His mouth is soft and warm. The stubble on his chin scratches my skin, and I like it. I shove my tongue into his mouth. Well, that’s not true. I slide it across his bottom lip, touching the barely healed split, and he parts for me. Soft, warm, and wet meet more soft, warm, and wet. He tastes like chocolate and, more faintly, coffee liqueur.

His hand runs a hot trail along my side, and he pulls me tight against him. He’s all hard edges and heat, and I can feel . . . holy . . . there’s a massive bulge pressed against my stomach.

After far too short a time, he breaks the kiss, trailing his lips across my cheek to my ear. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Buck will kill you.”

“I can take him.”

VIOLET

I hear my name in the distance and choose to ignore it.

Instead, I nibble on Alex’s lip, more turned on than I should be regarding his willingness to take on Buck. Alex takes the hint, kissing me again. I expect him to be all aggressive and hard, considering his performance on the ice, but the way his tongue moves with mine can only be described as sensual. This is by far the best kiss ever, which is unfortunate since he’s likely a hockey whore—albeit a well-read one.

I really shouldn’t entertain leaving with him. My past experience with hockey players tells me this unequivocally. The difference is, this is a fling. He’s not asking me on a date, and I’m not expecting one. The song “Let’s Make Out” is playing through my head. I want it to be my anthem.

“What the hell are you doing?” Buck yells in my ear.

I cringe away from the noise, separating my lips from Alex’s. Buck’s a cockblocking asshole. The few people on the patio have stopped talking on account of his unnecessary loudness. I’d forgotten we’re in a public place. I’ll attribute it to the beers I had earlier and my lack of clarity thanks to Alex’s tongue in my mouth.

“What’s going on here?” Buck asks just as loudly, gesturing wildly with his giant, hairy knuckled hands.

“I’m sucking his dick,” I say sarcastically. Sometimes I wish my mouth didn’t have a faulty connection to my brain allowing everything to come out unfiltered.

Alex coughs, his fingers twitching on my hip, and Buck’s face turns an unnatural shade of red. This is such an odd situation; the awkwardness causes me to continue to spew idiocy.

“Fine, you got me. I wasn’t sucking his dick. We were fucking each other’s mouths with our tongues. This is otherwise referred to as kissing, but mouth fucking sounds way dirtier, so I’m gonna go with that.”

Buck’s nostrils flare. I’m such a jerk. He’s probably going to lay Alex out for this.

Buck gives up rationalizing with me and turns to Alex. “Get your goddamned hands off my sister.”

“Stepsister.” I can’t help poking the yeti.

“It’s the same damn thing!”

“Don’t even!” I shake a finger in his face and throw in a head wobble. “You don’t have a say in what I do or where Alex puts his hands.”

“I’ll tell Skye.” Buck threatens, as if we’re four and I stole his favorite toy.

“Like she’ll care.”

Buck raises a brow. “Are you kidding? She’ll tell all her friends.”

Shit. He’s right. My mom won’t be able to keep her yap shut. She’ll ask me inappropriate questions. I won’t stand for it.

I grab onto the lapels of Buck’s jacket and try to haul myself up so we’re face-to-face. It’s like climbing one of those rock walls—a big, hairy rock wall—so I give up and yank on his shirt until he bends to meet me.

“You listen to me, asshole. If you breathe one word of this to my mother, I will openly talk about the time we got drunk and you tried to feel me up, you got me? I’m not shitting you. I’ll do it.” Buck has never tried to feel me up—not on purpose, anyway.

“You wouldn’t,” Buck whisper-hisses.

I’ve got him by the short hairs—figuratively speaking, of course. I would never actually touch those. “You wanna try me? Go for it, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t say a word . . . just . . . can we talk in private? Please?” With his hands raised he glances between Alex and me, his panic evident.

Only the two of us have knowledge of this incident. In fact, if I was honest with him, he wouldn’t be worried at all. He was drunk out of his gourd at the time. Allowing him to believe he did grope me, even if by accident, gives me leverage in situations such as these.

I let go of his lapels. “You’ve managed to suck all the fun right out of this evening. I’m taking off.”

I’d invite Alex to come with me to piss Buck off even more, and maybe to continue making out, but I’m sharing a room with my parents. Cockblockers are everywhere tonight, thwarting my attempts at poor decision making.

Alex whispers something in my ear; it sounds like stay. Granted, he may be breathing out of his nose and making a whistling noise that resembles a word.

“If you want to,” Buck says amicably.

Annoyed and unable to backpedal, I turn to Alex. “Do you want my number?”

“Sure.” He digs his phone out of his back pocket, pulls up his contact list, and hands me the device.

“Don’t give him your number!” Buck’s aggravation hardly improves my mood.

I ignore him and type my number into Waters’ little black book, more than happy to irritate Buck in whatever way I can. As fun as making out with Alex has been, it’s unlikely he’ll actually call.