Does Wren want me to kiss her? For the benefit of the paparazzo, who should be coming around the corner any moment now? I should ask her, get clarification, and normally I would…
But nothing about this is normal.
Maybe she moves. Maybe I do—but in the next second, my lips are on hers.
Wren’s warm, and she tastes like champagne from the restaurant. Like the sugar-coated strawberries they placed on that crystal plate between us, so we could pluck them up and eat them. Like the whole thing was orchestrated to see how fucking turned on I could get from the sight of her lips stretching around a berry.
What the hell is going on with me?
I’m not this guy—the one who gets hot and bothered from an attractive woman eating. I’m not the guy who makes out with someone in an alleyway. Not the guy who wedges his leg between hers, applying pressure and nipping her lip, trailing mine down to her neck when she lets her head fall back against the brick wall.
Wren arches her back, her breasts press into my chest, and her hands rise to grip my shirt, tugging me even closer to her. I work on her neck, scraping my teeth against her collarbone, drowning in the intoxicating scent of her perfume. Smoky, rich.
She tugs on my hair, and I come back to her, our lips meeting again, mouths open. She dips her tongue into mine without pretense or hesitation, and it sends a primal shudder directly up my back.
I have never evenreallyliked that—tongues in mouths. Too sloppy, too messy.
But now, I meet her where she’s at, suddenly wanting to get inside her as far as I can. I want to undo her, unravel her, slide inside and see what she’s like. It’s a sort of ravenous, all-consuming type of hunger I have never experienced before.
And just as it’s ramping up to full strength—just as my fingers start to flit with the hem of her dress, my mind weighing the pros and cons of picking her up and wrapping her legs around my waist—she pulls back.
“That wasperfect,” she breathes, a perfectly nonchalant smile on her face. “Did you see the camera flashing?”
I’m still breathing hard, my eyes flitting back down to her lips, brain trying to figure out the quickest path from here to my hotel room. I’m still trying to figure out why in the world we stopped.
“No,” I finally say, clearing my throat and taking a step back from her, glancing to the side. There’s nobody there—nobody taking pictures. And if they were, I wouldn’t have seen them, anyway. “I didn’t.”
“Well, they were!” She’s giddy, a little pep in her step as she fixes her hair and exits the alleyway. I adjust myself as inconspicuously as I can, following her back out onto the street. It’s like stepping out into the spotlight after being hidden in the shadows. Wren is practically twirling, like she’s just delivered the performance of her life.
Maybe she did.
Of courseshe did—that’s the entire point of this thing. That’s why she told me to push her against that wall, why she was so consumed with whether or not someone was watching us. It was a stunt.
“This is great,” she says, not looking up at me as she pulls her phone from her pocket, already moving on, already texting someone else. “I promise you, tomorrow morning, those pictures are going to be splashed over every magazine that hadthe picture of Christie Elle and Mandy. Everything is working outperfectly.”
“Yeah,” I clear my throat, trying to sound as normal as I can despite the way I can’t seem to take my eyes off her. She drifts as she texts, and I slide to the outside of the sidewalk, putting my body between her and the street. “Right.”
***
“Luca.”
I turn, my water bottle in my hand, to find Grayson standing at the edge of the ice in his goalie gear, his eyes serious on me. At first, I think this might be about him—about the kind of stuff he was going through last season. But that’s not it.
“What’s up?” I ask, trying to sound as even as I can. We’re at the end of the first period against the Wild, and my head isn’t all the way in the game.
Which Grayson seems to notice.
“I just wanted to—well, I thought maybe that stuff with Mandy and everything was still getting to you.”
I say nothing, just stare at him as I take another drink of water, trying to figure out how to assure my previously-anxious goalie that I’m totally fine.
I’m totally fine.
I have to be—I’m the team captain. I’m Luca McKenzie.
“If it is,” he plows forward, kind of like a nervous kid coming to his principal. “You should try to ground yourself. That’s the thing that worked best for me last season. Like, finding three red things, focusing on your breaths, that kind of thing. Might help to keep all that shit out of your head.”
“Thanks, man,” I say, nodding and clapping him on the back. What I really want to say is that he doesn’t have to give me tips—I can handle myself.
