Page 56 of Lucky Puck

I pull back from his hold like he’s a poisonous snake, even knowing he doesn’t deserve the comparison, that it’s my own weakness and paranoia I’m struggling with. Either way, I need separation.

“We don’t know each other—not that way. We’re…” I wave my hand between us. “Business. Contracts and deals. Not kisses and hearts.” I smile, finally somewhat satisfied with the words that I’m putting together.

“How about the kisses without the hearts?” His expression turns curious. “Any chance we can graduate from contracts to kissing? Because I’m pretty sure we already have, Bianca.”

When he calls me Bianca instead of honeybuns, I know he’s serious. I also know he’s kind of right.

I give a nervous chuckle. “That’s just it—my body may have graduated, but in my head, I’m still stuck with the contracts and…” I end with a shrug.

He blinks, his expression shuttering, and I have a moment of deep regret and more than a little panic because maybe I’ve ruined things. Maybe I’m making a big mistake by not giving in to whatever my suddenly wanton body wants. And deal with my practical mind and guilty conscience later. I wish I could take back my words if it would get back the beautiful, sincere smile he had for me a second ago.

“You’re right. No matter how much chemistry we have, if you’re not comfortable with kissing, then we’ll keep it… platonic between us.” He says the word platonic like it pains him, like it’s worse than a swear word and against his religion. It probably is if his religion is committed bachelorhood and endless indiscriminate good times with as many women as possible. Which it probably is since that’s how he’s been living his life since I met him last year.

I nod, trying to smile. I should at least pretend to be happy since he’s being so understanding, behaving like a perfect gentleman, treating me with respect and being more than nice.

“Then how about ice cream for dessert?” he says, his grin back to real, if not quite as energetic as before.

“Now you’re speaking my love language,” I say, sounding and feeling like myself, like whatever pressure I was under to give in to my impulses has been lifted. He’s let me off the hook, and I want to hug him for it. But I probably shouldn’t do that. Mixed signals would be bad. Keep that in mind, Bianca. No. Mixed. Signals. No matter how nice he’s being.

Shit. This platonic thing would be so much easier if he were a jerk.

The idea that I’m in bed with Brody Holden keeps knocking around in my head, pushing against my very real enjoyment of the moment, trying to insist that this is all a dream. But as I shovel—I mean gracefully slip another spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Half Baked into my mouth, the sweet cold treat keeps me present, even if it does nothing to calm the giddiness rushing through my veins.

Brody presses fast-forward on the clicker past the ads.

“Hey, wait, we might miss an ad with you in it.” A drip of ice cream spots my flannel nightgown as I sit against the three-pillow stack in his massive king-sized bed. He sits beside me, not quite close enough for me to wrestle the clicker away from him, but close enough for me to breathe in his clean manly scent, and if we both lean in a little, my flannel nightgown might touch his white cotton t-shirt.

He grins at me, and the twinkle in his starry blue eyes makes my heart expand like a balloon and then beat at a rapid pace like a Tommy gun gone wild.

“Are you saying you’re a fan, Bi-an-ca?” He stretches out my name in a teasing way, and it does things to the butterfly colony that’s been living in my gut since the trip to Vegas.

Forgetting all my prior concern about maintaining professional décorum since we’re now platonic friends, I allow my giggle to burst forth into this new dimension of reality.

“How do you know it’s not professional interest?”

He leans in, and my heart, along with my breathing and all other bodily functions, except my lady parts, which are buzzing to life. In my head, I picture myself leaning in to meet him, but I may have been turned to stone by his proximity, or maybe his eyes, as if he’s channeling the Medusa.

“I just know.” He taps his spoonful of Cherry Garcia against my nose, and I feel the dot of creamy cold ice cream he’s left like a tattoo, indelible and somehow marking me as his.

Without taking his eyes from me, he glides the spoon into his mouth and sucks the ice cream off it, swallowing it down while I watch his Adam’s apple. Then he licks the spoon as his eyes focus in on my nose.

“I have ice cream on my nose, don’t I?” My words come out breathy, and I wonder where that came from. We’re just two friends eating ice cream and watching a movie together. In bed.

And one of us is a world-class sex hunk—I mean hockey hunk. No sex. We’re friends.

He nods. “I’ll take care of that.” His voice rasps against my nerve endings, and every touch along each nerve sends a signal like falling dominos one after another until they reach their ultimate goal—which happens to reside between my thighs in a creamy nest—and it sings like a tuning fork from heaven. I’m surprised he doesn’t hear it.

When he leans closer, bringing his face so close to mine that my eyes cross trying to watch him, I’m no longer breathing, preparing myself for his kiss to knock the wind from me. But he doesn’t kiss me.

Instead, he does something that’s somehow even more erotic. He licks my nose, then as if to make sure he’s got all the ice cream, he gives a little suck, circling his tongue around like…

I squeeze my eyes shut and shut down all my thoughts, trying to convince myself that this is strictly platonic between us. That’s our agreement.

He pulls back, and I start breathing again as if I’d been underwater. Metaphorically speaking, maybe I was. My eyes open, and his disquieting stellar blue eyes stare back at me. There’s only a hint of his smile left around the edges, like it’s slowly fading away.

“Thank you,” I say, concentrating on being normal, trying not to give in to my mad impulse to throw myself on top of him and kiss the bejeezus out of him.

“Why Cherry Garcia?” I ask the most inane question not because it makes sense or in any way can be classified as normal right now, but because it popped out unbidden. Not a good sign for my impulse control.