Page 56 of The Worst Kind of Promise
“Did he just say ‘finger’?”
“You haven’t eaten yet?”
“It’s fine,” I say dismissively, just as my stomach expels a growl loud enough to be heard over the chatter of the restaurant.
He gives me one of his judgy little looks. “Sure it is. And I didn’t just have a one-sided conversation with your stomach.”
Embarrassment rushes to my cheeks.
Kit reaches into the pocket of his shorts, pulls out a miniature box of Junior Mints, and slides them over to me.
It takes everything in my power not to snatch them up like some greedy bridge troll. “You were carrying a box of Junior Mints with you?”
“I thought I should start to since we were hanging out so often,” he explains, watching as I—gracefully—pop the lid open and pour a handful of those delicious chocolate melts into my palm. I toss them into my mouth—a little less gracefully—and muffle a moan when the sweetness hits my tongue.
“Plus, you get really stabby when you’re hangry.”
I flick a piece of candy at him, but it bounces off him like a tiny pebble. “I don’t gethangry.”
He picks up the mint, tosses it into the air, and catches it in his mouth. “Uh-huh. Then what do you call that time we were momentarily trapped in Ikea and you threatened to disembowel me with a blender blade if you didn’t get a plate of meatballs?”
“That wasn’t my proudest moment,” I admit with a wry grin.
Kit leans back against the seat, chuckling under his breath, a perfect picture of the male specimen. The surly, famous NHL defenseman who’s willing to do everything to win me back…is allmine.
“But…thank you. Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me before.”
“I’d do anything for you, Princess.”
Princess.I’ve missed hearing that name, and it’s never sounded better.
Kit’s eyes duck to my lips, lingering, one bad decision away from pressing his mouth to mine. The crippling need to kiss him pulses in my lower abdomen, journeying all the way to my cunt, where desire throbs even harder and faster behind my cotton-clothed center. My hunger for food is long forgotten. All I can focus on is him. The way he’s looking at me right now, leaning in like he’s about to—
And then I hear feminine laughter from around the corner, growing in volume along with the click-clack of heels.
“They’re coming! Hide!” I hiss, making a shooing motion with my arm.
Kit glances around the space frantically. “Hide?”
“Or leave! I don’t know! If they see you, they’ll know something is up.”
“So, you still want to keep us a secret?”
“For now, yes. Hayes is already livid over the party. I don’t think now is the time for him to indirectly find out about us. Now go!”
Kit wastes no time making a beeline for the exit, his freakish hockey speed allowing him to slip undetected out of the door before Aeris and Lila can possibly catch sight of his retreating figure.
The two reclaim their seats, looking a lot calmer than they were before. The burgundy stain on Lila’s blouse has faded to a light pink, only noticeable if one was a witness to the spaghetti catastrophe.
“You guys got it out,” I observe, suddenly very aware of the fact that Kit and I almost got caught. That was way too close for comfort. And yeah, I could’ve lied and said that he was just dropping by to say hi, but that wouldn’t have explained why no other member of the team was with him. Hayes for sure would’ve stopped by to see Aeris.
Aeris pockets her stain stick. “Oh, yeah. That was a tough-ass stain. But her shirt looks brand-new, right? Well, notbrand-new. Just don’t look at it too closely. Or smell it.”
Lila squints her evergreen eyes, curiosity scoring the lines of her face. “Where’d you get that box of Junior Mints?”
Oh, crap. I totally forgot to hide those. I flatten down the lid tabs and stuff the box in my purse, my heart throbbing in my chest and affection accelerating through my veins. Kit was hanging onto them…for me. Even though he said things that weren’t true, his feelings for me never changed.
“I guess I had them with me all along,” I say, curbing a smile, mentally counting down the minutes until I get to see him again.
