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  Dahlia tossed bread on a cookie sheet, not caring that the slices piled up willy-nilly.

  “He’s twenty-five.” Lilly was going to die painfully. Dahlia wondered if a meat thermometer could cut the carotid artery open.

  “Oooh, that’s the perfect age.” Dahlia’s mother started straightening the toasts. “But, why’s he still a virgin?”

  “Apparently, he was a dorky kid.” Dahlia didn’t believe he was anywhere near as nerdy as he said, but she had to take his word for it. “It never happened to him, and now he’s getting chased by groupies everywhere. I imagine it might be hard on a hard-on.”

  “Or maybe he’s gay.”

  Dahlia fumbled the knife and nearly sliced off part of her index finger. “He’s not gay.” Even though she said it, she wondered.

  “He’s gay,” her mom said.

  Is that why the bounty still stood? Maybe he was gay? Or maybe he was bisexual, but he mostly liked men, and he kissed her because she was kind of like a dude. She didn’t dress much like a girl, and she had rather boyish hips. Shut up, Dahlia.

  “Can you just not imagine anyone wanting to kiss me, Mom?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  Dahlia turned to face her mother. Lilly had slowly backed out of the room. “Oh, yeah? Of course, you would assume that he was gay instead of assuming that he’d want to sleep with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Her mother threw up her hands. “You always think the worst of me.”

  Yeah, because it was usually true. Dahlia and her mother didn’t seen eye-to-eye, and it had only gotten worse since high school. Beth could never understand why her daughter had turned from happy-go-lucky cheerleader into a morose goth kid. And Dahlia had never bothered to explain what had changed. She’d been ready to get the hell out of Dodge the minute she grabbed her high school diploma.

  Dahlia thought the worst of her mother because her mother didn’t make any effort to understand her.

  “Just forget it, Mom.” She put the last tray of crostini into the oven. “It was just a kiss. He was probably trying it out.”

  Anders hadn’t wanted to go to a wedding. He was supposed to be up here thinking. Tomorrow, he’d have the Cup. Each player on team that won the championship got the Cup for a day during the off-season. He’d been planning on using it as though it was an oracle of some sort. Maybe having a symbol of all he’d achieved—through self-denial—would tell him whether he wanted to go on denying himself.

  But the groom had accosted him when he’d returned after his hike and insisted he come to the wedding. Sitting in his room, looking out at the water, wasn’t clearing his head, so he’d accepted the invitation. He liked the fact that random people invited him places because he was that good at hockey. It was superficial, yes, but he’d been a pariah for so long that it felt good that people wanted him around. When shit like that happened, he could forget that fact that he would always be an outcast, no matter how much money he made.

  And thinking didn’t include kissing Dahlia again. Her lips on his had affected more than his long-controlled libido. Touching her, feeling all those luscious curves and soft skin against him, had shifted and rearranged his priorities. The few times he’d kissed a girl since the bounty was instated, almost immediately upon him getting called up, he hadn’t thought about what his partner was angling for by being with him. At that moment, when she’d laid out every temptation for him with a few movements of her lips, he hadn’t cared about the bounty. All he’d cared about was more of her mouth, her breathy sighs, and the way she fit with him.

  Not kissing Dahlia and not thinking about kissing her were going to be hard. Fuck, he’d accepted the invitation to the wedding, hoping this was the one she was catering.

  Now, after the toasts and with people dancing in between the tanks, he’d seen her slip out of a back room to make sure that food was circulating.

  He didn’t like the crease between her brows or the tense way she’d held her shoulders. She didn’t have to worry about the food. He’d snagged at least one of each of the apps laid out, and they were all delicious.

  The beer was great, too. Even if people weren’t really talking to him, but staring at him like they didn’t know what to say, the food and the beer might be worth the outing.

  “What are you doing here?” The waitress from yesterday was apparently also a waitress at the wedding, and she’d surprised him into spilling some of his sip down his shirt. “Sorry. I’m Lilly, Dahlia’s cousin.”

  “Nice to meet you.” No use being impolite just because she was clearly mentally inventorying what he looked like without a shirt.

  “It would be nicer to meet you if you didn’t have a crush on my cousin.”

  Anders felt his skin flush, and knew he must be tomato red when the tiny blonde laughed. She couldn’t be more different than Dahlia. Maybe it was because he’d met her colorful cousin, but Anders wasn’t sure he would be able to pick Lilly out of a lineup of puck bunnies with a gun to his head.

  “I, uh, don’t have a crush.” Grown men didn’t have crushes. He hadn’t had a crush since Kacey Nillson in the ninth grade. He’d wanted to ask her to the winter dance. Before he could scrape up the courage, he’d heard through the grapevine that she’d laughed and laughed when someone had told her “Pizzaface” Sorenson was going to ask her out. After hearing that, he’d scored his first hat trick, but he didn’t grow the stones to ask anyone out for a long time. By the time he was playing in the minors, he felt like it was too old to “come out” as a virgin to the few girls he’d had time to date. But, though he’d left his parents’ strict religiosity behind, he hadn’t wanted to sleep with just anyone.

  But Dahlia wasn’t just anyone.

  “You like like her, don’t you?” Lilly scrunched up her face. Some of what he’d been thinking must have shown on his face. Sweat dripped down the back of his dress shirt.

  “We don’t really know each other.”

  “You know her mouth.”

  Anders felt a streak of anger rip through his embarrassment. He couldn’t believe that Dahlia had told people about their kiss, knowing about the bounty. Maybe he’d mistaken the lust that coursed through him every time she was in his orbit for her having integrity. He didn’t understand why she’d talk about kissing him, knowing that he had literally never had sex because he didn’t want his business publicized.

  Still, he didn’t say anything in response to Lilly’s inappropriate remark.

  “Relax, dude.” Apparently, she wouldn’t be taking the hint and moving away. “I know everything about her. We’re that kind of family. Dahlia will keep stuff on the down low. And you don’t have to worry about her getting attached. She doesn’t really do that.”

  “Doesn’t do what?”

  “Relationships.” She grabbed a beer off another server’s tray. When Anders gave her a look, she shrugged and took a drink.

  “I thought she had a boyfriend until recently.”

  “He was really more of a business partner.” Lilly took a pull of her beer. “He was a convenience. I’ve known Dahlia since about an hour after I was born. We’re closer than most sisters. She only told me about the kiss because it was so out of character. She didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities or out you to anyone. Hell, I’m rooting for you two to sleep together.”

  “Why?” It seemed weird that Lilly was so invested in her cousin’s sex life—in his sex life.

  “Well, she gets a twinkle in her eye—one I haven’t seen since high school—when she talks about that kiss. And she’s the furthest thing from a puck bunny that there could be.”

  “So, you two aren’t plotting to get the bounty by lulling me into a false sense of security?”

  Lilly laughed. “No. I tried to convince her that she should go for the money, but she wouldn’t do that. Not her thing.”

  Dahlia chose that moment to walk out of the kitchen. She walked right over to Anders. He could feel her heat, and faint smell of her clea
n sweat teased him, reminding him of his lips against hers. Her hair was pulled back, neat as a pin. And, even in a bulky chef’s coat, he could make out her tantalizing curves. His cock stiffened thinking of peeling her out of that stupid jacket and laying her out on any surface. He wanted to taste her. He wanted so much more from her that he couldn’t see straight.

  “What are you doing here?” Her question was slightly threatening, and it jolted him out of his fantasy of licking cake frosting from her taut abdomen. Lilly slunk away when she heard the sharp tone of her cousin’s voice.

  “I’m an invited guest.”

  She took another step toward him and sucked air through her teeth. “You’re not here to humiliate me?”

  “Humiliate you?”

  “Yeah, if these fools get a hint that I practically humped you in the woods, I’ll never hear the end of it.” Her voice was flat and low; he didn’t like it. He wanted her breathy and moaning and desperate. Or, at least, happy to see him.

  “I would never tell anyone about us.” He crossed his arms over his chest, inadvertently brushing against the hint of breast he could make out in that chef’s coat. She started, but he bit the side of his cheek to keep himself from apologizing. He had nothing to be sorry for. He’d accepted an invitation. It wasn’t the first time he’d been invited to a family event by an overzealous fan, but it was the first time he’d accepted.

  Because he knew that Dahlia would be there, and something inside him wouldn’t let things go with her.

  “Because of the bounty,” he said.

  Her eyes widened as though she’d forgotten about the stupid money. He liked that. She wasn’t rattled because she could get paid if they let this thing go further than a kiss. Her back was up because of him.

  “Don’t get it wrong, Dahlia, I want to taste every inch of your skin. I want to memorize your tattoos with my tongue. If this,” he motioned between them, “happens, I will worship you. But I don’t want it on Deadspin the next day or the next week.”

  “I don’t,” she gulped. “I don’t want that either.”

  Anders felt his confidence click into place, that feeling he had whenever he was about to score a goal. It was like a sense of inevitability flowed over him when she let him see a touch of vulnerability, when he realized that the two of them was a thing that was actually going to happen.

  He was almost glad that he wasn’t like some of the other guys on the team, drowning in pussy, forgetting names, forgetting themselves inside the most convenient woman around. He wanted to remember Dahlia, everything about her.

  He leaned close to her ear. “You don’t want me to worship you?”

  “I, uh, want that. I don’t want anyone to know.” Her voice was husky, and it was better than having her happy to see him. The sound was needy, and it filled him with something he couldn’t explain to himself. A sense of pride mixed with the need to protect what belonged to him.

  “I won’t tell anyone, but if you don’t go back to the kitchen, someone is going to realize how much I want to peel those baggy pants down your legs and make you say my name with that sex voice of yours.”

  “Anders.”

  “There it is. Now, I’ll have to make you scream it.”

  She looked down and couldn’t have missed the way his jeans didn’t fit over his fly in that moment. “You don’t talk like a guy who’s never done this before.”

  He gripped his biceps, hard, so he wouldn’t reach out and touch her. “The bounty only covers a certain kind of sex.” He paused, not sure he wanted to tell her the full terms of the deal. “Or, anything that absolutely requires a condom.”

  She chuckled softly. “The church girl loophole is closed, you mean?”

  “But I know where everything is and how it works.”

  “Yeah?” Her voice did that breathy thing again, and she was still looking—just looking. Her fingers danced on the edge of her jacket like she wanted to reach out as much as he did.

  “All of it.” Finally, he let himself touch her, to lift her chin so their gazes met. “Go back in the kitchen, Dahlia. But come to my room when you’re done for the night.”

  “But—”

  “No one is going to know. My place faces the water. No one will hear us.”

  She nodded, and turned on a dime back to the kitchen.

  Five

  Anders stood up and sat down on the couch in the living room of the townhouse so many times he would probably break the fucking thing. For the first hour of waiting he looked at the art on the walls, but you could only stare at a landscape photo so many times.

  He’d taken a shower before the wedding, but he took another one. Fighting off the urge to take his cock in his hand, to take the edge off, he’d shaved again and messed with his hair. He wanted to look good for Dahlia, smell good. It was almost as important for this to be good for her as it was for him. In fact, he didn’t give a fuck whether this was good for him. What was that saying about sex being like pizza? Dahlia was already Chicago-style, no matter what happened. She could have a third nipple, and he’d still want her.

  When he heard a tentative knock on the door, he had it open before she could make the second knock. He pulled her inside and closed the door. Her beauty knocked him on the chest. She rocked back on her feet when he grabbed her shoulders and took her in with his gaze.

  Earlier, she’d been all buttoned up and professional. Now, she was soft and rumpled. Where her mouth had been pressed into a thin, severe line when she’d first spotted him at the wedding, her face was open, and her pillowy lips invited his in for a taste. Her hands remained pressed into the corner of her jacket pockets. She had a bag looped around one wrist.

  “So.” Her voice was as far off the husky sensuality she’d let him see a glimpse of a few hours before, but it still made him want her.

  He wanted to hold her, craved her touch. Now that they were alone, nothing was stopping him. So he pulled her close. When they made contact, they shared a full-body shiver. The overwhelming sensation of her slim figure against him settled through his limbs.

  “You took a shower.”

  She let out a laugh against his chest, which reverberated through his shirt, into his skin. “I figured it would be no good if your first time happened with me smelling like fish.”

  “Going gentle on me?” He ran his hands over her shoulders and down her waist, settling in the dip above her ass. The last thing he wanted her to be was gentle. From the second they’d met, he’d craved more of her sarcasm, more of the fire and flirtation.

  “Isn’t that how I’m supposed to do a deflowering?”

  He laughed. Today at the Temperance, she’d shown him her softer embers. He wanted that, too. But he didn’t need her to be gentle.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  She pulled back and finally took her hands out of her pockets. A couple of strands of her hair stuck to his sweater, and he tucked them behind her ear as she moved away from him. Now that he had her alone, he wouldn’t stop touching her. Not unless she asked.

  She held the bag open for him. “Food.” He recognized some of the appetizers from the wedding. Those would be good. Later. “And condoms.”

  He’d already thought of that, but didn’t want to have them hanging out on the coffee table. He’d never talked booty call protocol with his friends or teammates. They were usually caught up with giving him a hard time. He walked over to the end table where he’d stowed them, opened the drawer, and held up his box.

  Dahlia laughed, and some of her apprehension seemed to float away, out of the cottage. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  She blushed, and he liked how that made him feel. Still, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. At the wedding, when he’d been trying to convince her to come to him, the words had come out easily. He was ready with fantasies of what he would do with her given the chance, but he didn’t have anything now.

  “Do you want some food?” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  �
��I can’t look at any of this anymore.” She walked toward the kitchen and opened the fridge. When she’d stowed the food, she stood up and took off her jacket.

  She wore leggings and a dark flannel shirt over boots. Somehow, that was sexier to him than any short skirt.

  “Come here.” The hard gravel that came out with his words surprised him. Dahlia grimaced, but came closer. “Sorry.”

  “What for?” Her eyes flashed at him, and her mouth curved into a saucy smile. Her voiced lowered, she said, “You might not know it, but you know what you want. And I like that.”

  “You do?” He’d always thought that what he liked in his head would be off-putting to most women. He wasn’t about to try to talk her into whips and chains or anything, but controlling Dahlia in bed got him going in a major way.

  His skin heated, and she reached out and touched his face. Just that touch sent a spark right through to his dick. When h bent his head and took her lips, she melted into his body like ice.

  Her hands went to his hair, stroking and pulling in perfect measure. Her soft curves against his body felt so right, he wanted to roar and beat his chest. Sweet lips urged him on when he ran his hands over her hips and generous ass. Something shifted, when he plumbed inside her mouth with his tongue.

  She ground her pelvis against his painfully thick cock, and he put her away from him. “Fuck, Dahlia.”

  “Yes, please.” Her mouth curved, wet and swollen from their kiss.

  “We should slow down.”

  “Why? You’ve been waiting too long as it stands. I hate that your teammates did this to you.” She unbuttoned the first button on his shirt. And then the second. And the third. His skin sizzled wherever her fingers touched him.

  “Did what?”

  “Put a bounty out on you.” She had his shirt open, and she kissed the center of his chest. His skin lifted and resettled over his body at that point. He pushed her jacket until it hit her shoulders. Then she let him shove it onto the floor.

  Anders had to see her. Sure, he’d gotten a glimpse of her that morning at the falls, but he hadn’t gotten to see her all naked. He hadn’t glimpsed all the soft parts, the vulnerable places. He unhooked the top button of her jeans and took the zipper down. She stood in front of him and let him.