Knock Me for a Loop Read Free Page A

how appreciative he was of her willingness to follow him from city to city. Or maybe he’d simply crawl under the covers with her and hold her close while they flipped channels looking for one old movie or another.
    The black-and-whites were her favorites. Maybe because Grace herself looked so much like a fifties starlet. She was a Marilyn Monroe of the twenty-first century, all platinum curls, pouty lips, and a figure that made him want to fall to his knees and thank God for creating womanly curves.
    Or maybe Grace had somehow taken on the characteristics of a fifties starlet because she spent so many hours admiring them.
    Pushing away from the bathroom counter, Zack ran his fingers through his still-damp blond hair. He’d be back in Cleveland by the end of next week. He could survive that long moving from hotel to hotel, putting on the rough-and-tumble playboy act for fans, and playing his heart out on the ice.
    But when he did get home, he was heading straight to Grace’s apartment, and he didn’t intend to let her out of bed for a week.
    He was just reaching for the knob when a knock sounded on the outside door. Couldn’t be room service, he thought, since he hadn’t called in an order yet. Maybe it was someone from hotel maintenance to work on the faulty heating and air system he’d reported earlier. Or better yet, Dylan, which would save him having to call his buddy’s room about getting together for dinner.
    Since he didn’t think a maintenance guy or even Dylan would appreciate a half-naked greeting, he yanked open the bathroom door with the intention of grabbing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before answering. Lord knew there were enough discarded clothes scattered around the floor to dress a third-world country. Grace got on his case all the time about his abysmal housekeeping skills. But then, that’s why he’d hired a housekeeper.
    On the way out of the bathroom, he stubbed his toe on the heavy metal door and cracked his shoulder into the jamb. Muttering a low oath and cursing minuscule hotel rooms that weren’t designed to accommodate professional athletes who topped six feet and pushed the scales at two hundred fifty pounds—most of it muscle—he changed his mind about scrounging around for something to wear and went straight to the hallway door instead, where whoever was on the other side continued to rap.
    Bad mood etched clearly on his face, he yanked the door open…and froze when he found Grace staring up at him. He blinked in surprise, wondering if his earlier fantasy about having her on the road with him had conjured her out of thin air. Or maybe he’d slipped on the slick tile of the bathroom floor, cracked his skull on the edge of the tub, and was hallucinating.
    Nice hallucination, though. She looked amazing, her hair a mass of sexy curls and her lips a glossy rose bow on her heart-shaped face.
    “Hey,” he said, running his fingers through his wet hair as he tried to absorb the fact that she was actually standing in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
    “What do you think I’m doing here?” she replied saucily. Her grin widened as she stepped into the room and pressed herself against his tall frame. “I came to rock your world, big boy.”
    At that declaration, his lips curled and the fog cleared from his brain. He didn’t know how she’d gotten here or why she’d decided to drop in on him, but at the moment, he didn’t particularly care.
    “Well, okay, then,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Come on in. Don’t mind the mess.” Shifting them both out of the way, he let the door swing closed.
    “I never do,” she shot back with a chuckle.
    Pulling away slightly, she leaned back against the wall running between the bathroom and the rest of the suite. She raked him from head to toe with a hot gaze, using two manicured nails to tug at the towel he was still holding low on his hips.
    “I think I’m overdressed,” she murmured, a wicked glimmer shining