Page 4 of Lovefool

I narrow my eyes, inching along the outskirts of the room to try and maintain as many feet between us as possible. “We don’t speak of anything that happened here, capiche?”

He tracks my every movement with the precision of a skilled hunter. “If you’re making me an accessory to B&E, then I think I deserve to at least know your name.”

When I have to bypass his hulking frame to get out, the electricity between us nearly steals my balance. I can’t tell if it’s the adrenaline impairing my train of thought or something more depraved.

“It’s Michelle,” I fib, stripped of all my bravado. Another lie as unbelievable as its predecessor.

He raises a bushy eyebrow. “Well, Michelle, it’ll be kind of hard to forget this night. Especially with you looking like that.”

I foolishly take the bait, halting in my tracks to satiate the bloodthirsty beast inside me. “Like what?”

“Like my teammate’s ridiculously hot ex.”

2

MY KNIGHT IN SHINING HOCKEY PADS

LAKE

Holy shit. My unexpected visitor turned stalker knows who I am.

Should I be flattered? Freaked out? My ego doesn’t need any more stroking. I’ve already reached the apotheosis of bad bitch energy. But instead of channeling my inner cool and upholding some semblance of leftover mystery, my vocal cords screech like broken organ pipes.

“You know who I am?” I splutter, unsure if I should be offended that my only claim to fame around here is Buford’s sloppy seconds.

Mr. Mullet shrugs. “Everyone on the Mustangs knows who you are.”

With that sliver of realization, two terrible thoughts pour over me. One, I’m still exceedingly half-naked and burning underneath the scrutiny of this man’s microscope. And two, this stranger has all the ammunition he needs to end my reign of terror and blast my criminal status to the entire town of Maple Grove.

I really shouldn’t be giving him any ideas, yet I can’t help but fear for the reckless way he juggles my smoking gun. “Are you going to turn me in?”

Amusement simmers in the dark pits of his eyes. “Turn you in?”

I gesture to the pathetic state of Buford’s room—the aftermath of too much arrogance and a disturbing amount of self-destructive behavior. I felt fucking vindicated in the beginning, but now my stomach churns with the harebrained decision of pre-revenge tequila shots. Add intoxicated climbing to my endless write-up.

“You know, for breaking and entering. Insect warfare. Indecent exposure.”

“I don’t think ‘insect warfare’ is a thing.”

The chill of the house peppers my exposed skin in gooseflesh. At least, I think the cold is responsible. “Maybe not yet, but after tonight, Buford will probably do anything to see me behind bars if he knows I did this.”

My knight in shining cotton surveys the room, most likely formulating some internal thought about how pitiful the girl in lingerie is to resort to the unwarranted liberation of nature’s best clean-up crew.

“That’s not going to happen,” he promises with a chest-deep rumble that would make any woman strip on command. It would take a military-grade firehose to extinguish the physical spark between us.

I cant my head. “What are you talking about?”

A little gorge forms between his eyebrows, and the hinge of his jaw hardens. “Look, Buford’s not my favorite person either. Just because he was generous enough to let me use his shower doesn’t mean we’re buddy-buddy.”

“What are you saying?” I squeak, swallowing down the sour aftertaste of bile.

Sensing my concern, he soothes my nerves with a warm, pulse-fluttering smile, any and all judgment scrubbed from his expression. “I’m saying that I’m going to get you out of here, and Buford doesn’t have to be any wiser.”

“You’d do that? For me?”

“Figure it would be kind of hard to take you on a date if you’re stuck in jail,” he quips, running his tongue over his canine as that self-assured tone of his burns a hole straight through my belly.

Date? Am I…am I hearing things correctly? I have to be dreaming. There’s no way one of Buford’s teammates is asking me out when I have on minimal clothing and even less sensibility. I’m a hot mess. Emphasis on “hot,” but I digress.