AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s not real. Not real. He’s doing this for show. For appearance’s sake.
As soon as we get out of the crowded bar and the cool air hits me, I feel better. More grounded. I can take a step away from Foster and breathe.
His fingers twitch like they want to regain contact with me, but I take another step away.
“I’m down the street,” Foster murmurs, taking the lead and letting me admire how his tight dress pants perfectly hug his delectable hockey ass.
Damn, that game day suit looks good on him.
No doubt it’s expensive and custom made. I bet you can’t find pants that fit that bubble butt on the rack. He’s been perfecting that baby for years on those skates. I want to sink my teeth into it, but I won’t, because we’re walking down a street. And I have a hockey player ban I’m pretty sure it would violate. And it would definitely give both of us the wrong idea.
“I really would have been fine in a rideshare. I’m pretty sure they check those guys.”
He grunts, stopping beside his car, opening the passenger door and ushering me inside. “Yeah, I’m sure the guy who drove around and killed six of his passengers got some really good ratings before he started feeling all murdery and offing people.”
“Okay, that was one time.”
He tosses me a look that says he’s unimpressed by my response and starts his car. “According to the FBI, there are twenty-five to fifty serial killers on the loose at any given time in the US.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Ah, but it is. And being a rideshare driver is the perfect way to search for potential victims.”
“How do you even know this?”
“I looked it up when I was traded from Vancouver. I’d never lived in America before, and my brother told me I should carry a gun for protection. He’d been watching too much Criminal Minds and Law and Order, but once I got on Google, I saw he wasn’t too far off.”
“I watched Criminal Minds, but more for Spencer Reid than the serial killers.”
He keeps his eyes on the road, but the corner of his lips quirk up in a smirk. “Is that your type?”
No, apparently, it’s hot British hockey players who are no good for me.“Sure.”
I really need to put aside my firefighter work in progress and start a damn hockey romance, because after today, I have all these ideas, and I need somewhere to put them so I don’t cross the line in real life.
On paper, everything goes.
Especially if I publish under a pen name, which I have every intention of doing. I can’t imagine either of my brothers reading a friends-to-lovers, fake relationship hockey romance with hot sex in it, and then making eye contact with me at the dinner table. Talk about mortifying. Heath would never let me live it down, and Rhett… well, he might lose his shit.
I’ve no doubt in my mind he’d be able to connect the dots and know exactly who the book is really about.
Not like my main character is going to be British, but I still think the tropes are a huge red flag. It won’t take much to put two and two together.
Before long, we’re parked in the lot behind my apartment building, and I can finally get some non-Foster tainted air. Not that there’s anything wrong with his citrusy leather smell, but a girl could get distracted, and I’m already distracted enough.
I’ve got my hand on the door handle ready to make a run for it. “Well. Thanks for the ride. Tonight was… fun.”
Funseems like a pretty drastic understatement, but I can’t exactly tell the guy how much I liked it when he beat on the glass at the arena like a fucking Neanderthal and threatened the guy next to me with violence.
A normal girl may not swoon over something like that, but I’ve been reading some dark romance lately, and the touch-her-and-die vibes are everything.
“I’ll walk you up.”
Foster has his seatbelt off and is out of the Range Rover before I can tell him how bad an idea that is. Besides, there’s no one around to confirm or deny the status of our relationship. He doesn’t need to pretend here, so what is he doing?
With a groan, I scramble out of his SUV, follow him into the waiting elevator, and we ride up to the sixth floor in relative silence.
He breaks the silence as soon as the elevator door opens. “This place doesn’t really have any security.”
