Page 38 of Dirty As Puck
I arch a brow. “About your stats? I already have what I need.”
His mouth quirks, a faint smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. Clearly, he’s all bullshit. “Not about my stats.”
My throat tightens, because we both know what he means. The words are a pretense, an excuse to draw me away from the others. And like the moth that I swore I won’t be, I follow after him.
The equipment room is half-lit, shelves of tape and helmets lining the walls, the faint smell of sharpened blades lingering in the air. The door clicks shut behind us, and suddenly the worldoutside doesn’t exist. It’s just me and him like it was yesterday in the conference room.
I cross my arms, a thin barrier I know won’t hold. “Make it quick, Morrison. I’ve got three more interviews to finish.”
He doesn’t speak right away. He just looks at me, eyes meeting mine with an intense gaze, like he’s memorizing the way my hair falls over my shoulder, the curve of my mouth when I press my lips together to hide what I’m feeling.
“I can’t stop thinking about yesterday,” he says finally, voice roughened with something that has nothing to do with hockey.
My pulse stumbles. I force a scoff and roll my eyes. “That was a mistake. One we can’t repeat.”
His eyes darken, a storm beneath a seemingly clear cloud. He steps closer, the scent of sweat and clean soap curling around me, and every nerve ending in my body sits up and takes notice. “Keep telling yourself that, baby,” he murmurs.
The word hangs in the air like a spark has been lit inside me.Baby. That word shouldn’t make my breath hitch, but it does anyway.
I take a step back, but my shoulder blades meet with a cold metal shelf. There’s nowhere to go. He doesn’t touch me, and he doesn’t need to. The heat radiating off him is enough to blur the edges of my resolve. My body remembers the way his hands felt, the way his mouth dragged against my skin. The ache of him between my legs has been simmering since that conference room, and here it is again, uninvited, and certainly undeniable.
“This isn’t professional,” I manage, though it comes out softer than I mean it to.
“Neither was yesterday,” he says. His gaze drops, just for a second, to my lips. “But it felt real.”
I hate how much that word does to me. Real. Like everything outside this room doesn’t really matter. Like nothing is more important than the moment we shared.
He exhales slowly, a ghost of restraint crossing his face. Then he steps back, giving me a much needed space that feels colder than it should.
“We’re done here,” he says, tone clipped now, like he didn’t just set every nerve in my body on fire. He turns to leave, and before the door swings shut, he glances over his shoulder. His eyes look me up and down.
Then the door clicks, leaving me alone with the echo of his voice and the pounding of my heart. I press a hand to my chest, nails biting into my palm as if that could steady the riot beneath my skin.
I should feel relieved. I should feel angry at his audacity. Instead, I feel… hollow. Starved. Like he took the air with him when he left.
12
The rink feels colder than usual this morning, but I’m burning up from the inside out.
My skates cut across the ice, blades screeching as we run through the same warm-up drills I could do in my sleep. Pucks ricochet off the boards, sticks slap, whistles blow and white noise to drown myself in.
Yet my mind’s nowhere near the blue lines or the net. It’s back in that conference room. The way her fingers are clutching my shoulders. The way she arched when I––
I grind my teeth and force a tight pivot, slicing across the ice.I need to focus. We have playoffs coming.
Easy pep talk, except that my body remembers everything. Her mouth. Her voice, low and breathless against my ear. The way her nails bit into my skin like she wanted to leave marks. I’vegot marks on my chest, faint lines and every time the pads press against them I feel that scene all over again.
“Yo, Kai!” Jake skates up beside me, his stick tapping mine with a grin that’s way too knowing. “Are you planning to actually pass the puck today or you’ll just keep daydreaming out here?”
I snap the puck forward with more force than necessary. It clangs off the boards, going nowhere near the guy waiting for it.
Jake laughs, swooping to catch it before it slides away. “What’s up with you? Don’t tell me our golden boy’s got woman problems. You’re skating like a guy who didn’t get enough sleep…” his brows lift, “or got way too much of a different kind of workout.”
I shoot him a look that’s sharp enough to cut glass. “Drop it, Jake.”
He just smirks, all teeth and trouble, before gliding away to join the next drill.
I exhale hard, drag my glove over my mouthguard, and try to reset. This isn’t me. I’m usually locked in, muscle memory, clean execution, eyes on the game. Now every time I blink, I see her again, perched on that table, lips parted, whispering my name like she wanted more even as she pretended she didn’t.
