Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) (23 page)

“You noticed? I thought I was nothing more than a guy on your brother’s team,” I teased.

“You are a guy on my brother’s team. But you’re also…” She shook her head and burrowed closer.

The sensation of having her pressed up against me like that was too much. Despite the layers of clothes between us, I felt every curve of her body. The soft mounds of her breasts and the hard peaks of her tits. The gentle slope of her waist and the smooth flare of her hips. My thoughts were heading south, fast. Needed to redirect my thoughts.

“Also what?” I prompted.

She shrugged. “According to Anthony, you’re also my man.”

There wasn’t any point in trying to stop myself from grinning. “What do you have to say about that? Am I your man?” Because I sure as hell wanted to be.

“I don’t know. What would that mean?”

“Well, to start, it’d mean I can kiss you. And hold you, like this. Maybe take you out sometimes.”

“So basically like before but with kissing and all that other yucky stuff that Connor doesn’t like, hmm?” There was a definite teasing quality to her voice.

“
All
that other yucky stuff?”

She went rigid in my arms as soon as the words left my mouth. But then she laughed. “Not right away.”

“Right. So not tonight, but tomorrow is a new day.”

“Watch it,” she said, laughing. “I’m getting pretty good at punching guys in the belly.”

“And kneeing them in the nuts,” Jonny said as he came into the owner’s box.

Hammer was right behind him. “Amen to that.”

Cadence whirled around, blushing. She was too fucking hot when she blushed. Made me think all sorts of things I had no business thinking with her brother standing three feet away. Still, I didn’t care. She was gradually letting down her walls and welcoming me in.

Slow and steady
, I reminded myself.
One step at a time
.

“Come out with me tonight?” I asked once the guys made their way past us and we were as alone as was possible surrounded by all the WAGs and kids, not to mention half the team.

Still blushing, she turned back to face me. “Come out with you where?”

“Your choice. We can go with the big group to dinner and be surrounded by people. Or we can go, only the two of us, back to Shari’s and share a slice of pie.” I tried hard not to let my preference show too much. Either way, I’d be with her.

“Shari’s,” she said, grinning. “But only if you agree to the coconut cream.”

“It’s a deal.” And a date.

She hurried over to fill in Jonny and Sara about our plan, and then we headed out before anyone could stop us.

“I WISH WE
didn’t have to head out on the road so soon,” Levi said, taking another bite of our shared pie.

“But you do. It’s part of the job.”

“I know. But I don’t like the idea of your brother and me both being gone right now.”

I fought to keep from rolling my eyes, but I barely succeeded in that battle. “It’ll be fine. Sara and I will be careful. We’ll call the cops if anything fishy happens. Anthony and Ellen are both fully aware of the situation, and they’re going to be looking out for me, too.”

“But what if it isn’t enough?”

I started counting items off on my fingers. “I’ve got pepper spray. I can kick a guy in the balls. I’m signed up to take Krav Maga classes starting in a few days. The security guys for every facility I’ll be spending much time at have been informed.”

Levi grabbed my fingers to stop me, and I shot my eyes up to meet his.

“I know all this,” he said. “But I’m allowed to worry.”

“You are?” The knots of annoyance in my belly gave way to butterflies because of the look in his eyes.

“I am. Because you said I’m your man, right?”

I wasn’t sure I’d said it exactly, but I might as well have. “Right,” I croaked.

“I’m your boyfriend.” He sounded a lot more confident about it than I was.

“You are.” My heart squeezed when the words came out.

“So you’re my girlfriend. I’m allowed to worry about my girlfriend when I’m away. That’s part of the deal.”

“Who made up these rules?” I asked, cutting off another bite of pie to try to hide the fact that my face had rapidly filled with heat.

“Someone, somewhere, a heck of a long time ago.” He speared most of the bite I’d been going for.

I gave him the evil eye.

“You snooze, you lose.” He popped my pie in his mouth and winked at me.

“You’re as bad as Anthony.”

“Are we as adorable as Anthony and Jesse are together?”

I laughed. “You think they’re adorable?”

“What, you don’t?” He raised a brow. “Come on. The way they were at ChocolateFest…” He reached for the last bite, but I snagged it before he got there.

“Speaking of Anthony and Jesse,” I said, popping it into my mouth, “they’ve finally set the date. Valentine’s Day. I can bring a date.”

Levi scraped up the last dregs of the coconut cream. “Does this mean you’re asking me?”

“I suppose so. If you want to come.”

“I can think of worse ways to spend my day.”

“Gee, what a compliment,” I said, laughing.

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

“I won’t tell Jesse that last part, or he’ll try to hold you to it.”

He paid our bill and left a tip for our waiter before we headed back out to his car. He opened the door for me, but before I could climb in, he leaned in for a kiss. Not a wild and crazy one like the first had been. This one was slow and hot—scorching, almost—with the kind of heat that bubbled up from my belly and left me desperate for more. One of his arms slipped behind my back, holding me close to him, but not as close as I wanted to be.

“What was that for?” I murmured against his lips when he broke it off without backing away.

“Because, since I’m your man now, I can kiss you and all that other gross stuff.” He trailed the tip of his finger over my lips a few times, leaving me panting. Breathless. Then he pressed his lips against mine again, hard and fast and hungry. “I could get used to this, Cadence.”

“So could I.” Every time he kissed me, I felt a bit tipsy. Almost drunk, but from lust instead of alcohol. It was addictive. I bit my lower lip, and his eyes went straight there.

“Every time you do that, I think about biting you.”

“Do you?” I could barely speak, because my lungs weren’t working anymore.

“I do. Like this.” His lips pressed against the side of my jaw. His tongue followed, and then he nipped me, sharply enough to make me gasp for air, but not hard enough to cause true pain. “Only I want to do it everywhere,” he said.

“Everywhere?” My head was swimming, and I felt dizzy, so I grabbed hold of his biceps to keep from falling back into the car. It was too soon to back away from him, too soon to lose that contact. His touch steadied me even as it left me lightheaded.

He brought his hand forward until the backs of his knuckles brushed the side of my breast, making me shiver. “Everywhere.”

It sounded like a promise. I latched on to it, determined to hold him to his word.

“Get in the car, Cadence,” he said, his forehead bent down until it pressed to mine. “I need to take you home before I forget everything about how I’ve told myself this has to go.”

“Do you always follow the rules?”

“Usually.” He grinned at me, but his eyes were still dark with the same heat surrounding and filling me. “But you make me want to break them.”

I laughed as I lowered myself into the car. Levi closed the door and went around the front to climb in on the driver’s side. After he started the ignition, he froze, staring out the window on my side.

“What?” I asked, turning to follow his gaze.

“Doesn’t that look like Guy’s car? The silver one under the light. I remember it from the parking lot at the rink.”

My heart stopped. “It does.” It didn’t simply look familiar. There was no doubt it was Guy’s car. Which meant Guy was here.

Levi pressed the button to lock his car doors. “It was parked down the street from your brother’s house last night when I left, too.” He put the car in reverse. “Take out your phone and call the police.”

KRAV MAGA CLASSES WERE
no joke. Neither was my determination to learn how to protect myself. Seeing Guy’s car in the Shari’s parking lot had left me more shaken than I’d ever been in my life. By the time the cops had arrived at the diner, he and his car had been gone.

They told us they were going to stop by wherever he was staying today and give him another warning, but so far he hadn’t done anything to warrant his arrest. Right now, I wasn’t sure I wanted him arrested. Deported back to Canada would be much better. Nothing short of at least having him in jail would help me feel safe again, though, and it didn’t matter how many people I had surrounding me or how many weapons I had with me. I wanted Guy out of my life, once and for all.

Aside from all that, even if I wasn’t fond of Cam and Hammer’s tactics the other morning, they’d proven one thing—something I’d already realized but maybe hadn’t been ready to admit to myself. If Guy decided to physically attack me in some way, I was going to have to fight tooth and nail to escape. He could easily overpower me. Nearly any man in the world could, for that matter. Which meant I needed to learn ways to fight back that he wouldn’t expect.

So, even though I was spending hours every day on the ice with Anthony and working out in the gym like I always did, then spending several more hours teaching Sophie and the handful of other figure skating students I’d picked up along the way, I was giving it everything I had in Krav Maga.

Especially now, while the Storm was out on the road. I didn’t have my brother and Levi here as distractions, so I was able to fully devote myself to my training.

Not that I was doing it alone. Anthony and Jesse came with me sometimes, taking the classes alongside me. One night, Sophie’s mom, Paige Bergstrom, suggested that she and her daughters should all join me. That had been quite the adventure, but Sophie had proven to all of us exactly how strong she was. She actually took me down a couple of times, and not because I was going easy on her. Katie had tagged along a couple of times, dragging her mother with her. Some of the other players’ wives and girlfriends were starting to pop in on the classes, all saying it was a good idea for each of us to understand how to protect ourselves in case anything were to happen since the guys were on the road so much. Sara had even left the kids with one of the other guys’ wives on a few occasions to come with me, not that I understood why any of them would agree to keep an eye on Connor. None of them were related to the tiny terrorist.

By the time I got home at the end of each night, all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath and melt into bed, but my nephew typically had other plans. He liked to jump on me, especially since Levi wasn’t around to be used as a jungle gym.

That was how Jesse and Anthony discovered me when they came over for wedding planning one night after the team had been gone for almost a week. But at least I hadn’t seen any signs of Guy stalking me in that time. Maybe the additional warning from the cops had been enough.