his mouth very close to her ear. “Want to have a watch party?”
Her throat seized, and she found herself coughing, choking on her own spit. Ah. That was another reason she didn’t have her fictional duke. Duchesses didn’t go around choking on their own saliva.
Ethan’s hand slipped from her arm, sliding up her shoulder, drifting to her back, the warm expanse of it running up and down her spine.
“I take it,” he said when she’d finally stopped coughing, “that’s a no?”
“Uh-huh,” she wheezed, turning right at the intersection in the hall and breathing a little easier when she saw the exit to the arena was just ahead. Just a few more steps and she could make her escape from this conversation in which she kept embarrassing herself, get back to her condo, and to her bath, cold pizza, and bottle of wine.
Lucky for her, she didn’t have to be on the team’s diet plan.
She could self-medicate and ply herself with all the carbs she wanted.
So take that, sexy hockey players with the amazing bodies. She might not have a six-pack—ha!—but at least she could eat her delicious crust topped with cheese and sauce and all sorts of other yumminess.
“Dani?”
She jumped, her brain having been locked on the leftovers of her Hawaiian pizza that was currently sitting on the top shelf of her fridge. She could almost taste it—the creamy cheese, the sweet of the pineapple, the saltiness of the ham—and . . . that was not pertinent to this conversation.
“Yeah?” she said.
“Are you scared of me?”
The grizzly bear of a man was touching her, walking close to her, his scent surrounding her, his body towering over hers by a good six inches. He was stronger and outweighed her, and he was certainly way more gorgeous than her—and that wasn’t on a hate-herself-vein. That was just pure irrefutable fact. Ethan’s cheekbones were sharp, his eyes unique and intoxicating, his lips kissable, and his body . . . well, that was also kissable.
Very, very kissable.
He made her want to do things that weren’t smart.
Very, very not smart.
So yeah, he scared her. He fucking terrified her.
A finger brushing along the tip of her nose.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You’re scared of me.”
“I—”
But what could she do? Argue and deny it? She wasn’t a good liar, and she had the feeling that Ethan would see through her anyway.
“Here,” he said, in such a gentle way that she immediately felt her spine bristle.
Shy, not fragile.
Quiet, not stupid.
Taciturn, not a bitch.
And what was the point in going down that road again, either in her mind or in this conversation? He wouldn’t understand. No one ever did, and it wasn’t like she was willing to blab her sad sob story out there.
Or that she had a worse sad sob story than anyone else.
She’d been quiet, not one of the cool, outgoing, beautiful or funny kids. So, she’d gotten her turn as fodder for bullies. It had sucked, but it had sucked for plenty of other kids at her school, and none of them had become this nearly silent, closed down mess of a human that she was.
She was hiding from her life.
Because it was easier and safer and . . . safer. That. If she hid, she wasn’t vulnerable and could just continue living in her happy little bubble. Could continue to get lost in her numerous video feeds, her computers, her fanciful duke, her cold pizza, and just leave it at that.
“Dani?”
Tone still careful, but marginally so, and the spikes on her spine settled down as she blinked. She realized that Ethan was holding the door for her, and she was just standing there like a freaking traffic pole, staring off into space while he was waiting for her to go out.
Ugh.
Why did he have to be nice?
She wanted to be annoyed but couldn’t deny that the chivalrous gesture was a nice one.
Yes, she could open her own doors.
Yes, it was nice when someone—no matter where they fell on the scale of gender—held one open for her.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
She walked out. He trailed her, the door clanging closed behind him, and silence fell as they strode across the parking lot. Her car—a small electric sedan that went approximately fifty miles per hour at top speed—was parked on the far end, well away from the players’ vehicles, but he still just sauntered along next to her.
“So, what kind of pizza are you eating cold?”
“Why are you here?” she whispered.
Silence.
Tense, painful silence.
It was a sentiment that she’d intended on keeping