Bishop keeps my hand locked against his thigh and his fingers pressed against the back of my neck until my door clicks shut.

We’re both breathing heavily, and my palm is damp against his skin. Generally when we’re doing PT, he makes comments about his discomfort, and I suggest he think about dead things while we take a break and he gets himself under control. Occasionally, he might tell me the spot right under his balls needs to be loosened up, which is often the point where I cause him some physical pain and we go back to being mostly professional. But this is different.

Bishop holds the back of my chair with one hand and uses the other to slowly lower his leg to the floor, with my help. I expect him to step back and give us both some much-needed space, but instead he straddles the chair and takes a seat on my legs, arms draped over the back.

“Uh, Bishop?”

“I need a minute,” he mumbles and drops his forehead to my shoulder.

He’s not resting his full weight on my thighs, but I’m carrying a lot of it right now. His position sort of reminds me of a strip club lap dance—or what I imagine it must be like to have one, since that’s not an experience I’ve had before.

In the past few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time with my hands near his crotch and manipulating his legs. I’ve even had them thrown over my shoulder—one at a time, but still, I’ve had lots of his body parts flush with mine.

What I haven’t been is completely surrounded by him. Bishop is a lot of man. A lot of mostly naked man straddling my lap. It’s overwhelming to have him this close, in this position. I don’t really know what’s happening here. Joey is gone, so he doesn’t need to be all up in my space anymore, and yet he is.

I gently grip his forearms, and the muscles jump beneath my fingers. “Are you okay?” It comes out a cracked whisper.

Bishop makes a noise; it’s more of a grunt than any kind of word I can decipher.

I inhale a slow breath, trying to calm down and frown when the scent coming off his skin registers. I obviously wasn’t imagining things. “Why do you smell like baby powder?”

He snickers, warm breath caressing my collarbone. “I rubbed down with baby oil before I came over.”

I snort a laugh, which seems to break the odd sexual tension taking up all the space around us and sucking the air out of the room.

Bishop pushes off my lap with a groan and takes a wobbly step back. I grab his hips to help steady him. Since I’m sitting and he’s standing, his crotch is once again right in my face, his hard-on extra obvious. When it doesn’t seem like he’s at risk of falling over, or falling back in my lap, I let him go. He moves out of my personal space, and I feel like I can finally breathe again.

“I think mission ‘make Joey uncomfortable enough to leave’ was a success, although I have a feeling I’ll be fielding a lot of questions tomorrow after that performance.” I search for my elastic and find it on the floor. After gathering my hair up, I secure it in a knot on top of my head. “So thanks for that.”

“It was one hundred percent my pleasure. That guy is a douche, and an idiot.”

“Mmm. I think I might share the idiot title for staying with him for an entire year.” I move to step around him, wanting more space and less at the same time.

“Hey.” Bishop’s fingers wrap around my wrist. “Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t own other people’s bad choices and make them yours.”

“I should’ve seen it coming.”

“Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us, though, do we?”

I tip my chin up to meet his gaze. There are a whole lot of unspoken words there. Ones that need to remain that way, since I’m reporting to a team of NHL professionals now. It’s a challenge to ignore the chemistry zinging between us, though. I’ve been doing my best to keep it on lockdown for a lot of reasons, one of which just left my apartment.

Not to mention Bishop is an NHL player who is most definitely going to get media attention when he’s back on the ice. It’s not something I want to get caught up in.

My phone buzzes on the table, startling us. I glance at the device and catch Pattie’s name as it flashes across the screen. I’m sure she wants to know how things went with Joey.

“Should I work you over now?” I motion in the general direction of Bishop’s still-bulging crotch.

“Yeah, just go easy on me tonight. That little stunt I pulled was awesome, but now I’m sore.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Totally worth it, though. I wish you could’ve seen his face. He looked like he wanted to maim me.”

I spend the next forty-five minutes with my hands all over Bishop. He’s right about his stunt not being the best idea, based on how much groaning and bitching he does.

I expect him to leave right after, but instead he gets out plates and serves us both cold pizza. Half is the way I like it; the other half has the same meat options but no pineapple or green olives. He also pops the cap on two of the beers he brought over. I’m ridiculously thirsty for some reason, so I drain the first beer quickly and grab a second one.

Bishop stretches out on my couch, commandeers the remote control, and flips channels until he finds Sportsnet. He picks an olive off his slice and flicks it at my plate. “Your disgusting toppings are commingling with mine.”

“It’s not disgusting. It’s delicious.” I take a huge bite and moan my delight. It doesn’t even matter that it’s cold; it’s still awesome, and I haven’t eaten since lunch. I cover my mouth with my hand. “Yours is boring.”

“Three kinds of meat isn’t boring.”

“It’s certainly not adventurous.”

“Fruit on a pizza is not adventurous, Stevie. It’s gross and wrong.”

“Tomatoes are technically a fruit, and they’re slathered all over pizza,” I point out.

“Yeah, but they’re not sweet, they’re savory, and they live in the vegetable area of the grocery store, so it’s not the same. Would you put peach slices on your pizza? No. You wouldn’t, so you shouldn’t put things like pineapple on it either. Especially with something as repulsive as green olives.”

“Let it all out, Shippy. Tell me how you really feel.”

“Do not call me that.”

“Call you what, Shippy?”

He pokes at the corner of his mouth and gives me a dirty look. “Stop.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll smear that pizza all over your face.”

“Do that and I’ll make sure you regret it tomorrow during our rehab session.”

“What’re you gonna do, wear a thong and tassels and use my leg for pole dancing?”

“That sounds a lot like a fantasy, Shippy.”

He makes a grab for my pizza slice, but I’m not the injured one. I roll off the couch and spring to my feet. “So slow, Shippy. You need to work on your reaction time.”

“I hate that nickname so much, you don’t even know.”

“Fine, I’ll stop . . . if you try my gross pizza.”

“No.”

I lift a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Have it your way, Shippy.” Every time I use it, it grows on me a little more. It’s really kind of horrible, and it doesn’t seem to fit him at all, which is maybe why I like it so much. Also, his irritation is entertaining.