Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Keeping the lights off was truly the way to go. He shouldn’t have looked. Because when he put it together with everything else he’d learned about her in their short time together, he didn’t want to let her go.

“Do you realize your birthday is 7-14?” he asked. “The same numbers as this room? I think you’re right where you belong.”

“Oh my God.” She turned to face him, and he could imagine the wonder drifting through her eyes. “You’re right. That’s…”

“Fate,” he whispered, rolling to his back and pulling her on top of him. “Tonight, baby, this is home.”

Chapter 14

The ring of Jax’s cell pulled him from a deep, dreamless sleep. He blinked as the morning light hit his eyes. He was worn to the bone, and his mind wouldn’t start.

He stared at an armoire with a flat-screen television inside. Another goddamned hotel. Christ, where the fuck was he now?

He rolled to his stomach and groped for his phone on the bedside table. Lamp, clock, hotel phone…no cell. Just as he realized the sound was coming from a different direction, the damn thing stopped ringing.

Jax let his arm fall. It missed the bed and dangled alongside. The stretch felt good, and Jax sighed. The sensation nudged his brain, but he resisted. Didn’t want to think. Didn’t know why, just knew he wanted to avoid it.

He pushed both arms over his head, stretched his shoulders, his back. And groaned. He felt good. Sore, but good. His mind nudged again. He let it float, and the memory came back slow, languid. Hands on his back, relaxing every overworked muscle. Sweet thighs straddling his hips, working out knots in his neck. His shoulders. His ass.

Lexi.

The entire evening came back to him at once, like an explosion. He flipped to his back and pushed himself up. “Lex?”

His gaze held on the door to the bedroom.

Please walk through that door.

He swallowed and called again. “Lexi?”

He already knew it would go unanswered, but sat there, propped up by his hands, waiting. Hoping.

The room remained silent. And he brought her exit back from his memories, the way she’d come to the side of the bed before she’d left.

“Lex,” he’d whispered to her in the dark as she’d leaned over to kiss him good-bye. She’d been dressed in one of his T-shirts that hit her midthigh because she’d refused to take his jacket and didn’t have anything else to wear back to her room. He’d slipped his hand up the back of her thigh and squeezed her ass. “Please say you’ll see me in LA.”

He’d kissed her long and slow and tender. Rolled his tongue with hers, eased his hand between those soft, toned thighs from behind and fingered her, still slick and swollen from his cock. She’d groaned, rocked that sweet pussy into his hand, then abruptly stepped out of reach. “I’m sorry, Jax, I—”

“We can keep it just like this, baby. No one has to know.”

She’d thought about it for two full seconds before she’d denied him again and walked out of his life.

His one night with a woman as close to perfect for him as he ever hoped to find was over.

“Fuck.” He dropped back to the bed and threw his forearm over his eyes.

His phone rang again.

“Jesus.” Jax rolled toward the sound and gropped for it on the opposite nightstand, eyes still closed. He answered with a grouchy, “Yeah.”

“Dude, you out partying late last night?” Wes’s voice registered instantly. “You sound like you just woke up.”

“I did. I don’t have to be on set until noon.”

Jax glanced around the room. His gaze caught on the pillow next to his and a pair of red lace panties perfectly laid out on the white casing. His stomach clenched. Chest tightened. But a smile quirked his mouth as he reached for them.

He slid the fabric through his fingers, fisted it, wishing he could have held on to Lexi as easily. Her little memento didn’t make him feel any better about not being able to convince her to see him again.

“Hel-lo. Chamberlin, dude? You fall back to sleep on me?”