Page 59 of Breaking the Ice

“Don’t worry, babe.” Yelling over the piercing sound, Evan puts the bowl of beaten eggs into our small refrigerator. “We’ll save these for later, and I can call the building supervisor on my way to practice and explain what happened.”

Explain that I got distracted by his hotness and forgot I turned the oven on? Is there a way to spin that?

He pops into the bathroom, then emerges fully clothed in a hockey shirt and joggers two seconds later. Oh, to be a guy. He tosses a pair of his sweatpants my way. “You should probably put these on before you go outside, though.”

The alarm stops, the silence almost as loud as the noise was.

I pout. “You still think I need to evacuate? Even though we know there’s not a real fire?”

Evan smirks and sidles up to me, bopping my nose. It would be annoying if he weren’t so cute. “You’re just mad because I have conditioning as an excuse to leave.”

“I’ve never wanted to go to hockey practice so badly before in my life.”

He laughs at my grumbling, but then my breath catches as he skims his fingers up my bare legs. “But you’d freeze if you went outside in these tiny shorts.”

I can’t think of anything better to say than, “Oh, yeah?”

Not my finest comeback, but my brain-to-mouth connection stops functioning, and all I can focus on is how good his palms feel on my skin.

His blue eyes turn molten. “Yeah. No one else gets to see my wife in her teeny tiny pajama shorts.”

The possessive tone in his voice scrambles my insides, and my belly becomes an Olympic-level gymnast with the flips it performs. “So to be clear, you like the pajama shorts?”

It’s December. Have I been wearing my summer pajamas because I like watching his eyes turn molten? I’ll never tell.

“I very much like the pajama shorts.” Tugging me flush against him, he fists his hands in the hems of them on either side of my thighs and drops his mouth to mine in a searing kiss. There’s no doubt about how much he appreciates my bedtime apparel.

“Is this okay?” he asks in a whisper, and I nod.

He backs me up against the tiny section of counter space in the kitchen, then slides his hands under my armpits and hikes me up so I’m seated and straddling him. I wrap my legs around his waist and tilt my head back, giving him better access as he threads his fingers through my hair. The blood sings in my veins, all of it chanting yes, yes, yes.

Evan’s phone beeps, and he pulls away from me, dazed. “I’ve gotta go, don’t want to be late.”

After one more quick peck on the lips, he swoops up his hockey bag, smiles at me, and is out the door.

I groan. I’m left on the counter, aching and short of breath. If he didn’t have to leave, I would have ripped his clothes off and thrown all my reservations out the window. That’s what Crazy, Drunk Bella would have done.

Maybe she’s my true self. Or maybe she’s insane. I’m still not sure.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

EVAN

Jonas: You okay after those extra reps this morning?

Evan: Yeah, I’m fine. I have thighs of steel.

Jonas: That feels more like a text for your wife than me. TMI, dude.

Jonas: But if I could have stayed, I would have done the laps with you.

Evan: I know you would have. Maybe next time.

Jonas: Ha!

“Baby, we’re going out to dinner tonight,” I say as I let myself into our apartment.