Page 11 of Mister Hockey
That and not have him discover that hidden in her bedroom closet was a horde of Jed West memorabilia. When she’d seen him hunched on the porch through her peephole, her brain had flatlined. She’d sprung into frantic action, whirling through the house, grabbing all her fangirl items. First and foremost, the life-size cardboard cutout of him that her bestie, Margot, had nabbed from a downtown sports bar last month. The poster graced her bedroom door like a teenybop celebrity. The fridge magnets. The mug. The bobblehead plastic toy on the sink windowsill.
“All good.” He emerged from the attic door feet first, gripping the ceiling and lowering himself down in one steady, controlled motion, suggestive of years spent working out on pull-up bars. His sweatshirt rode high over his belly button, revealing a slab of lean, hard-cut abdominal muscles. A warrior’s body, with one thick silvery scar running parallel across his hip, alongside a thick, delicious-looking vein that disappeared into his elastic waistband.
It was overwhelming, enduring this much physical longing.
“That patch should hold for the rest of the storm,” he spoke with no clue that she was on the verge of melting into a pool of lust. “I slapped on two coats of tar.”
“I can’t thank you enough.” She forced her gaze up as he casually tugged down his hoodie, staring past her with a frown.
“Shit. Your bed is soaked.”
It took a moment for anything but the last word to register. She ground her knees together, acutely aware of the damp slickness in her own panties.Thatain’tthe only thing wet around here.
Jesus, she could host her own creepy standup routine on Comedy Central. Her pink-cheeked reflection beamed back from the full-length mirror on the wall, her eyes were glazed with visible arousal. This was so uncool. And typical Breezy behavior.
On her tombstone it would read:She came. She saw. She made it awkward.
“You should strip off the sheets and position the mattress over the heating vent,” he continued, just as the front door banged with a short sharp rap.
“That must be Neve,” she said, flustered. “She can help me flip it off the baseboards. I’ll take the comforter down to the cleaners to see what they can do. So anyway, thanks. You’ve done so much today. Above and beyond.”
What’re you thinking, crazy? Hurrying Jed West out of here?Her subconscious screeched in Margot’s voice, urging her to throw her body in front of the door. Offer to tap dance. Or lap dance. Or a cup of coffee. Or hell, a blow job.
But her best friend was off doing downward dogs in Baja and no use in the advice department until she returned at summer’s end.
Breezy had no choice but to push the protesting howl aside. Jed West might have spoken at her library and patched her leaky roof, but he was also a hockey god. Surely he had better things to do. Return to Mount Olympus and melt the snowcap with his superhuman hotness. Or enjoy a threesome with nubile goddesses. Or do whatever it is that gods do when not slumming with mere mortals.
“I’m serious. You’re doing me the favor. Look, that rain’s coming down harder by the minute.”
For a god, he seemed in no hurry to escape back to his exalted realm. And he did have a point. The eaves were overflowing outside the corner window with Niagara-like force.
“Honestly it was no big deal. I like odd jobs.” His encouraging smile gave her enough lift to float to the front door. It was almost like he enjoyed being in her orbit, that he was... interested.
Which was crazy.
Crazier than crazy.
Almost as crazy that at some point during the past thirty minutes, Jed had begun morphing from some abstract celebrity fantasy to an actual flesh and blood man. A guy who did fix-it jobs and made her laugh even as she drooled over the sinewy muscles in his forearms.
The growing heat between her legs pulsed.
But it wasn’t until she’d turned the front doorknob and stared at her mom and Granny Dee huddled under an umbrella stamped with the red pitchfork, the Hellions logo, that it felt like she was in danger of losing her mind.
“Shit!” She slapped a hand over her mouth and braced the doorframe to steady herself. Her legs had gone wobbly, as if the bones evaporated.
Mom sized up her leggings with a dismayed frown. They had an ongoing disagreement on whether or not they were pants. As per usual, Mom’s makeup and outfit were perfect and she looked impossibly beautiful. It wasn’t uncommon for strangers to mistake her for Diane Lane when out in public. “Guess that’s one way to greet guests.”
“S-sorry,” she stammered as they barreled into her living room. Her stomach tumbled in a sickening lurch because right now, right this very second, Jed West was dismantling her bed.
And in the bewildered excitement of his proximity, she’d spaced out about the sex toys stowed under the mattress.
The magic wand.
The rabbit.
The weird-shaped purple one that oscillated.
The personal lubricant.
