“My agent, Dick.” His eyes drop from my chest to my waist.

“Are you in trouble for the other night?”

Alex shrugs. “He’ll get over it.”

I’m not sure I should buy his nonchalance. “You sounded pretty upset.”

“Just annoyed. I have an interview spot as soon as I get back to Chicago.”

“For the fight or the locker room?”

“Both. But you don’t need to worry about that.” He grips the armrests and swivels in his chair. “These are my new favorite panties, by the way.”

“I believe these are technically called underpants.” I trace the outline of The Hulk. His cartoon body is strategically placed so it looks like he’s punching his way out of my cooter.

“I don’t give a shit what you call them; they’re perversely fantastic on you.” He twirls his finger, signaling for me to turn around.

I comply and am rewarded with a heavy exhalation of breath and muttered profanity. I turn to face him again and saunter his way.

When I’m close enough, he slides his palms up my legs and wraps his hands around the backs of my thighs. He’s still staring at the underpants.

“I love the flap.” I finger the opening. “It’s very convenient.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Alex brushes my hand out of the way. I whimper in anticipation as he slips his fingers into the little pocket. His other hand travels up my thigh and under the elastic to palm my ass.

He circles the beaver button and slides two fingers inside me. He hits the spot that makes me feel a million shades of sheer awesomeness. My moan dies on my lips as the door to his room bursts open.

Daisy stands at the threshold, holding out a framed photograph.

I look down at Alex, who’s looking at his mother with an expression of sheer, unfiltered horror. “I guess you forgot to lock the door.”

This is exactly the reason why we should’ve gone to a damn hotel.

ALEX

“Oh my God!” My mother raises the humiliating picture of me in front of her face like a shield.

“Mom!”

Backing out of the room, she fumbles with the door and slams it shut.

“As if she doesn’t hate me enough already.” Violet’s face is beet red and blotchy.

“She doesn’t hate you.” I circle her clit with my thumb as a distraction. “I’m so sorry.”

She pushes my hand away. I can’t say I blame her for giving up the orgasm quest, all things considered. “We can still get a hotel room tonight. I’ll make a call.”

“Don’t do that. I don’t want to offend your mom. More than I already have, anyway.” She grabs her bag from the floor. “I should get ready to go wherever we’re going.”

She disappears into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. I drop my head back and scrub a hand over my face. The same one that was just inside Violet’s underpants, which means I’ve rubbed her pussy all over my damn face. Those fucking underpants. Why they’re so hot is beyond me. Christ. I’ve got one hell of a hard-on, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to do a damn thing about it now.

Today has turned into a fucking nightmare. First Buck shows up for brunch with my sister—God only knows where they’ve gone now. Following it with the call from my agent about the locker room BS and cooling it with Violet until the publicity for the Bachelor of the Year is out of the way was bad enough. Then my mother walks in while I have my hand in Violet’s underwear. Can’t a guy get a break and a little fucking privacy when he needs it?

While Violet hides out in the bathroom—because that’s what she’s doing—I take the opportunity to deal with my mother. She’s in the kitchen, humming away as if nothing happened.

I lean against the doorjamb with my arms crossed over my chest. “Wanna tell me what that was all about?”

She jumps, pretending to be startled. “Oh, Alex! I didn’t see you there!”

Yeah, she’s not fooling me. At all. Her voice is high, the way it used to get when she’d tell me we were going out to pick up new hockey equipment. Instead she’d take me to get one of those sequinned getups for another skating competition.

“You need to apologize.”

“For what?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“Oh, you mean about . . . that.” She waves her hand toward the ceiling. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I was looking through some old pictures. I found my favorite competition photo. You remember, don’t you? You were so close to qualifying for the Olympics.”

She looks at me expectantly; I remember it vividly. If I wasn’t doing triple salchows, I was shooting a puck. I was always exhausted, and it sucked. I had no life.

I continue to glare.

Uncomfortable, my mother looks away. “Anyway, I thought I would share it with you and Violet. I suppose I should’ve knocked.”

“Damn right you should have!”

She tosses the dishtowel on the counter. “Don’t you take that tone with me! I didn’t expect your little girlfriend to be parading around half-naked!”

Her implication is clear: she believes Violet is trying to take advantage of me. I don’t get it. My mother has always had her head so far up her ass when it comes to me. It’s as if I’m still a teenager, not a grown man who can make his own damn decisions.

The only reason I didn’t bone my way through high school was my complete lack of social life, thanks to balancing the damn figure skating with hockey. I was also a huge nerd, but I choose not to focus on that part. I was barely eighteen when I was drafted into the NHL. That was an eye-opener.