Page 68 of Mother Pucker

But this time it’s Beckett Langfield on the other side.

“What have we talked about with slamming doors in peoples’ faces?” he says over his shoulder to the Destructive Demons, I’m assuming. “Or not opening the front door, period?”

He grumbles something like, “Worse than The Shining twins,” under his breath before looking at me. He’s holding anadorable, chubby-cheeked little girl in his arms, who puts her head into the crook of his neck, looking like she’s trying to find an escape through it. Her eyes peek through, watching me cautiously. “Slick! Sorry about,” he throws a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the twins, “those two. Shay told me you were coming by to pick her and Kai up. She’s finishing up with a patient downstairs, so why don’t you come on in?”

I follow him inside and immediately wonder if I’ve accidentally walked into a rundown set for theAddams Family.

“Wow,” I say, turning my head from right to left, trying to keep my face from giving away my thoughts.

Beckett must notice, anyway. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.”

A fixer-upper?To say this house is a fixer-upper is akin to calling a car that’s been propelled into a tornado and catapulted to the ground with full-force ‘malfunctioning’. You’d have to blatantly ignore the gaping hole in the ceiling, the interesting paint job, and parts of the flooring that are either mismatched or missing entirely to call this place afixer-upper.

I have to wonder if living in a tree house would be safer. And the fact that both Shay and Kai live here makes me uneasy.

I don’t have a chance to comment because, as soon as we turn into the family room, Kai comes running toward me. “Rowan! You’re here!”

Bending down to put the box I brought with me on the ground, I pound his fist. “Hey, Kai! Dude, did you grow a few inches in the last week?”

He shakes his head, giggling. “No. I think it’s because you’re bent down.”

“That must be it.”

“Mom and I watched all your games on TV this week. You were amazing in that last period against Chicago!”

“Thanks, bud,” I respond, feeling like a million bucks. “So, your mom watched the games, too, huh?”

I catch Beckett’s smirk behind Kai before he pretends to hide it, ambling over to switch on a humidifier in the corner of the room.

Even though both Shay and I have been good about keeping things on the down-low with the rest of the world, I haven’t been able to hide much from Brooks. To be honest, it’s been nice to have someone, aside from Shay, I can acknowledge ourrelationshipwith. But, though Brooks knows we want to keep things private, I can’t exactly tell him not to tell his brothers. I can only hope he doesn’t. But by the sheer fact that our team owner and Brooks’ brother, Gavin, hasn’t approached me or my agent about Shay being anything more than my PT, I can only assume he and the other Langfield brothers don’t know.

“Yeah. She doesn’t know the rules as well as I do, but she’s getting the hang of it,” he boasts.

“Well, I’m glad you’re there to teach her.”

With the number of games this past week–two of which were overnight trips to other cities–I’ve only been able to see my girl twice, for just a few hours. The other few nights, we talked on FaceTime, and I was sure to get my daily kiss, even if it was on the phone.

She came over both evenings I was home, walking me through more of my PT exercises and assessing my thigh with extreme professionalism. She insists on doing that, regardless of the fact that we’ve slept together multiple times, saying we need to keep our professional and personal relationship separate as much as possible.

But once those exercises were done, I was able to entice her into other,more pleasurable, exercises. The kind that involved my bed, my sofa, the shower, and the kitchen counter.

But it hasn’t been enough. No amount of time spent with her ever seems to be, and I’m already dying to hold her, touch her, and taste her again.

Luckily, we were able to get a decent number of hours together while we were in California, with me being able to sneak away into her room for the night, but it’s been hard to get that kind of time ever since, and I’m dying to be with her again.

I hand the box to Kai and his mouth hangs open even before he’s seen what’s inside.

“Thanks, Rowan!”

A laugh rumbles in my chest. “You haven’t even opened it. What if it’s just a cardboard box?”

“He’d probably still thank you,” Beckett says, laying a kiss on the little girl’s forehead in his arms. “Out of all the little monsters we have running around here, he has the best manners.”

Kai opens the box with minimal help from me, taking out the new hockey stick I bought him. “No way!” His eyes practically pop out of their sockets. “My own hockey stick?!”

“I wrapped it with black tape, too. And look here.” I turn the stick in his hands so he can read the back of it.

“You got it engraved with my name?” He peers up at me, his eyes misty.

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