My response to her was unnerving as hell. For a year I hadn’t felt a glimmer of sexual need or attraction. Hadn’t even missed it—which was cause for concern as well. But I’d been resigned to my apathetic state. As effectively as sticking a plug into a socket, Emma Maron had shocked my system into wakefulness. And I didn’t like it.

“So how far is it to the house?” she asked as I started the truck.

Too long. Forever.

“About an hour.”

I didn’t miss the little wrinkle of alarm that knitted her brow. But she quickly smoothed it out and sat back. We made it all the way outside of the airport before she broke the silence. “This will be fun.”

The dry sarcasm had an unfamiliar urge to smile rising up within. I swallowed it down. “Oh, definitely.”

“What word did you use before?” Her plush mouth curved on a sly smile. “A hoot, was it?”

“A hoot and a holler,” I deadpanned, making her laugh. Jesus, her laugh. Husky and easy. A bedroom laugh. I shifted in my seat and concentrated on the road.

But I couldn’t stop myself from glancing her way. Mistake.

God, she was gorgeous. Pure and cleanly beautiful. From the rounded crests of her cheeks to the delicate sweep of her jaw, she had the kind of face sculptors memorialized in marble and the rest of us gazed upon for centuries to come.

Of course she was beautiful. She was an actress. Meant to be idolized on the screen. Emma Maron, a.k.a. Princess Anya, future queen and conqueror on Dark Castle. The guys and I used to watch the show while traveling between games. Anya was a favorite. Particularly since . . .

I’d seen her breasts. It hit me like a puck to the helmet, and my ears began to ring. I’d seen those perfect creamy handfuls with sweet pink tips that pointed upward, defying gravity and begging to be sucked. I had watched her on her hands and knees, perky tits bouncing as Arasmus slammed into her from behind.

I actually blushed. Me. The guy who’d had dozens of women throw themselves at him every night since high school. I’d had sex so many times and in so many ways it had become a blur. Nothing shamed me or made me uncomfortable. Yet I started to get hot under the collar, my cheeks burning. After nearly a year of being disinterested in all things sexual, my dick decided to make its presence known and start rising. Now, of all times. Now, when I was stuck in a damn truck less than three feet from a woman, I finally got a hard-on. Lovely.

I felt like a damn lecher.

“At least it’s a beautiful drive,” she said, breaking through heated thoughts of creamy breasts with cotton candy nipples.

“Hmm” was all I was capable of saying.

But she was right. We’d be hugging the coast for a while, and although some people here stopped paying attention to the Pacific, I doubted Emma Maron would. Which was good. She’d concentrate on the scenery, and I’d concentrate on driving. Instead of her. Not that she made it easy. She didn’t take my silence as a hint.

“No offense—”

“Which means you’re about to offend me,” I cut in dryly.

“But you don’t seem like the chauffeur type,” she finished in an amused tone.

“I thought I was the sullen ex-jock who liked to drink away his pain.” Though I was only throwing her earlier observation back at her, something low and uncomfortable twisted in my gut; she’d hit far too close to the bone with that one. I didn’t drink. But the rest?

Her gentle huff distracted me. “Well, I hardly imagine good ol’ Brick offering to pick anyone up at the airport. Especially if it’s an hour away.”

She had me there. My hands fisted the wheel a bit tighter. “Amalie is my grandmother.”

“Ah.” There was a world of understanding in that one syllable. She glanced out the window before speaking. “I’ve never met her.”

“And yet you’re here to visit?”

Her smile tipped wryly. “Weird, right?”

“I’m not going to judge.”

She snorted at that, but it was without rancor. I flicked a glance her way, and our gazes snagged. We shared a small smile, as if to say we were both full of shit. But then she shrugged.

“I was . . . going through a rough time and called my own grandmother. She told me of this wonderful estate called Rosemont and the utterly charming friend of hers who owned it.” Emma sent me a shy look before forging on. “She said it was the perfect place to hide away and come back to myself.”

At that, she hunched her shoulders, as if bracing for my scorn. She wouldn’t get that from me. The fact that she’d made herself vulnerable to possible ridicule from a perfect stranger sent a surge of unexpected protectiveness through me, and I gave her something of myself in return.

“My parents were killed in a car accident when I was fourteen.” I waved off her immediate words of sympathy. “Amalie became both grandmother and mother to me. Her second husband, Frank, had just bought Rosemont. So that is where we lived during the school year. It’s a nice place to . . .”

Heal. Mourn.

I gripped the wheel and took a moment to push away memories of being that lost, angry kid. But it was no use. They came anyway. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s some sort of magical place . . .” Sure, that’s why you ran to it as soon as you could. “But it’s beautiful and private. And Amalie will most definitely take care of you.”

That thought in particular made me both happy and uncomfortable. Emma should have someone looking after her. But why did it have to be here, where I couldn’t escape? As it was, I’d talked more to this woman in a few minutes than I had to anyone in months.

Thankfully, Emma just nodded and looked thoughtfully out the window at the mountain range streaking past.

“I’ve been helping her fix up the property,” I felt compelled to say, though why, I had no idea. She didn’t need to know. And still my mouth wouldn’t shut up. “Mostly the guesthouses. They’ve been falling into disrepair over the years. Yours has been renovated, though.”

Shut up, Oz, you hoser.

“I never doubted it,” she murmured.

Blissful silence fell. For about ten seconds.

“So you’re a contractor?”

Part of me wanted to laugh. Part of me wanted to howl into the void. This was what I’d become. A man who used to have adoring fans, crowds of them hanging out after a game in hopes of getting an autograph. A man who the hockey world had expected to earn his team another Stanley Cup victory. Now nothing more than some guy working for his grandmother and chauffeuring a famous actress who didn’t have a clue who he was.