Learn Your Lesson: A Single Dad Hockey Romance (Kings of the Ice)

She wanted to hit me.

I wanted to kiss her.

That was how it had always been with us.

“This is just… great. Just fucking perfect,” Mia said, throwing her hands up in disbelief before she sank down into my giant bean bag with a huff. As soon as she realized where she was sitting, she hopped up with a frustrated growl before stomping over to the couch, instead.

She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. 

“What am I going to do?”

As much as I secretly loved seeing her flustered, that was usually only because I was the one getting under her skin. In this instance, I hated it, because she was upset over something I had no control over. 

Usually, I’d toss a smart-ass remark at her and smirk as that perfect mouth of hers gaped open at me, as her cheeks turned red and that little vein in her forehead popped. I knew exactly how to push her buttons, how to make rage pour through that normally put-together woman. 

But right now, that side of me I always kept tied up in the basement of my cold, dead heart was thrashing, urging me to go to her, to pull her into me, to hold her and find a way to make it right.

I kicked that motherfucker hard enough to knock him out, snuffing the lights and reminding him why he was locked away in the first place.

Her dark hair fell over her shoulders in a silky curtain as I took the seat next to her. I hovered one hand over her slender back before I carefully, slowly, rubbed it. “I’m sorry.”ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Mia froze under my touch.

There it was again, that shock of electricity between us, that zap of heat I felt any time my body made contact with hers.

But just when I thought she might melt into that touch, Mia yanked away, uncovering her face so she could properly glare at me. Those sharp blue eyes of hers narrowed into slits. “Well, you should be. This is all your fault.”

And just like that, we were back to sparring.

“My fault?” I gaped at her, smirking even with my mouth open because I wanted her to feel as ridiculous as she was being. “Mia, it’s a fucking hurricane. What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”

“You’re the whole reason I’m here instead of in New York to begin with. I’m doing all this to save your ass! And now, I have to cancel a sold out show at Madison Square Garden.” 

The truth of that seemed to hit her full force, her face going white.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered, burying her face again. “I have to cancel a sold out show at Madison Square Garden.”

Any desire I did have to comfort her was receding now, held at bay by her accusation. “Saving my ass,” I repeated, tonguing my cheek. “So, this is all about me suddenly? I’m the big bad wolf and you’re just doing this to be a little saint, huh? Nothing at all in it for you?”

“Oh, shut up,” she spat, shoving me away. I barely budged. 

“Because I’m pretty sure this was your publicist’s idea,” I reminded her. 

“Well, your agent is the one who made me come here for your stupid game!”

“Made you?” I stood, jaw tight. “You are a woman with free will, Mia. In case you forgot. No one can make you do anything.”

She looked up at me then, her eyes softer, something in the relaxing of her jaw telling me I’d struck a nerve without trying.

It reminded me so much of when we were younger that I had a hard time taking my next breath.

For a split second, we were both eighteen again. 

She was begging me to kiss her. 

I was begging her not to let me. 

I knew even then that we were wrong for each other.

I knew even then that we’d break each other’s hearts if we ever tried to be more than friends.

“Whatever,” she said after a moment. The word was resigned, not laced with any sort of edge, and that upset me more than if she’d screamed it.

I could handle her yelling at me.

I couldn’t handle knowing I’d hurt her — even with all the practice I’d had over the years.

She sniffed, waving her hand in the air like I was a waiter. “Do you at least have some tequila or something?”

“Need to get drunk to face the truth?”

“That I’m stuck in a high-rise condo with my fake fiancé with a hurricane barreling toward us?” She stood, a saccharine smile on her tight lips. “Um, yeah. Drunk is the bare minimum.”

She stormed past me and into my kitchen then, and I took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly and calmly as I could as I folded my hands together and rested them on top of my head. I stared up at the ceiling, debating converting to the first religion I could think of just to see if there was a god who could save me.

Mia needed to drink to get through this, and I needed to sit on my fucking hands.

Because she wanted to hit me, and I wanted to kiss her.

And with the two of us forced to stay together for the night, I had no idea how the hell I was going to keep up the charade of anything I felt for this woman being fake.