Page 67

“Three hours and I will not get over it. Move your ass over here and apologize properly.”

Bennett looked all around them, like he was expecting a crowd. But there was no one. “You’re being a dick.”

“No, I’m being cold, which I already don’t like, as I wait for you to do as I ask. Hurry up.”

That caused Bennett to smile, and a rush of warmth curled through Nico’s chest. A second later Bennett was skating over again, his body perfectly balanced on the impossibly thin blades, and he stopped elegantly near where Nico waited. Then he placed his stick on the wooden edge before taking off his gloves and tucking them under one arm. “I apologize for ignoring you for three hours.”

Nico had the suspicion that Bennett was fighting a laugh. “You do not sound sincere.”

“Because you’re ridiculous.”

This was probably true, but Nico didn’t care. “You are supposed to be afraid of me,” he murmured. “I am a very dangerous man.”

If anything, Bennett’s smile softened, his eyes growing hazy with what might have been affection. “Not to me, you aren’t.”

Nico hummed in his throat, and for an insane moment he was desperate to capture the other man’s smile with his own mouth—to hold it, treasure it. Lock it away somehow. There would come a day when he longed for that smile but didn’t have it any longer, and he didn’t want to forget.

“Come skate with me,” Bennett said, tilting his head toward the ice behind him.

Skate? On ice? Nico’s upper lip twitched in distaste. “Italians don’t ice skate.”

“That isn’t true. Italy has a men’s ice hockey team. I played against them in Milan.”

“Did they beat you?”

Bennett shifted on his skates. “No. The score was 8-1 in favor of Canada.”

Nico held out his hands as if to say, there you go.

“Okay, fine,” Bennett said. “Ice skating isn’t very popular in Italy. Still doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it with you.”

“No.”

“No, I don’t want to do it with you? Or no, you don’t want to skate?”

“I don’t want to skate.”

“Oh, okay.” Bennett seemed like this confused him, but then he straightened. “Wait, do you know how?”

“No, but I still do not⁠—”

“Really? You don’t know how?” Bennett’s face broke out in a wide, gleeful grin. “Does this mean I know how to do something the great Nico Marzano doesn’t?”

“Watch it, Verreault. Because I know how to do plenty of things you don’t, and you would not like to see them firsthand.”

“Fuck off,” Bennett said, now chuckling. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

“Not a chance.” Nico would only make a fool of himself, and he didn’t want Bennett to see him bumbling like a newborn foal trying to find its legs.

Bennett skated closer. Not touching, but closer than he’d been all night, and Nico itched to wrap his hands around the other man’s hips and pull him in. “Nico,” Bennett said pleadingly, softly. Like he did when they were in bed together. Nico was finding he had very little resistance when Bennett used that tone of voice. Bennett flicked him a heated glance. “Please. For me.”

Cazzo madre di Dio . . . How was he supposed to say no to that? Nico swallowed hard. “Why?”

“Because it will be fun. And you live in Canada. You should know how to skate.”

“I have lived in Canada for more than a decade, and while my job often requires blades, it does not involve ice.”

Bennett shook his head. “Cute. But I won’t give up.”