Page 1 of Puck Lust

ONE

jack

I takeoff down the ice in pursuit of the puck, my stomach twisting as Carter Van Kleef’s eyes burn a hole into me. I rip my gaze away from him, his icy glare making the memory of that night surface like a bruise pressed too hard.

And ignoring it is damn near impossible now that I’m faced with it every single time I lace up my skates.

What the hell are the odds that we’d both be traded to the Oakland Raptors this season?

By the time I heard the news of him accepting their offer, I’d already signed and was locked into my contract.

I thought I’d left everything about my past behind, including Van Kleef and the huge-ass mistake I made at junior hockey camp, the one that made me realize I needed to get as far away from him as possible.

Forever.

With a throbbing pulse, the blades of my skates slash the ice. It’s the final minute of the third period, the score tied two-two. My leg muscles burn, a thick stream of sweat icing under my jersey. I dart past my former teammate, Jake O’Callahan,one of the opposing forwards on the New York Renegades, to gain possession of the puck in their defensive zone.

There’s no love lost between us since he was always battling me for his position. The thing is, I never had to fight back. That always pissed him off, so a New York win tonight would definitely be an ego boost for him.

“You got something to prove tonight, Larson?” he jeers, rushing at me. “Since you can’t stop shitting the bed every time you’ve taken the ice tonight? Did the Cali sun torch your game?”

If he only knew.

I grit my teeth, biting down hard on the plastic mouth guard. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my teammates positioned on the ice, ready for me to make the pass. And Van Kleef is right in the middle, an unspoken challenge in his blue eyes.

My teammates’ face masks may hide their expressions, but I know that behind all that plastic, their faces are etched with doubt, disdain, and maybe even some resentment.

They don’t trust me.

And they’re right not to.

Goddammit. That dickhead O’Callahan got in my head. Basically because he just said what everyone in the arena is thinking right now.

Do I have something to prove?

Fuck, yeah, I do.

Not that I should. I’m now the star fucking forward for the Oakland Raptors. They dangled an insane amount of money to lure me away from New York in the hopes of that I would be the one leading them to a Stanley Cup win.

Because what good would I be without that damn trophy?

Hockey is all I have.

I figured that out a long time ago.

So my ego made me takethe deal.

And I won’t lie. Part of me wanted to come back to California to rekindle a romance with my ex, Sam Hartley, tight end for the Oakland Saints. We’d dated while I played in the AHL with the San Mateo Condors, but things fizzled after I went to New York because neither of us was a fan of the cross-country, long distance thing.

And also because Sam didn’t like being in the limelight, and I needed it to survive.

I’d hoped we could make things work when I came back a few months ago, but I was too late.

He’d already moved on.

It stung that he chose rock star Brixton Scott over me. But what hurt more was that I lost the closest thing I had to a family when things ended between us.

Only a few weeks after I signed, I found out that I wasn’t going to be the only new addition to the Raptors’ roster.

---