Page 42 of Off-Limits as Puck

“You said that about the laundry room.”

She finally looks at me, and the mix of want and regret in her eyes nearly brings me to my knees. “I mean it this time.”

Then she’s gone, leaving me in a shed that smells like sex and sawdust, trying to figure out how something so right can be so wrong.

I fix my clothes, give her a five-minute head start, then make my way back to the lodge. In the common room, she’s tending to Patricia’s knee with steady hands, looking like she didn’t just come apart in my arms.

But I see the truth in the careful way she moves, the slight flush on her chest, the way she absolutely doesn’t look in my direction.

Weston appears at my elbow. “You good? You look... intense.”

“Just thinking,” I manage.

“About?”

About how Chelsea Clark has worked her way under my skin like ink, permanent and painful. About how every time she leaves, it feels like losing a piece of myself. About how I’m falling for someone I can’t have, and the landing is going to destroy us both.

“Hockey,” I lie. “Always thinking about hockey.”

He doesn’t believe me, but he lets it go. Across the room, Chelsea finishes with Patricia and escapes upstairs. I know she’s going to her room, the one next to mine, where we’ll lie in separate beds pretending we didn’t just fuck each other senseless in a shed.

This isn’t just lust. Lust would be simpler, cleaner, easier to walk away from.

This is something else. Something that makes me want to bebetter and worse simultaneously. Something that makes every other woman fade to background noise. Something that’s going to end badly, but I can’t seem to stop accelerating toward the crash.

I head to my room, already knowing I won’t sleep. Already knowing I’ll lie there listening to her breathe through the wall, replaying every sound she made, every way she came undone.

Tomorrow we go back to Chicago. Back to professional distance and scheduled sessions and pretending this thing between us doesn’t exist.

But tonight, I can still taste her on my tongue, feel her on my skin, and pretend that wanting her isn’t the worst kind of penalty—the kind you can’t kill.

The kind that kills you instead.

18

I’ve showered three times since the equipment shed, and I can still feel him everywhere.

The bruise on my neck mocks me from the bathroom mirror, purple-dark evidence of my complete professional failure. I’ve tried concealer, scarves, strategic hair placement. Nothing hides the truth that I let Reed Hendrix fuck me against a workbench like professional ethics were just a suggestion.

No. That’s too passive. I didn’t let him do anything. I attacked him, pulled him in, begged for it with every breath. And the worst part? I’d do it again right now if he walked through my door.

“Get it together,” I tell my reflection, applying another layer of makeup to the hickey. “You’re Dr. Chelsea Clark. You have degrees. You have boundaries. You have self-control.”

My reflection calls bullshit.

The ride back to Chicago is torture. I claim carsickness to get a front seat in the staff van, as far from the players’ bus as possible. Maddy keeps shooting me looks that say she knows something’sup, but I bury myself in my phone, drafting session notes that definitely don’t include “exhibited poor impulse control” or “boundary violations in equipment storage.”

Back at the practice facility, I throw myself into work like professionalism can retroactively fix my sins. I arrive early, stay late, and maintain at least fifty feet between myself and Reed at all times. It’s exhausting, like trying to repel magnets that nature intended to snap together.

During practice, I position myself in the upper-level office, watching through glass like a coward. The team runs drills below, and even from here, I can pick out Reed’s movements—the controlled violence of his playing style, the way he owns the ice like he owned me in that shed.

“Great view up here.”

I jump, spinning to find a man I don’t recognize. Tall, athletic build, with the kind of easy smile that probably works on women who aren’t completely fucked up over brooding hockey players.

“I’m sorry, this area is restricted to—”

“Staff, yeah. I’m staff.” He extends a hand. “Jake Morrison. New athletic trainer. Started yesterday while you guys were playing trust falls in the mountains.”

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