Page 47 of Lucky Mother Pucker

She starts to walk off, but I catch up to her and grab her arm, stopping her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, my tone on the edge of hard.

“You don’t have a job,” she bites. “Because your parents pay for everything, don’t they? Because you’re a hockey golden boy and the one job you do have is smacking a puck around. Lucky you.”

Her smartass tone sets off a wave of frustration. But she’s not wrong. I don’t work. I get money from my family to pay for everything I want and need.

“I should have known you’d be like this,” she mutters.

“Like what?”

“Bossy. Controlling.”

I start to talk, but she cuts me off.

“You do nice things, but you don’t really mean it, do you? You just do it to control people.”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. That’s not what I want. Not even close.

“You’re just like all those other guys,” she says under her breath. I can barely hear it over the music playing in the club.

What other guys? What did they do to her?

An ugly feeling gnaws through my gut. All I want is for her to be safe, but it came out all wrong.

She walks off.

“Lucy, wait. That’s not⁠—”

“Thanks for pretending to care about my safety.”

She walks over to a table and drops off their drinks. A guy hands her cash, and she smiles when she tells him thanks.

She heads over to another table and sets down the rest of the drinks on her tray. But then the guy sitting closest to her sets a hand on her hip. He glides his fingertips down the curve of her ass, and she freezes.

Rage rockets through me. What does that handsy motherfucker think he’s doing?

A half-second later, I recognize him. That’s the guy from the parking lot who was bragging to his friend about how he was going to sleep with Lucy.

She starts to step away from him, but he grabs her waist and pulls her against him.

That rage inside of me multiplies by a thousand.

He’s touching her, and she doesn’t like it. But he won’t stop.

I shove through the crowd over to their table.

I’m gonna break his fucking hand.

Chapter 18

Leo

Igrab the guy and pull him off of Lucy.

Then I slam his hand on the table. Hard.

The beer in the nearby glasses splashes over the rim, spilling onto the tabletop.