Page 3 of Goaltender Interference

It wasn’t the Boston Harbor, but it would do.

Connor undid another button on his shirt, then pressed the cool glass to his overheated throat. He’d felt off all day, restless and tense. Maybe if he’d had a few minutes alone, a few minutes without someone wanting to talk about his fucking divorce or when he was gonna start dating seriously again or how he was handling seeing his kids less often …

“Thought I’d probably find you out here.”

What does it fucking take to get a moment of peace?Connor whirled, snarling, “Are you following me or something? What the hell do you want from me, Webber?”

Connor hardly knew the guy.

He was just some punk goalie for Toronto who liked to shake his ass around. Why did he keep popping upeverywhere? He’d been in Connor’s direct line of sight all damn day. Seated in the crowd when Connor stood at the front of the ceremony venue, then at a table across from the wedding party’s at the sit-down supper during the first part of the tented reception.

And then it was thetwerking, which, if it wouldn’t be egotistical as hell, he’d swear the goalie did it intentionally to torment him.

Then again, netminders usually did have one or two screws loose, so that might also explain it.

Webber sauntered forward. “I’ve seen you looking at me, O’Shea.”

“Yeah, well, you’re good at making a spectacle of yourself,” Connor pointed out.

“Ever since that moment we had on the ice last spring …” Webber stepped closer, smirk revealing a dimple on his smooth cheek.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Connor’s grip on his glass tightened, mind stuttering, lingering on the memories of the playoffs. Losing his footing and crashing into Toronto’s net, Webber sprawled heavily on top of him, pink-cheeked and surprised.

Connor shook his head. He didn’t … he wasn’t …

“I could feel your eyes on me on the dance floor earlier,” Webber said. Still shirtless, he smelled of clean sweat and cologne, something that teased Connor’s nostrils and made him feel dizzy and flushed. “Checking me out.”

Fuck!No.

Connor’d been married to a woman for over a decade and the crush he’d had on his team captain his rookie year at Boston University was just ahockeycrush. It wasn’t …

Webber brushed his fingertips across Connor’s hip, so light it was hardly a touch at all. But Connor still shivered, his gut going tight.

“Youwantme.” Webber’s smirk deepened, infuriatingly cocky, like he thoughteveryonewanted him.

Connor opened his mouth to protest, to say that Jesse wasn’t his type at all. He was straight. Hewas. Just because he’d blurted out the thing he’d never said aloud before to Viv in a heated moment, tongue loosened by anger and frustration at the way she’d been talking about his brother being gay …

Kelly coming out was the whole damn reason his marriage had fallen apart.

No, Viv’s bigotry is, he corrected himself. Because he’d be damned before he let anyone, even himself, blame his brother for being who he was. For loving who he loved.

But the fight between Connor and Viv over Connor supporting Kelly when he came out had made the other cracks in their marriage all too obvious and, well, he would never,everforget the look on her face when he’d roared that if she had such a problem with Kelly being gay, what the fuck was she doing married to a bisexual man?

She looked like he’d slapped her.

It had gone downhill from there.

But nobody, fuckin’ nobody talked about his family that way. Not even the woman he was married to. She’d screamed that she was supposed to be his family too and maybe that was fair but the shit she’d said about his baby brother was fucking vile and Connor wouldn’t stand for it.

That pressure boiled up in Connor again tonight, lightning-quick and hot, like the steam on his ma’s whistling tea kettle about to pop.

“I’m not …” he rasped one last time, a token protest before he lowered his head and took Webber’s mouth in a heated kiss.

CHAPTER TWO

Half an hour later, as Connor got out of the SUV in front of the hotel where most of the wedding guests were staying, he could still feel Jesse Webber’s mouth against his.

Connor said goodnight to the driver and the older couple he’d shared the ride with, rubbing his lips absently.

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