Page 59 of Power Play

Maybe. I don’t know. It’s way too soon to admit anything like that, though, so I try and play it cool. “I like you, Mr. Harrison. And I’m hoping, despite my mess-ups, that you might like me back. Even if just a little.”

“I don’t mix pleasure with business,” Duke startles me by saying. When I try to yank out of his grasp, embarrassment lining my every move, he holds me still. “I’m not finished yet, honey.”

The word “honey” stops me dead in my tracks.

I glance up at his face.

“I don’t mix pleasure with business,” he reiterates. “I learned that the hard way, when I landed on every major Internet site, naked as the day I was born, for months. For years I’ve been going through the motions, hesitant to trust someone to get too close to my heart. You’re right—I’ve been ready to quit hockey for years now.”

“Then why haven’t you?” I ask.

“I don’t know, and that’s the honest to God truth. I don’t have an answer for you. Maybe it’s just a habit I don’t know how to break. Get up, head to practice, work out. Rinse and repeat. For over ten years, the life of a hockey player has been my normal. But it became a routine that no longer challenged me, or pushed me to be something greater. And then I met you.”

My heart starts to thump erratically. I’m trying to squash my hope—I really, really am—but I’m having a dreadfully hard time doing so. Since I lack patience of any kind, I whisper, “And?”

Duke laughs, pulling on a strand of my kinky hair with one finger. “And, crazy as this sounds, I met you and I felt like I had finally come alive. When you messaged me on Twitter, I stared at my phone for hours waiting for your response. You were ballsy, and your confident, take-no-prisoners attitude had me hooked from the start. I wanted to play your games. I wanted to do anything that would put you in my direct line of path.”

Screw patience. Seriously, I’m done with it.

I throw my arms around his neck, almost going so far as to link my leg around his leg. Duke doesn’t seem perturbed. He lifts me off the ground, his big hands hoisting me up into his arms, and then plops me onto the conference table without prelude.

“I haven’t forgotten our rooftop sexcapade,” he tells me, his calloused fingers thumbing the line of my silk shirt. “Have you?”

I smile. “No way. It was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Me too,” he murmurs. “I forgive you for the article. On one condition.”

“Anything.”

Duke leans down, pressing his weight into my body, so that my hands land on the desk to keep me steady. “Tell me, are you wearing any underwear today?”

Laughing, I playfully slap him on the chest. “You’re a dirty man.”

“I’ve got to be, if I plan on keeping up with your dirty moves.” Then, he drops forward and kisses me. It’s a different kiss than the others. This one speaks to the future and to commitment . . . and to love, I hope.

As he hikes up the hem of my skirt, his fingers flirting with the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, I say, “The answer to your question is no. I’m not wearing any panties.”

With a groan, he plants another kiss on my mouth. “Charlie Denton, you’re a keeper.”

And, as it turns out, I am.

Epilogue

Duke.

A year and a half later.

“Duke! Mr. Harrison! Can you tell us how it feels to win the Stanley Cup for a third time?”

It feels like the best sex I’ve ever had. I don’t say that to the reporters who are thrusting their voice recorders into my face. At thirty-six, I’m not interested in giving them shit to talk about on their blogs or whatever they hell they publish on nowadays.

The days where most of the reporters belong to print newspapers are long gone. Hell, the only dude I’ll ever answer to has his own vlog on YouTube. Once a week he talks about hockey, and the two other days he’s doing makeup videos or something.

Nice guy, though. Avid hockey fan.

I like him.

It’s to him that I turn to when the crowd seizes up and hollers at me. “Stuart,” I say, pointing at him so everyone else knows to shut up, “What’s your question for me?”

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