She shrugged. “My brother didn’t go to college.”
“Trust me, I know.”
“I was just making conversation. Not everything’s a competition.”
“With Erik, it is. And just so you know, he didn’t go straight into the league because he was better than me. He’s never been better than me. But he was raised to be a hockey player. I was raised to get a hockey scholarship.”
“Is there a difference?”
“On the ice? No. But when it comes to making choices, I think there is.”
She tilted her head to look at him, looking genuinely interested. “In what way?”
“When they realized I not only loved hockey but was good enough to play in college, they sacrificed so much for the chance I’d get a degree because nobody in my family ever had one. My dad took every chance at overtime. My mom would work second jobs here and there, part-time. It’s incredibly expensive to raise a hockey player, especially on what they made. The gear. Fees. Just the gas to drive my ass around. When I got my college scholarship, they were not only proud but so relieved. They’d accomplished their goal, which wasn’t about the game at all. Even though I don’t use the degree to do more than keep an eye on my business manager, I owed my parents that framed certificate on the wall because they earned it.”
“What about your sister? Did you owe her, too?”
There was some bite in her tone, and he twisted his body a little so he could see her face and the tension in her jaw and cheekbones. “What do you mean?”
“What sacrifices did she have to make so you could get that certificate on the wall?”
He was about to make a joke about getting to have a professional hockey player for a big brother, but his brain kicked into high gear just in time to stop the words from coming out of his mouth. Having a professional hockey player for a big brother might be a big part of why Kristen hated hockey, and there was a good chance being flippant about it was going to put him on the wrong side of her front door with his clothes in his arms.
“It wasn’t easy on her, I’m sure. She was in chorus and was a cheerleader for the basketball team, so winter was busy. My parents had to trade off a lot so one of them was at each event, meaning she rarely had both parents there. Neither did I, but we made it work. Sometimes our neighbor had to drive Cassie around if I had a tournament out of town, but we all helped her with her lawn and keeping her house up and stuff.”
“I guess having two parents helped.”
Will closed his eyes, belatedly remembering a profile of Erik Burke that mentioned his mom had passed away when he was a kid. Now he wished he’d paid more attention to the stories about Burke’s background, since he shared that childhood with Kristen.
“I did a few extracurricular activities when I was in school, but my dad rarely showed up,” she said. “And nothing that cost a lot of money, since there wasn’t any left over after Erik’s hockey expenses.”
He wanted stroke her hair, but he suspected if he interrupted her or tried to give her sympathy, she’d shut down, and he wanted to hear it. He wanted to understand a little more about why she hated the sport that was his entire life.
“We moved to a new place right before I started middle school,” she continued. “My dad wanted Erik in a high school with a top hockey team, so we just…moved. Dad took a pay cut and the cost of living was a lot higher, so I had no friends, no money and didn’t feel safe in the sketchy apartment building we lived in. I spent a lot of time alone with the doors locked and a lot of time doing my brother’s homework so he could be on the ice.”
“That sounds lonely. I can see why you’d have some resentment toward the sport.”
“That’s putting it mildly. I guess it worked out. Erik’s living his dream—or Dad’s dream, since the line’s a bit fuzzy there—and I have this apartment.”
Will wasn’t brave enough to ask her outright if Erik had bought it for her, but it sure sounded that way.
She chuckled softly. “Probably thanks to Dad, Erik’s not great with expressing emotion, so he wrote me a letter. An actual paper letter sent through the mail, with a few pictures of the place. He said he knew I’d spent a lot of time alone in a shithole growing up and that he’d been putting money aside for six years until he found a beautiful place he thought I’d like and that would make me feel safe and that nobody could take away from me. And he hadn’t signed the papers because he wanted it to be my choice and to only have my name on it, and he said if I wanted it, to let him know.”
He wasn’t surprised her voice choked off, since he was feeling a bit emotional himself. About Erik freakin’ Burke, of all people. “Damn.”
“Of course my first reaction was to refuse to let him throw his hockey money at me,” she said with a laugh. “But then I realized it wasn’t some kind of grandiose gesture to show off or even an apology for shit that was mostly our dad’s fault. It was his way of saying thank you, so I accepted it.”
“It’s a very nice thank you,” he said. “And since you gave him a key, now you’re stuck with me for a while to keep everybody’s name out of the mud.”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “Let’s not get things twisted here. You know as well as I do the only name that would be dragged through the mud is mine. And I’m not stuck with you. I’m choosing to go along with this charade because I’m not done with you yet and this is the best way to get what I want.”
“Which is me.”
She jabbed her elbow into his side. “Which is orgasms not of the do-it-yourself variety and you happen to be particularly good at providing them.”
“I should have better than a vibrator added to my press kit.”
“Probably see a nice bump in jersey sales.” She laughed. “You could even expand your branded merchandise.”
“I don’t see the league letting me brand that kind of merch, but I bet I could secretly have a limited edition, custom Cross Lecroix vibrator made for you.”
She ran her hand up his thigh, managing to skim her fingernails over his balls before stroking the length of his dick. The denim between his flesh and her palm wasn’t enough to keep him from being instantly hard.
He was pretty sure a time when he wouldn’t desperately want her didn’t exist.
“I’ll stick with the real thing,” she said in a husky voice.
“I get the feeling I’m about to be sent to bed with no ice cream.”
“You must have been naughty.” She stood and took his hand to haul him to his feet.
“We could take the ice cream to bed with us,” he managed to say with a straight face.
She laughed. “By the time I’m done with you, neither of us will have the strength left to change the sheets. Think long and hard about whether you want to sleep in a puddle of mint chocolate chip.”
“We’ll have it for breakfast,” he decided, and then he picked her up and carried her toward the bedroom.
He was halfway there when he realized there had been only the slightest twinge of protest from his shoulder. It was good news, because proving he was pain-free and had full range of motion was the key to getting back to his team.
But as he dropped Kristen on the bed and then covered her body with his so he looked into her sparkling blue eyes, there was a part of him that didn’t want to celebrate his time in Boston coming to an end soon.
9
Kristen knew what tonight it was. Even without the text messages blowing up Will’s phone and causing him to get increasingly quiet over the course of the day, she would have known it was time for the All-Star Game. It was pretty much a Burke high holiday, though she usually opted out.
She’d talked to Erik on the phone that morning, while Will was in the shower. She’d called her brother to wish him luck, just as she always did before a game that meant something to him, but Will had yet to mention any of the All-Star events, even in passing. He certainly hadn’t brought up the fact Erik had won the accuracy competition in the skills events last night. But she assu
med the constant attention to his phone meant he was either getting notifications or he had teammates in St. Louis who were sending him updates.
He hadn’t mentioned watching it, though she would have broken her no hockey on my TV rule if he brought it up. She wasn’t going to volunteer to sit through it if she didn’t have to, though.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
He looked up from his phone when she spoke, his brow furrowed. His expression cleared within seconds, but it confirmed her suspicion his mood was tied to whatever was on his screen. “Where do you want to go?”
Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know. We could see a movie or a show. There are museums and the aquarium and... Hell, I don’t know.”
“I’m not being very good company,” he said, leaning forward to toss the phone onto the coffee table.
“You don’t have to be, you know,” she told Will, sitting next to him on the couch sideways so she could see him, with her legs tucked under her. “I know you’d rather be in St. Louis right now.”
He leaned back against the couch with a heavy sigh. “It’s not easy not being there, I guess.”
“Are all the messages you’re getting from there?”
“Yeah. Mitchell’s there, along with a few other guys I know. Dev Mitchell, he’s been with the Harriers almost as long as I have. We’re pretty close friends.”
“I recognize the name.”
He chuckled. “I don’t imagine your brother’s a big fan of his, either.”
“I don’t know if Erik’s talked about him a lot. Some, I’m sure. But I also hear things. Sports recaps if I have the news on. Televisions in bars. I just know I’ve heard the name before. Did he get your spot?”
“That’s not exactly how it works, but let’s just say if I was healthy, he’d probably be sitting on the couch with his wife, getting text messages from me.” As he said it, his phone vibrated, and she saw his body tense as if he was going to reach for it, but he didn’t. “I should probably just turn that off.”
“Do you want to watch it?”
“Were you planning to?”
“No,” she said honestly, and then she shrugged. “But we can. I’ll make popcorn.”
He frowned. “Popcorn?”
“Fine, I can order some wings, and we can drink beer and get buffalo sauce on my couch.”
“That’s how you watch hockey.” He rested his arm on the back of the couch and reached for her hair, twirling it around his finger. “But we don’t have to watch the game. That’s not exactly your idea of a fun Saturday night.”
“Not everything’s about me.” She laughed when he gave her a very exaggerated look of shock. “Be honest with me. Do you want to watch the game, or will it just make you feel shitty because you’re missing it?”
“I’d like to watch it. I know all the guys playing, and I don’t usually get to enjoy it from the comfort of a couch because, let’s be honest—” He paused to raise his eyebrow in a way that would have come off as arrogant if it wasn’t ruined by the fact he was trying to keep a straight face. “I’m usually in it.”
She groaned and got to her feet. “Okay, let’s make a deal. You walk down to the market with me because we’re almost out of food and you drank the last of my milk. When we get back, we’ll order in pizza and wings and watch the game.”
His expression brightened, and his dark eyes crinkled when he smiled. “That sounds like a hell of a good deal.”
Before she could walk away, intending to make a list of things to tide them over until she made a proper run to the grocery store, he snagged her hand and pulled her onto his lap.
She braced her hands on the back of the couch, one arm on either side of his head, as his hands skimmed over her back and then cupped her ass. “You’re going to make me forget what I need to put on the shopping list.”
“Milk,” he said. “And some other stuff.”
He kissed her before she could point out it was the other stuff she needed to figure out, but as soon as his lips touched hers, she stopped caring. That’s what delivery was for.
She moaned when he caught her lip between his teeth with just enough pressure to make her squirm before kissing that spot. His tongue slipped between her lips, and she buried her hand in his hair, her fingers sliding through the soft strands.
But when he slid his hand up the back of her shirt, stroking bare skin, she ignored the hunger that was always there but definitely flared up when he had his hands on her, and she broke off the kiss.
“You’re trying to get out of going to the market,” she said.
“No, I’m not. I’m just…delaying our departure a little.”
Laughing, she slapped at the hand he was not-very-stealthily sliding up to her breast. “I’m not getting naked and then getting dressed again to go to the store.”
“Milk is overrated anyway.”
“You won’t be saying that when you have to drink your coffee black in the morning.”
She watched his expression as the battle waged—the erection currently pressed against the inside of her thigh versus waking up to no milk for their coffee—and then he sighed. “I hate coffee with no milk.”
“Then do some algebra in your head or something while I make a list.” She climbed off his lap and moved out of his reach before he could change his mind.
“I was always really good at algebra, you know. It’s way too easy for it to distract me from picturing you naked.” When she gave him a skeptical look, he shrugged. “What? Didn’t I mention I got my degree with high honors?”
“Then think about something hard.” Before he could even open his mouth, she rolled her eyes and turned away. “Save it.”
His laughter filled the apartment and she shook her head, opening the shopping list app on her phone and adding milk before opening the fridge to figure out what else they needed. But when she went to open the pantry, the box she’d set on the end of the counter caught her eye. It was a gift from Annie and Kara, one of Kristen’s other friends, and she’d forgotten about it until now.
She’d have to remember that gift when they got back from the market, she thought, because what was in that box would definitely cheer him up.
“For a woman who hates hockey, you sure have a lot to say about it.” Will couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed an All-Star Game he wasn’t skating in. It had been years, though. Before his attendance had become something of a given and watching had reinforced his drive to make the cut.
But watching a game with Kristen was a hell of a lot more fun than he would have thought. While she might have chosen to turn her back on the sport, it was very obvious she’d been raised a Burke.
“What’s the point of bringing all the best players in the league—except you, of course—in to play if you’re going to bring refs that don’t know what freakin’ tripping looks like?”
He tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. “You do know this game doesn’t really count, right? It’s just for fun.”
“I’m sure the guy that just kissed the ice thought it was super fun.”
“Burke got a goal. That should put you in a good mood. And Mitchell got one.”
She sighed as the network cut to a commercial, and she stood up. Usually she was curled against him when they watched TV, but she had a tendency to use her hands a lot when she was ranting, and the last thing he needed was the Hometown Hoser finding out he’d taken another shot—even accidentally—to the face from another Burke.
When she started gathering up the debris from the pizza and wings they’d been snacking on for an hour, he was going to get up, but she waved him back. “I’ve got this. I can work off some of my frustration with this stupid sport.”
He wasn’t about to miss that opening. “You know what’s a good way to work off frustration?”
“So smooth, Lecroix,” she said, rolling her eyes for good measure. “However can I resist such a charming line?”
“Can’t bl
ame a guy for trying.”
“Watch your game. I’m going to load the dishwasher and then change into TV-watching clothes. I ate too much.”
When she was done in the kitchen and went into the bedroom, he thought about following her, but the announcer started talking about the season Mitchell was having, and Will turned his attention back to the television. He was happy as hell for his friend, but the need to be back with his team was a constant, nagging ache that never quite went away.
Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he realized Kristen was back. He was about to make a smart-ass comment about how much he’d missed her commentary, but when he turned to look at her, his brain stopped giving him any signals except instant lust.
The Harriers red and white home jersey hung halfway down her thighs, but when she lifted her arms to show off the emblem in the center, the hem lifted almost enough so he could see if she was wearing panties under it.
It didn’t matter if she was because she wouldn’t be for long.
“My friends couldn’t believe I didn’t have my boyfriend’s jersey, so they ordered me one,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up as he pushed himself to his feet.
Boyfriend. It didn’t matter that it had started as a lie they told the rest of the world. That’s exactly who he was. And his girl was wearing his jersey.
“Do you like it?” she asked, and just as he was about to reach her, she turned around so he could see the back.
LECROIX.
Seeing his name in big block letters across her back triggered something deep inside of him—something raw and primal—and he gathered the fabric below his number in his fist and pulled her backward until her body hit his.
When her ass ground against his erection through the fly of his jeans—and no, she wasn’t wearing anything under the jersey—they both moaned, and he gathered her hair in his fist, lifting it off the letters.
“I guess you do like it,” she said in that low, husky voice that forced him to undo his jeans just to relieve some of the pressure. “Do you get off on me wearing your number?”
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