Page 7 of Double Puck

He leans in, and I have to fight the genuinely appalling instinct to do the same thing.

I have spent years around professional athletes without feeling anything I couldn't control. I have dismissed many good-looking men over the years. Men with clean reputations and no flaming shots on their permanent record.

Beck Morrison should be the easiest man in this bar to walk away from.

Instead, my fingers tighten around my phone because I suddenly want to drag them across his bare chest.

"See. You don't hate me," he says quietly.

I step back before I do something catastrophically unprofessional. Before I let the player whose career sits inside my report turn me into the kind of woman who makes life-altering decisions with her tongue in somebody else’s mouth.

I can survive being hated.

I cannot survive being careless.

“No, I don’t hate you,” I say. “But I also don’t do hockey players.”

Beck's eyes flash, infinitely more amused. He leans in one final time, and murmurs against the shell of my ear:

"Well, thanks to you, sweetheart... soon that won't be a problem."

He pushes off the bar and walks away, towel slung around his neck, disappearing into his adoring, chanting, half-naked team like a man who didn't just hit on the woman trying to destroy him.

I stand there, pulse hammering, phone still open to the report that could end his Beachside career.

And I genuinely cannot decide which is more dangerous.

Being wrong about Beck Morrison.

Or wanting him.

Chapter 1

Beck

Iwake up facedown on the kitchen island with a pancake stuck to my cheek, and Captain Biscuit breathing directly into my mouth.

There are worse ways to regain consciousness.

Being traded, for example.

“Jesus.” I peel my face off the cool quartz and squint at the dog. “Did we make out?”

Biscuit’s tail smacks the cabinet behind him. One ear stands upright, the other flops sideways. He’s wearing his custom blue Bears jersey, complete with the tiny captain’s C I had stitched over one furry shoulder.

He looks more professionally prepared for the day than I do.

“Don’t answer that.” I drag a hand over my face. “I’m emotionally fragile, and your breath suggests you’ve been eating ass.”

“He has been eating ass,” Declan mutters from somewhere behind me. "He’s been licking his own all morning."

I spin so fast the room tilts, catching myself on the island.

“Wow, thanks, Dec," I drawl out slowly, ignoring the sudden pounding in my head. "Nothing says brotherly love like unsolicited dog trivia and a lifetime of family lies you kept from me.”

Declan shakes his head.

He's standing there already showered, shaved and looking like a man who slept beside the woman he loves, which, after everything I've learned about what he's hidden from me all these years, makes me want to put my head in the oven.