Page 28 of He Has Pluck

After I get my dick under control, I go up to my room, but I’m met in the hallway by Rafe.

“We have to talk,” he says and pulls me into his room. Tony and Finn are in there. He points to the chair next to Tony and says, “Sit.”

“What the fuck?” I mutter, but I sit because Rafe has been nothing but stand-up since I got here, truly mentoring me. And I fucked up tonight. I push a hand through my hair. Tony shoots me a death glare.

“Whatever personal pettiness is between you two, you need to put it aside and act like teammates. You don’t need to like each other, but you do need to respect each other.” He takes a breath, standing with his hands on his hips. “Look, I know you’ve heard this lecture a million times before, since you’ve been playing peewee hockey. I know I have. But it’s still true, truer than ever now because we have a chance at the cup. Don’t blow it for us.”

Rafe looks at me and says, “I trust that whatever Juliette filmed will get edited appropriately. There’s no need to badger her for doing her job.”

I nod and exchange a quick glance with Finn who stands at his side. I’m glad it’s our secret what the real issue I have with Juliette is. Glad that Rafe doesn’t seem to know. Or maybe he’s giving me the benefit of the doubt, or worse, playing along with the illusion that there’s nothing there and hoping I’ll squelch whatever the hell is wrong with me.

“We need that wrist shot, that quick reflex on the ice,” he says. “Save everything else you’re wasting your energy on until after we win the cup.”

“Words to live by,” I say.

Tony grunts, nods and looks reluctantly in my direction. I raise my fist for a bump, and he goes along. The bad mojo is still there, but I’m willing to let it go and reasonably certain I can get along. I should have enough self-control to behave civilly towards Tony no matter if I end up hating his guts.

“Sorry I lost my cool,” I say. “It won’t happen again.” He nods but doesn’t apologize or acknowledge that he was acting like an ass to the server. I don’t care.

There’s only one thing that could make me lose it on Tony again—and that’s if he so much as whispers the wrong thing about Juliette, or to her. If he ever touches her, I don’t want to think about what I might do, but it’s hard to shut down the instant surge of rage even the thought of his hands on her brings out in me.

I hate that I’m obsessed with her, and the corrosion wears at me like acid, so that I can feel myself growing to hate her. The way she holds me off with disdain, wants to control me, to control what’s between us as if that will make her better than me.

But she’s no different than I am. She wants something, and she goes after it. Believing her thing is to film bad people doesn’t make it any more noble than me shooting a puck in the net. We both do somebody good somewhere.

Resentment doesn’t grow fast and obvious like a weed, my dad once told me. It crawls like a snake through your gut until it strikes out from its tight hidden coil into the open.

I need to exorcise my resentment and exorcise her from under my skin fast before I explode and wreck our playoff chances…and my career along with it. I need to have her, to fuck her, just once, and be done with it, put her and this episode of self-destruction behind me, behind us, and move on with what really matters. Winning the Stanley Cup.

Finn and I leave the room and I don’t invite conversation, and he’s smart enough not to push it. He slaps my back as I let myself into my room. It’s dark, and I leave it that way. Pacing around, I try to unwind, but my conscience takes hold and won’t let me.

Because the evil box I’m trying to put Juliette in doesn’t fit her, and I know it. Because I can’t blame her for my own weakness and can’t blame her for having the same weakness. I can’t even truly resent her for dismissing hockey as a trivial pursuit, because she’s right. It’s a fucking game.

None of that changes the reality that I love the game, that I’m driven to play it, that I love it more than anything, and I need to succeed because it’s what I put my whole life into since I can remember because my dad put me in skates at two years old.

And it doesn’t change that something drives Juliette to put her life on the line to do what she does, that there’s some big hurt inside her squeezing her soul and scaring her enough to keep people out—keeping men out—namely me.

Deep down, part of my obsession is to expose all that vulnerability, to force her to let me in, and I’m not sure if her letting me inside her physically will be enough.

And that scares the fucking hell out of me.

I stop pacing, exhaustion winning out over my obsession for the moment, and I start undressing. As I take off my jacket, I notice something hard in my pocket, like a hotel key card. Shit.

With shaky hands I reach in the pocket and slip the card out. It’s still in its folder, and the room number is written on it. Next to the room number is scrawled “Ice Chip” in proud block letters.

Holy fucking shit. That woman. I laugh out loud. All the tension and whatever else had me coiled evaporates. Instead, my system is lit up by something else, something not entirely rational. Something not driven by hockey. Hockey? What hockey?

My gaze shoots to the door.

Chapter Seven

JULIETTE

I shouldn’t be surprised when I hear him open the door to my room. It’s two am, and I’m awake and naked in my bed. Not waiting, but on edge all the same, almost ready to take out my old vibrator, or worse to touch myself and whisper his name while closing my eyes and seeing him.

Instead, I open my eyes, and he stands over me, pulling his shirt over his head, no smug or teasing smile on his face. Even though I can’t see much in the semi-darkness of the room, I can feel the anger sparking off him. And damn if that doesn’t make my pussy clench harder.

He pulls down his pants and boxers, and his cock gleams, catching what little light there is in the room. My mouth waters, but I tear my eyes away and push up on my elbows.