Page 59 of Puck You Very Much

“Nope. God had nothing to do with it,” Dax muttered, searching for his pants.

“Oh God,” she repeated and found her pantyhose. “Oh God, oh God, oh God! I just…we just…”

The right corner of Dax’s mouth twitched. “I know. I was there.”

Groaning, she threw her head back, her hands pressed to her face. What had she done? Why had she…how had she…?

Panic rose in her. “You’re a hockey player!” she exclaimed. “I’m supposed to save your image and I just…shit! Shit, shit, shit.” She couldn’t repeat the word enough as she hastily pulled her blouse and pantyhose back on. The blood whooshed in her ears and the last of the endorphins faded. Now adrenaline coursed through her body. “This can’t be. This cannot have happened!” she continued, more to herself than to anyone else.

Because she didn’t understand. How could she have let herself go like that? How could she have forgotten that…that…

“Okay, Lucy,” Dax said tensely, “I think you’re overreacting a bit, you…”

“No!” she snapped, glaring at him. What was wrong with her? “No, I’m not! Because you sleeping with me won’t surprise or bother anyone; the fact that you had sex with me makes you a great guy. It won’t tarnishyourreputation, but no one will take me seriously anymore! Everyone will judge me if this gets out.”

“Okay, then it won’t get out,” Dax said, shaking his head and pressing his lips together.

“You can bet on it!” she snapped, pointing at him with a trembling index finger. “I know a lot more secrets about you that could hurt you than you do about me, Dax!”

She knew she’d said the wrong thing. She knew she’d gone too far again. She could see it in the way Dax narrowed his eyes and the way he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Okay,” he said coolly. “I get it. Being associated with me would be the worst thing that could happen to you. I’m good for an orgasm but nothing else? Right?”

Her heart clenched painfully and then dropped. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered. She didn’t want to make what had happened into something terrible. Because it hadn’t been terrible. It had been…everything. More than she could bear. And yet not enough.

But she’d forgotten what the consequences would be. She’d wanted him so much that she’d ignored them…yet now she had her senses back. Now her mind was no longer foggy.

“I’m sorry, Dax,” she whispered, swallowing. “It’s just… This could ruin me. And when you kissed me, it’s like you took the oxygen from my brain…I couldn’t think anymore, and…this shouldn’t have happened, Dax!”

"Yeah, I get that,” he replied tersely, fastening his belt. “But I have to say that it pisses me off that you’re blaming me, like I forced you to fuck me.”

She flinched at the harsh words. He was right. It wasn’t his fault—it was hers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, slipping into her shoes and holding her hand to her heated forehead. “I wish…but I can’t.”

And then she turned on her heels and left. She needed distance from Dax. She needed as much distance as she could get.

Chapter 18

It was worse than before.

Dax hadn’t believed that was possible, but he’d been wrong. For the next few days, Lucy ignored him as much as she could—and God, it was getting on Dax’s nerves! Even more than the fact that he got hard whenever he thought about her.

He’d been longing for Lucy for five days—for her hands on his body, her lips on his neck and around his cock. It didn’t matter where. And it didn’t matter how many times he relieved the pressure in the shower, or how many times he told himself he couldn’t have her.

He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted any woman. He wanted her with an intensity that surpassed his desire to win the Cup this year. And fuck, that had never happened before. Hockey always came first, without exception. But now that he knew what it sounded like when she moaned against his mouth, how it felt when her hot hands were on his neck, how she contracted around him when she came, he couldn’t think of anything else.

He felt like he’d opened Pandora’s box. An infuriatingly sweet, hot, irresistible Pandora’s box—and now there was no turning back. He was lost.

He didn’t need the distraction, because he damn well needed to concentrate on his lousy game.

But, shit, Lucy pissed him off! She was acting as if he was bragging about getting laid, as if he was an asshole who’d walk up to his teammates and shout about how he’d fucked the obstinate Lucy, who wouldn’t date hockey players, on a stranger’s desk. What the fuck did she think of him? He’d been confident they had passed that point, that she knew him better. Sheshouldknow him better. He knew how important the job and her professionalism were to her. However, she was the one who had acquiesced! When he’d said she looked like she enjoyed it when he kissed her, she’d stared at him with glassy eyes and open lips and pressed herself against him as if she wanted to build a vacation home on his body. She had made sweet, breathless sounds when he kissed her behind the ear, ran his thumb over her nipples…

If he weren’t careful, he would be on the ice with a boner for the next hour.

It didn’t matter.

The bottom line was that she was as guilty as he was when it came to why she had ended up naked on the desk.

And now she was standing by the ice, not 30 feet away from him, talking to Leslie—probably about him!—her back purposefully turned to him.

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