The cold airsliced through my fire-soaked lungs as I hefted my duffle bag onto my shoulder and walked across the parking lot. It was nearly midnight, and I had worked all day, but I wasn’t tired.
I should have been. But my body was buzzing with testosterone and adrenaline, the way it always did after a good hockey game. I joined a pickup team for some extra ice timebefore the Cuffs & Hoses tournament next month and just finished an intense game. Some would call me crazy, but I needed the activity to calm my body and mind down.
The competition, the brutality of the hits, and the physical demands of playing hard burned into my body in a way I couldn’t describe to someone who hadn’t experienced it before.
Part of me thought that maybe tonight’s game would have tired me out and settled the anxious energy that had built inside of me all day long, but it hadn’t.
In a way, it had only made it worse.
The other night I kissed Goldie on a table in the kitchen of Honey & Hearth. I tasted her skin, her lips, and her desires. Her moans and sweet begging for more were a permanent part of my brain matter now. But I hadn’t seen her since.
And it was fucking with me.
Honey & Hearth wasn’t open yet, but it would be soon. Everything at the bakery was almost done and ready to go, just waiting on the final permits and one last shipment of fresh ingredients so Goldie could work her magic on them and make them into delicious food that healed the soul of our little town. She was finalizing things the last few days, and I was busy with work and hockey, and the longer that went with no real time with her was making my nerves fray.
She called.
I texted.
We video chatted.
We talked.
But it wasn’t enough.
Especially not when I knew she'd spent the night with Rhea the other night. The entire night.
They hooked up.
Even without those specific words from Goldie’s sweet lips, I knew it had happened.
And I was happy for her, she deserved that.
But I was desperate for her time, too. Turned out, patience wasn’t my strongest virtue.
I was trying, though. I always would for her.
When I was showering off after hockey, I contemplated driving across town to her block, cruising slowly with my lights down low, to see if she was home. To see if she was awake at this late hour.
To see if there was a purple Jeep in the driveway, mocking me.
I even contemplated putting a parking boot on that damn Jeep in the fire station parking lot tonight, knowing I wasn’t free to go to Goldie, simply so Rhea couldn’t.
But I wouldn’t do that to Goldie.
I couldn’t act like some love-struck teenager if I was trying to convince her I was man enough to share her. I just had to get my head around that idea.
Rounding the last row of vehicles parked in the dark lot, my step faltered, catching a dark figure sitting on my tailgate as if they belonged there.
“Goldie.” I murmured when she lifted her head and watched me walk toward her.
She smiled, that sweet, honey-thick smile that instantly made everything else in the world disappear. “Hi there.”
She swung her legs in the air, the tight black leggings and cute little boots keeping her warm. Her hair was in a cute messy bun, with curls slipping free and swaying in the breeze, but what made my skin heat like an inferno was the sexy oversized cardigan she wore, in the same color as her eyes. The blue fabric looked like it was the softest material in the world, and as she leaned forward, it slid off one shoulder, baring the smooth skin to my hungry eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, tossing my bag into the bed of my truck and standing in front of her. I crossed my arms so I wouldn’t give in to my temptation to reach for her before I knew why she was waiting for me. “It’s late.”
If she were here to end things before they even started, I didn’t need the warmth of her skin on my hands to mock me when she said the words.
