Page 7 of Dirty Pucking Player

She had to have seen the entire exchange.

Good.

She needs to know where I belong on this team. Bob promised me the first line position wouldn’t go to anyone else, and I expect that to be true. No one is going to keep me from what I earned. And I earned this spot with hard fucking years of work.

I wait for her to approach me, to say or do something to acknowledge my presence and what just went down, but instead, she sucks in a deep breath and glances around the ice.

“What are you all just standing around for? Let’s go.”

A tiny smile pulls at the corner of my lips. She’s not fighting it, either. She knows exactly where I belong. It’s going to make this a lot easier for both of us if she just accepts who is in control here. And it’s the one scoring all the goals.

For now, it’s time to work with my new teammates. Things with Coach Waterson can be dealt with off the ice.

She hammers us with drills for almost two hours without letting up. Mac and I fall right back into the groove we had in Chicago, and Hayes, Kasinski, and Grey all seem to be with the program. Lebedev is another matter entirely. The dude has an attitude problem, but just like with Coach, it will work itself out eventually…like when I take the ice tomorrow night first instead of him.

When Greer finally ends practice, I’m more than ready to head back to the hotel and crash. The late-night flight knocked more out of me than I thought, and relaxing and settling into my new digs sounds like absolute bliss.

I make my way off the ice and down the tunnel toward the locker room.

Mac steps up next to me and smacks my shoulder. “Hey, man, I’m happy you’re here.”

I smirk at him. “I’m glad someone is.”

He chuckles, but all humor drains from his face. I follow his line of vision to find Coach standing halfway down the tunnel, her arms crossed over her ample chest, a scowl on her perfect bow lips, and angry heat radiating from her green eyes.

We approach her, and her hand shoots out. She presses it into the center of my chest firmly. “A word, Mr. Fury?”

I stare down at her, my skates giving me an even greater height advantage. “What do you need, Coach?”

She lets the rest of the guys walk past us before she shifts fully in front of me and glowers up. “We need to have a little chat.”

“Oh, really?” I do my best to appear clueless and innocent. “About what?”

It doesn’t work, given the way her lips twist into a sneer. “About your attitude. You come late to my practice, you don’t play. You pull any of the shit that you did back in Chicago, you don’t play.” She closes the distance between us, her breasts almost brushing my jersey, and pushes her finger harder into my chest. “I don’t allow dirty players on my team. Don’t for a second think I’m going to let you walk all over me and do whatever you want.”

Every word she says drips with disdain that should probably have my balls shriveling up to hide, but instead, my cock twitches and heat spreads through my chest where her finger rests, despite the pads between us.

Coach has some fucking balls. I’ll give her that.

She has to be a total badass to have played the way she did. Her impressive stats when she was on the Olympic team and in college mean she probably could’ve played better in the NHL than half the guys here. If they were going to give any woman a chance to coach us, I’m glad it’s her. She’s earned it.

But what she hasn’t earned is the right to talk down to me like I’m a piece of shit stuck to her shoe. I’m an All-Star player with a multi-million-dollar contract, not some rookie she can intimidate.

I grin down at her. “Let’s get one thing clear, Coach. The Scorpions are paying me $9 million to be here this year alone. They’re paying you…what? Not even a million?”

She flinches slightly and jerks her hand from my chest, so I push in even closer to her. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off her and see her fists shaking with rage at her sides.

“I was brought here to do what I do, and I’m going to do what I do best. Win games. Just try to keep me off the ice and see what happens to your job. Whose side do you think they’re going to choose if it comes down to the two of us, sweetheart?”

I shift to the right and move past her down the tunnel without a glance back. She doesn’t come after me. She doesn’t shout some retort.

Hopefully, she got the message.

3

GREER

“That bastard did what?” Jill shakes her head, her black bob swinging at her chin. “You can’t be serious.”

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