“Because you’ve never been asked?”
“I’ve been asked.”
“Because you don’t know how?”
“I’ve played hockey before. I know how.” He took my hand, intertwining our fingers. “It’s because I wasn’t in love with any of them, Birdy.”
“But you’ve been in love before.”
“I’ve loved, and been loved, but I wouldn’t say, after knowing you, that I’d ever been in love.” His brows sank. “I know that isn’t enough. Not by a long shot. But it’s something.”
We made it about three laps around the rink before I fell. While holding Manning’s hand, I’d been watching him, not where I was going, and nearly collided with a child. When I overcorrected, his grip was strong enough to keep me from flying, but I still landed on my butt.
Manning bent over me, lifting me by my armpits. “Are you hurt?”
I beamed up at him. “No.”
“I’d better inspect you anyway.” He led me over to the rink’s low wall and lifted me onto it by my waist. I shivered as I remembered him putting me on a brick wall on a hot, sunny California day years ago. “This hurt?” he asked, feeling around my outer thighs.
“No.”
He extended my arm, checking the red spot where I’d hit my elbow. He lowered his head to tenderly kiss the skin. “How about this?”
I giggled. “Of course not.” I hooked my skates around the backs of his thighs and pulled him between my legs. “But you should inspect more places.”
“Which places?”
“I think I hit my lips on the way down.”
He narrowed his eyes at my mouth, then pecked me. “Seems all right to me.”
“And also my . . .”
He was completely mine, on the hook, hanging on my words as if we were the only two people in the rink. And his eyes heated as if I were the only female on Earth. “Yes, Birdy?”
“Never mind.”
“If you won’t tell me where you hurt yourself, I’ll have to go ahead and inspect everywhere. But best if we wait until later, when we’re alone.”
I wrinkled my nose, smiling. “I like that plan. Will you get on the wall with me?”
“How come?”
“So I can pretend we’re back at the beginning. Like it’s the first day I met you.”
He didn’t look at me, but upon me, his face full of adoration. “Why would I want to go back there? It was pure torture. I remember it clearly enough.”
“Me too. You were as important as the sun.”
“The sun blinds you.”
“Yes you did.” I nodded. “I’ve seen nothing but you ever since.”
“Selfishly, I’m glad for it.” He wrapped his arms around me, surprising me with a slow, uninhibited kiss. “If it’s all right with you,” he whispered into my mouth, “you stay on the wall, and I’ll just stay here.”
“It is easier to kiss like this.”
“It’s easier to do a lot of things like this. If we weren’t in public right now, I’d open a few pesky buttons and zippers and be inside you.”
I held onto him as the image of us together hit me hard. Sex was possibly the best thing I’d ever experienced, and we’d barely done it that much. “Can we go somewhere?” I asked.
“Where would you like to go, my love?”
“Anywhere. I have business with a few pesky buttons and zippers.”
“Mmm.” He kissed my neck, nipped my earlobe. “Yeah. Let’s go somewhere.”
“Your hotel?” I asked.
“Ah.” He pulled back a little. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s . . .” Hesitating, he rubbed the underside of his jaw. “I’m expensing the stay, obviously, but I put the room on my credit card, and I’ll get reimbursed.”
“Oh.” It took me a few seconds to put it together. “Your credit card, which doesn’t only belong to you.”
“I can bring my things to your place,” he said. “I felt bad last night about scratching you up with my stubble.”
His five o’clock shadow was the least of what bothered me. I took my arms from around him. “Go then. Get your stuff and we can meet later.”
“Hey.” He pinched my chin to keep me from turning away. “Do you want to make love in a hotel I paid for with an account I share with your sister? What’s the alternative?”
I wiggled to get off the wall and he let me. When my blades hit the ice, they began to slide out from under me, but he caught me by my waist like I was some kind of doll, setting me upright again.
A woman around my mom’s age approached us, slowing to a stop with her pre-teen daughter in tow. “We were just saying you two are the most adorable couple we’ve ever seen,” she gushed in a southern accent.
“Mom,” the girl said, rolling her eyes before she sped off.
Manning tensed and moved to stand a few inches in front of me. He reached back and took my hand. It felt protective rather than loving, as if something had him worried. For whatever reason, his uneasiness melted my anger.