I let myself into the house quietly, hoping she and the kids were asleep, but she was in the kitchen when I came in. She turned around right away, a look I couldn’t quite decipher on her face.
“Hey.” I stopped to grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator.
“What were you thinking?” she demanded, hands on her hips.
I turned in confusion. “What?”
“You know how much Annalise likes to watch her uncles play hockey. You know she watches as many games as she can stay up for! How do you think she reacted to seeing you fighting like that?”
Crap. I’d never given a second thought to Annalise watching the fight.
“It couldn’t be helped,” I said quietly. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow and explain that it’s part of the game.”
“It’s violent and disgusting!” she hissed. “What you did to that poor guy…I can’t believe you think you’re fit to be a parent to anyone’s kids, much less these ones!”
I whirled on her, fists clenched at my sides. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know the first goddamn thing about hockey, or me for that matter, so why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself for once?”
“I will not. This is the kind of behavior that makes it spectacularly clear that you’re not fit to be their guardian.” She folded her arms across her chest, tapping her foot as if she were winning some sort of argument.
I advanced on her a bit more aggressively than I should have, but I was still hopping mad, fueled on adrenaline and pain. She took a step back but I kept going, until she was up against the wall.
“Let me explain something to you,” I growled under my breath, looking down into startled yellow-green eyes. “Fighting has a long history in hockey. It’s tradition. It’s part of the sport. It serves a purpose. Usually to let the other team know they can’t get away with something they were trying to get away with. Can you understand that?”
She swallowed, her jaw tightening in annoyance. “I understand all that,” she ground out. “But what you did tonight was different. It was violent. You were an animal. You—”
“I beat the shit out of the guy who said it was too bad Ben hadn’t died earlier in the season.” I glared down at her, my heart racing a mile a minute.
Her eyes widened and her mouth formed an “O” but no sound came out. Then she frowned, sadness in her voice as she whispered, “He actually said that?”
“Yeah. He did.” I still had her pinned against the wall but something had shifted. Her breath was coming in short, staccato little bursts now, her 34D’s rising and falling at the same time. Her eyes blazed with—pain? Anger? It was hard to tell, but when she licked her lips, the moisture glistening on them beckoned to me like a beacon in a storm.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was uneven, her tone apologetic. “I didn’t know—”
“Just this one time, can you shut up, please?” I muttered. “Because I’m going to kiss you. Unless you say no. But the window for you to do that closes in two seconds.”
Her mouth opened and, once again, nothing came out.
“Hadley.” I met her gaze and she gave me a barely perceptible nod but that was all I needed. I crashed my mouth to hers, sliding one arm around her waist and pulling her against me. Her lips parted beautifully, her tongue meeting mine stroke for stroke, and I didn’t let up. I pillaged her mouth like a thief in the night, taking pull after pull until she was grinding against my groin, our bodies pressed together. And hers was made for loving. Slender, with luscious curves, and goddamn, those tits made me insane. I would’ve given my left nut to suck on them.
“Aunt Hadley? I had a bad dream…where are you?” Annalise’s voice from the hallway made us jump apart and Hadley hurriedly smoothed down her top as she took a shaky breath, her eyes not meeting mine.
“I’m coming, baby.” Gaze still averted, she hurried out of the room without looking back.
I watched her retreating figure with a mixture of frustration and regret. I would have done anything to follow her, kiss her some more, but I knew better. One kiss probably didn’t change how she felt about me and I wasn’t the kind of guy to take advantage of a woman who was feeling vulnerable. The trouble was, I was vulnerable too.
“Lauren and I want you to be the baby’s godfather,” Ben said, a smile lighting his face as he eyed me. “You down?”
“For you and Lauren? Anything.” I paused. “Wait, let me guess, Hadley is going to be the godmother.”
Ben laughed, a full-on belly laugh that made me want to knock him off the barstool he was sitting on. “Lauren said Hadley had the same exact reaction when she asked her about being the godmother. You two are such a hot mess.”