Well, Tate hasn’t changed the lock on his apartment. That’s a good sign. I let myself in, then set out establishing the scene.

A Weirdaker Games Do-It-Yourself Escape Room kit is pretty cool, if I do say so myself. I knew it would be, but actually using it in an as-real-as-can-be beta testing way pushes my admiration for Mabel to new levels.

The first thing I do is log in to the app and scan Tate’s bedroom. On the screen of my phone, it’s like I’m looking at the camera app—but there are some things on the screen which don’t actually exist in his room.

Like a disassembled St. Andrew’s Cross in the corner. That would be the puzzle that Mabel had the most fun designing.

I pivot toward the wall, where a row of floggers appears on the screen. They’re all different shapes and sizes. As I move, I see other similar puzzles appear on every solid, blank wall space the camera captures.

The app also prompts me to make some choices. How long do I want the room to be locked, do I want to use a virtual final puzzle or do I have the deluxe kit with the real puzzle.

I look at the wrist-cuffs in the colourful box.

Mabel enjoyed buying those, too. I tell the app I’ve got the real props for the final puzzle.

Then I take a deep breath, because if there’s any part of this that Tate’s going to be seriously what-the-fuck about, it’s the fact I’m taking a screwdriver to his bedroom door handle.

But once I commit to a plan, I’m in all the way.

Besides, this way he can’t storm out again.

Win-win.

The instructions are easy to follow, and before long, I’ve got his door handle off and tucked away in the provided bag for all the bits and bobs.

I carefully install the trick door handle, which is linked to the app on my phone.

Then I lie down on his bed and think about all the ways I’ve been a total idiot.

I wake up with a jolt when I hear the front door open. Tate is back. I glance at the side clock. It’s just after two in the morning.

My heart pounds as I listen to him move through the apartment. It sounds like he drops a bag on a chair, then opens the fridge.

Damn it, I didn’t think this through. How do I get him in here?

I look at the books on his bedside table, then at the hardwood floor. I pick up a hardcover and drop it. It makes a delightfully loud clap, and I hear Tate mutter something that sounds like, “What the hell?”

I grab my phone, scurry to my spot behind the door, and wait for him to come and investigate.

It’s not until he steps through the door and I shove it shut that it occurs to me he might not react well to a strange person luring him into his bedroom. In hindsight, that can be added to the list of ways I’m an idiot, but at least this one is motivated by affection.

He whirls around at the first movement of the door, his fist already flying, and I dodge out of the way. “It’s me!”

“Sasha?” He gives me an incredulous look as he rocks back on his heels, his eyes wide.

If his heart is thumping as hard as mine is, I’m really sorry for the panic attack I almost caused. “Hi.”

His mouth falls open, and he rubs his hand across his jaw. “I almost punched you.”

“My fault.”

“That’s now how I’d feel if I— Jesus.” He drops his hands to his side and stares at me, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Right. I lift my phone and press the button to start the game. The door handle whistles and Tate jumps back.

“You’re trapped in here with me for an hour.” My voice shakes as I hand him my phone and explain. “There are puzzles on that app. So you can do those, if you want. It’s a whole thing. An escape room thing. I invested in it, and this is my first time doing it, and I don’t think it’s really intended for hostage-taking, but that door is locked, so I’m happy.”

“You’re happy.” He glares at the phone, then up at me. “You’ve locked yourself in with me inside my own room, told me to play puzzles instead of falling exhausted into my bed, and you’re happy.”

“Well, no.”

“You’re not happy.”

“No, I didn’t— Wait. Let me start again.”

“Why are you here?”

Right, that’s a good place to start. “I love you.”

The muscle twitches in his cheek again. “Are you sure? Because three weeks ago you disappeared on me.”

“I didn’t know I loved you then.”

“I did.” His voice is as clipped and hard as it has been with the press, on TV. As it has been with people he doesn’t really like that much.

My stomach drops to the floor. “You did?”

“Sure did. Could have told you, if you’d let me.” He flicks his dark, unyielding gaze to the door. “You’ve locked yourself in here with me. Are you sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say to you?”

“Yes.” I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. Yes, I want to hear his objections. I deserve to hear his anger. And I’ll take it all if I get a chance to tell him how I really feel. Not just love. It’s so much more complicated than that.

He reaches out and tests the handle. Then he laughs harshly. “Wow.” Instead of telling me how mad he is, though, he flips my phone in his hand and starts to prowl around the room. “How do I use this?”

“H-hold it up.”

He looks at the screen as he points it at the wall. “Floggers?”

“It’s a long story.”

He raises one eyebrow. “We’ve got time, right? How long is that door locked?”

“An hour.”

He taps at the screen. “Can you override it?”

“No. You’d have to take the door apart.”

“You did that.” He points at the handle. “Did you throw out my old one?”

I’m not answering that. “I can restore the room to rights when we’re done.”

“Done?” He stalks back to stand in front of me. “You think we’re going to be done after an hour?”

“I don’t know.”

He reaches out and rubs his knuckles gently along my jaw. “Ah, tiger. We’re just going to be getting started.” He leans in and lowers his voice as his breath dusts against my ear. “And I’m never going to be done with you.”

The air in my lungs whooshes out as I sway towards him. “For real?”

His fingers slide into my hair as he pulls me close. “For real. But I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.” I twist in his arms, desperate to taste his skin. My mouth runs over his stubbled jaw and up onto his cheek. He turns, too, and his lips catch mine.

He doesn’t taste mad.

He tastes like home. “Oh, Tate,” I whisper as I press into him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s done wonders for my game.”

I laugh weakly as he kisses me again, his lips soft and his tongue insistent.

“This is it, though. No more hedging your bets. You came back to me, you need to keep me.”

“I will.”

“Because you’re my tiger. You might like me to play the predator and chase you down, but I’ve always been your prey.”

I gasp at that. No, it’s not true. But when I pull back and search his face, I see the pain in his eyes. I hold all the power here. If I wanted to, I could rip his heart right from his chest with my claws. I’ve already made the first angry swipes, because I was cornered, because I felt threatened.

Tate has never been a threat to anything except my heart. And he’s gently protected that at every turn.

“I’ll think about the Seattle job,” I tell him, my words jumbling up as they spill out in a rush. “Or I can commute. I was being stubborn, and that was silly. I do love Vancouver. I love you and—”

“Slow down,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you to take any job except the one you want.”

“But—”

“We fell in love across a country. During road trips and short visits. Phone calls and texts. You don’t need to be right in front of me to own my entire heart.”

“But I—”

“Let me finish.” He drags in a breath. “I know guys in the NHL get married and are happy, but I’ve always thought that if that happened to me, it would be when I was done playing professional hockey. Because I didn’t want to ask someone to give me their entire life when I could only share part of mine. I had that all backwards, though. It turns out, when you fall in love, you give your everything, no matter where you are.”

I nod. He’s so right. These last three weeks have been awful, because my heart was smashed into a million pieces, into dust that scattered across the country as I fled.

“And then I fell for you. So hard, so fast, I didn’t see it coming. And you kept insisting we weren’t serious, we weren’t official.”

“That was stupid of me.”

“Maybe it was self-preservation.” He cups my face. “Or maybe you were scared.”

I burst into tears. Fuck. “No maybe about it.”

He leans in and softly kisses my wet cheeks. “I love you, Sasha.”

Stupid, blubbery reactions. “I love you too,” I whisper.

“Louder.”

I grin and blink, my damp eyelashes sticking together as I look up at him. “I love you to the moon and back, Tate.”

“That’s better.” He kisses my mouth now, hard and insistent. “We’re going to be just fine. We’re going to live together in Ottawa, and in Vancouver. And if you get a job somewhere else, be it Seattle or Boston or Halifax, we’ll live there, too. We can have as many homes in as many cities as you want. They will all be ours, and we’ll be together as much as we can. I’m not going to be playing hockey forever. When I retire, I’ll be all yours, all the time.”

“That sounds annoying.”

“Incredibly so.”

“I want that. Eventually. But as long as you’re playing hockey, I’ll happily meet you in New York, and Los Angeles, and Chicago…”

“All excellent shopping cities.”

“I have my priorities.” But I can’t hold back a smile. “And you are, and always will be, my number one priority.”

“I know.”

“God, you are the cockiest, most egotistical—”

He covers my mouth with his and kisses away the bickering, but I’m sure we’ll get back to it soon enough. I can’t wait.

“And I’m sorry about the Facebook post,” he murmurs against my neck as he slides his hands under my shirt. “I didn’t know about it until after the game.”

I freeze. “What Facebook post?”

He groans. “You didn't see my text?”

“No…” I cast about for my phone, but the app is still running, and— “What happened?”

“I texted you after the game. Bree and Amy posted about us on Facebook. They recognized me.”

“Oh.” My heart resumes beating normally. “Okay. That’s not bad. Right?”

“It’s gone viral. Media’s picking it up as a feel-good story, and they want to know about you.”

“Ah.” I roll that over in my head. It doesn’t feel as scary as I thought it would. “I fell asleep on your bed. I guess that’s why I didn’t see it.”

He kisses my nose. “I like the sound of that. You in my bed. Missed that.”

“Mmm. Have you responded? What did you say?”

“I growled something about it being none of the media’s damn business.”

“That's not like you.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe for twelve years, I've been playing at being a certain kind of guy. But deep down, I'm a man who is fiercely protective of the woman he loves. Even if she's not speaking to him.”

“Even if she's breaking into his apartment to lay a trap?”

He laughs at that. “You had a key.”

“I like the idea of being a cat burglar.”

“I like the idea of a skin-tight black outfit,” he says huskily. That part of his personality hasn’t changed a bit. Pervert Santa, now with extra growl and bite.

“Show me the post, you dirty man.”

He pulls it up on his phone and hands it over. I read it, then whistle at the number of likes and comments. “That’s getting a lot of love.”

“Yeah.”

“Is the team going to do something for them?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to anyone in the front office about it.”

“Why not?”

“Believe it or not, I haven’t been the friendliest guy the last few weeks.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m hardly the worst asshole in the league. And it’s nobody’s business who you are. I’ll protect you always and forever, no matter what.”

I believe him. “We should go and see Amy together.”

“You'd do that?”

“In a heart beat.”

“She might want to take a picture.”

“She might.” Maybe it’s time for me to make some bigger sacrifices for Tate, too. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

He traces his fingertips over my cheeks. “I might want to take a picture, too.”

“You have pictures of me.”

“Yeah.” His voice catches on a burr, like he’s holding something back.

“What?”

“When we were in New York, and you had me post that selfie of us on Instagram. I had a different caption in my head.” He keeps stroking my face, featherlight touches that make me go all wibbly-wobbly inside. “Never mind.”

I kiss him. “Maybe—”

My phone beeps at us, reminding us we only have thirty minutes left to escape the room.

“Or what happens?” Tate growls as he grabs the phone, pointing it at the wall. “Did you rig explosives under the bed?”

I laugh. “No. We just fail the game and have to try again.”

He hands the phone over. “Start it over again. I’m not letting you leave this room until morning, anyway.”

“We don’t need to do it.”

“I’m a highly competitive man, Sasha. Set the game. Let’s do this. I think I know how to solve the flogger puzzle already.”

“How is that possible? You just glanced it.”

“It’s a logic sequence puzzle. Come on. We’ll do this, then I’ll do you, and then we can go out for coffee at dawn and sleep all day tomorrow.”

I glance at the cuffs he hasn’t yet noticed are attached to his headboard. He might be busy at dawn. “You’re on.”