“And here I was thinking you were bringing me back to Cheers.”

“Not today,” I murmur, taking the two pairs of skates from the attendant. “Have you ever skated in the Boston Commons?”

Marshall’s pewter gaze darts to the ice rink behind me. Every year, the city decks out the gardens with a temporary rink. The trees are draped with vibrantly colored lights. Vendors line the pathways, offering everything from sugar cookies to hot chocolate to little holiday trinkets for purchase.

It’s enchanting, and, until tonight, my experience with the festivities has been relegated to only what I’ve read online.

With a firm hand, Marshall takes both pairs of skates from me. “Can’t say that I have. Anytime I play hockey, it’s for a team. Don’t think I’ve skated recreationally since my younger years.”

I lift a brow. “Younger years?”

He tips his head back with a laugh, and the sound is contagious, sexy-as-hell. “One of these days you’ll get over the age thing.” He gestures for me to take a seat at a bench near the open rink. “Just think, when we’re old and gray, you’ll be thankful I’m always younger and good-looking.”

Stealing the smaller-sized skates from him, I slip off my boots and draw on one cream-colored skate. “You are pretty.” I cast a quick glance his way to see if he caught my teasing comment.

His mouth flattens, just slightly, as he grunts, “I accept handsome, hot, sexy, and tear-off-my-panties-with-your-teeth-Marshall.”

The last option sends the skate lace missing its appropriate hook. Because with his words comes a very hot visual of him tearing my underwear off with his teeth. Not that I’ll admit to picturing him between my thighs—yet.

“You’re pretty, Marshall,” I repeat, eyes down on my lacing job. “Why deny it?”

His thigh presses against mine as he undoes his sneakers. “Makes me sound feminine.”

“There’s nothing feminine about you.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Depends on whether you’ll let me tell you all the ways that you’re pretty.”

Marshall grins, his dimples indenting his cheeks as his blunt-tipped fingers string up his laces in the same amount of time it takes me to unzip my boot and cast it to the side. “How about this? You can tell me how pretty I am, but each time you do so, I have the option to remove a kiss from your tally.”

I whistle low. “You’re heartless.”

“Evil, honey.” He winks playfully. “Don’t be mistaken.”

Honey.

My heart stutters at the word. It feels . . . foreign, both off his tongue and also in general. I can’t even recall the last time I was on the receiving end of an endearment. Manny’s much too professional for any of that; calling me Teacup is the furthest he’ll go. My mother—well, we’ll save that for another day. As for the men I’ve . . . seen, endearments weren’t a part of those arrangements. I withhold a snort. Honestly, not much besides sex was involved. Casual to the very end.

It suited me, then. Back when I tried with every fiber of my being to never let a man get close to my heart, to never be Adaline.

If only I’d realized that I didn’t have to go to the extremes to disprove the saying, like mother like daughter.

No doubt I would have saved myself a world of internal heartache.

“Ready?”

My shoulders twitch at the sound of Marshall’s husky baritone. Much like the night at Faneuil Hall, he’s on his feet (or skates, rather), and holding out his hand for me to take.

“Should we put our shoes somewhere?” I ask, eyeing my boots. They aren’t a favorite pair, but I’d rather not have to walk back to Marshall’s truck in socks. “They’ve got to have lockers or some sort of storage nearby.”

“Live a little.”

My gaze shoots to his. “What?”

Marshall releases my hand to shove our footwear beneath the bench. “You promised me an adventure. This is the first step.” With his knuckles, he edges our shoes farther beneath the bench. “Think positive and we’ll be good.”

His logic is so optimistic. “Have you always thought the best of society?”

“Nah.”

He was in foster care, you dummy. Of course. And now I feel like a complete idiot. “Marshall, I—”

“It’s in the past, Gwen. Now show me how well you skate.”

The subject change is as subtle as an elephant rumbling along Boston’s ritzy Newbury Street. Not that I should be surprised. We’re still learning each other, trying to get beyond the outer shells we show the world. Everything else takes time.

Pushing to my feet, I give one last glance to our bench and then straighten my shoulders. Marshall is right. I promised him an adventure, and it’s past time that he get one.

“I should probably let you know,” I start as I penguin-walk over the narrow gravel pathway to where the rink awaits, “you may have to save me today. I’m not the best skater, but I figured you’d be willing to step in and make sure I don’t land on my butt.”

The blade of my left skate hits the ice, and I make a show of wobbling my knees and pinwheeling my arms.

I’m not disappointed.

I feel Marshall’s big body swoop in behind me, his arms hooking under mine, catching me just as I would have face-planted on the ice.

His warm breath sends shivers down my spine as he skates us out of the path of traffic. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

His forearms inadvertently squeeze my breasts together, thanks to our position, and it’s with a gust of disappointment that I realize Marshall is setting me upright and then shifting back.

“I might fall again.” Put on a show, girl. I straighten my knees—a skating no-no—and hold out my arms, palms facing down. “You should keep holding me.”

Marshall gives me a slow onceover. “You won’t.”

My gaze jerks to his. “What?”

“Fall,” he says, folding his arms over his big chest. “When did you learn how to skate?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Marshall pushes off his left leg and approaches me. When he’s within arm’s length, he surprises me with a finger to my waist. To an inexperienced skater, that one touch would rock their world and kill their balance.

Instinctively, I tighten my core and clench my thighs—I don’t budge.

The wide grin on Marshall’s face might as well be my alert system that I’ve given myself away.

Busted.

With a palm to his hard chest, I give him a little push to move him aside and then slide one skate in front of the other at a leisurely pace. I wait for him to catch up before admitting, “When Golden Lights Media hired me, I went all out.”

“What do you mean?”

I shrug. “Literally, in every capacity I tried to make myself indispensable to my boss. Walter’s a hard-ass but he’s a fair hard-ass, if that makes sense. From the moment I started, it was pretty clear to me that he’d offered me the job because of my breasts.”

Marshall’s pace slows and I circle around to face him.

“Your . . . breasts?” His voice is low, dangerous, and entirely too sexy for my mental well-being.

I nod, avoiding eye contact by staring at the twinkling lights above us. “He spent the first three months talking to my chest. Stereotypical, right? I’m sure it won’t be the last time I’m hired for the way I look and not for what skill sets I bring to the table. So, I sought to prove him wrong—to prove everyone wrong.” Wishing that I had my gloves, I skim my hands up my sides and clamp down on my opposite elbows, hoping to stay warm. “It only took me a few weeks to realize that nearly ninety-percent of our clients were men. Which meant that if I thought Walter was bad, there was a good chance that he’d be the least of my problems soon enough.”

Marshall circles me, his skates cutting in and out, crossing one over the other. His hands are tucked behind his head, gripping the back of his neck. He looks at ease, relaxed—if you don’t notice his expression.

Mouth pulled into a tight line, he turns his face to the other skaters. Even in the shadowy night, with only the twinkling lights in the tree limbs above us, I note the tick in his jaw and his hard swallow. “What’d you do? You’re obviously still there.”

Theh.

If possible, his accent is even stronger than normal.

I reach out on his next pass by me, dropping my hand on his arm.

I’m not nearly strong enough to stop him, and I end up trailing him just a little, coasting. My palm slips down his arm until our fingers glide against each other. He twists his palm and clasps my hand.

Oh.

I fix my gaze on our hands, wondering if he’ll let go, praying that he doesn’t.

My heart is a wild stampede, a cacophony of words that don’t belong in a single breath but have merged into one: keepholdingon.

I look up.

There’s a smile on his face that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“You planned this,” I say, unable to stall the impressed awe in my voice.

He leans in, pulling me closer so that our hands brush his hip. “You started it the moment you pretended to be clueless about skating.”

A girlish giggle escapes me. It sounds . . . I want to say that it sounds like the Old Gwen, that tinkling, awful laugh I used to give the men I wanted to sleep with. But it’s not—it can’t be. Because that other laugh was like nails on a chalkboard, even to my own ears, and this one is genuine, it’s real.

Marshall ensures that.

He loops my hands around the back of his neck before releasing me to slip his palm over my shoulder, down my back, to just above my butt. We’re chest-to-chest, thighs-to-thighs, while we move in tandem.

It’s foreplay with clothes on.

The equivalent of grinding on ice—I won’t lie, the atmosphere is a whole lot more romantic than a sweaty nightclub.

“You’re slick, Hunt,” I murmur, though I make no move to pull away.

“Slick and pretty,” he retorts playfully. “I’ll never let you forget it. Now finish the rest of your story.”

When I shrug this time, my breasts push against his chest and we both suck in a sharp breath. Is it possible to be both in hell and heaven at the same time? Focus, girl, you can do it.

I tilt my chin to the right, so I can watch the families skate around us as Marshall leads me effortlessly like we’re waltzing. “There’s not much more to tell, honestly. I wanted to be taken seriously in the office. So, I studied our clients and tried to learn what they did professionally. Hockey. Golf. I’ve sat in on local court cases and I’ve learned a little something about nude drawings.”

“Don’t tell me you were the one who was nude?”

At Marshall’s hopeful tone, I swat him in the chest with my free hand. My mouth opens to quip the old classic, “you wish,” when he snags my wrist and brings my hand to his mouth.

He kisses my knuckles, and my legs wobble in a way that has nothing to do with the ice and everything to do with this man in front of me.

He kisses the beating pulse of my inner wrist, and I clutch his back, my nails biting into his sweater.

He slips my fingers into his hair, encouraging me to silently pull on the strands, and I feel my entire body quiver with lust.

“Marshall.”

His dark lashes flutter down, concealing his thoughts, and he’s so damn handsome—and, yes, pretty boy model-like—that I’m tempted to yank his head down and do away with his no-kissing rule. I want to taste him. I want to know if my imagination has anything at all on the reality of Marshall Hunt.

“Finish your story.”

I moan, not from lust but out of frustration. “I did what I set out to do when Walter hired me—I made myself irreplaceable. The company could come crashing down, but I’d come out on the other side unharmed. It was the first time in my entire life that I had the chance to be judged by my own merits and not my mother’s, and there was no way I was going to let an opportunity like that slip away. And then, once my position was secure, I set about making changes.”

“Like what?”

I glance up, momentarily distracted by the sight of my fingers playing with his hair. My fingers. His hair. Crazy. “I took on female clients, as many professional women as I could, no matter their field. Today, we’re closer than ever to an equal playing field at Golden Lights. It’s not perfect, not nearly as evenly balanced as I’d like it to be, but it’ll get there. When I started, the figures sat at a nine-to-one ratio. Now, that number is closer to six-to-four. Perfect? No, not nearly, not yet.”

Silence.

Pure, unforgiving silence.

I feel the heat prickling my already chilled ears, and my nose grows itchy with the need to laugh awkwardly.

I should have known. Really, I should have.

Why would Marshall, a pro-hockey player with endless opportunities at his fingertips, be impressed with what I’d accomplished? Never mind that; why would a guy of his caliber even care about—

“You’re a damn intriguing contradiction, honey.”

I nearly choke on my own spit, I’m so shocked. “What do you mean?”

“You.” He shakes his head, and my hand falls to his shoulder, my thumb brushing the collar of his sweatshirt. “You show the world this icy exterior, this wall that no one but a very select few can breech, and then you blow everyone’s perception of you out of the water by admitting to something like that.”

My breath hitches. Don’t ask what you’re thinking, don’t do it. I do it. “Everyone’s perception, Marshall? Or also your perception?”

He slows us to a stop.

Wanting space, I try to pull away.

His hands lock around my elbows, and his hard voice leaves me no choice but to meet his intense expression. “That’s an unfair question and you know it. You’ve spent years pushing me away, Gwen. That ice you wear for everyone was a foot thick around me. So, yeah, I’m surprised.”

He’s right, damn him.

But just because I agree with him doesn’t lessen the sting. “Then why chase me? Maybe I have my own reasons for pulling away, but why bother asking me out if you think I’m such a coldhearted bitch?”

“Because I don’t. I never did.”

I risk a peek up at his face.

Earnest, is my first thought. He looks so damned earnest as he watches me with narrowed gray eyes.

“I don’t understand.”

He blows out a deep breath. “You never noticed, but I took part in the same community service program that you did, back at Northeastern.”

It suddenly feels hard to breathe. “You . . . followed me there?”

“Trust me, the truth isn’t stalkerish at all.” Massive shoulders lift in a nonchalant shrug. “Volunteering was mandatory if I wanted to stay on the hockey team. Most of the guys chose the soup kitchen. Others went for building houses. I chose something a little closer to home.”

For a moment, the words escape me. All of them.

The only option is to stare at Marshall’s handsome face, tracing his familiar features. Features I’ve seen on and off for six years but am only now letting myself memorize. The holiday lights above us go dark, no doubt the attendant alerting everyone that they’re closing up shop for the night.

We’ll have to return our skates and hope that our shoes haven’t been stolen.

But my blades are rooted to the ice, my gaze rooted on Marshall’s face.

“You chose to volunteer at a shelter for abused and battered women.” The words come out slow, purposely even to conceal my surprise.

The newfound darkness has stripped my chance to make out the emotion in his eyes, leaving us both bare to the past.

When he speaks, his voice is low. “My father beat my mother. I don’t remember much, since I was wicked young. I do remember him yelling at her, the sounds of his fists on her flesh.” He coughs abruptly, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to bury his emotions. “Anyway,” he mutters, “when Coach told us to pick a cause, that was mine. It was the least that I could do after . . . everything.”

Now the words flood on back. So many thoughts, questions, hitting me all at once. But the most pressing one escapes: “Did she leave him?”

The question is nosy and insensitive, but after witnessing the verbal abuse my mother’s husbands handed her on a silver platter, and the truly horrible instances of physical abuse I dealt with at the shelter, it is the one question that I need answered.

“Later, I think. I wasn’t there to find out.”

Memories of his upbringing hitting the tabloids fill in what he doesn’t—namely, his years spent in foster care.

My heart aches for that little boy who witnessed such violence; it aches for the young man who took it upon himself to volunteer at a shelter with women who were, no doubt, mirror images of his mother from his memories; and it aches for him now, too, as he stands so strong before me, opening up in a way I don’t suspect is normal for him.

“Marshall, I—”

He cuts me off with a gentle hand to my face, cupping my jaw and brushing his thumb over my bottom lip in that way of his that is becoming increasingly familiar. “In any case,” he murmurs, his gray eyes watching my mouth, “I’ve always known you were more than what you showed to the world. It’s long past time that you let that woman out to play.”

Still cupping my face, he bends down and my lungs seize with hope that, yes, this is that moment. Right now, he’s finally going to kiss me. My head tilts back and my lashes flutter shut and I sigh his name in a way I’ve never done for another man. It’s happening. Oh my God, yes—

His lips collide with my forehead.

My eyes spring open.

“Soon,” he promises, and then lets me go.

I draw my arms around my belly, forcing a smile to my face to hide my acute disappointment.

Soon is not nearly soon enough.