Page 65 of Three Pucking Words
I know if I’m not careful, I’ll be sitting out for the rest of another game too. And for what? A guy I don’t even know. A guy I’ll never meet?
No.
I’d do it forher.
And the intense buzzing occurs under my skin that feels like an electrical charge that only solidifies that notion.
Focus,I remind myself after Coach Erikson gave me a stern talking to the second time I got put in the box.“I don’t know what’s gotten into you but get it the fuck out before you screw us.”
He’s right. I’m not going to fuck over the guys just because I’ve been irrationally pissed off over somebody I’ve never met before. If I cost us another victory, I won’t forgive myself.
During the last period of our game against the Krakens, I let out everything I have pent up inside me. Anger. Disbelief. Sexual frustration. I know damn well I won’t be doing anything in regard to my last problem, save a cold shower and my hand around my cock tonight. It’s the same thing I’ve done since feeling Honor’s mouth so close to mine. The same thing I did when she brought over soup, and I wanted to kiss her right there in the foyer. I’d been close—too close. And I’d never come as hard as I did in the shower that same night with her waiting for me downstairs, thinking about taking her against the wall.
I release all of that onto the ice.
I assist with one goal.
Make a second one.
And almost help with a third before I’m slammed into the board by a defenseman who I may or may not have tormented during the first half of the game solely because of his name.
I’m not paying attention to him, though. My eyes are on the girl squatting down and snapping photos of my teammates. The girl who I sat next to on a plane two days in a row. Except, whenwe left California for Washington, our trip was much quieter. We didn’t talk about baked goods or our past. We barely talked at all. I wanted to break the silence—ask how she slept or how her first away game went. But I couldn’t get past the image of her in a white dress letting some other man put a ring on her finger. Letting someone else kiss her.
The anger is back. Ugly and dooming as I clench my fists around my hockey stick.
Honor slowly turns to me as she lowers her camera as if sensing my gaze. Maybe she can feel me unraveling before her very eyes. It’s not the first time I’ve felt them on me. I’m always hyperaware of her gaze when it lingers. Curious. Intense. Dangerous.
To know that someone had her, and let her go, is mind blowing to me. I wanted to ask why. I wanted to ask who made the call. I wanted to know if she was over him.
Because if one text message can make her face dim, what would an entire conversation highlighting their marriage do? The second she started frowning, I wanted to make it better. I wanted to hug her. Tell her it would be okay. Get rid of that faraway, lost expression that haunted those caramel hues. I’d wanted to track down that fool, punch him in the face, and tell him to never talk to, or think of her, ever again.
For obvious reasons, that’s not going to happen. Even if the fantasy playing in my head is alluring enough to make me consider the possibility of getting his last name and using my flight miles to get wherever he is.
But I won’t.
All I can do is be…better.
Better than him.
Better than whatever she’s experienced.
Better forherif she’ll let me be.
It isn’t hard to tell she has some level of mistrust toward people, so that’s the first step.
I’m not sure how I’ll do that, but I’m going to find a way. Even if that means spending most of my spare time in the kitchen trying to bake my way to her heart, one batch of brownies at a time.
If that’s what it takes, so be it.
Honor lifts her camera in my direction.
I wink and grin.
She smiles and blows my damn heart away.
I always thought Gemma’s smile was the only one that could nearly bring a grown man to his knees.
But I hadn’t met Honor yet.
