Page 233 of Playing the Pucking Game

“How long do we have?”

My eyes bounce between hers.

“Nowhere near long enough for all the things I want to do to you.”

Her blush deepens.

“We’ll be home tonight,” she muses.

“We will,” I confirm.

“What happens then?”

“If you’re asking if I’ll still be sleeping in your bed, then the answer is yes. If you’re asking if I want you to go back to wearing my clothes to sleep in, then the answer is also yes. If you’reasking what happens next with us, then that’s up to you. I’ve already waited for what feels like a lifetime for this, pretty girl. I can wait a little longer as long as I know you’re mine.”

“So…no more online dating?” she asks with a wicked glint in her eye.

“And no more bunnies,” I confirm.

My words give her pause, and I allow her the time to process her thoughts.

“When was the last time you were with someone?”

I think back, but it’s all a blur. That’s all women were to me. A means to an end, a bit of fun for an hour or two before I turned my back on them and forgot they existed.

“Before Thanksgiving. Possibly even before Halloween. I can’t really remember.”

“That’s a long time for the infamous Lincoln Storm.”

I shrug. “The whole thing lost its appeal.”

“Why?”

I exhale, trying to figure out how to put how I feel about that way of life into words.

“Because it was fake. Empty. Unfulfilling. The complete opposite of everything I feel when I’m with you.”

“Why now?”

“Because as scary as this is, at some point, you will meet someone else, and I might lose you for good. And that prospect is utterly terrifying.”

59

PARKER

Exhausted and desperate for bed, I stand curled into Linc’s side, my head resting on his chest as the elevator rises through his building.

Today has been a lot. But as tired as I am, I’m glad to be home rather than in a hotel.

Linc’s arm is banded around me, holding me in place tightly as if he never wants to let go.

My heart flutters in my chest. Everything he’s done or said since turning up in my hotel room last night has been what dreams are made of.

It makes me think that maybe the wistful teenage girl inside me will get her happily ever after with the only guy she’s truly cared about. But that’s too good to be true, right? It can’t be that easy.

“Come on, pretty girl. Let’s get you to bed,” he says softly as the number finally hits the top floor.

With both of our suitcases in one hand and me still tucked into his other side, we make our way toward the bedrooms. Only, he doesn’t so much as pause at his. Instead, he leads us straight to mine.