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  Fucking hell, I want fast. I want close, I want hard, and I want it sweaty and brutal. I want it now, I want to ride him, and I want to be worn out. We can save the swoony lovemaking for later. But Ash isn’t having it. He kisses me all over, thumbs and pinches my nipples, kneads my breasts and my butt, rocks me against him until I’m mewling and pressing up against him with hunger. When I get so very desperate that I’m practically in tears with frustration, he pets my hair and holds me tight. “Close enough for you?”

  “No.” I pout and wrap my arms around his neck, kiss him and just about die when he works his tongue into my mouth, teasing me with thrusts that I want elsewhere. Which is when he finally gives in with a sigh and a theatrical roll of his eyes.

  “Fine, fine, you determined little thing.”

  He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I push up onto tiptoes and slip a hand between us to grip him so I can sink down, a hot, slick slide into fullness. Into getting what I want, which is him inside me. Thank god I’m on the pill and we were both in the clear on our latest STI tests, because I would not have the patience for the minute it would take for him to roll on a condom.

  When he’s fully seated, he wraps his arms around me and holds me still against him, running a hand over and through my hair. “Satisfied now?”

  “For the moment.”

  For the moment, I can be happy just feeling his heart beat against me, inhaling his scent, and the taste of his skin as I lick and lightly bite the crest of his trapezius. It’s funny, but for as desperate as I am, as much as I want him, I want this just as badly. To be close to him because we’ve been kind of deprived of a normal relationship—whatever that is.

  We can’t go out on dates, we could barely see each other during the rest of the season because of practices and weekends away for games, and even when BC and BU played against each other, it was more an exercise in frustration because we had to tread so very carefully.

  We haven’t told anyone else, he can’t come visit me at school and I could only sneak out to Carlisle so often without my roommates getting suspicious. Not to mention right after the season was over, he finally got his surgery and I couldn’t even be here to help as much as I wanted to be. He was all no, no, you have to graduate, blah blah. Him and his being responsible and still being a bit touchy about being taken care of. Pfft.

  It’s luxurious, this, and I let myself melt into him while he holds me, talks to me and tells me how proud he is and all the other things he probably would’ve said yesterday but couldn’t because we had to settle for a brief hug.

  “Ash.” I don’t mean for it to come out as half a sob, but it does. He doesn’t panic, though, doesn’t push me away to see my face. Doesn’t even ask me what’s wrong, because I think he knows. Maybe he feels the same way.

  “Hey, baby. It’ll be better now. Easier. I’m not going to go shouting it from the rooftops just yet, even though I’d like to, but we could go out now if you wanted. I can come visit you in Brighton. You can come out here more often. It’s going to be better.”

  Something inside me unravels and I realize exactly how tightly wound I’ve been and how all that mental and emotional tension has invaded my muscles. For someone who’s so in tune with their body—has to be, even when I’m not competing—I sure feel like an idiot for not realizing it before. Maybe Ash has, though, because that’s his job, and he takes it to heart. “Promise?”

  “Yeah, I promise. We could even get ice cream tonight. Want to?”

  Ice cream. With Ash. In public. What a treat in so many ways. “What about my cake?”

  He shrugs, and it makes me laugh as my head bobs with the movement. “It’ll keep. We can have it for breakfast.”

  “No. I want my cake and to eat it, too.”

  “Silly. Anything else you want?”

  Just like that, my engine that had settled into an idling purr revs. “Yes.”

  I can think of a lot of things, but right now I’ll settle for an orgasm, and when we’re through, some cake. So I lift my head from his shoulder, wipe the corners of my eyes where there’s a little bit of moisture I haven’t managed to blink away, and then I’m kissing him again and he’s digging his fingers into my hips, pulling me closer and starting a rocking motion that I keep up as our tongues tangle and my hands wander into his hair.

  It’s not long before everything has built up into a peak. A peak of needing, a peak of wanting, a peak of finally having, and my climax washes over me. He pulls me down hard and chokes out the words while he’s in the throes of his own satisfaction. “You’re mine, baby. Mine. Love to make you mine.”

  I love it, too. Love him. That’s what I tell him while I rock out the last beats of my orgasm, and he says it back.

  When our heartbeats have returned to near normal, I lean up and smile at him. “Now how about that cake?”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Eileen and Titi and the rest of the SMP Swerve team for helping get these books out in the world. A special thank-you to my CE, Jaime—I feel like I get a medal every time I wrestle a feels comment out of you.

  Thank you also to my agent, Courtney Miler-Callihan, who helped get this book written and was really good at pretending that I wasn’t a giant pain with all of my whining.

  As always, thank you to AJ, without whom I apparently cannot write anything longer than a grocery list, and Alexis, who stepped up to help me mash Bronwyn and Ash together like dolls to make them kiss.

  Thank you to my friends MTS, LG, DO, KO, and EH. I’m going to need to go out for cocktails again, stat.

  Thank you to my family, who originally joined me for a Boston Pride game for research purposes. We now have season tickets because women’s hockey is awesome. The league is currently four teams based in the northeast, and you can find out more about the NWHL here: http://www.nwhl.zone/

  And, as always, my readers and reviewers; you are the ones who enable me to do what I love for a living. Your enthusiasm and excitement get me through the days when this can be a hard and draining job, so thank you, and I appreciate you.

  About the Author

  Tamsen Parker is a stay-at-home mom by day, USA Today bestselling erotic romance writer by naptime. Her novella Craving Flight was named to the Best of 2015 lists of Heroes and Heartbreakers, Smexy Books, Romance Novel News, and Dear Author. Heroes and Heartbreakers called her Compass series “bewitching, humorous, erotically intense, and emotional.” She lives with her family outside of Boston, where she tweets too much, sleeps too little, and is always in the middle of a book. Aside from good food, sweet Rieslings, and gin cocktails, she has a fondness for monograms and subway maps. She should really start drinking coffee.

  You can sign up for email updates here.

  Also by Tamsen Parker

  The Snow and Ice Games Series

  Love on the Tracks

  Seduction on the Slopes

  On the Edge of Scandal

  Fire on the Ice

  On the Brink of Passion

  The Compass Series

  Personal Geography

  Intimate Geography

  Uncharted Territory

  True North

  Due South

  The Cartographer

  Camp Firefly Falls Continuity

  In Her Court (2017 Season)

  Standalone Novels

  School Ties

  His Custody

  Short Stories and Novellas

  Craving Flight

  Looking for a Complication

  (originally published as part of the For the First Time anthology)

  Needs

  (originally published as part of the Winter Rain anthology)

  Anthologies

  Winter Rain

  Rogue Desire

  Rogue Affair

  Thank you for buying this Swerve ebook.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Tamsen Parker

  Copyright Page

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ON THE EDGE OF SCANDAL Copyright © 2018 by Tamsen Parker. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover photographs: couple © staras/Shutterstock.com; snowflake © style-photography/Shutterstock.com

  ISBN 978-1-250-15343-2 (ebook)

  First Edition: February 2018

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].