Page 43 of He Has Charm (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
It’s all about his reputation too and it’s all his fault that we’re in this mess in the first place.Let’s not forget that important detail, Harper St. John. He’s got a bad boy reputation for a reason. Because he’s a bad boy. Do not believe he cares about you, at least not for more than the next few months. Until his reputation is rehabbed and he’s had a chance to finish the season and reestablish himself as a legit hockey player and not a joke. I stand.
“Time I visited the ladies’ room,” I say, looking at Zoey. She stands and we step away from the table. What I don’t expect is for Knight to stand and then to follow us. He hangs back at a respectable distance so I can’t turn and question him. Plus that would just draw attention. When I pass by Nora’s table I nod at her.
“Interesting to see you here, Ms. Olak. Switching to the food page for a change of pace?” She laughs and shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything, and Zoey laughs too. We disappear into the crowded ladies’ room and I lose track of Zoey. When I come out, I look around for her in the short corridor and don’t see her, so I step around a corner and take a look but all I see in the dimly lit space is the remnants of an old phone booth and what looks like a janitor’s closet.
When I turn to go back, I’m startled because my path is blocked by Maddox.
“What are you doing hiding in a dark hallway, Harper?” he says, coming closer and making the space feel even more closed in, almost intimate. But the bustling noise of the restaurant seeps in, reminding me we’re officially in public. I lick my suddenly dry lips. Must be the effects of the bourbon drink. His eyes hold my gaze as sure as if he’s cast a spell—if I believed in that spell-casting baloney—which I don’t. I clear my throat.
“I was looking for Zoey.” My voice is scratchy and parched and I lick my lips again. He watches my tongue. Damn. I close my mouth. He backs me up a step until I run against the janitor’s room door, the knob hitting my lower back. He rests his hands either side of my shoulders and moves so close I can hardly breathe. But when I do, his scent fills my nostrils and goes straight to my brain, setting off all kinds of small fires. When he opens his mouth to speak and his breath fans the small hairs near my ear, those small fires roar up into shooting flames.
“She went back to the table.” His voice shakes with tension. The muscle in his jaw tics.
“Why are you…?” I stop and think hard about what I want to ask while his eyes stay locked on mine. Then I go for broke. “Flirting with me?”
He sucks in a deep breath and blinks. “I don’t know, sugar buns. Habit when I’m around a pretty girl? Maybe because we’re in this trouble together, a team of two with the odds stacked.” His words are troubled and serious for a change and my heart thuds hard. I look away from his intensity, but he cups my chin and turns my head back to face him. “Maybe because of that spark of hidden passion in those green eyes of yours or because you’re sweet as sugar and you have the most tempting buns in a pinstripe—”
I stop believing him. “Stop it. You promised not to flirt.” I inject all the anger I have into my voice and he, of course, smiles. It’s one of those gotcha smiles.
“There’s that passion sparking.” I push at him but he only backs up a fraction. “Does flirting with you really count? I thought we agreed no flirting with puck bunnies. And you’re no puck bunny.” His admission, the smallest of compliments, feels real and sends my tummy on another roll, shaking up all the old butterflies from their dormancy.
“You promised not to touch.” I hear the weakness in my own voice because I could swear my breathy whine actually saysplease touch me.
“It was a rash promise. Besides, I don’t mean anything by this. I just need—"
“No.” Panic hits because I feel the excitement rise, the heat bubbling deep inside and spilling over into my panties. Shit. “You’ll get over it. Need is a strong word. A silly word. There’s no need—"
“Oh, there’s a need.” I hear it in his voice and instead of the panic rising to outrage, it dissolves under the power of his gorgeous intense blue eyes aimed at me like he’s christened me queen of the universe, the chosen one to receive all light and attention.
The clatter of dishes from not too far away snaps me back to reality. We’re in public, no matter if it seems otherwise. Someone could come around the corner any minute and find us. The panic must show in my eyes because he reads me like a book. Reaching down, he turns the knob of the door behind me and opens the it. Before I can blink away my surprise, I find myself backed into a closet and when he shuts the door behind us, we’re blanketed by near absolute darkness. Only the crack under the door lets in light.
“No need to worry about spies in here,” he says. “Because we need to have this talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. We have a strictly professional relationship with no hanky-panky allowed. We—”
“No one will know, Harper.” Shit. He’s calling me Harper now and somehow that makes this all seem too real and too serious.
“Don’t call me that.”
He laughs and I pull back from him. “Okay, sugar buns,” he says, tongue-in-cheek now and less serious than before, relieving some of my tension because he’s back to toying, playing games and not serious. “If you don’t mention it to Ham I won’t mention it to Delaney if we happen to slip on the hanky-panky promise. Just a little.”
“What do you mean?” Why the hell did I ask him that? I know exactly what he means, don’t I?
“I mean we’re two grown adults and it’s kind of ridiculous to be held hostage by a crazy agreement and an accidental sex video.” He backs me against a shelf of cleaning products and wraps an arm around me, cushioning me from the metal digging into my back. The jerk is far too thoughtful sometimes. “Besides,” he says, his voice deepening to that impossibly sexy growl I recognize from the shower. My heart thuds so loud and hard I feel my blood rush to my v-jay so fast it pulses with fury and longing. “You want me to kiss you.” He moves his mouth close to mine, but not touching. I don’t move.
“No I don’t.”
“Liar.”
I laugh with nerves and because even I don’t believe the lie. He must hear my heart thumping and feel the furnace of my hormones erupting through my pores like little volcanoes across my skin, too many to withstand. His lips hover, waiting for permission, so close that the taste of his citrusy ice water he was drinking makes my mouth water—or it could be just him. I stare at his lips and a sound escapes my throat that might have been a plea. He doesn’t wait for his next breath to press his lips to mine and the connection dizzies me.
Like a lightning strike, the kiss is fast and electrifying. And over. Before I can blink twice, he backs away from me, in the dim light I see the expression on his face too much like I feel: disturbed, unsettled, shocked. But most of all I’m horrified that I’m going to need more. Maybe not this second, but I will eventually, at some point in the next three months and three weeks, throw myself at him to get more of… whatever he has that my body craves against all rational reason.
Unless he throws himself at me first. He sears a dark look at me, accusatory and almost confused, snapping me from my stupor. Without a word, no apology, nothanks for the kiss, it was greator any comment at all, he opens the door behind him, and I follow him out of the closet.
“You return first,” he says. “I’ll go back to the table in a few minutes” He’s all business now. I nod, repentant for my lapse and determined to double down on professional behavior. At least for tonight. I can do it. One day at a time.More like one excruciating minute at a time. I walk away, but turn back to see him push through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
Later he returns and stops at Nora’s table for a minute and I wish to hell I could hear that conversation. It ends with a polite smile and a nod by both of them. When he rejoins us he tells us about his chat with chef Jason Santos, claiming that’s where he got held up. My excuse wasn’t nearly as inventive or interesting. I claimed to stop and chat with a Brawlers fan. I’m not sure if anyone believes either of us, but they’re willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. Sitting in between Zoey and Rafe feels odd, but I find my professional poise, a familiar role, take over for the rest of the meal. We talk, loudly as promised, all about the upcoming promotion and visit to the children’s hospital.
Knight doesn’t talk to me directly at all and I shouldn’t mind, but it’s such a change from his usual acute attention. Maybe he’s upset about the children’s hospital promotion. Or maybe the kiss guilted him into behaving. Or maybe he didn’t like kissing me after all. Maybe I was a big disappointment. Or maybe he got me out of his system and he’s onto the next...Shit.
Most likely it’s all of the above and none of it feels good.
