Erik (Arizona Vengeance 2)

“Another date?” I repeat. “I’d like to see you again.”

“We’re not finished with this one,” she points out.

I roll my eyes. “If we were finished, considering how things have gone, would you go out with me again?”

Her brow furrows as she considers my offbeat question and her reply is sort of hesitant when she says, “Um…yes, I would.”

“Good,” I say with an emphatic nod. “I’ll call my attorney tomorrow.”

“Wait!” she says with a laugh. “No, Erik. You can’t—”

“We’re dating,” I say with a nonchalant shrug. “It’s what any boyfriend would do for his girlfriend.”

“No,” she says with a glare. “Not any boyfriend.”

“Well, your superstar, filthy rich hockey boyfriend would.”

“You’re not my boyfriend.” The exasperation in her voice is cute as hell and I want to kiss the fuck out of her.

“Am too,” I reply as I start cutting into my steak again. “I’m not seeing anyone else and you agreed to another date. So that makes us dating. Technically that makes me your boyfriend.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she sputters but I can see the amusement twinkling in her eyes. “Besides…I might be seeing someone else.”

“You’re not,” I say with relative certainty.

She doesn’t deny it but picks up her glass of wine. She takes a long sip, regarding me over the rim. When she sets it back down on the table, she tells me something that validates everything I’ve been feeling since I met her.

“You’ve definitely changed,” she murmurs, the appreciation in her voice evident.

“Yes, I have,” I agree.Chapter 9BlueIt’s totally odd that within a few weeks I’ve gone from completely disliking Erik Dalhbeck to now being sort of smitten with him. Our date last night was…magical.

Yes, that’s the only way to describe it.

I’ve tried to calculate in my head how much it must have cost him to rent out the restaurant but then the number gets so big and overwhelming, I just give up. We stayed there until almost midnight just talking. I had more wine but he abstained because he said he was transporting important cargo later. It made me sort of gooey, but then again…he’d had me softened up from the moment he said we were dating.

That he was my boyfriend.

And that he was calling an attorney on my behalf to help with my dad’s life insurance.

My head sort of spins as I consider just how much occurred at dinner last night. Gone was the man I thought I knew. The impetuous, sinfully sexy man that gave me the best sex of my life and wasn’t even abashed when he invited me into a foursome with him and two other women the next night when I was expecting a second date. In fact, I find it hard to even reconcile that Erik with the one I spent last night with just talking about everything under the sun.

He had plenty more questions about Billy which I happily answered. If Erik thinks we’re going to continue dating, then he’s accepted that Billy is an integral part of my life. That’s good because any man who wouldn’t accept that has no place beside me.

I learned a lot about Erik as well. He’s from Minnesota and is an only child. His parents divorced when he was young and his mom remarried fairly quickly. Erik didn’t get along with his stepdad who was quite the disciplinarian, and spent most of his time with his dad.

Erik sheepishly admitted his father—who is a very successful real estate attorney—was a huge playboy, even to this day. He dates women much younger than him and has never remarried.

“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” I’d teased him last night when he’d told me that.

His laugh was easy but his eyes were serious when he said, “I figure my dad just hasn’t met the right woman yet.”

The implication was clear. Erik had it in his mind that perhaps I was his “right” woman, and yeah…that made me even a bit more smitten with him.

I’ve had to repeat to myself a dozen times since he dropped me off at my doorstep last night—with nothing but a soft, brief kiss to my cheek—that I can’t get caught up in the fame and notoriety that comes with a professional hockey player. It’s the lifestyle I once craved and did very shameful things to have years ago, and I have to remind myself that it’s not what I want anymore.

So I’m resolved that while I very much would like to keep seeing Erik, it’s not something that can get very serious. I don’t think Erik has it in him for the long haul, and I have to stay focused on myself and Billy.

I tell myself that one more time as I look at myself in the mirror.

When Erik said he wanted another date with me, I wasn’t expecting him to insist it be tonight. It was Halloween and Legend was having a costume party at his house.