Adrian (Ironfield Forge #1) - Sosie Frost Page 0,1
You’re willing to tough me out.”
“Helps that I play hockey,” I said. “Getting roughed up every game is good practice for when you trap me on an airplane with a proposition.”
A proposition which filled her eyes with a radiant, bubbly excitement. Hadn’t seen anyone so amped since last season’s championship game.
Of course, it was the other team who’d won, and I’d been forced to watch a heartbreaking loss in Game Seven from injured reserve.
But Clover hadn’t let me mope—or drown my sorrows with single-barrel bourbon. She’d arrived at my apartment the day after the championship, threw open the curtains in my bedroom, and accidentally spilled hot coffee on my chest.
Wasn’t pretty, but it got my ass moving just in time for the call from the newly created Ironfield Forge expansion team. And the rest was history…
Or potentially the worst decision of my career.
Clover smoothed the non-existent wrinkles from her navy-blue skirt. Somehow, the woman was always prim, proper, and bewilderingly perfect, even when sitting sideways in the seat and using my knees for her leg rest.
Despite the five-hour flight, the gold wings pinned to her buttoned-up blazer never even tilted. Must’ve been some sort of magic. Made a guy feel guilty for his mile-high thoughts about her hazelnut skin and hair that spilled like ink over her delicate shoulders.
Clover stared at me with big, I-promise-this-won’t-hurt-much eyes.
“What if I told you my proposition comes with perks?” she asked.
“Half a can of Ginger Ale and a packet of pretzels?” I wasn’t impressed. “These are mostly crumbs and salt, you know.”
She snuck another packet from her pocket and stuffed it in my hands.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she said.
“My prayers are answered.”
“There’s more where that came from.”
The few crumbled pretzels couldn’t do much to sate a professional hockey player’s appetite. Hell, I was still starving from the in-flight dinner. Clover had mercifully eaten my weird-ass feta and watermelon salad appetizer, leaving me with a mystery fish as my protein—a fish that should’ve been chased, captured, cleaned, and filleted by Captain Ahab himself to justify the cost of the ticket.
Maybe I was old-fashioned, but after a hard day on the ice, I preferred to consume my weight in chicken breast. Simple. Easy. And I could eat it on the ground.
“Anyone ever tell you this service might not be worth the money?” I frowned as Clover stole the first pretzel out of my bag.
“Am I not worth cashing in a couple hundred frequent flyer miles?”
“Tell me again which ticket would’ve let me sleep through the night?”
Clover teased me with a poke to my ribs—exactly the sore spot which had plagued me since workouts. The damned woman was part shark—she could sniff out an injury from across the blueline.
Which was why she’d also snuck me an icepack with the snacks.
“You can sleep in Ironfield,” she said. “In that brand new house you bought with that fancy-pants contract with the Forge.”
“Still gotta close on the house tomorrow,” I said. “Though I might reconsider…not sure what I was thinking when I decided to move closer to you.”
“You were thinking it’d be wonderful to live within throwing distance of your best friend.”
I grinned. “Yeah, but I’m still deciding what to throw.”
Clover poked at me again, though I had room in First Class to dodge. Not like the last few flights when she’d crammed me into the jump seat in the galley. Sure, Clover was petite enough to stash in the overhead compartment and get lost, but I was a big guy with hockey-primed glutes. My ass didn’t fit in a jump seat, and I’d had enough damage done to the more unmentionable parts of me that the boys deserved the chance to spread out and enjoy the flight.
“I had hoped that moving to Ironfield would put an end to these midnight liaisons on transcontinental flights,” I said.
Clover had teddy-bear, melt-your-heart-eyes that grabbed hold of a man’s balls and refused to let go. And—for a guy in my position—that was as dangerous as taking another puck between the legs.
“Maybe it’s too good to be true,” she said.
“What is?”
“That we don’t have to meet up like this anymore.” She gestured over the plane and her uniform.
I thought she had more faith in me than that.
“I told you long ago, back when I first signed with the Marauders, that I’d find a way to move closer to you.”
“Just needed to wait eight years for an expansion team to set up in Ironfield.” She mocked a prayer to the Heavens. “Dreams do come true.”