7
SO EASILY GOADED
Olivia
OF COURSE IT FEELS GOOD, my hand in his. Long, broad ngers thread through mine, tugging me out of my seat, through the crowded dance oor. The size dierence in our hands alone is staggering, and I nd myself thinking of all the ways he could put that hand to good use.
The thought itself sends a shiver of pleasure down my spine, which is why I didn’t want to do this in the rst place. I don’t know why it feels nice when he touches me, why I’m drawn to his goofy grin, the way he carries himself in such a carefree manner, so condent and in control. If he gets me alone for too long, I’m afraid I’ll let him come knocking on the walls that are denitely not sturdy enough to keep him out.
He belongs here, on the other side, no emotional attachments. Because that’s the last thing anyone wants to do with a man who has no inclination to settle down: get emotionally attached.
“Madam.” With a charming, dimpled smile, he takes a small bow before hauling me into him. His warm palm presses against my lower back, and I have to remind myself to breathe when his whisper glides over my neck. “Is this okay?”
My throat squeezes, and all that comes out is, “Mhmm.”
“What did you think of my goal tonight?”
“It was a beautiful goal,” I admit on a sigh. He was a rst-round draft pick at the age of eighteen, and cinched the title of captain at only twenty-two. Today,
he’s one of the highest paid players ever. Carter is truly a phenomenon in the hockey world.
His face beams with pride. “And the celebration? I dedicated it to you.”
Apprehension knots in my belly, the same way it did when I saw my face all over the big screen. “You mean when you landed my face on the jumbotron?
When everybody around me started wondering who I was and if you’d nally decided to settle down? Or when Sportsnet said I was pretty enough but not the typical swimsuit models you fuck?”
His eyes hood. “You could be a swimsuit model if you wanted to.”
He’s just not getting it.
“I know that’s meant to be a compliment, but it only irritates me further.
This is clearly just a fun game to you because I turned you down last weekend.
I’m a human being with feelings who has zero desire to be objectied on national television.” Ignoring the embarrassment prickling my ears, I step out of his stunned grasp. “Not all of us thrive on attention, Carter. Some of us actively avoid it.”
Another step back, and I’m about to thank him for the dance and excuse myself when his hand catches mine.
“Hey. I’m sorry, Olivia. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Guess I was excited to see you again and wanted to let you know. Extreme gestures are kinda my thing, and, uh…” He slips his ngers below his toque, scratching his head. “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing here.”
I don’t either. I don’t have to wonder if this is his usual MO; if it were, he’d probably be better at it.
Carter’s throat works as he looks down at our joined hands, then back up, a silent question: Will I keep dancing with him? At my cautious step forward, a grin detonates his face, and he yanks me into him. When the music shifts, the familiar mellow strum of a guitar drifting around us, my body stills.
And I bark a laugh as John Mayer starts singing about a woman named
Olivia.
“Did you request this song?”
His answer is a grin, equal parts proud and guilty as our bodies meld together. My eyes utter closed when his mouth dips to my ear, lighting every
one of my nerve endings on re when he drapes my arms around his neck and buries the lyrics in my shoulder, singing softly and so, so deep.
“Fuck, I’ve had this song stuck on repeat for the last week. Do you like John Mayer?”
My hands skim his broad shoulders, grazing the knotted muscles that ripple beneath the surface. Curving my palm over his neck, I ght the desire to twine my ngers in the chestnut waves peeking out from his toque. “I love him.”
“What’s your favorite song?”
“I’ve got two.”
“Gimme your most favorite rst.”
“‘Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.’” A slow, sad song, about two people who are destined to fail together, kind of like whatever the hell it is we’re doing right now. There’s no way this ends well. It’s bound to go up in ames; we’re just denying the inevitable.
I’m not sure Carter sees it the way I do, because he simply makes a pleased
sound and murmurs, “Second favorite?”
“‘Bigger Than My Body.’”
He does an absolutely piss-poor job of smothering that damn snicker-snort of his as his exceptionally large body shakes beneath my hands.
My eyes narrow. “Shut up.”
“I can’t”—snicker—“help it!” He bursts with laughter, forehead falling to my shoulder as his arms circle me entirely, clinging to me while he vibrates. He pulls back, wiping at his eyes, and a weird sense of pride rushes through me. Does he laugh like this with other women? “You walked yourself right into that one. You know you’re tiny, Ollie, right?”
“I’m not—” I stick my nose in the air. “What I lack in height I make up for in attitude.” That’s what my dad says, anyway, and I tend to agree with him.
“You don’t fucking say,” Carter muses sarcastically. “How tall are you?”
“Five three,” I lie.
“Bull-fucking-shit.” He chuckles, pulling back to take me in. “I’m giving you ve one.”
A growl rumbles in my throat. “Damn it.”
There’s that laugh again, and I’m not sure why I like it so much, or the sparkle in his eye as he spins me out before tugging me back against his hard chest.
“So…” The hesitation in his voice reminds me he’s not used to making small
talk. “You’re a high school teacher.”
“I am.”
“How old are you?”
“I turned twenty-ve in October.” Cara whisked me away to Palm Springs for four days, courtesy of Emmett’s credit card. It was dicult to explain the tan when I returned to work on Monday after a long weekend that started on
Thursday with a sick day.
“Twenty-ve? You’re a baby!”
“I am not. Your birthday’s in February, so you’re not even three—” I squeeze my lips together as the implication behind my words sinks in. Carter grins triumphantly. “Oh shit.”
“You Googled the fuck out of me, Miss Parker.”
“No.” Obviously. Call it morbid curiosity.
“What else did you nd?”
Other than confirmation that his smile is permanently dazzling and dimple-
popping? “That you really like women.”
He laughs softly. “What do you teach?”
That he’s content in not responding to my ndings reminds me why I’ve told myself to stay away. When you start giving pieces of yourself to people who only want to hold on to them until the next person comes along is when treading the water becomes dangerous. But when I try put a tiny bit of space between us, Carter pulls me back, bends his neck, and… presses a eeting kiss to the crown of my head.
“Olivia?” He touches two ngers to my chin, closing my gaping mouth.
“What subject do you teach?”
“Don’t make fun of me,” I warn. “I teach health and tness.”
“Why would I make fun of that? That’s so cool.”
“Yeah? My brother always says it’s not a real subject.”
“Your brother sounds like an asshole.”
I laugh, because yeah, sometimes. Jeremy’s four years older than me, and the thing we do best is bicker. He’d lose his mind if he could see me right now, but I’m not going to tell him, and that he hasn’t yet texted about Carter’s goal dedication means, somehow, he missed it. I’m calling it a blessing. Jeremy’s a huge fan, but he would absolutely not be a fan of me being one of the girls pictured going home with Carter.
Ironically, Jeremy got a stranger pregnant after a one-night stand at twenty- two. It turned out to be one of those fate scenarios. You know the type, real fairy-tale, romance novel style. They fell in love, got married, and had their second baby earlier this year. Real life doesn’t work like that 99 percent of the time.
I smile at Carter, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “He’s not all that bad. Jeremy just likes to tease me.”
There’s something in his stare, a tenderness I don’t recognize, one that has butteries erupting in my stomach at the vulnerability that comes with the way he watches me. He slips his hand up my side, gently placing it over my jaw. His thumb grazes my lower lip, and my knees wobble.
“I like it when you smile,” he murmurs. “It makes me want to smile too.”
I don’t know what to say to that. He’s not at all being the man he lets the media paint him to be, or even the one he was last weekend. He’s throwing me o my axis, and I’m not used to the instability; my world is already so delicately balanced.
“Okay, so you’re twenty-ve, ve foot one, have a brother, played hockey for fteen years, teach health and tness, thrive on sarcasm and sass…” He pauses to grin when I bark a laugh. “What else? Did you play any other sports?”
“Oh, everything.” I had a privileged upbringing in that my parents had enough money to put us into the extracurricular activities of our choosing. My dad still tells people I took acting classes and that’s how I got to be so dramatic, but really, I spent all my time playing sports, and hockey was by far my favorite.
Funny, when you consider that my love for the sport started with my brother strapping oversized goalie equipment to me and stung me in the hockey net in our driveway at four years old, where he proceeded to re shot after shot at me until my mom ran out of the house, shrieking. “Softball, soccer, volleyball—”
A howl of laughter sends Carter’s head rolling backward, and when the giant man drops his forehead to my shoulder, I frown.
“Volleyball,” he gasps. “You played volleyball?”
“Volleyball’s an incredible sport. I coach the senior girls’ team.”
“That’s amazing.” Is he crying again? “So cool, Ol.” He swipes beneath his eyes. He’s fucking crying again. “I guess I’m just… you know…”
I step out of his hold so I can cross my arms. “No, I don’t know. Enlighten me.”
Laughter bubbles again, and he lays a hand over his belly, his entire body shaking as he fails miserably to get a handle on himself.
“Can you even reach the net?” he chokes out.
“Oh, you’re hilarious.” Two hands on his rm chest, I give him a shove, and he catches my wrists. “I’ve got powerful legs. I did just ne; don’t worry.”
He hauls me into him, ngers sifting through my hair at the exact moment mine run through the silky curls at the nape of his neck. “Mhmm. Powerful
little legs.”
“You’re incredibly annoying.”
Carter cups my jaw, his thumb sweeping over my cheekbone as his half-lidded gaze drops to my lips. “And yet I think I’m winning you over anyway.”
My breath comes in a shallow burst as he palms my hip, nudging the tip of my nose with his. “I don’t like you,” I barely manage, and my heart gallops at his answering smile.
“You may not like me, but your body sure as hell does. The way your ngers are holding on to my hair for dear life right now tells me so.”
The reality of our position sinks in, the intimacy, the two of us tangled together, his mouth an inch from mine. What’s worse, we’re still slow dancing to a song that’s ended who knows how long ago, while the rest of the dance oor is covered with people gyrating.
“Oh.” I pull my hands from him, stepping back. “Oh.”
“Hey.” He chuckles softly. “Come here.” He laces his ngers through mine, towing me over to the bar where he sets me on a stool before sitting beside me.
“You’re about to spiral.”
“I’m not about to spiral.” I might be about to spiral.
“You’re about to spiral, Ollie. I don’t have to know everything about you to see that you’re the type of person whose brain is always racing, overthinking.”
I tuck my hair behind my ear, avoiding his eyes. “It feels like a lot of pressure.”
“What does?”
Everything. Pressure to give in, pressure to not give in. Pressure to t the mold of all the women who’ve come before me, the ones that will come after me.
Pressure to be dierent and unique while also tting in.
With Carter next to me, everybody’s watching. The fans at the arena, the sportscasters, his teammates here at the bar. Everywhere I look eyes are on us, watching to see what we’ll do next. I don’t know how to put it into words.
My gaze rises slowly to meet his, and somehow, he knows.
He tips his head toward the door. “Wanna get outta here?” He slaps a palm across my mouth the second it opens. “Not back to my place. Let’s go get
something to eat.”
“I ate at the game,” I blurt.
“You did not, liar. Cara stued her face with half the snack bar, and you had one handful of popcorn. I had my eyes on you the entire time and I got shit for it after the game.” He chuckles, tracing the shape of my hand with his nger.
“Coach said we don’t pay you thirteen mill to make googly eyes at pretty brunettes.” He pulls my hands to his chest, so much hope swimming in his eyes.
“C’mon. Get something to eat with me, please. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. We can get fucking street meat for all I care. It’s loud in here and I like
talking to you.”
Um.
“Please, Ollie. Please, please, please, please.” One gentle cheek poke for every please. He grips my chin, giving it a little shake. “Pleeease.”
“So annoying,” I grumble, swatting his hand away.
He props his chin on his st and wags his brows. “Annoying or endearing?”
“Annoying, denitely.” My shoulders sag with a sigh, and as if he senses my defeat, Carter leaps o his stool, punching a st through the air.
“A-ha! I’ve fucking cracked her!” He grips my waist, spins me in the air, drops me to my feet, and… peppers my entire face in kisses. His ngers lace
through mine, tugging, before I have time to comprehend what’s happened. “I promise, Ollie, you won’t regret it.”
I have a serious love/hate relationship with the giggle bubbling from my chest, and I need to get a handle on it before I go anywhere alone with this man.
“I’m not going home with you.”
He holds up two ngers in a promise. “I won’t even ask.”
“Okay, well, I have to use the bathroom rst.”
He pops a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll go get our coats.”
I pat my red cheeks with some cool water over the bathroom sink, trying to bring the stoking re down to a simmer. It doesn’t work. I feel hot all over. My lady bits are excited, my vagina rubbing her metaphorical hands together because she thinks she’s getting some tonight. It’s highly probable at this point. Carter got this far; he can denitely get further. The thought is both terrifying and thrilling all at once.
It takes me no time at all to spot Carter when I exit the bathroom, given his size and massive personality. He doesn’t have our coats yet.
He does, however, have a strawberry blonde with legs that go straight to heaven glued to his side, her glossy black nails raking slowly down his back. He leans his ear toward her mouth as she presses up on her high heels, whispering to him, and my stomach involuntarily sinks at the smile he ashes her.
My near-mistake and awed judgment sting like a slap to the face, and by the time I’m climbing into the back of a cab, he’s bursting through the door of the bar, hollering my name.
It’s too late. I sure as hell have enough self-respect to not subject myself to that playboy bullshit I denitely didn’t sign up for. He may not be going home with me tonight, but he’s going home with someone.
And quite frankly, who Carter Beckett sleeps with is of no importance to me.
He can go fuck himself for all I care.
