Judging from the ache in Henny’s thigh muscles, the seven a.m. practice was the most grueling workout Gallagher and Eva had ever concocted for the Tempest boys. But whatever Henny had endured on the ice, he’d forgotten it the moment he’d hit the shower.

Ever since that kiss, trying to remember anything else was damn near useless. His brain just didn’t have the capacity—all thoughts, all fantasies, all hopes were trained on one thing: Bex.

He’d gone to Big Laurie’s last night to prove to Dunn—and yeah, maybe to himself—that the stuff going on with Bex wasn’t anything to worry about. But the moment he’d stepped into the pub, Henny knew the truth. Hard and fast as a body check, it hit him. Damn near knocked the wind out of him, too.

Now, heading back into Big Laurie’s to meet his girl for lunch, it hit him all over again. Despite the icy winds outside, he was too warm, his insides buzzing like he’d had way too much coffee and not enough food. His hands itched to hold her again, to tangle up in those soft, silky curls. To pull her mouth to his and devour her, one kiss at a time.

Whether he’d wanted it to happen or not, Bex was no longer his friend. He couldn’t pinpoint when it’d started, how long he’d been feeling that weird tug from friendship into the realm of something more, but denying the feelings now was pointless.

And that fucking kiss? Hell. All that had proved was that Henny wasn’t the only one toppling headfirst out of the friend zone. He may have started things, may have caught her by surprise, but she damn well kissed him back, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her luscious breasts against his chest, moaning into his mouth as he kissed her breathless…

“Hey!” Bex popped up from behind the pool table with a measuring tape in one hand, notepad in the other. She had on one of those off-the-shoulder cut up sweatshirt things and a pair of leggings, her hair piled on her head in a messy bun.

God, she was fucking adorable.

“You’re, like, two hours early,” she said.

“Yeah?” He smiled like a fool. Like some chump who’d forgotten how to make words. How to breathe. His heart was beating harder than it did on the ice, and he couldn’t stop staring at her mouth.

All this after one kiss? Sex would probably put me in the E.R.

“Hen?”

“What?” Henny blinked, then shook his head. “I’m… yeah. Just wrapped up at the arena. Figured I’d stop by, see if you needed help with anything.”

“I was just taking some measurements,” she said, finally coming out from around the table to stand in front of him. He got a whiff of her tropical scent, and it took every ounce of self-control not to push her back on that pool table and—

“People have been complaining about the table,” she said, nudging it with her hip.

Henny blinked away his fantasy. “What’s the problem?”

“This.” She grabbed the cue ball and rolled it down the center. It veered off to the left just after it passed the side pockets. “Actually, it might be the floor that’s crooked, not the table. We probably need to replace it.”

“The floor or the table?”

“Both, honestly. But Mom doesn’t want to sink any more money into this place, and I’ve got other stuff to deal with first.” She scooped up the cue ball, spun it against the felt. “No one wants to play pool if the place is flooded and the lights don’t work, right?”

“Hey.” He stepped in front of her, tilted her chin up to meet his eyes. “This is not a big deal. We’ll rig up a temporary fix for the table. And once you talk to Bluepoint, you’ll be able to do whatever you want in here.”

“Henny, I don’t think a business loan is…” Bex let out an exasperated sigh, her breath warm on his chest. “I need to figure something else out.”

“Even if it means losing this place?”

“Maybe that’s for the best.” She tried to shrug it off, but Henny could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not saying running a pub was your life’s dream, okay? But you’re here now. You’re taking what could’ve been a suck-ass situation and making the best of it. That’s kind of what you do.”

Bex laughed, but there was no warmth in it. “If this is the best of things, I’d hate to see the worst.”

“So sell the place and find another job. One with better hours, more money. Put all this in the rearview.” He took the cue ball from her hands and rolled it into the corner pocket. “A few phone calls, an hour with a realtor, we could have this place listed by the end of the day. Is that what you want?”

Bex crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a glare.

“No, it isn’t,” he answered for her. “You took the job here to help out your mom, maybe lie low for a while, figure out your next move. But that’s not what happened. You fell for this place. You saw the potential, and you made it yours. All that time you’ve spent on marketing plans, all your big ideas? You aren’t walking away from that. Hell, you probably have a new name picked out and everything.”

That got a tiny smile. She flipped back a few pages in her notebook and showed Henny the drawing there—a phoenix, rising from a fire. “I was thinking of calling it The Silver Phoenix. I even sketched up a logo concept.”

“Of course you did.” Henny beamed at her work. Stepping closer, he tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “You have this way of taking something everyone else has given up on and turning it into something amazing. Do you know how rare that is? You’re a goddamn visionary, Bex.”

Another smile, a little bigger this time. “Going a little overboard on the compliments, aren’t we?”

“I speak from experience. You saved my ass in high school, and look how fucking awesome I turned out.”

“Now you’re going a lot overboard.”

“Is it working?”

“Maybe.” Bex smiled up at him, but he couldn’t get a read on where she was going with this. On what she wanted. Henny’s gaze lowered to her mouth, to those lush, rosy lips, remembering the sweet and seductive taste of her kiss.

Fuck, he wished he could read her thoughts.

“Thanks, Hen.” She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. All too brief. All too chaste. Her smile was gone, the heat between them dissipating. And then she was on her knees again, scoping out those table legs. “Any ideas?”

Yeah. One. He wanted to haul her back up on her feet, pull her close again. He wanted to brush the hair out of her face and smooth away those worry lines, kiss her until every last fear and stress and disappointment evaporated. For so many years he’d looked out for her, protecting her from bullies when they were kids, watching out for her through all those stupid high school parties and pranks. But he couldn’t protect her from life itself, from all the ways things could just go sideways on you, no matter how hard you worked, no matter how badly you wanted something.

“I think we can jam something under the legs on this side,” she said now, interrupting his thoughts. “Can you find me some cardboard? There should be some empty wine boxes in the store room.”

Grateful for the distraction of a job to do, Henny shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it onto a chair. After a few minutes of searching, he located the boxes and tore them into thick, small squares, then lifted the table so Bex could shove the cardboard under the legs.

“That should do it,” she said, standing up and dusting off her hands.

Henny fished out the cue ball and rolled it down the threadbare green table, straight as an arrow, and that damn smile of hers lit up the whole room again.

“See?” he said. “A goddamn visionary.”

“Thanks again for your help.” Bex leaned in to press another soft kiss to his cheek. This one lasted a little longer, though. Drifted a little closer to his mouth. Lingered as she ran her hand up his back.

“If that’s what happens when I help,” he said softly, “consider me permanently at your service.”

Bex grinned. Sweet. Mischievous. “Maybe I will.”

She was close enough to taste, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough anymore, always just out of his grasp.

Fuck it.

He grabbed her hips and dropped to his knees, nudging the hem of her sweatshirt with his nose, inhaling the scent of her skin.

“Henny, what are you doing?” The warning in her voice was clear, but he ignored it, pressing his face to her bare belly, desperate to be close. To feel her.

He gripped her harder, waiting for her to push him away. To tell him to fuck off. All she had to say was one little word—stop—and that would be it. He’d back off completely.

But she didn’t say stop.

She hesitated just for a second longer, then slid her hands into his hair, dragging her nails over his scalp and pulling him closer. He shivered. God, she felt so fucking good. So fucking perfect.

Slowly, he pushed up the hem of her shirt, fingers grazing her soft skin, his touch leaving a trail of goose bumps. She was trembling now, her breath quickening.

He kissed her belly, sliding his tongue along the waistband of her leggings, making her gasp with pleasure. Rising to his feet, he kissed his way up to her luscious breasts, peeling off her sweatshirt as he went. He flicked his tongue against her nipple, teasing and biting her through the fabric of her zebra print bra, his cock pulsing in time with his heartbeat, and when she fisted his hair and begged for his kiss, nothing—not an interruption, not a buzzing phone, not even an earthquake could’ve stopped him from granting her wish.

She tasted like apples as she melted into his kiss, soft and warm in his arms, her sweet little moans sending ripples of pleasure right down to his dick.

Holy fuck. If last night’s kiss was stellar, this one was fucking fireworks.

With his hands full of Bex’s perfect ass, Henny backed her up toward the pool table, lifting her up onto it and guiding her legs around his waist. His cock ached, throbbing against his zipper, begging for release, begging to be inside her.

But as hard as he was, he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. He wanted to taste her first. To savor every kiss, every touch, every delicious moan he could coax out of her body.

Sliding his hand down the front of her leggings, he brushed his fingers against the damp silk of her panties. She was so damn hot for him, so wet and ready.

“Henny!” Bex gasped. “I… I don’t…” She closed her eyes, head lolling back on her shoulders. Henny slid his hand in further, palming her clit as his fingers sought her soft, wet heat. She was absolute perfection. Tight and slippery, her body pulsing with need.

“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” Henny said. “But don’t you fucking lie to me and say this isn’t what you want.”

“It’s not that, it’s… Oh, God. That feels….”

“Tell me,” he said, sliding two fingers inside. Thrusting deeper, slower. Dragging out every excruciating second.

“Henny,” she whispered. She gripped his arms, her blue eyes searching his, full of something he’d never seen there before.

There was a time when he could read her thoughts, know exactly what she was feeling, whether she was scared or happy or confused. There was so much damn history between them, so many memories and moments and a million tiny things that made up their story. Despite all that, this time he didn’t know what she was thinking. All he knew was the warmth of her skin, the tremble in her body as he touched her, the sweet honey scent of her breath as it ghosted across his lips.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, and her eyelids fluttered closed.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“No idea. All I know is I really want to keep touching you. Making you tremble like this.”

She was warm and slick as he stroked her, faster now, deeper with every thrust.

She bit her bottom lip, opening her eyes to meet his gaze again. She still wore the same unreadable expression. In a small voice threaded with uncertainty, she said, “Are we… is this a… a friends-with-benefits thing?”

Friends with benefits?

The thought was a sucker-punch to the gut. Henny couldn’t imagine something like that with Bex. No matter what was going on between them, no matter how badly he wanted to tear off her clothes and bury himself inside her, he had zero interest in a no-strings, girl-on-the-side deal with her.

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

Say no. Please say the fuck no.

“I asked you first,” Bex said.

Henny pulled back, searching her eyes for a fucking clue. If she wanted friends with benefits, he’d have to walk. Now. Wouldn’t be easy to put everything behind them—that first drunken night, the phone sex, the kissing and touching—but the pendulum hadn’t swung so far that they couldn’t go back to being friends.

But if he put his heart on the line, told her what he really wanted, everything would change. There’d be no going back. Only going forward, for better or for worse.

She might send him packing.

Or this could be the start of the best fucking thing in his life. In both their lives.

“No, Bex,” Henny said. “It’s not a friends-with-benefits thing. It’s a friend-that-can’t-stop-thinking-about-you thing. A friend who’s been tied up in knots since that kiss last night, knowing it was just the tip of the damn iceberg. A friend that would do anything to keep touching you. To taste you. To make you shatter.”

Her eyes widened, a shy smile curving the sexy edge of her mouth.

“I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I woke up in your bed last weekend,” he said, “wishing like hell I could remember how it felt to be inside you. Wishing like hell you could remember.”

“Same.” Bex looped her arms around his neck.

“And if you don’t kick me out in the next five seconds,” he warned, “we won’t have to worry about forgetting what happened between us. Because I promise you, Rebecca Canfield. After what I have in mind? You won’t remember anyone but me.”

Bex whimpered, her thighs tightening around his hips. Even through his jeans, he could feel her wet heat, his dick growing harder by the second. He was so fucking ready for her. So desperate to tear off her panties and slide between those creamy thighs. To mark her. To make her his.

“So do I stay?” He pressed a kiss to her jaw. Her neck. Her ear. She was melting at his touch, her hips already rolling toward him, her back arched. “Or do I go?”

Fisting the back of his hair, Bex forced him to meet her gaze. The haziness was gone from her eyes, their once unreadable depths replaced with something dangerous and intense and clear as a fucking bell.

Hunger.

“You stay,” she said. Then, with a wicked grin, “And you make good on that promise, Kyle Henderson.”