Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
My parents and Malik are in the bottom section of the arena, but to our right and several rows up. They graciously gave us the seats on the ice because…well, Jules is going to marry Max and Stephanie is going to marry Lucas. I guess it was only natural that I got to sit down there too since I was dating Van.
We’ve just come back from the restroom during the first intermission and have a few minutes before the second period starts. The Cold Fury are up 1–0. I’m enjoying a few beers tonight, since I’ll be riding home with a very sober Van Turner. Jules is also partaking, but Stephanie is deliriously happy to stick with water as she keeps her hand resting on her baby bump that you can’t even see beneath Lucas’s jersey she’s wearing.
So cute.
“Okay,” Jules says as she nudges my left shoulder and leans in closer. “Now that it’s just us girls, we have got to have more details about Van.”
Stephanie leans in from my right. “I’ve been dying to know too.”
I smirk, because they were both shocked as hell when Van and I showed up at the cookout a few days ago holding hands. Apparently, Lucas hadn’t bothered to tell anyone, and the devious fucker did that intentionally so it would be awkward. I guess that was his way of getting back at me for him walking in on me naked with Van and a butt plug on the bed.
At any rate, Jules, who has never been one to hold her tongue, said something like, “Holy shit, are you two dating?”
Max’s eyes just bugged out of his head.
“Yup,” was all I said to Jules’s question, and then we were grilling and having a good time. It was a group-type of thing, so there was no time for girl talk, nor any time for Max to try to poke his nose in my business. It was laid back, casual, and a pretty damn good time. Van wasn’t overly talkative, but he never is. He seemed content to stay by my side and look pleasantly interested in the conversation.
“What do you want to know?” I ask Jules and Stephanie as my head turns left and right. Both women take the hint and scoot to the edges of their chairs and then lean in closer so we are more in a circle.
“Everything,” Stephanie whispers excitedly. “He’s such a scary motherfucker, but damn if he isn’t like a lamb with you.”
I look around, determine we’re relatively private, and when I do, I turn back to them with a twinkle in my eye. “Okay…so the short story is I decided I wanted him, but he didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Because you’re Lucas and Max’s little sister?” Jules asks.
“I think that was part of it, but also because he’s just a cranky fucker as well as a loner, and couldn’t offer me anything but sex.”
Never in a million years would I ever tell them that the real reason Van kept me at arm’s length was because of his fears and insecurities over having a serial killer for a father. That’s our secret.
“Sounds like Lucas and me,” Stephanie murmurs. “That’s all we said it was…sex.”
“That worked out well,” Jules says with a laugh and a nod toward Stephanie’s engagement ring.
“Must be something in the air,” Stephanie agrees. “Cold Fury players dropping like flies; babies coming.”
“So how cute is little Milo Evans?” I ask Jules. She and Max dropped by Ryker and Gray’s house to see the newest addition to the Cold Fury family.
“Well, you’ve seen the pictures and they don’t do him justice,” she gushes, and if I’m not mistaking…is that a little wistful look in her eye?
The pictures were so freaking cute. The Cold Fury players and staff have a private Facebook group. I’m not a part of it, obviously, but Van showed me the pictures a few nights ago. And yes, Milo was beyond adorable, but that did nothing to make my ovaries ache. I’m years away from wanting children.
Besides, I’d have to be with a man who wanted the same, and while I don’t know Van’s thinking on that or if we’ll even survive until the end of the play-offs, I’m going to take an educated guess that kids aren’t high on his agenda.
And I don’t want to even talk or think about kids, so I decide to get the conversation back on the original track of what they asked.
“Anyway,” I say to get the attention off babies and back on me. “I made it perfectly clear to Van I was okay with just casual sex…as long as it was hot.”
Jules chokes on the sip of beer she’d been taking and rasps, “You did not!”
“I so did,” I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. “Admittedly, I had to work on him a bit with some outrageous flirting and teasing, but he eventually gave in. And when he did, let me just tell you, Van has it going on between the sheets. I’m talking freaky-deaky in bed. He’s an animal. Insatiable. I don’t think I’ve walked straight—”