Page 35 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)

Gabrielle

Well, they didn’t have to hog-tie me, or bust out the chloroform, but it took a harsh shove from Raina for me to actually get out the door. Then, so I didn’t chicken out, she followed me to the McEvoy’s property since she planned to spend the night at Jagger’s anyway, and Marco was there already.

She shot me a text as she turned right to head up the hill to the houses, and I was headed straight, to the cabins.

You’ve got this. I put a condom in your purse just in case. Xox

I sent her back a middle finger emoji as my SUV rolled past the pub parking lot. A few vehicles sat in the gravel, getting damp from the rain, but since it was a dreary Monday night in March, it made sense that the place wasn’t bumping.

Spotting Maverick’s rental pickup ahead told me which cabin was his. Though, by the looks of things, only one other cabin was occupied anyway—another con of being a seasonal business.

Light filtered out around the closed drapes and the porch lamp glowed a soft yellow.

Even though I had no intention of having sex with Maverick tonight, I did put on a fresh pair of underwear, if not for the sole purpose of making me feel just a bit more confident.

They were my “big girl panties” so to speak.

Nothing fancy. Just practical, breathable—made of cotton—and with a pretty, pink floral pattern on a gray background.

They didn’t scream “take me, big boy”. Because that was not what I was going for here.

I sat in my car for what felt like hours, but was probably no more than three minutes, watching the raindrops illuminated by my headlights turn into no more than a gentle, continuous mist.

Why was I even here?

So what if we kissed? People kissed all the time and it never amounted to anything. We needed to just agree that it was a bad idea, agree that we wouldn’t do it again, and agree to be friends.

With a nod of conviction, I pulled my hood over my head, turned off the ignition, and climbed out.

Butterflies flew around like drunk fools in my belly as I approached his door.

Get it together, Campbell. You’ve faced and taken down more opposing, more formidable opponents than this. And he’s not even your opponent. Pull up those panties, get them out of your ass crack, and knock on the fucking door.

Exhaling through thinly parted lips, I smoothed my hands down the front of my loose, navy-blue trousers, lifted my fist, and knocked.

I waited for him to hear me. For footsteps, or shuffling, or some indication of life on the other side of the door—nothing.

I knocked again.

Still nothing.

I knocked again—and harder.

This was getting more humiliating by the second. Maybe he saw me and was deliberately not answering the door because he regretted what we did too.

I was about to turn to go when footsteps inside pinned me in place, and the door swung open. My jaw dropped and those butterflies actually stopped their haphazard flight plan and gaped as well.

Maverick stood there, naked, dripping wet, and with a white towel slung impossibly low on his hips. So low, a thin line of hair along the top of the towel peeked out.

All the moisture left my mouth.

“Gabrielle,” he breathed, his mouth curving up into an almost cocky smile.

I swallowed. “Uh …”

“I was just in the shower. I thought I heard knocking, then I realized it might be you. So I jumped out.”

My head shook like a bobblehead doll on a dirt road. “This was a mistake. I need to go.” I turned, attempting to flee, but his puma-like reflexes had him gripping me by the arm and hauling me back under the overhang, shielding me from the rain.

His nipples pebbled from the cold wind, but he didn’t seem to mind. Steam still rose off of his damp, ripped torso like he was the warmest, most delicious cup of tea in the world.

“If it was a mistake, why’d you come at all?” he asked, releasing my arm.

“Because … because you told me to.”

That made him smirk.

I narrowed my gaze. “I mean, you asked me to.” He most certainly didn’t ask. He told me to, and like some bewitched fool, I submitted and did as I was told.

“Sure. Let’s go with that.” Reaching one arm up onto the top of the doorjamb, and leaning forward a little, all his muscles contracted. “Would you like to come in?”

“No.”

Yes .

“Okay. So we’re just going to stand out here in the rain and stare at each other? Cool.”

“I … I came to tell you that what happened in the kitchen earlier was … was a mistake. It can’t … it won’t happen again.”

Pursing his lips together, he nodded like he was simply placating me. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Sure you do.”

“I’m being serious.”

He blinked a couple of times. “I can tell.”

“You’re not taking me seriously though.”

“Hard to take you seriously when your nostrils are flaring, your pupils have dilated, a flush is in your cheeks, and the pulse in your neck is racing.” Then that bastard reached out and pressed at the spot in my neck where my pulse hammered.

And god, if his touch, as gentle and soft as it was, didn’t send a zap right between my legs.

I didn’t even know I fluttered my eyes shut until he chuckled, low, deep, and oh-so gritty, and I blinked them open.

“How about this,” he said, his tone taking on an even raspier grate that only made my resolve not to leap up onto his hips and have him carry me inside, almost cease to exist. “If you can go twenty-four hours without thinking about us and what happened in the kitchen, or what you want to happen in the bedroom of this cabin, then I’ll let it go.

I’ll take your lead, and we can call it a ‘mistake,’ if that’s what you really want. ”

I squinted at him.

“ But , if you think about it, and don’t hate how you feel when you think about it, then we talk about it some more, and maybe give it a shot.”

“You’re so much younger than me,” I breathed, shaking my head. “And only here temporarily. I’m also done having children. You probably want kids of your own. You have your whole career, your whole life ahead of you. I mean … I’m practically perimenopausal.”

As if on cue, heat raced up my neck and into my cheeks.

“None of those things are important to me. I don’t have to be here temporarily. And I’m not that much younger than you.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want this. ” My arms flew up for a moment and I gestured at the ether.

“My life is chaos. It might look peaceful, but it’s not.

I’m up to my eyeballs in teenager angst and it’s only going to get crazier when Laurel gets her period and turns into a teenager too.

We’re going to have an entire property filled with teenagers.

The hormones alone will choke the life out of you. You don’t want that.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Why don’t you stop making decisions for me, hmm? Stop telling me what I want. It seems to me you’re really having to dig for a reason not to give into this mutual attraction we have for each other. This … chemistry.”

As he said, “chemistry” I became transfixed by a drop of water that careened down his torso, using his ab muscles like a slalom course, until it stupidly left his Valhalla of a body completely and landed on the toe of my boot. My entire lower half clenched.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked, pulling my attention away from the drop of water and back to his face.

“Maverick …”

“I like the way you say my name. It’s like a sigh.”

“I’m forty-one.”

“And I’m twenty-six. Are we just listing our ages, or … do you want to talk about our favorite colors, animals, and foods too? Because green, the polar bear, and Thai.”

With a long, weary sigh, my shoulders rounded. “Fine. We have a deal.”

That sexy, cocky smile was back. And just when I thought he was going to stick his hand out to shake mine, and seal the deal, he grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me forward until his chest bumped mine.

“Better seal the deal with a kiss, hmm?” And before I could protest—not that my brain or body would let me—he claimed my mouth.

It was only for a couple of seconds, and there was hardly any tongue, but it left me weak in the knees and fuzzy brained like I’d just had four glasses of our Westhaven Winery merlot.

“I’ll be by tomorrow night to see how you did,” he said, letting go of my hand.

I stumbled backward, into the rain, which seemed to sizzle against my heated cheeks.

“Sweet dreams, Gabrielle.” Then that jerk winked at me, gripped the top of the jamb again, exposing all those delicious, lickable muscles, and watched me walk like a sloppy drunk sorority girl back to my vehicle. He stayed there, him and his hard nipples and Thor-like abs, until I drove away.

If you can go twenty-four hours without thinking about us and what happened in the kitchen, or what you want to happen in the bedroom of this cabin, then I’ll let it go. I’ll take your lead, and we can call it a ‘mistake,’ if that’s what you really want.

His words played over and over again in my head as I navigated the dark, wet roads home. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, knowing fully well that my fresh “big girl panties” were damp as hell.

Tuesday morning, I woke with a gasp, bolted straight up in bed, hand to my chest with my heart pounding.

I had just orgasmed in my sleep.

My entire body tingled with the aftereffects of a great release, and my pussy throbbed like it’d just been pounded relentlessly into submission.

But I was alone.

Very, very alone.

What the hell?

I’m sure I’ve had spicy dreams before, but I’d never been woken up by a nocturnal climax.

I gasped again. What if the kids heard me? I couldn’t control my volume when I was dreaming. What if I was a screamer, or an uninhibited moaner during sex in my sleep?

Panic squashed the last remaining bits of bliss still rushing through my veins and I tossed my legs over the side of the bed, a gush of dampness filling my panties.

Oh my god! Did I freaking squirt in my sleep too?

Glancing at my phone, the clock said it was four-fifty in the morning. My alarm wouldn’t go off for another ten minutes.

The kids probably didn’t hear me. Damon slept like the dead, and Laurel liked a white noise machine playing the sounds of a babbling brook.

A modicum of relief quelled some of my panic as I grabbed my workout gear and trudged my ass to the bathroom to get ready for my at-home Pilates video.

Even though I went to bed at my regular time, I felt particularly tired today and wanted to punch the woman on the screen square in the face, wiping that chipper smile from her lips.

“Shut up, Hadleigh from Utah,” I growled, doing “ten more” of the mountain climbers on my home reformer, just like that blonde bitch with a size double-zero waist and the horrific camel toe, encouraged me to do.

She probably ate nothing but celery and Metamucil.

My abs screamed at me on the last push, and I collapsed to my belly when it was done.

“Great work, everyone,” Hadleigh said. “Now we’re going to do some upright rows with the resistance bands.”

“No, we’re not,” I murmured, reaching for the remote to pause the witch.

My heart raced and my hairline was damp, but I needed this.

As exhausted as I was, I needed this. Like a child being told not to touch the piping hot cookies right out of the oven, then being consumed with the thought of touching them, I couldn’t keep my brain from continuously drifting back to Maverick.

He struck this deal on purpose. Knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to not think about him, now that he told me to try not to. Clever asshole. Clever, gorgeous asshole.

“Stop it!” I grumbled, unpausing Hadleigh and standing up, putting a resistance band in each hand and following her lead with the upright rows. “Stop thinking about him.”

Of course, I just thought about him more. About his washboard stomach, and that drop of water navigating the topography of his torso. My tongue would love to explore those valleys and ridges. Swirl around the peaks of his nipples.

Stop it!

A rush of heat raced up my chest into my face and I growled louder as I pulled harder on the bands, punishing myself with the muscle burn to distract my thoughts.

Maybe I needed to put a rubber band around my wrist and every time a thought about Maverick popped into my head, I would snap the band. Wasn’t that called “negative reinforcement”?

Pausing Hadleigh again, I went to the kitchen and my very organized junk drawer, with all the little baskets and labeled bags of chip clips, paper clips, twist ties, and rubber bands.

I grabbed a rubber band and slid it over my wrist. Then, for good measure, I put one on the other wrist as well.

Just in case. Two had to be better than one.

I returned to Hadleigh and resumed my workout.

How many crunches a day did Maverick have to do to get a stomach like that?

Motherfucker .

Snap!

Good god, that hurt.

But I deserved it.

After ten more reps, Hadleigh had us putting one foot on one of the sliders and moving our leg in and out to the side to work our abductors, or whatever the fuck muscle.

I couldn’t see Maverick’s abductors beneath the towel, but I bet they were well-defined.

For fuck’s sake.

Snap!

“And now onto the other side,” Hadleigh said.

I switched sides.

There were a lot of things I couldn’t see under the towel, but I felt a certain thing against the inside of my thigh when we kissed on the counter.

Snap! Snap! I did each wrist this time, hissing out in pain.

“What are you doing?”

I lost my balance as I was mid-slide out and fell backward on my ass at the sound of Laurel behind me.

“What?” I scrambled to my hands and knees. “I’m doing Pilates like I do every morning. Did I wake you?”

She yawned, giving me a curious, sleepy-eyed head tilt. “No, I got up to pee. And I know you’re doing Pilates. Why are you snapping a rubber band against your wrist? Don’t people do that to stop themselves from thinking about something?”

“Uh … do they?” I used the coffee table to help myself stand up.

She knuckled sleep from her eyes. “You’re acting weird.”

“Go back to bed, sweetie. I’m fine. Just trying this new meditation thing that I read about. Ignore your weird mom.”

Her gaze narrowed for a moment as she studied me, then finally shrugged one slight shoulder under her cute Lilo and Stitch nightie, and trudged back to bed. Her door closed a moment later.

I glanced at the ceiling. What a fucked-up start to the day. And it wasn’t even light out yet.

I’d been awake for less than an hour and already lost the bet, or whatever it was, with Maverick. Resorting to masochistic tactics to keep myself in line.

Was Maverick up yet?

If he wasn’t up, maybe a certain part of him was up.

Snap! Snap!

“Fuck.”

I was going to need more rubber bands.