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Her eyes narrow. “You’re smart.” A toss of her hair. “You’ll figure out how to make it look believable.”

I’m not going to figure much out, not with all my blood heading south for my dick, but somehow a moment of brilliance dances off the tip of my tongue. “On the lips,” I say.

“What?”

“I won’t kiss you on the lips.” My mouth curves. “Unless you ask, of course.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”

I shrug. “We’ll see,” I say. “So, no kissing on the lips⁠—”

“Or fucking.”

My dick twitches, hearing the dirty word come out in that princess tone. “Or fucking.” A beat. “Unless you ask.”

“Definitely not going to happen.”

“Now,” I drawl, “that sounds like a challenge, princess.”

She ignores me to reiterate, “No kissing on the lips. No fucking. You can touch me like a man touches his fiancée, and that’s it.”

“Another challenge.”

A muscle in her jaw flexes. “Not a challenge. A fucking boundary, or I’ll send your money back, get the hell on with my life, and you can figure out your own shit.”

“So now we’re onto threats?”

“Not challenges. Not threats. Boundaries.” She reaches up and drags her glasses back down her face, covering those icy blue eyes with thick black lenses. “Or is that too big of a word for a hockey player to comprehend?”

Derisive words and a literal shield.

Sneering at me. Hiding from me.

I don’t like that.

I swipe the lenses from her face.

“Hey!”

“Here are my boundaries, princess,” I say, folding one of the earpieces into the collar of my shirt, allowing them to rest against my chest. “I’m paying you two million fucking dollars.” I hold her stare. “That means you are going to be the perfect fiancée. You’re going to stare up at me adoringly. You’re going to hang on my every fucking word. You’re going to melt into my touch. You’re going to give my family the impression that you’re so fucking addicted to my cock that I’ve ruined you for all other dicks in this world.”

She sputters angrily, but I just lean closer.

“And you’re going to make the world see that you want me so goddamned much that you’ll put up with my bullshit, that you’ll think it’s fucking diamonds instead of cow shit, and you’re going to do all of that because I’m paying you a fuck ton of money in order for the world to see exactly that.”

Her eyes are chips of ice.

Her lips are pressed so tightly together, it’s like her entire mouth disappeared.

Her shoulders are rigid and yet…fuck.

They’re fragile.

Like she’s barely holding it together.

Like my words have sliced through all the ice and wounded her somewhere deep inside.

Fuck.