“You’re going to be a great auntie,” Natalie said back.
“Who babysits all the time,” Kyle added.
She laughed with them as they strolled, but quietly, she wondered when it would be her turn. Thinking about how she’d stupidly thought she’d found her chance at it several months earlier caused a stitch in her side and a tightness in her chest.
They kicked the snow off their boots in the mudroom at the back of the house, then removed their jackets and scarves. Laughter and chatter came from somewhere deeper in the house; not the kitchen because the mudroom was right off that. As they entered the kitchen, her sister and Kyle said they were going to join the others, but Maisie needed a minute alone to settle the restlessness inside of her chest. She hated focusing on what shedidn’thave when she was happy with so much of what shedidhave.
“I’m going to go jump in the shower.” She turned toward the stairs and took them up to her room.
Letting herself into the festively decorated guest room, she leaned against the closed door for an extra minute. Green and red pillows took up ample space on the oversize four-poster bed that was made up with a soft black-and-red plaid quilt. She pushed off the door and picked up her holiday-print pajamas from the small reading chair nestled in a corner. Earlier, she’d seen Mount Rainier through the panel-glass window. Now, the moon glowed down on a blanket of white.
Grabbing her toiletries out of her bag, she shook her head at her own romanticizing. “What is it about this time of year that makes people think they’ll fall in love, or theyneedto fall in love? This time of year isn’t actually magic. It just looks like it.”
The truth was, shehadbeen fine, taking what life put in her path, working hard for the things she wanted. Pushing herself to take chances and go after more. Then she’d methim. The night she’d shared with Nick had been unlike any other she’d experienced, unearthing longings she hadn’t known existed. It was more than the way he looked, which was so indescribably hot that she hadn’t even told her bestie about him. Because what could she say?I met a man who looked at me like he saw something so special and so precious, it made me see myself differently. I spent the night, into the early hours of the morning, with a stranger who seemed to know me better than anyone ever has; someone whose touch branded my skin, whose words lingered in my heart. And I can’t move on.
“You have to,” she whispered to herself. She needed to move on from the place where her mind, heart, and body had gotten stuck.It’s been six months and it clearly meant more to you or he wouldn’t have snuck out.
Forcing herself to think about stockings, wrapping presents, and curling up in front of that gorgeous fireplace downstairs with a mug of hot chocolate, she stripped off her clothes, tossing the still-chilled ones in a pile. Down to her underwear and bra, arms full of what she needed after her shower, she opened the door to the bathroom and stepped in, closing it behind her and putting her stuff on the counter. Her brain was full of Christmas so the steam in the room, the gentle hiss of water, registered but didn’t really take root.
There were moments in life that moved at the speed of light while, simultaneously, they seemed to stop altogether. Maisie turned, took a step toward the shower, lifted her hand to move the curtain, then sucked in a sharp gasp as it whipped open and her body froze and heated to scorching in the very same second.
Her eyes locked on the water droplets rolling over a tanned, defined chest lightly dusted with medium-blond hair, a sexy, sculpted canvas for the dark swirls of ink spread out over his torso in detailedtattoos. Maisie’s gaze moved up to a face she’d memorized with her fingertips and mind, then down to the many other parts of him that were ingrained in her memory.
There was satisfaction in hearing his sharp intake of breath, but when their eyes met, neither of them moved or breathed.
Nicholas fucking King. Right wing for the San Jose Guardians. Badass, notoriously tight-lipped, record-breaking hockey player, and Maisie’s first and only one-night stand. The man she couldn’t get out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. And she’d put solid effort into trying.
She hadn’t known who he was that night, other than a friend of Hailey and Wes Jansen’s. After accidentally trying to break into his room, a series of funny-at-the-time meet-cutes had kept their paths crossing all night. No matter where either of them were, her eyes kept traveling back to the tall, broad-shouldered, broody, sharp-jawed man who looked sexy as hell in his well-cut suit but kept himself apart from everyone else. They’d danced around each other all night—shooting glances (him) and flirty smiles (her)—before actually dancing together. And then.God.There’d been so muchand then.
“Mind passing me a towel, Maze?” he said in that low, gravelly tone that sent goose bumps along every millimeter of exposed skin. That voice she heard in the early morning hours before the sun officially rose but the night was still tiptoeing away.
She backed up, her hip hitting the counter painfully, and because she couldn’t pull her gaze from his, she reached out, grabbing for a towel, and passed him her flowery yellow one.
He glanced at it, frowned, but took it and covered up the lower half of his body. The sexy littleVof hair that she’d teasingly nicknamed “mine” disappeared into the towel as he tucked it around his waist. When he laughed, that part of his stomach had rippled under the movement, against Maisie’s mouth and hands, infusing her with a wickedly wonderful kind of power. She’d felt like a goddamn sorceress.
“Not that you haven’t seen it all before,” he said, stepping out of the shower and onto the bath mat.
Was he joking about this? In a perfectly calm and infuriatingly sexy voice? She couldn’t formulate words. She was scared that if she even tried, only inarticulate sounds would leave her mouth. How the hell was he still so freaking hot? Jesus.
She thought she’d imagined it. Told herself that she had; that no one and nothing could be what she’d remembered of him. Then, when she thought of the things they’d said in the quiet glow of the moonlight washing over them, then remembered the realization he’d left, without a word, everything inside of her hardened. But eventually, the cycle started again. She’d remember his face. His mouth and those eyes. And his body. It was like he’d been sculpted and carved into perfection but she knew, from the time they’d talked in between, that his body came from hours and hours of hard work. She knew that when he didn’t really want to answer a question, his gaze darted away, and when it came back and he was truly focused, it could feel like nothing else in the world existed.
PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, MAISIE SMART.Right. She should think about doing that.
Nick stepped closer. “I remember you being a lot more talkative,” he said.
Water from his blondish-brown hair dripped down, touching her skin, short-circuiting her brain even further.
“What are you doing here?” And why the hell didn’t he seem shocked?
“This is my sister’s place,” he said, standing so close she was scared to breathe in.
Shit. Shit. But…wait.“Her last name is Kingston.” She started to put her hands on her hips but remembered her state of undress was actually more than his at the moment.
His lips quirked. She’d never been a fan of scruff on a guy buthe wore his in a way that suited him, and anytime she thought about the way it felt trailing along her skin, she shivered. Which was why she would absolutely not think about it right now even while she was staring at his square jaw, noting he still hadn’t shaved. Instead of making him look unkempt, he just looked sexier. She knew, if she let her eyes roam, she’d get transfixed on the black ink running over his biceps and shoulders, along his shoulder blades.
“I’m aware. So is mine, technically. You should stop looking at me like that before this moment gets even more awkward.” He sighed, looking at her with an expression she just couldn’t read.
At least he admitted to the awkwardness. Her gaze roamed down his towel then snapped back up when she realized she’d been eyeing him like her favorite dessert. Swallowing around the dryness in her throat, she remembered waking up alone. She hadn’t known that Wes’s good friend was hockey all-star Nicholas King. Because, to her, he’d just been Nick.
