Page 68 of Pucking Around

“Four months,” Jake growls. “And we met when I wasn’t your patient.”

“You mean when we hooked up in a hotel bar? We knew each other for all of five minutes before we were tongue-fucking in an elevator. You want to tell the press that story? Would that help our image, do you think?”

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it,” he snaps.

“Oh, and you think the press cares about the correct story? You think they’ll want to fact check the details with us before they print their salacious gossip?”

“Then we get out in front of it,” he counters, getting more agitated. “We tell the storyourway, control the narrative.”

“No such thing. They will twist every single word to paint the story how they want to see it. And when it comes to Rachel Price and the press, the only story is mayhem—”

“I don’t care about the fucking press!” Jake barks, slamming his fist on the table and rattling all our cups and silverware.

The guys over at the counter all turn to face us, brows raised in curiosity.

“Keep your shit together,” I mutter at Jake.

He huffs, shaking his head.

Hurricane taps her phone and holds it up, showing us the screen. “Fifty-three seconds,” she murmurs, the stopwatch app flashing the numbers in bright red. “It took me fifty-three seconds to unravel you, Jake.”

“I’m not unraveled, I’m just pissed—”

“Yeah, and I get it,” she says. “Look, I’ve been dealing with this bullshit all my life. For twenty-seven years it has been the Price Family against the world. We’ve finally learned the best way to survive the press is to just keep our heads down. We keep each other’s secrets. No drama. No sharing the spotlight with other celebrities…or public figures,” she adds gently.

Him. She means Jake. No sharing a spotlight with an NHL star if it could bring him negative press. He groans, sitting back and crossing his arms tight over his chest.

“Pleasebelieve me that I’m protecting you, Jake. I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t want to be the reason you get hurt.”

“She’s right, buddy,” I add. “The press would have a field day if any pictures of us at the club leaked. We gotta be more careful. You could lose your starting position. Hell, you could lose your contract. Careers have tanked for less.”

“So where does that leave me then?” he asks, his gaze locked on her. “Is this over, Rachel? I tell you ‘I love you’ in front of a Mr. Chen’s takeout, my cum still sticky between your legs, and you’re gonna sit here and tell me that it’s over? I can just take my love and choke on it, I guess.”

An idea simmers in my mind. And because, apparently, I have no filter when it comes to these two, the words come tumbling out of my mouth. “I think you should move in together.”

Jake chokes on his coffee, snorting it up his nose with a cough. “Fuck—ouch—”

Rachel turns slowly to look at me, her dark eye makeup still messy from gagging on my dick earlier. Her full lips part in surprise. “What did you say?”

“Hurricane, you should move in with Jake.”

34

“Move in?” I cry, pulse echoing in my ears as I lean over the table. “Did you not listen to a word of my speech for the last half hour?”

“Yeah, I did,” Caleb replies. “I also listened to Jake. You guys really messed this up bad,” he says, glancing from Jake back to me. “You put the cartwaaayout before the horse, and then you fucked that cart. Without condoms, apparently, which, dude—” He punches Jake in the arm. “You’re a fuckin’ psycho. No rubber, no ride, remember?”

“Ouch—fucker,” Jake growls, punching him back. “I said that in Seattle, but she was all like, ‘condoms are less effective’ and then she felt so good bare that I—”

“Shhh,” I hiss, my eyes darting behind their shoulders.

“More coffee, hons?” calls the waitress, not waiting for our answer before she’s pouring the decaf. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she says over her shoulder.

“Anyway,” Caleb mutters, peeling back the lid of a creamer and dumping it into his coffee. “You both messed this up, and now you gotta backtrack. Cool off and just get to know each other outside the pressures of the job.”

I scoff. “Yeah, and you think moving in together is how we ‘cool off’? Whatever happened to no-strings-attached casual dating or—oh, I don’t know—just hanging out?” I snatch for a creamer from Caleb’s clutch, and he practically snorts at me like a dragon. “Give me one, you greedy monster.”

“I need them,” he mutters, pouring his third creamer into a coffee that is now a sickly beige color Sherwin Williams would probably discontinue.

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