Caged (Gold Hockey Book 11) by Elise Faber (romantic love story reading TXT) 📕

certainly spread the news about how they’d seen him mooning over Dani right where anyone could see.

But he found he didn’t care.

Not with the scent of strawberries on her skin wafting up to tease his nose. Not with her eyes on his. Not with her adorable nose and kissable lips and the heat of her body very close to his.

The only thing he didn’t care for was that his hands were full.

He couldn’t touch her properly, couldn’t tug her close, couldn’t stroke them over her body, couldn’t—

“What are we talking about?” Max.

Ethan held back a groan, shifting forward so he was out of the doorway, even as Dani all but jumped out of her skin in order to dart out of Max’s path. “We’re just delivering supplies for PR-Rebecca’s Miner’s Club project,” he said calmly before she could sprint down the hall. “She’s the brain. I’m the brawn.”

Max chuckled, patted him on the arm. “Every once in a while, you can be amusing.”

“And you try so hard but never actually succeed at it.”

Dani chuckled.

Max clamped his hand over his chest. “I’m wounded.”

“You’d have to have a heart for that,” Ethan grumbled.

“Oof,” Max said. “I’m doubly wounded.”

“Liar.”

“True.” A beat. “Except about the heart stuff. Mine is huge, some might even say big and juicy, like someone’s”—he took advantage of Ethan’s full hands to scrub one of his over the top of Ethan’s head and mess up his hair—“big, ole juicy brain.”

Ethan managed to whack him in the kidney with one of the bags, which he considered a successful response to all the big and juicy stuff.

“Oof,” Max groaned, hand pressing against his back. “You wound me.”

“I can wound you,” Ethan muttered.

“Children,” Mandy warned. “What are you arguing about?”

“Ethan’s trying to hurt himself,” Max whined, “by carrying heavy stuff before game time.”

Mandy glanced at the bags then at Dani, who at that moment stopped trying to melt into the wall and instead jumped into action by trying to snag the load from him. He held onto the bags, ignoring her efforts even as Mandy snorted. “Seriously?” the trainer asked. “That’s what you’re coming at me with?” She tapped her finger to her chin. “I think it’s a thigh massage for you.”

Max paled, and Ethan didn’t blame the man. For one, Mandy’s thigh massages were strictly for medical purposes and weren’t what most of the populace would consider relaxing. Rather, they were beyond firm, beyond deep tissue, and more than a little painful—she called them physical therapy with a purpose, and that purpose seemed to be torturing. For another, the person who actually gave them—the team’s masseuse, Darby—was tiny but with freakishly strong hands.

Hence the talk of torturing.

At that moment, however, Mandy was doing less torturing and more snooping. She moved toward him, peeked into the bags. “Oh, is this for the rock activity?” She released them, walking next to him as they continued down the hall. “Madeline”—her daughter—“is all about the need to get paint everywhere.”

Dani’s throat worked, but Ethan didn’t rush her—and to their credit, neither did Mandy or Max—each just waited as they strode through the hallways winding through the underbelly of the arena. “I put together a bag for the team kids to be taken up to the Family Suite,” Dani eventually said, gaze flicking to his, then to Mandy’s. “It’s the one with the otter on the front.”

Ethan’s heart squeezed.

Lovely woman.

“Aw,” Mandy said. “You’re amazing. They’re going to love that.”

A shrug. “I know it’s a little hard for the team kids to get upstairs sometimes, especially when they don’t want to take away from anyone else’s experience.”

That was true.

It sometimes put the players’ kids in an awkward situation, wanting to participate in the fun but not wanting to be seen as taking something away from the other kids.

“Anyway, I thought they’d enjoy it, so I figured I’d make it easy for them to participate,” she finished.

“You’re sweet,” Mandy said, reaching across Ethan and squeezing her hand. “Do you want to take the bag up yourself?” Dani’s feet faltered, and with Mandy’s arm still extended in front of him, he was nearly clotheslined. Luckily, he stopped just in time, bags swinging forward and back.

“No,” she whispered. “I—I—” A breath as she fumbled. “No, I’ve got stuff . . .”

“I can bring it up and give it to the babysitter who’s in charge tonight?” Mandy asked when Dani trailed off. “Would that be easier?”

Gentle had crept into Mandy’s tone, and he watched as it flowed through the air, as Dani processed it, her shoulders going stiff, her chin lifting. “No,” she said, “I can take it.”

“Are you sure?”

That chin rose further, and Ethan could have sworn that he heard her teeth clack together. “I’m sure.”

Mandy nodded, pulled her hand back, and they began peeling off—Max into the gym for a pregame workout, Mandy into the training suite.

“Where do we need to take this?” he asked once they were alone.

“PR-Rebecca’s office.” A clipped statement. “Then the otter bag upstairs.”

“Do you want me—”

“I said, I was going to take it up.”

He stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop. “I was going to ask if you wanted to take the otter bag up while I dropped the other stuff off to Rebecca.”

She skittered to a stop right in front of him, and he jerked to a halt, the bags colliding first against his body then against hers. “Oof,” he muttered as rocks jabbed into his hip.

Dani winced. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“No, I’m sorry. You okay?”

She shook her head. “I’m a mess.”

“Because of me or the rocks?”

More halting, more shaking off her head. “Because . . .” A sigh. “Of me.”

He studied her face, not liking the tinge of misery creeping into the edges of her eyes, clouding the amber and russet with cool steel, pulling those plush lips flat. “Well, if it counts for anything, I think you’re a gorgeous mess.”

She glanced down at herself, made a face. “I’m in jeans, a baggy fleece, and no makeup.”

He set the bags down, tapped