“I can put on my own skates. Former hockey player, remember?” I say, pointing at myself.
He looks at me, eyes soft. “Of course you can. I don’t think there’s anything you can’t do. But I like doing things for you.”
Well, Jesus.
I don’t know what to say to that, so instead I say nothing at all. Cam smirks at me and lifts my leg, propping my foot up on his knee. Running his hand up my calf and back down again, his fingers ghost over the small strip of bare skin below my leggings, and I thank the goddesses I remembered to shave my legs this morning. His fingers slip under the fabric, his eyes locking back on mine as goosebumps explode over my skin.
“So smooth,” Cam murmurs, his gaze dropping to where his thumb strokes back and forth over my ankle, and I was unaware until this moment that there seems to be a direct line from my ankle to my clit, which throbs with each pass of Cam’s thumb. “So pretty.” He lifts his head so his eyes meet mine again. “So perfect.”
“You have to stop,” I plead. I’m thirty seconds away from purring like a goddamn kitten, and I’d like to maintain some semblance of dignity with this man.
“Is that what you want?” he asks, and his gravelly tone has me gripping the front of the bench so hard my knuckles turn white. “Only what you want, Wildcat. I only want to give you what you want.”
“I don’t know,” I say in a whispered lie, echoing my words to my dad earlier. I do know. I don’t want him to stop touching me. Ever.
When he smiles at me, it’s quiet, his thumb still moving back and forth in that maddening caress. “I think you do know,” he says, reading my mind. “I also think you need more time, and that’s okay. I can wait.” His thumb stills, and his eyes go serious. “I think I would wait for you forever.”
My heart gallops in my chest at his words, and I swallow hard past the ball of emotion that lodges in my throat. Being the focus of this man’s undivided attention while he tells me he would wait for me forever is a heady thing, and I’m going to need five to seven business days to recover from it. And when his thumb ghosts over the bottom of my foot, pressing lightly, an involuntary whimper escapes me, and I think I might expireright here in the Lightning’s practice rink with Cam’s hands on me.
Not a terrible way to go, all things considered.
I glance back out at my dad playing around with Cam’s kids on the ice, a huge grin on his face that hits me right in the chest, and then look back down at Cam, the ramifications of what we’re doing—or not doing—crashing over me all over again. “This is so complicated,” I say in a low voice, echoing my words from last week in Brian and Olivia’s kitchen.
Cam just smiles at me and ties my laces, placing my foot on the ground and lifting the other to start on my second skate. “I know,” he says, and somehow, his admission that he feels the heaviness of this the same way I do has another weight lifting off my shoulders. “But it doesn’t have to be. At least not today. Today I just want to skate with my kids. I don’t always get to do things like this with them, so I want to take advantage of it when I can. And I want to skate with you, too, because you’re here, and I like spending time with you.” He shrugs. “I just like you, and today, that feels simple enough. We can save the complicated for another day.” Making quick work of my second skate, he places my foot on the ground and stands, holding out a hand to me. “What do you think, Wildcat? Will you skate with me?”
His earnest look has everything inside me melting because I like him too, and even though I’m not sure there’s anything simple about it, I put my hand in his and let him pull me up, the electricity from where we touch buzzing up my arm.
“Okay,” I say. “Take me skating, Cam.”
The grin that explodes across his face is so gorgeous, so sincere, that I have to resist the urge to rub at my chest to make sure my heart hasn’t fallen right at his feet.
“Goal!” Ethan yells when I deke past my dad and flip the puck into the net with a quick wrist shot that has him groaning and my heart thudding with adrenaline. Ethan raises his stick in the air as he skates down the ice, throwing himself at me. Laughing, I widen my stance to absorb his weight and wrap the arm not holding my stick around his shoulders.
We’re playing two on two, Ethan and me against my dad and Cam, and it may have been a while since I’ve done anything but shoot around with my dad, but damn, I’ve still got it. “Oh my god, you’re so good!” he exclaims. “Why did you stop playing? If you kept playing, you could be in the PWHL right now and how cool would that be?”
“That’s what I kept telling her!” My dad skates up to us and throws an arm around me. “She had the skills, but she was all, nooooo I have to be all brilliant and go to grad school and become a psychologist and stuff.” He makes a face at Ethan. “Boring.”
“So boring,” Ethan says, wrinkling his nose.
“Hey,” I say on a laugh, ducking out from under my dad’s arm. “Not everyone wants to be a famous athlete.”
“If they don’t, they should.” Cam glides up next to Ethan, winking at me. “Being a famous athlete is the shit.”
“Damn straight.” My dad fist-bumps Cam, and I can’t decide if I like the budding bromance between them or hate it.
I roll my eyes. “Someone has to be in charge of making sure all your massive egos can fit into the locker room.”
Cam grins at me a little wickedly. “It’s not a massive ego if I really am that good.”
My heart thuds in my chest, and my cheeks heat at the double meaning in his words.
Simple, Maddy. Keep it simple.
I remind myself of Cam’s words before we got on the ice, but I’m afraidsimpleleft the chat five weeks and a night of double-digit orgasms ago.
“He really is that good,” Ethan says seriously. “My dad is the best offensive lineman the Renegades have ever had.”
“Aw, thanks Eth.” Cam ruffles Ethan’s hair, and the look on Cam’s face when he glances down at his son is so full of love that my heart squeezes, and suddenly, I think I need to take a minute before I start spilling my own feelings all over this ice.
