Page 127 of Off Limits: The Firsts

I despise that I do want her here.

And when I turn to where the sound of her heels clicking on the concrete of the tunnel leading up to the ice, I hate myself even more for remembering. How good we were in bed, how explosive—almost violent with lust.

Fucking incredible.

She stands with the beer bottle I chucked onto the ice in one hand, her other hand on her hip, and rocking a pinstriped pantsuit that looks part time to party, part don’t fuck with me.

Totally in control when last night she was anything but.

Maysen is behind her as he walks down the tunnel toward the locker rooms. I was so pissed, so focused, I didn’t even realize he’d left.

Lucky for me, now I don’t have to address the bullshit he was hoping to resolve. Unlucky for me, I’m being stared down by a much tougher opponent, and the look of disappointment on her face isn’t one I really care to acknowledge.

I already have a mother.

I already own guilt.

“Should I be worried there are more bottles hidden elsewhere?” she asks and shifts her weight.

“You know us hockey players, Dekk. If there’s a rule, we’re going to break it. You want to strip search me?” I lift my hands above my head. “I might have a stash somewhere on my body you can find.”

“Drinking on a game day? At eight in the morning?” She lifts a lone brow and ignores my comment.

“What? Last night you were all about touching me and today you’re not?” I tsk. “My, how things change.”

Anger fleets through her expression, followed closely by embarrassment, but just as quickly as it’s there, it disappears.

Hmm. Seems what I did last night got to her more than I thought.

“The beer?” she asks, giving a stoic glance from the beer bottle in her hand and then back to me.

“Sometimes you just need to relax.” I shrug. What does it matter? What do I care what she thinks of me?

Why is she here?

“You going to call the LumberJacks management police on me?”

Dekker

I stare at Hunter. At his shirt plastered with sweat and how it clings to his body, despite the chill of the ice his skates are standing on. He has his warm-up pants on and is without a helmet, his hair curling at the ends from the sweat.

And all I see in his eyes is anger I didn’t put there. Or maybe I did. Rejection can do that to a man . . . but there’s something more here. Something I walked in on that doesn’t make sense.

“Don’t give me that look, Kincade,” Hunter mutters as he skates over to the penalty box where his electrolyte drink sits.

“What look?” I ask.

He half laughs, half snorts and meets my gaze across the distance. “Disappointment. Disproval. Disdain. I’m the king of all of them, so save your breath—or in this case—your glare, because it’s not going to work with me.”

“Are we working on emotions that start with the letter D today?” I ask. A hint of my embarrassment and anger over how I acted last night creeps into my voice, but I mask it with sarcasm. “If that’s the case, I’m more than impressed with your answers thus far.”

He clenches his jaw in response and then skates back over to line up more pucks so he can shoot them. And he does, one after another, each shot taken with laser precision and a healthy dose of fury behind it.

He goes through the first ten lined up and then stops to catch his breath.

His talent and skill are undeniable, but so is the beer bottle in my hand.

“Just because you’re the captain and star of this team, doesn’t mean management won’t frown upon this,” I say, unable to let this go.