Page 8 of Dirty Pucking Player

I swallow a big cooling gulp of my wine and set it back on the table to take a second to compose myself before I talk about it anymore. Even thinking about my confrontation with Bash today and what he said to me before he sauntered off gets my blood boiling so hot, I feel like I might explode and send shrapnel across the restaurant.

Though, now that I’ve told Jill all the dirty details, I don’t feel the rush of relief that I thought I would at unloading. Instead, more pent-up rage has worked its way into the knots in my shoulders.

How fucking dare he speak to me like that?

I’m his coach, for fuck’s sake.

He needs to show me some damn respect, even if he does make almost ten times what I do a year. I’m still the one in charge—at least, as much as Bob lets me be.

I’m the coach. He’s just the dirty player. I’m the authority in this professional relationship. And he just walked all over me like he wasn’t wearing blades that sliced up my pride and left me standing there bleeding.

Jill watches me from across the table, anger and concern etched on her soft features.

“Yes.” I take a deep breath. “He actually said that to me and then he pushed past me like I wasn’t even there on his way back to the locker room.”

“What a fucking dick.”

“No shit.”

“It’s too bad he’s hotter than hell.” She shakes her head and takes her wine glass in her hand, releasing a little sigh. “Such a fucking waste.”

She sips at her pinot grigio, and I bark out a laugh that has the people at the surrounding tables glaring at me.

Oops.

I never was very good at biting my tongue or keeping my mouth under control. It’s gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past. But it also means I stand up for myself like I tried to do this morning with Bash. So far, he’s the only one who has managed to render me speechless.

Bash fucking Fury.

Already the bane of my existence and he hasn’t even been here twenty-four hours.

I twirl my glass between my fingers, that damn cocky grin of his playing in my mind. “I don’t think he’s that hot.”

Jill chuckles and shakes her head. She tilts her glass toward me. “You’re a fucking liar. He’s exactly your type. Tall. Broad shoulders. Tattoos everywhere. Flowing locks. Lips that are sinful and begging to be kissed. And that grin…giiiiirrlllllll, even on television, it’s panty-melting. If he weren’t Bash Fury, you would be all over that.”

Shit.

She’s not wrong. Not wrong at all.

Sometimes, I hate that the bitch can see right through me so damn well, but because of being almost inseparable in middle school and high school, we know each other nearly as well as we know ourselves. The fact that she moved to Vegas a few years ago and would be here was the ultimate icing on the cake of being offered this job. But it’s times like these when she’s joking around and taunting me with her knowledge of my deepest desires, that I want to kick her under the table.

Admitting out loud that Bash is exactly the type of guy I’ve gravitated toward during my adult lifetime would sting almost as much as his words did today.

But he is sooooo my type.

Strong. Athletic. Not afraid to have an option or challenge me.

It’s irrelevant, though. When I took my first job as an assistant coach under Bob, I swore off ever dating a hockey player again. Plus, he’s not just any player. He plays for my team. That makes him doubly off-limits…

And somehow that makes him even more appealing.

Why the hell is that?

The old saying, “You always want what you can’t have,” flashes through my head. That’s all it is. Some strange desire to prove my dominance to that man who I know I can’t touch.

I stare through the almost-clear wine in my glass and lament my choice in men. “Why am I always attracted to assholes?”

Jill snorts and sips her wine. “Because you want to fix them. You see a tiny bit of good in someone and latch onto that and use it as a reason to ignore all the bad.”

---