Page 22 of Dirty Pucking Player

My fists connect with his face over and over again, each blow sending the back of his head slamming against the ice. Blood pools under him and trickles from his nose and mouth, but it doesn’t stop me. The rage he’s unleashed is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

This isn’t about defending my team or even defending myself or my own honor. It’s about defending hers, and the lack of respect this fucker just showed her after everything she’s done to make it here can’t go unpunished.

It’s certainly never a position I thought I’d ever find myself in—the avenging angel defending the honor of my female coach out on the ice—yet here I am, bloodying my hands for a woman who can barely stand to be in the same room as me.

Strong hands tug at my arms, and someone else tries to shove himself between us, but I push both out of the way—barely taking notice of the black and white uniforms they wear. Several of my teammates surround me, the familiar gold and black jersey colors visible, but my vision is too blurred by anger to be able to tell which ones finally drag me away from the bloodied Berglund on the ice.

“Jesus, Bash, what the fuck did you do?” Mac stands above and behind me, one arm wrapped around my chest to hold me back.

I glance back at him, and the world around me that had been so distorted by my anger finally starts to clear. Red still fills it though. I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. The roar of the crowd, usually such a positive, driving force, suddenly stings my ears.

“Bash? Are you okay?” The concern heavy in Mac’s question has me reopening my eyes to take in the scene before me.

The Whales medical staff huddles around Berglund down on the ice. Blood stains the area around him—a lot of blood. A vision of what I did to Miller in the game that got me traded here flashes at the forefront of my brain. My teammates struggle to push back the other Whales, to keep them from getting to me where I’m still being restrained by Mac.

I finally notice the sharp sting in my hands, and I stare down at the broken skin and blood over my knuckles. Bile fills my throat, and I swallow it down while examining the aftermath of my rampage.

Oh shit. What the fuck did I just do?

My gaze slowly drifts over to our bench. Hard green eyes glare back at me with so much wrath it hits me harder than any other player ever has.

I thought I was angry to have been able to do this, but what lives in Coach’s stare right now is ten times worse.

Fuck. I just royally fucked this up.

7

BASH

The heavy door slams shut behind me, and I shove past Mac into our hotel room. He watches me warily from where he stands near the bathroom but wisely doesn’t say anything.

Any conversation he might try to engage me in would only go nowhere. The last thing I want to do is talk after a game like that. And the fact that we’re stuck in this hotel another night instead of flying back to Vegas like we planned because of a freak ice storm shutting down the airport is just adding salt to the open wound.

Even a walk in the freezing rain didn’t help, and the cold eventually forced me back in here, like a caged fucking animal.

I drop onto my back on the bed and rest my forearm over my eyes. A huge sigh slips from between my lips. Even with my eyes squeezed shut, I can feel Mac looming over me, staring down, but he doesn’t say a word.

What is his fucking problem?

I lift my arm and peer up at him with one eye. “What?”

He crosses his arms over his chest and raises a brow. “You know what. What the fuck happened back there? I’ve never seen you like that, and that’s saying a lot considering you’re Bash fucking Fury.”

None of the guys dared speak to me in the locker room after that. They knew better than to approach me in that condition, but Mac knows me too well. We’ve been friends for too long for him to drop it.

I lower my arm back down across my face. Mac isn’t owed an explanation for my behavior, and regardless, I don’t want to repeat what was said about Greer. She doesn’t deserve that. Those words should never be spoken by anyone, let alone by a colleague who knows what it means for her to be in this position and that she’s more than qualified.

The simple answer will have to do. “He was being an asshole. He deserved it.”

“That’s all you’re gonna say? He deserved it?”

“Yeah”—I shift up onto my elbows—“that’s all I’m gonna say.”

Mac scoffs and shakes his head. “You think that will be a good enough explanation for Coach? She was pretty damn pissed.”

Don’t I know it…

The fact that she wasn’t waiting for me outside the locker room after the game to tear me a new asshole says a hell of a lot more than if she had reamed me out.

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