Page 62 of Slapshot Baby

"I'm not telling you. We are friends."

"Then this should be easy. You help me as a friend. You wouldn’t want to disappoint your friend’s mother."

"That is the most manipulative thing you've ever said to me."

"Two days. That's all I'm asking."

Her hand drops to my wrist, grip tight Her fingers dig in, and I don't know if she's about to pull my hand away or press it harder against her skin.

Her eyes find mine. Wide, furious, burning with desire.

"This is a terrible idea."

11

AVA

Unhinged

"This is a terrible idea."

I say it again because the first time clearly didn't penetrate his skull. I'll keep saying it, even though my hands itch to touch that bulge on his pants.

If I say it some more, I might form an actual wall between me and the worst decision I'm about to make.

Kai sits beside me on his living room floor, his hand warm on my hip, his thumb still tracing that devastating little circle above my waistband. Each rotation sends a pulse of heat so low in my belly I have to clench my teeth to keep from making a sound.

"You already said that," he says.

I turn to face him, pulling my knees between us like a barricade. The movement dislodges his hand from my hip and I miss the contact so much it makes me furious.

"Because it's still true. You want to use fake dating as an excuse to touch me and flirt with me and…” I can’t say the rest of what he wants to do to me. What I want him to do to me. “When it's over, you'll say none of it counted because it was fake."

He doesn't flinch.

Those brown eyes hold mine with the steady, unblinking patience of a man who's already seen the play develop and knows where the puck is going.

"Not exactly."

"Then what, exactly?"

He leans closer. The soap-and-cologne scent I've been failing to ignore for weeks fills the space between us, warm and clean and specifically, cruelly him.

"I want to make you scream my name." His voice is low, flat. "Terms and conditions apply."

Every nerve ending south of my navel fires at once.

My thighs press together on instinct, a reflex so obvious I might as well have put up a neon sign that reads AVA HARTLEY IS FALLING APART ON THIS FLOOR.

Heat floods my core so fast I'm dizzy with it, pooling between my legs where I'm suddenly, embarrassingly wet.

He did not just say that in his scouting-report voice while sitting beside me with those stupid brown eyes and that stupid broken nose, looking like he's already mapped out exactly how he'd take me apart.

"That..." My voice fractures. I swallow hard. "That’s not a convincing argument for fake dating."

"It wasn't meant to be convincing. It was meant to be honest."

"Honesty doesn't involve announcing your sexual intentions."