Page 79 of The Goalie in Room 1

“All evidence suggests otherwise.”

I turned the star.

“Too far.”

“Cash.” Jesus fucking Christ. He had to be doing this to torture me, right?

“Lean it back a little bit.”

I adjusted it again.

“Perfect.”

I stepped down and moved beside him. For the first time in hours, Cash was quiet. So was I.

The tree glowed in front of the windows. Hundreds of tiny white lights reflected in the glass with the black Pacific beyond them. Garland covered the mantel. Decorations sat on damn near every available surface. Stockings were hanging from hooks that hadn’t existed when I left for work that morning.

Two of them.

One with a C.

One with a T.

Something tightened in my chest.

“It looks good,” I admitted.

Cash bumped his shoulder against my arm.

“I know.”

I looked down at him. He looked up at me. And there it was again.

Awareness.

The awareness that had been there all night, hiding beneath jokes and whiskey and Christmas music. Which I still couldn’t believe I’d listened to. Beneath it all—every deliberate stretch of naked thigh, every lift of the sweater hem, every flirty Doc and the few Daddy tossed my way because he’d discovered exactly what the word did to me over the last few months and had apparently weaponized it—sat the awareness of the sexual tension between us.

Except he wasn’t laughing now.

Neither was I.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

Mine did the same, and his tongue slid across the lips I’d been dreaming of since Halloween.

One step. Less, given how hard my cock was.

That was all it would take to have him close enough to touch. And fuck me, I wanted to touch.

My hand flexed at my side.

Cash’s lips parted.

I stepped back.

“It’s late.”

For half a second, something flashed across his face. Then the brat came back at me. “Getting tired, old man?” he asked with a wink.