Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“Come on, I won’t let you fall,” he reassured her.
With a nod of acceptance, she took his hand. The second the blades of her skates connected with the sleek ice, she almost keeled over. Her arms windmilled, her legs spread open and her skates moved in opposite directions as if trying to force her into the splits.
Brody promptly steadied her, grinning. “Well, fuck. You’re not very good at this, are you?”
“I told you I wasn’t,” she returned with an indignant glare. “Ask me to lecture you about Impressionist art, I can do that. But skating? I suck.”
“Because you’re trying to walk instead of glide,” he pointed out. He clamped both his hands on her waist. “Quit doing that. Just take my hand and do what I’m doing.”
Slowly, they pushed forward again. While his strides were effortless, hers were clumsy. Every few feet, the tips of her skates would dig into the ice and she’d lurch forward, but Brody stayed true to his word. He didn’t let her fall. Not even once.
“There you go,” he exclaimed. “You’re getting the hang of it.”
She couldn’t help smiling. Once she’d taken his advice and stopped treating the skates as shoes, her movements had become smoother. She felt giddy as they picked up speed, gliding along the ice.
The boards, the benches, the bleachers—it all whizzed by her, the cool air in the arena reddening her cheeks. Although there were goose bumps dotting her bare arms, she didn’t mind the cold temperature. The chill in the air soothed her, cleansing her mind.
She cast a sideways glance at Brody and saw he was enjoying this, too. God, he looked delicious in his tuxedo. The jacket stretched over his broad shoulders and powerful chest. When she noticed his bow tie sat a little crooked, she resisted the urge to reach out and straighten it. She didn’t want to move her arms and risk falling, so she tightened her fingers around his instead.
He looked down at their intertwined fingers, his mouth parting slightly, as if he wanted to speak but was being cautious. She knew exactly what was on his mind, because the same thing was running through hers. God help her, but she really liked this guy.
He was arrogant, yes. Pushy sometimes. But he also turned her on in the fiercest way, and every time he fixed those midnight blue eyes on her, every time he wrapped those big arms around her, she melted.
They slowed their pace, and she forced her thoughts away from the dangerous territory they’d crossed into and tried to come up with a neutral topic of conversation. One that didn’t make her think of Brody, naked and hard as he devoured her body with his tongue. She’d been second-guessing their fling ever since Friday night, and now she was second-guessing her second-guessing of the fling.
“When did you start playing?” she finally asked, deciding his career was as safe a subject as any.
“Pretty much the second I could walk, I was learning to skate. My dad used to take me to this outdoor rink near our house in Michigan.” He chuckled. “Well, it wasn’t much of a rink. Just a crappy pond that froze over every winter. My parents couldn’t afford the membership fee for a real rink, so I used to practice my slap shots on that pond while Dad sat on a folding chair in the snow and read car magazines.”
“Did you play on a school team?”
“What team wasn’t I on?” He dropped her hand and began skating lazy circles around her. “In high school I played hockey, rugby and baseball in the spring. Oh, and I was on the lacrosse team until the practices started to interfere with my hockey schedule.”
“Got it. So you were one of those guys. I bet you were voted Most Likely to Become a Pro Athlete in your high school yearbook.”
“Actually, I was.”
He told her a bit about his early years in the league, then made her laugh with some anecdotes about his parents and their overwhelming pride in him. At times, a twinge of bitterness seeped into his voice, giving her the feeling that his childhood was tougher than he let on, but she didn’t pry. She remembered him saying that money had been tight for his family, and it was obviously something he didn’t like talking about.
A few minutes later, a cramp seized her leg and she wobbled to a stop, leaning against the splintered sideboards as she rubbed the back of her thigh. On the west coast she jogged every morning before heading to the university, but she was obviously not in the great shape she’d believed herself to be in. Her legs were aching, and they’d only been skating for twenty minutes.
“Wanna take a break?” Brody offered.
“Please.”
They stepped off the ice and climbed up to the bleachers. Brody was an expert when it came to walking on skates. She wasn’t so fortunate. She almost pitched forward a half dozen times before she finally sank down on the bench and exhaled with relief.