Page 105 of Broken Ice, Mended Hearts

He snickered. “Finally figured that out, eh?”

“Easy,rövhål.”

“Hey, hey. I didn’t teach you that word so you could use it on me.”

I rolled my eyes and gave him the best get-real smile in my repertoire. “You should know me better than that.”

“Rövhål.”

“You’re therövhål.”

After a few back-and-forths, he laughed. “Agree to disagree? I’ll be damned if I teach you another word.”

Wait—when we first started hanging out, he told me “gags” was Swedish for “asshole.”I stopped, dropped his hand, and turned to face him. “I’ll never call you that again—inSwedish—if you answer a question.”

“Oh God. I’m sure I’ll regret this, but what do you want to know?”

“What’s therealreason you won’t call me Gags, since it obviously doesn’t mean asshole? Tell the truth this time.”

He held out his hands in a what-can-I-say gesture. “The first time I ever saw you, years ago, your looks bowled me over. You’re hot, Pip. Like blue flame, burn down the house, and blowsomething up hot. You’ve gotten even more attractive since I’ve known you because your heart got involved.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you stalling?”

“No, dumbass. Listen to me. Especially after that hockey fight, when I’d have been down for some serious making out on the ice, I couldn’t think about your name without…”

“Without what?”

“Without imagining you gagging on my dick. Which, as you know, has happened quite a few times now. And it’s hot as hell when you do.”

I didn’t know whether I should laugh or feel proud, so I did both. “Don’t you still think it when everybody else calls me Gags?”

“Sometimes.” He stepped forward and put his hands on my biceps. “But it’s not the boner- and blush-inducing thought I have when I say it myself.”

My dick started getting hard, and our eyes locked. “Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

He licked his lips, then grinned. “Remember that first time we had sex after I got home from the hospital? I was lying on the bed, and you were fucking my throat. I couldn’t stop thinking how Gags was making me gag. I was gagging on Gags’s dick.”

I chuckled while I traced a finger along his cheek. “Youareblushing. You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Want to do it?”

“Out here?”

I made a show of looking around. “No one in sight, and it’s got to be midnight by now.”

He smiled and nodded toward the right. “Over there, behind those two trees.”

Later, as we lay in bed, I rested my head against his shoulder and whispered, “I’ve really lucked out, being with you.”

“Same. When we started seeing each other, my heart wasn’t just broken; it was frozen like ice.”

“Mine too.” I snuggled closer. “As much as I wanted someone, I’d given up hope.”

He traced a finger over my lips. “But now, you’ve mended my heart. It isn’t frozen any more, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

“We broke the ice for each other, then.” I pushed up on my elbow and looked at him. His hair was messy, and his eyelids looked heavy, but he was still the best thing I ever saw. “Now we’ve got two mended hearts, because I know what it feels like to love someone and have them love me back.”

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