Page 66 of Chasing the Puck

“Bye,” Tuck says, popping the word like a jab at Aiden as he walks away.

Tuck’s jaw is set hard, his neck muscles coiling with tension when I turn to him.

“I’m not your date,” I protest.

“After I saw that asshole touching your hair, either I got rid of him by lying, or he was leaving on a fucking stretcher,” Tuck says, his voice husky and tense. “I think I made the right choice.”

A chill dances up my spine at the jealousy laced in Tuck’s voice. I know I should be angry at him for barging over like a caveman and chasing off a guy I was in the middle of a conversation with. He has no right to dictate who I talk to, or what part of me they touch.

But I’m not angry.

A teasing grin twists on my mouth. “Is Mr. No-Strings-Attached Tuck McCoy actually jealous?” I ask, wryly.

“You’re damn right I am,” he rasps.

The directness of his answer takes me by surprise. My heartbeat leaps up my throat.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why?” he throws the question back at me like it’s ridiculous. He places his hand flat on the bar counter next to me, angling his body so that his leg intrudes into the space between my knees as I sit sideways on the barstool. “Olivia, the taste of your juices still tingles on my fucking mouth. I fall asleep every night remembering your moans in my ear. You avoid me all week after that, and the next time I see you, some other guy is touching you? Fuck yes, I’m jealous.”

His voice is thick with gravel, and he’s dipped his head closer to me so I can feel the brush of his hot breath on the side of my face.

Heat blasts between my thighs. I clench them, but that only draws my knees closer together, and they pinch around Tuck’s leg. Feeling the presence of him there reminds me of when it was his hips between them, and the heat ratchets up, my face turning red while sparks skitter across my skin.

“You always get this possessive over girls you hook up with?” I ask sardonically, after recovering some measure of my composure.

“Hook up? That’s what you think happened between us, a hookup?”

“What else would you call it?”

Tuck shakes his head, blue eyes flashing. “I don’t know what to call it. But I’ve had hookups before, Olivia. They sure as fuck never felt anything like that.”

His words spear through me. I know I’ve never felt anything even close to what I felt with Tuck. But I didn’t let myself imagine that the same would go for him.

I know that Tuck’s been wanting to see me since we got back from New Hampshire, but I didn’t imagine he’d get so worked up over another guy talking to me that he’d march over and glower at him sharp enough to cut steel.

With heat humming through my body, I think that maybe I should stop being a coward. That I should stop caring so much about what could go wrong with Tuck. Maybe even start to think about what could go right. That I should …

But instinctively, I feel my defenses raising themselves.

I cross my arms and put on my familiar adversarial attitude towards Tuck, like it’s a suit of armor.

“Whatever it was, it isn’t going to happen again,” I say. But I can tell it sounds like I’m reading a line in a script I don’t like, playing a role I don’t believe in, one I can’t summon any enthusiasm for.

Tuck huffs a laugh, his eyes glimmering at the challenge. “Just try to pretend there are any other guys in this place, or on this campus, or in this whole fucking state that could satisfy you after what I did to you last weekend.”

Then he turns and walks away, confident that I won’t be able to shake off the truth of his words. Because he’s right. There’s no one who can make me feel like he does.

The problem is, I don’t think there’s anyone who could hurt me like he can, either.

28

TUCK

It’s Monday afternoon after class when I get a text from Summer, asking if she can give me a quick call.

She and Hudson are skipping classes today and tomorrow, taking a trip to Montreal since Hudson surprised her with tickets to a concert by her favorite violinist who’s performing up there.

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