Page 4 of Puck My Heart

The fuck is wrong with me?

I shook my head, grabbed my bag off the floor and stalked deeper into the cabin. Damnit, she never did answer me. “Have I gotta worry about a bear in here?”

“A bear, huh?”

“Or a lady bear?” I scratched the top of my head when she laughed at me again, and figured there was no threat of a boyfriend coming to assault me for perving on his girl. The thought left me warm and fuzzy inside, or maybe that was just the interior cabin temperature catching up with me. Aclimatising, right?Yeah, bullshit.Anya laughed at me again. “Stop that. Your brother said he’d wait until tomorrow to drive up. I’ve got no idea who else is coming.”

“No one.” Her denim clad ass swaggered past me. I got an eyeful of two pert butt cheeks hanging temptingly from the base of the material. Of which there wasn’t fucking much. And at perfect hand height to?—

My fingers itched.I’m so fucked.

“It’s just us. You needed a break. I needed a break. Well, post break up. And Sol wanted time with Hallie. Something about a new obsession.”

Double fucked.

I stared at a point over her shoulder and started to recite this season’s playbook backwards. “Uh, sure.”

Blonde curls whipped about her as she twisted to look at me over one bare shoulder. “Didn’t Solace tell you?”

“He probably did.” And I probably didn’t listen.Noprobablyabout it.Shit. Maybe he and Coach were right. I did need the break.

“If you say so.”

Her inflection left me doubtful of whether Sol actually had told me about the invitees for the weekend or not while I made it my life mission to study the wall behind her head and not look down. Finally blood flowed in the correct direction again, and I managed to make eye contact, or where eye contact should have been, but the space where Anya stood a second ago was empty.

“I say so,” I muttered, not sure why the grump in me rose that usually only came out during training or a really shitty game.

I didn’t follow Anya into the kitchen where she banged about a bit louder than I suspected she needed to be, or maybe I was just still on edge.Shit, I could have handled that better.I really should have turned around when the snow fell heavier and not driven in at all. But I’d promised Sol I’d turn up, and breaking my word hurt.

Swearing under my breath I took the stairs three at a time, relishing the strain in my thighs after sitting in the car for so long. I was desperate to piss, and tossed my bag at the floor of the bed into the first room along the hall that had been mine for years. An adjoining bathroom to the next bedroom offered reprieve. One scalding hot shower later I felt somewhat human. My body regulated to the internal house temperature enough that the semi-warm water droplets dripping from my still damp hair seemed cool.

I wrapped a towel around my waist, cleaned the bathroom of my presence in case Anya was sharing, gathered my clothes and headed back into the room where I left my kit.

And found a mostly naked Anya lying in my bed. A sheet was draped around her waist, and her back was partially turned to me while she read.

I stared at the slim curves of her shoulder blades where they dipped along her back, her blonde hair twisted into a messy top notch that exposed her nape. My blood heated at the thought of running my hands over that tanned, smooth skin a second before reality slammed home. I bypassed Grumpland on the way to outright asshole as I seethed at the pretty girl spread out before me who had no idea what sort of hell she just rained down on herself.

“The hell do you think you’re doing in my bed, Anya?” I snapped with the sort of volume that echoed across an arena during morning training. But here it was only us, and a small bedroom that my bellow filled all the same, my voice bouncing off the walls, splintering back at me.

Not that it mattered as she rolled over to face me and I realized I’d been wrong. So fucking wrong.

The sheet slid back with the movement. Anya wasn’t half naked at all. She didn’t have a stitch of clothing on her perfect body, and I got an eyeful of a pair of rounded, oh so tweakable fucking breasts as she stared at me with wide eyes.

Right before a sinful little smile curved her pretty lips.

CHAPTER THREE

ANYA

Captain Huxley Radfield had always been trouble. The moment he pulled up, even forewarned by my brother that he’d had a crappy day, I knew he’d be a handful. But I didn’t expect him to yell at me within an hour of walking in the door of the place where we all brewed childhood memories, even if his bore scars the rest of us had never been able to help him heal. Okay, so his weren’t so much happy childhood memories, but mine were. Teen ones, at least.

And I'd always had a crush on Sol’s best friend. Who wouldn’t? At six foot plus, he had to duck under most doorways, just like my brother, though Sol was all heavy set muscle where Hux fell into the leaner category. Not in the mean way, just…he was ripped as shit. I could see that now when all he wore was a towel I used last night and a handful of water droplets that traced the carved muscles of his abs and chest.

But it was the way he glowered at me, all riled and righteous, that left me giggling.

“I bet that’s scary to the newer guys on the team when you yell at them, huh?” I flicked my book shut as I rolled over to face him in full, managing to mark my page and not lose my placein the process. Pleased my coordination skills weren’t lacking after I’d killed half a bottle of white wine earlier when the snow started and I thought I’d be on my own for at least a while, I hit a fail when the sheet slipped off my body.Oops. Kinda.

“Did you just dog ear that page?” Hux made a strangled noise as he lunged forward and grabbed the absent sheet, yanking it upward. “Would you cover up,” he snapped through gritted teeth.

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