Page 43 of Puck You Very Much

“No,youcan’t,” he contradicted her quietly. “You don’t get to decide which women I can talk to and which I can’t. You can’t keep on doing this. You can’t look at me like you want to rip my clothes off and then talk to my brother behind my back.”

She laughed. It was a startled, absurd laugh. “Youlook at me the same way, Dax! When we were just outside…youkissedme, you said…”

He raised his eyebrows mockingly. “You shouldn’t take everything so literally, Lucy. Don’t take it personally, but you would be the last woman on Earth I would want to take to bed.”

And then he turned on his heel before she could decipher his lie or peer too closely into his eyes.

“You’re a terrible kisser!” she called after him.

“Tell that to your poor tongue,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing into the cold.

He’d had enough of this day.

Chapter 13

What just happened?

The question echoed over and over in Lucy’s head. She didn’t understand.

Why had Dax’s anger and their ugly argument ended with them kissing?

She brought her shaking fingers to her lips and stared at the door, where Dax had disappeared. Her whole body tingled. She was electrified from the top of her head to her little toes. Dax’s smell clung to her like dirt to her car. So did his touch on her skin, on her neck and back. He was gone, but his heat remained—just like his words.

You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Lucy.

He hadn’t kissed her because he’d really wanted to, he’d done it to teach her a lesson and prove to her that she wasn’t in control of their relationship. He’d wanted to show her she couldn’t cross the line without being punished for it.

And she had kissed him back because she couldn’t help it. He’d robbed her of oxygen, taken away her reason, and stolen her principles. If she was finally being honest, she’d wanted to kiss him ever since he told her he respected her and trusted her word. She simply didn’t want to admit it.

“Wasn’t that Dax Temple?” a voice said, snapping her out of her trance. Blinking, she turned.

“What? Who is Dax Temple?” she replied quickly, although her voice sounded strangely metallic and hollow.

“The hockey player,” the bar owner insisted, frowning at the door.

She laughed. A little too high, a little too fake, but the people here wouldn’t know the difference. “No, that was…Steven. He’s a tiler. I wish he was a hockey player.”

The corners of the bar owner’s mouth twitched. “Ah, yes. Don’t we all? I must have mixed him up.”

She nodded absently and looked at the stool in front of her. Dax had left his coat behind. He’d been too eager to leave to remember it. She slung it over her shoulder and left the bar.

Cold hit her face, helping her organize her thoughts and distinguish between the important and the unimportant. Bottom line, there was only one way to sum it up: She was ridiculous.

One rule—she only had one rule: She didn’t date hockey players. And kissing a hockey player definitely fell into that category. It didn’t matter whether he had just pressed his lips against hers to get his point across or not.

She inhaled deeply. No, that was the first and last time she’d let Dax Temple kiss her, the first and last time she let him leave her speechless.

She walked along the sidewalk, rubbing the back of her neck, running her hand over her mouth, trying to wipe every hint of his touch from her body and banish every idea of his kiss from her mind. No man should have such power over her. No human should have such power over her.

Her phone vibrated with a message. She jumped as if the sender had caught her in the act of the reprehensible kiss.

Shaking her head, she fished her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Leslie.

After tonight, the press fervently believes that West and Temple hate each other and won’t be able to work together. Please take countermeasures.

Groaning, she put the phone away. Only Leslie would phrase a PR stunt like a Secret Service message. Whatcountermeasures? It had just become obvious that she had no means of countering Dax. And for once, the press was right: West and Temple hated each other. How was she supposed to convince a bunch of journalists and pissed-off fans otherwise?

She walked faster, and by the time she reached the warm lobby of the hotel, her mind was raging. But what kind of attitude was that? She was a PR consultant. It was her job to find a way. And to hell with Dax Temple and his intense stares and even more intense kisses! Yes, she had gone too far, but so had he! She wasn’t going to let him make her feel insecure simply because she couldn’t control her body.

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