Page 1 of Well Played

PUCK ME SIDEWAYS

A JERICHO CHIMERAS HOCKEY ROMANCE

BY SOFIA AVES

Hallie Newman has spent the last four months at the home of the Jericho Chimeras pretending not to exist. After all, the curvy marketing graduate knows what it feels like to have her heart broken by a pro hockey player, and stomped all over by a puck bunny WAG wannabe.

But when she finds herself in Solace Hunter’s sights he leaves her no room to escape—and he’s been watching her for longer than anyone knows.

1

HALLIE

“Way too sexy for this office.”

“For our own good.”

“Shouldn’t be allowed.”

“Fuckkkkk…”

The communal groan went up as my office manager bent over at the water cooler, presenting her peach-shaped behind to the ogling masses that made up the Jericho Chimeras’ Ice Hockey pro team.

The WAGS congregating in the corner giggled as one of the team—I didn’t lift my head from the tower of proofs scattered across my desk, you know,workto check on who—broke off from the group and sauntered across to the cooler. I was sure the WAGS chattering, sashaying ranks were about to swell with one more member.

Not that I’d ever want to be one, thank you very much.

My glasses slid down my nose a fraction as I studied the blurring words on the pages before me. I shuffled them and blinked rapidly, but the new view didn't change anything. I’dbeen staring at the proofs for way too freaking long, and I needed a break. But getting up in front of the team was premeditated social, personal suicide and I liked my life.

Kind of. Mostly.

Liar, liar, marketing proofs on fire.

That was me. Hallie Newman, marketing pleb for the best ice hockey team in the south.

Only, it might have been a better idea fangirling from afar than actually working side by side with some of the team. Or all of them. Because so much of that glam-fangirl-glitter wore off so fast I couldn't keep up four months into a job I loved or hated, depending on the minute.

“You know you’re sexier than all of them put together.”

I blinked at my papers and reshuffled them, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. A shadow obscured my light—a really big freaking shadow. I stared right up into a pair of dark eyes the entire country knew belonged to Solace Hunter, the Chimera’s defender. Goalie. Whatever.

Loyal to his team, unmoveable to a fault. And vicious to anyone who got on his other side.

Because I saw that when he belted the crap out of a guy who decided to key his captain’s car the first night I worked late and locked up, thinking I was still alone in the building.

Thank God he didn’t seeme, because who knows what he would have done to the witness when he dragged the guy’s unconscious form to the back of his sports car, threw him in the trunk, and drove away.

I never mentioned the incident afterward. Some long dormant survival instinct kicked in. The next day the captain's car was fixed, and the guy’s existence just never came up.

I managed to stay well away from Solace Hunter, Chimera defender after that…until right now. Coal dark eyes stared down at me, not a flicker of amusement or flirtation in sight.

Because Solacedidn’tflirt.

Like the rest of his actions, everything was done with a potent degree of determination. He was often the first of the team in the gym working out in the mornings, and the last to leave at night, checking the building when he thought no one was left.

I knew, because those quiet hours were when I got my best work done, when no one bothered me. The empty building left me quiet time to deal with the chatter my desk screamed at me that I couldn't deal with during the day in an overpopulated office. And knowing he was around offered a kind of safety.

I mean, who would screw with a guy likethat?

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