Page 1 of Puck Me Sideways

CHAPTER ONE

HALLIE

“Way too sexy for this office.”

“For our own good.” That came from the captain, I thought. Hux, maybe?

“Shouldn’t be allowed.” One of the plebs. Drayson. Grayson? Someone new to the team, mouthing off.

“Fuckkkkk…”

The communal groan went up as my office manager bent over at the water cooler, presenting her peach-shaped, and completely office inappropriate mini skirt clad behind to the ogling masses that made up the main cohort of the Jericho Chimeras Ice Hockey pro team.

The WAGS congregated about someone’s underutilized desk in the main front office of the home team building—no, not forthatpurpose—situated in the corner giggled. They usually did over any random muscled member of the team no matter who they were attached to at the time. Someone, I didn’t lift my head from the tower of marketing proofs scattered across my desk, you know,work,to check on who, broke off from the group and clicked their patent heels over the tiled flooring and sauntered across to the cooler. Then the heel did a little double tap and I sighed.

Janelle. It had to be. The office manager had always wanted to be on team WAG. She’d dropped a lot of weight recently and she’d been flirting up a storm with the team captain at every opportunity, too. Even I couldn’t ignore that.

Right on cue the captain’s deep voice filled the office alongside Janelle’s giggle.

It looked like the chattering, sashaying WAGS 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 the papers and blinked rapidly, but the new view didn't change anything. I’d been 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, as well as 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 that I couldn't keep up four months into a job I loved or hated, depending on the minute. This was definitely a mood career.

“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 came 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 Chimera in the gym working out in the mornings and the last to leave at night, checking the building when he thought no one remained.

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, over sensory office. Plus, knowing Solace was around offered a kind of safety.

I mean, who would screw with a guy likethat?

No one. Certainly not this girl.

Lost in my head, I stared up at him and managed to swallow on a dry throat. “Huh?”

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