“Sorry, yeah. You keep saying that. What’re you doing here?”

“I followed you home.” That sounds far worse coming out of my mouth than the actual act of tailing her felt while I was doing it. “I mean, I waited for you in the parking lot, but you got into the Uber before I could catch you. We need to talk. I promise I’m not a stalker.”

She rubs the space between her eyes, but after a few seconds she steps back. “Well, come in then.”

I cross the threshold and find myself submerged in her scent. It’s a combination of a subtle floral perfume, lotion, and her vanilla shampoo. My sheets held that combination after she spent the night. In my bed. Naked. With me. Which I need to stop thinking about.

Her dress is still hanging off her hips. She crosses over to a small dining table and grabs a pair of shorts draped over the back of one of the chairs. I avert my eyes again as she pulls the shorts up her legs. She tugs the dress past her hips, and it drops to the floor. Queenie steps out of the puddle of fabric, nabs it from the floor, and tosses it over the back of the chair. Maybe she doesn’t own a laundry hamper.

“So . . . I didn’t know you were a hockey player.”

“I wouldn’t have brought you home if I’d known you were Jake’s daughter.” I cringe. “I don’t bring girls home. Women, I mean. Especially not when we’re under the influence and not thinking clearly. It wasn’t . . . I’m not . . . I don’t—”

She raises her hand, and I take it as a signal to shut up, which is probably a good idea since everything coming out of my mouth seems to be making this worse instead of better. “I don’t need you to apologize or justify your actions. I don’t usually hook up with random guys, either, so we have that in common. Is it awkward that my dad is essentially both of our bosses? Yeah, but neither of us knew that until today.”

“He lives there.” I thumb over my shoulder to the main house. It has zero relevance to our current discussion, but it’s what popped into my head and consequently came out of my mouth.

“Uh, yeah. I can’t afford a place like this on an assistant’s salary.” She blows out a breath. “He won’t be home for a while, though, and we don’t talk about my sex life, so you don’t need to worry about him murdering you or anything.”

“That’s good. That he’s not home, and that he’s not going to murder me for the things I did to your body. To you.” I wish I could stop saying the first thing that comes to mind. Another inconvenient memory surfaces: me on my knees between Queenie’s spread legs, warm and wet and—I slap a palm over my mouth to prevent me from saying anything further.

But then I remember I didn’t find any condom wrappers the next morning.

“We didn’t use protection.”

CHAPTER 5

DIRTY BOY SCOUT

Queenie

Ryan, or King, or Kingston, or whatever people call him, looks absolutely horrified. And ridiculously hot, but mostly horrified.

“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, because whatever he said came out all garbled and unintelligible.

He drops his hand. “A condom? Did we use one?”

“Seriously?” I don’t know whether he’s joking or not.

“I didn’t find any the next morning. Used ones, I mean. There were two on the nightstand, still unopened. Oh God.” He grabs the back of his neck and paces the length of the kitchen. His face is the color of a beet. “I’m never this irresponsible. Ever. Or do the one-night-stand thing. That’s not how I operate. I date.” He stops pacing for half a second, eyes flaring even wider, if that’s possible. “What’s wrong with me? I didn’t even buy you dinner.”

“You bought me a lot of drinks.”

“That’s even worse!” Now his hands are in his hair, messing up his perfect part. “Have you gotten your period since we . . . were together?” He doesn’t give me time to respond, instead barreling on with more questions. “Should we go get tested for . . . things? I mean . . . I’m clean and I’m not saying that you’re not, but just . . . it would be a good idea for peace of mind, don’t you think? I can take us to a clinic that will be discreet. We could see the team doctor.”

I hold up a hand. “There is no way I’m going to the team doctor to be tested for things. Besides, we didn’t have sex.”

He ceases his relentless pacing and stops in front of me. He’s a big man. Broad, with thick shoulders and bulging biceps, ropy veins lining his forearms. I remember what it was like to have him between my thighs, one hand cupping my ass to tilt my hips up, the other cupping a breast so he could thumb my nipple while he licked and nibbled and sucked me to orgasm. More than once. Ryan Kingston is very, very skilled at oral and very, very giving. So giving.

“We didn’t?”

I can’t decide if his apparent relief should offend me. “No.” Although we got close—very close. Closer than we should have without a condom on. And we sure as hell covered every other conceivable foreplay option available, multiple times.

My lady parts clench at the memory of how unreal his stamina was that night. They also seem unaware that his proximity does not mean it’s going to happen again. It can’t. No matter how much I might want it to.

His brow furrows. Even that expression is fairly adorable on his distressed, pretty face. “But I remember . . .” He trails off.

“You remember what?” He was definitely far more intoxicated than I was, although I can admit now that I was tipsier than is generally safe when out alone with a strange man. And while parts of that night are fuzzy—like the last shot we did and the glasses of water we chugged—most of what happened between and on top of his sheets is not.

“I was . . . we were . . .” He’s back to pacing. “You were under me, weren’t you?” His eyes move over me, causing my already alert nipples to peak.

“That’s correct.” Our eyes lock, and some weird energy passes between us. “I was under you.”

“We were naked.” His voice is gravelly and low.

“Very naked, yes.” And I sound like I’m ready to get naked all over again.

If he weren’t a hockey player on my dad’s team, I wouldn’t be opposed. But he is. The level of complication is too high, and engaging in additional foreplay activities will not make this bad situation we’re in any better. No matter how good it will feel.

This is my internal argument as I hold on to the counter behind me to keep from doing something like grabbing the front of his shirt and biting his neck. He really liked that. A lot.

His brow creases again. He seems so confused.

“How much do you actually remember?” I ask.

“Uh, bits and pieces of everything? I think . . . apart from the sex, which you’re saying we didn’t have?” It’s more question than statement.

“Not technically, no,” I explain.

He takes a step closer, bringing him inside my personal-space bubble. I have nowhere to go, since I’m pressed up against the counter. I inhale, getting a whiff of his cologne and his deodorant. “What does that mean, ‘not technically’?”

Oh God, when he said we needed to talk, I didn’t think he meant rehashing all the down and dirty. “Well, uh . . . you went down on me—”

“I remember that.” He rubs his bottom lip, like maybe he’s recalling it in vivid detail.

“Do you remember what happened after that?” I have to tip my head back to look at him because he’s so close.

“I made you come with my mouth.”

“And your fingers.”

“And my fingers.” He nods his agreement. “You seemed to enjoy that quite a bit.”

Oh, Jesus. Here he goes again with his color commentary on my reaction to his foreplay skills. “I did. Like it, I mean. A lot.”

“So did I.” His tongue drags across his bottom lip. “But it gets murky for me after that.”

It’s definitely not murky for me. He’d prowled his way back up my body. Kissing bare skin, stopping at my nipples on the way back up to my mouth. He’d wanted to kiss me so I’d know what it was like for him to have me in his mouth and down his throat. A warm shiver works its way along my spine and pings around between my thighs at that lovely memory. He’d propped his huge body up on one forearm so we could make out while he fondled my boob.

I’d been the one to wrap my legs around his waist. I’d also adjusted my position so our sex parts could line up and we could achieve some mutual friction. Was it the smartest thing I’d ever done? Definitely not. Did it feel really good? Hell to the fuck yes.

“We wet humped,” I explain.

“‘Wet humped’?”

“Yeah, you know, like when you were a teenager, you’d dry hump someone through their clothes, but if you do it with the absence of clothing it’s considered wet humping.”

“Did we almost . . .” He trails off, as if he might be finally remembering that part of the night.

“You slipped low once.”

“Yes. I did. By accident.”