Page 29 of Pinkie Promise

I thought that it might be difficult to determine which player is which but Hunter’s body is so big that he’s impossible not to notice. Hunter begins stretching out his thighs, warming up for the first period, and the second that he sees me he gives me a heart-stopping smile.

I glance over my shoulder to check that he isn’t smiling at someone else and when I turn back to look at him his grin gets even bigger. Then he slaps down the shield at the front of his helmet and slides around to face his team so that they can have a quick pre-game discussion.

With the large expanse of his back facing me I see the name WILDE written across it in bold red capitals.

I don’t take a breath for the entire game.

Hunter is fast, ruthless, and borderline brutal. He hits the puck so hard into the back of the net that the severe strike reverberates down to my core.

If I wasn’t so amazed I think I would be terrified.

Hunter gets sent to the sin bin on one obvious occasion and I’m pretty sure that he did it on purpose, mainly because when he shoved into a guy with the thick swell of his shoulder the puck was literally on the other side of the rink. As soon as he’s in the sin bin he knocks on the board in front of me and, panting hard, he gives me a once-over and a wink.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, trying to cover my crimson cheeks with my scarf.

“What do you think?” he calls to me, smirking like a total hotshot.

“Hunter, do not tell me that you just got sent into the sin bin so that you could come and talk to me right now.”

He smiles sheepishly at his gloves, his cheeks almost as red as mine. “We’re already winning, Fallon. Wanted to make sure you were having a good time.”

Something warm and painful tightens in my chest. When he looks up at me from under his beautiful black lashes I can’t help but give him a small lip-biting smile, because I simply cannot believe that he just did that for me.

When the final whistle is blown and Carter U’s team has finished celebrating their win, Hunter pulls away from the group and quickly skims the ice over to me. Now that the game is over his movements are light and graceful.

He swerves to an easy stop in front of the sin bin and leans a palm on the board, his other hand gripping his helmet so that he can pull it over his head.

His hair is dark and sweaty, and his cheeks are flushed.

“Hey,” he rasps, excitement and adrenaline making him breathless. His voice is low and muffled on the other side of theglass. “I’m gonna be five minutes in the showers. Can we talk after? Can I meet up with you outside?”

I nod up at him and he breathes a sigh of relief, shaking out his hair and then doing a nod of his own. I make my way slowly out of the sports building, not wanting to wait outside in the cold, but just as I’m about to breach the back exit I hear footfalls pounding behind me down the long corridor.

“Hey,” Hunter pants, catching up to me in a matter of strides.

He must have been less than three minutes in the locker room and, from one glance at him, I can tell why. His hair is now drenched and his clothes are only half on. His jeans are unbuttoned and his shirt is clinging wetly to his abs.

When we get outside we keep to the side of the building, and I rest against the wall as Hunter tosses his gym bag onto the blacktop. I watch in wide-eyed disbelief as he positions himself in front of me, pulling up the zipper on his pants and then leashing a belt through the loops.

As he feeds the tongue through the buckle he glances at me from under his lashes. His chest heaves in quick weighty pumps as he explains, “Didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

Don’t mind me. I let out a little laugh, cross my legs, and squeeze.

“What did you think?” he asks, crouching down slightly in front of me so that he can grab a hoodie from his bag. He has a hopeful smile tugging at his mouth which makes something warm and fuzzy tingle in my belly.

“It was… fast,” I tell him honestly, and a low laugh rumbles out of him.

“That a good thing?” he asks, pulling the jumper roughly over his head. He flashes me a dark inch of happy trail in the process and I’m suddenly very lightheaded.

“Uh, yeah,” I squeak. “Although I think that I missed every single goal. And it was… more rough than I expected. Like, you had blood on you at one point.”

Hunter nods down at me, gauging my reactions cautiously. “Yeah,” he says, like he knew that there was blood. Like he thinks that that’s normal. “Wasn’t my blood though,” he shrugs, and I choke out a small laugh.

Hunter laughs at my reaction and gives me a guilty smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that to freak you out. Hockey’s rough, that’s why I tried to ease up today.” When I blink at him, not fully understanding what he means, he clarifies by saying, “That’s why I played gentle tonight.”

“That was you… playing gentle?” I ask hoarsely.

Hunter drops his head and smiles, gripping at the back of his neck.

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