Page 15 of Not the Puck Bunny

“She's the boss, have some respect.” I glared at him until he looked away.

“Is that all she is?” Nate asked. “Because if she's not, you won't mind if I ask her out.”

I wanted to pull out my other earbud and throw it at him. “Like you said, she's not a puck bunny. Women like that want more than a one night stand. Since we all know you can't and won't give her more than that, I suggest you save it for the girls who only want some fun.”

I thought he might argue with me, just because he could, but instead he nodded.

“You're right,” he admitted. “She does seem like the commitment type.” He grimaced, before it slowly became a grin. “Seems more like your type than mine.”

If she was anyone else in the world, maybe. She was gorgeous and intelligent. But she'd turned up at Shells, behaving all innocent, when she clearly wasn't. She pretended she didn't know who I was,which wasn't something a person didn't do unless they had an agenda.

With people like her and her father, it was usually one thing—money. If her goal was to improve the team performance this season, then sell the Sea Dragons at a profit, the sooner she was gone, the better.

If nothing else, it was a good incentive to stay at the top of my game. We'd win, and then we'd be rid of her.

I ignored my balls’ suggestion that they didn't want to be rid of her. Sneaky, and with an ulterior motive wasn't sexy, but my balls insisted it was.

“Who is Cam's type?” Flynn wiped his face with a towel and stepped over to us. He'd been in the corner, lifting weights and listening to what was probably an audiobook. Whenever he was listening to those, he got that engrossed look on his face, like the rest of the world disappeared and he was lost in the story. Even Nate couldn't budge him out of it.

“Andi Welling,” Nate said, clearly enjoying being the bearer of gossip. He briefly told Flynn about the rest of our conversation, while I went on walking and trying to ignore them both.

“You really think she pretended she had no idea who you were?” Flynn asked me.

I shrugged. “Makes sense. She knew who Blake was, but only admitted when Zack started being a dick. She wanted to shoot him down.”

Zack gave me the side eye, but went on cycling. “I'd still go there.”

“I don't think she'dwantyou to go there,” Blake called out to him. “She has better taste than that.”

Any woman with a brain cell or two to rub together had more sense than to go for a player like Zack. According to some of the guys, he had mirrors in his bedroom so he could watch himself with whichever puck bunny he could convince to go home with him.

I didn't know if that was true, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn it was. I kept the visual image out of my brain before I needed to invest in a factory to make brain bleach. Zack Reed naked was the last thing I wanted to picture.

Because you want to picture Andi,my subconscious whispered.Here's one of her crawling towards you on your bed.

I shoved the image back into a corner of my mind for later, when I was alone. The arena gym was top of my list of places I didn't want to get hard. Hard body yes, hard cock no.

Zack gave Blake a look to suggest he’d convinceher otherwise given half a chance. He turned away, ducked his head and cycled faster.

I pressed the treadmill display to turn it off and walked until it came to a stop. “I don't know what her game is. I don't know what she wants with the team, or any of us. All I know is the only game I play is ice hockey. I don't play games with women and I don't play games with the team's owner. If that's her jam, I don't want anything to do with it. I'm here to do my job and do it well. If she tries to screw with that, we'll deal with her. Right now, let's focus on what matters: winning.”

I grabbed the towel, which hung over the side of the treadmill, and hid my frustrated expression behind the cotton, wiping the sweat from my face.

“Sounds like a good game plan,” Flynn agreed. “She might be just what we need.”

I lowered the towel just enough to reveal my eyes so he could see me stare at him.

“Ome un ohh as…" I pulled the towel away from my mouth so I could speak more clearly. “Someone who has no interest in the team? Whose knowledge of hockey either consists of googling some of us the night before she met us, or googling us all and pretending she didn't? How is that what we need?”

Whichever of those options was the truth, theywere both the opposite of what we needed. Even if she was wrapped up in a sexy package with hair I wanted to wrap my fist around. Those plush lips would look perfect sucking on my…

Shit, I needed to stop thinking this way. Nothing was ever going to happen between me and Andi Welling.

“We can teach her,” Flynn said easily. “She said she's not going to make big changes. Would you prefer someone coming in and tearing everything down to start over? Someone who thinks they know everything and doesn't want to hear what we have to say? I know you don't. I think we can work with her.” He gave me a speculative look.

I looked back at him before I realized what he wasn't saying. “You thinkIshould work with her?”

“Why not you?” he asked. “You're direct with people. Usually,” he added when Nate started to speak. “You won't try to get into her pants the way Nate will.”

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