“A puzzle?”
He winces.
“Yeah, I find them relaxing.”
“Wait.” I stop walking and turn to face him. “You. Everett Nuttall. Professional hockey player. Do puzzles in your spare time?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” I start moving again, leaving him by a section of cookbooks.
“Are you judging my hobby?” he asks, catching up to me in one long stride.
“No, not at all. I’m just surprised that’s what you like to do.”
He shrugs. “I’m gone a lot, so I buy the ones with thousands of pieces and work on it when I can. If I’m on the road for a while, it’s easy to pick back up once I’m home.”
“I guess I could see how that’s appealing.”
He stops again. His hands dip into his pockets as he leans back on his heels and looks up toward the ceiling. “Did I just ruin all of my sex appeal by admitting that?”
“No,” I say, my mouth tipping up. “I don’t think anything could do that.”
He steps toward me, enclosing us amongst the shelves, and I look over my shoulder. We’re completely hidden, and I swallow hard, inhaling his warm cologne.
“Is that so?” he asks, leaning forward, caging me against the shelf behind me.
I nod my head slowly. “I think it actually sounds kinda hot.”
His mouth breaks into a grin.
“Tell me more.”
“You, sitting at a table, thinking hard about which piece goes where.” I reach up and run my hands over his chest. “Add some slutty little glasses and one of those turtlenecks you wore yesterday, and oh, my godddd.” Dropping both of my arms, I fan myself with one hand and roll my eyes into the back of my head.
His mouth finds mine in a chaste kiss, and my eyes shoot open just as he’s backing away.
“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have…”
Swallowing hard, my fingers brush against my tingling lips.
“No, it’s okay.”
He begins to move away from me down the aisle. Need pulses through me, and I wonder if maybe I was wrong to tell him we needed to stop the flirting and skip the sex until we get back. Maybe that’s exactly what I need.
I try to shake the thought and focus as we turn the next corner.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter as the rows of sex and intimacy books come into view.
“What—” Everett begins, looking over his shoulder.
“You two good over here?” Ginger asks, popping up out of seemingly thin air and causing me to jump.
“Oh, shit! You scared me.”
“I’m sorry. Just wondering if you two needed help finding anything.”
Everett’s eyes shift to me, and he chuckles.
