Page 16 of Ice Devil

Maybe I would read a few of her articles, so I knew what to expect. So she was tough. Should that bother me? Well, maybe… I was a rookie and while my agent was a kick-ass man out of New York, I often felt as if I’d come along for the giant wave Ford was riding. This was a make it or break it year for me. Any missteps and I could be toast.

If I was a smart man, which is what was indicated by my summa cum laude diploma, I’d keep a mile-wide berth from her. However, me being me, a guy who also didn’t like playing by the rules, the intrigue was more powerful than the concern.

I slowly tilted my head. “Where did you hear that horseshit? We lie all the time.” Maybe to prove a point. Maybe so my cock would finally deflate, I turned my chair so my back was to her. There. I could handle my hunger like a decent man.

Five minutes passed without finding the urge to look in her direction.

I could avoid surrendering to my needs.

Ten minutes.

See. I could do this.

Then why was my skin clammy? Jesus. Over a woman? Really? I scrubbed my jaw while my foot began to tap on the floor as if with a mind of its own.

I easily lasted the next six or seven minutes after that with the bartender refreshing our drinks. But who was counting?

After another three or so, sweat trickled down both sides of my face. Fuck me. This was getting ridiculous. Why in the hell was I pining away for a woman who obviously couldn’t stand my existence? Sure, she was one fine-looking woman, but my cravings were much deeper than simply getting my dick wet.

Great. Now I was a crude son of a bitch.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about her any longer,” Cujo said as if I should be relieved.

“How so?”

“She disappeared.”

I swung around to face the bar, immediately letting out a deep, almost agonizing breath. Well, fuck. There went every boy’s wet dream.

“Wow. You look ridiculously disappointed.”

I glared at my friend. “She was fun to fuck with.” When his eyes opened wide, I laughed. “Not like that, your asshole. She could give as hard as she took.” I scanned the bar’s entrance in hopes of catching her. She’d obviously slunk out hoping I wouldn’t pay any attention.

Annoyed, I shoved back my chair.

“Going to hunt her down, wolfman?”

“That would be my brother,” I threw back, Ford’s nickname on the ice suiting him. “You big dog. Just going to the bathroom. Wanna follow?”

Cujo threw up his hands. “I think you can handle your dick all by yourself. You’re a big boy.”

Yeah, I was. A big boy with a painful hard-on. I strolled through the bar, troubled that I’d allowed the woman to get to me. I wasn’t usually so obvious about my attraction. Unless I was faking it for the cameras. There was nothing wrong with hamming it up for the media. As long as I was careful about who I was seen with.

I noticed the sign indicating the location of the bathrooms and grumbled the entire time I took long strides down the hallway.

Even before a sound captured my attention, something else did. A strange and very overt feeling of impending doom. When my wolf was summoned to the surface, it usually meant someone was about to get hurt.

It didn’t take me long to realize why my hackles had been raised, my canines threatening to break through my gums.

The sexy reporter was in peril. Maybe that was a little too exaggerated as she appeared to be holding her own with a jerk of a guy refusing to take no for an answer.

I could tell the dude was drunk as a skunk by the stench in the hallway. The staff would need to use a deodorizer. A flash of something very dark came close to erupting deep inside. While I’d often called the game of hockey one of premeditated violence, I wasn’t typically prone to fighting emotions surrounding longing to beat the shit out of someone.

Apparently, there was a first time for everything.

“Hey, buddy. I’m going to say this once to you. You’re going to leave my woman alone,” I told him nicely, trying to use my inside voice as my mother had reminded me dozens of times. My deep baritone was a powerful instrument according to my high school music teacher. Somehow, I don’t think she’d been giving me a compliment. “Are you alright, honey?”

Maybe because when I used that voice, my wolf had already breached the surface.