me.

I sit up too fast.

The sheets slide off, and the cold reminds me of the second thing. I'm naked.

I'm naked in Easton’s bed, with my body still humming in the small specific places his mouth was last night, and the smell of him on the pillow beside me, and a faint soreness in my hip that is its own evidence.

I close my eyes.

Oh, God.

His hands on my waist when I shifted. The careful, slow way he kissed me before he let me have anything else. Tell me what you want, baby. My back arching off the couch when his mouth found my throat.

A shudder racks my entire being, and my core clenches. I bite hard on my bottom lip to hold the moan threatening to spill.

I need to get out of here. This did not happen. No, it did not.

I shove the duvet back, get out of bed, and yank one of his t-shirts off the chair where he must have left it. I pull it over my head with shaking hands. The hem hits my thighs. The cotton smells like him.

That is when I see the nightstand.

There is a note. There are fresh shorts folded next to it, and there is a paperback.

I lower myself slowly back down onto the edge of the bed.

The note is handwritten.

Hi Sweetheart,

I’m off to practice. Will be back around noon. There’s coffee in the kitchen; breakfast will arrive by nine-thirty. I ordered something for you. The bed is yours for as long as you need. Also, the book was meant to be a surprise a few days ago.

E.

I read it twice.

I look at the book. James Hadley Chase. A different title. Slightly battered cover, the kind of paperback that has lived on someone’s shelf for years.

A few days ago.

He bought me a book before the kiss. Before I climbed into his lap on his couch and asked him to make me forget.

He bought me a book when the only thing he had learned about me was that I enjoy reading Hadley Chase, and he had walked into a bookstore on his way home from practice and picked up another one.

My heart skips.

It shouldn’t. Not like this or at this time, but it does.