“You don’t have to be so bitchy about it,” he grumbled and her head fell to the side.
“Oh, I don’t? Maybe you should have thought about that before you took my heart, threw it on the ice, and then slap shot it against the boards. Blood, guts, and pride flying through the air.”
Yup, she might as well have hit him. Her eyes said so much. Held so much pain. Nodding, he swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Great hockey analogy.”
“I thought so,” she agreed, coming to the table and then pressing her hands to his thigh. He was expecting her touch to bring back the greatest memories of his life. Instead, the gloves basically ripped out the hairs on his thigh as she started to move her talented fingers along his tired muscles. “Now, shut up.”
“Before I shut up, can you lose the gloves? They are ripping the hair out of my legs.” He grimaced, twitching side to side, trying to get away from her hands.
“Oh, does it hurt?” she asked condescendingly, twisting his leg hairs under her fingers.
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “Lose them and the attitude. You’re acting like a scorned teenager.”
Her hands stopped and then he was hollering out in pain. “Dammit, Kacey!” he cried out, covering the spot where she’d just ripped out a chunk of his hair with her hand.
She looked at him innocently before dropping the chunk of hair. “Oh, my bad.”
He only glared as she pulled the gloves off before throwing them in the trash. “You better hope I don’t get slut on me.”
“You won’t,” he promised as her fingers dug into his skin, and a certain kind of peace fell over him as a sigh left his lips.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she reminded him, and he looked over his shoulder at her.
“I promise you won’t get slut on you,” he said sternly and she rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. Stop talking to me, please,” she said with a sigh before getting to work on his leg.
Watching as she moved her hands along his thigh, down by his knee and then his hamstring, he admired her beauty and the little wrinkle her nose was in. She was frustrated with him, a normal occurrence. Her shoulders were taut, the veins in her skin visible as she moved her hands along his leg. She was so strong, so gorgeous and…not his.
“So tell me about your boyfriend,” he said, using the word loosely. He could tell she was trying way too hard with the douche. He knew what she looked like when she was in love. He’d stared into those love-filled eyes for months, trying to ignore them, and then ultimately pushing them away.
She glanced up at him and glared. “No.”
“What? Scared I’ll get my feelings hurt?”
“You don’t have feelings, Jordie. You’re allergic to them,” she said simply, her hand digging deeper into his skin.
He smiled, covering the grimace that was surfacing. She did her job great, but she had always been a little rough. “That’s not true. I have feelings for you.”
She paused and looked up at him. “Wanting to fuck me may be a feeling but not the feelings I want.”
He held her gaze. “Oh, you want them all right, you just don’t like that you do.”
“You know nothing about me,” she sneered, tearing her gaze from his. “And you know nothing about my relationship with Liam. He’s a good guy, I like him.”
“Maybe, but you don’t feel an ounce of what you feel when you’re with me.”
She looked back up at him. “That’s a bold, cocky statement.”
“I’m nothing but bold and cocky.”
“And a heartbreaker, a liar, and a deceitful pig,” she informed him and he smiled, not letting any of that bother him. That was old Jordie. New Jordie was none of those things…. Well, maybe a pig because he sure did have a hard-on just from the feel of her hands.
“I always thought you loved the pig in me?” he teased and she glared.
“I did, but the other two, plus the rejection, are a little hard to forget,” she said coldly. “Liam is none of those things. He is sweet.”
“And a fucking pansy. He won’t ever fuck you like I can.”
She didn’t even flinch, she only held his gaze. “Probably not, but at least he won’t break my heart,” she said quickly, her eyes diverting down to the leg she was working on. “And in case you didn’t know this, I’m not looking for a fuck. That boat has sailed. I’m looking for forever.”
So was he, but he wouldn’t say that when she was with someone else. Instead, he laughed before saying, “And you think that asshole is forever?”
“He could be,” she snapped back, and that only made Jordie laugh harder.
“Sugar thighs, if he is your forever, then I don’t know you at all,” he said and she looked back at him. Her eyes were full of so much sorrow and pain that it took his breath away.
“Yeah, you’re right. Because if you knew me, you’d know I thought you were my forever. But you smashed that dream quick, huh?”
That hit him square in the chest, leaving him breathless as she held his gaze. Slowly he sat up, turning out of her hands, unable to keep it in any longer. He had to tell her that she was his forever. Yeah, he’d wanted to wait until doucheface was out of the picture, but she had to know that he felt the same. That he did know, he’d just tried to fight it.
He had to tell her now.