Page 94 of Pucking His Enemy

When his mouth crashes into mine—I forget how to breathe.

This isn’t sweet.

This isn’t patient.

This is him unmaking me—ripping through every shield I’ve put up since the night I let a stranger pull me apart with his mouth and call me greedy.

But he isn’t a stranger.

He never was...and I’ve been pretending otherwise for too long.

He pulls back, breath ragged, his cheek brushing mine.

“I don’t want a woman who fits into a picture, Kat,” he says. “I want you.”

I flinch.

Not because I don’t want him to say it.

But because I do.

Too much.

“But this isn’t real,” I whisper. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. There’s no one watching.”

“No?” he asks.

I should tell him.

Right now.

Before this goes any further.

Before I forget my name again and let him touch me like I’m his to keep.

Before this turns into something I can’t claw back from.

That I’m not some mystery.

Not a maybe.

That I’m the girl from the masked play party—the one he dragged off the edge on shaking knees with nothing but filthy promises and a hand on my throat.

But I don’t.

Because I didn’t know his name then.

And I don’t know what he’ll do if he finds out now.

What happens if this blows up in my face?

If it gets out—if word slips to the wrong locker room, or a teammate overhears something they shouldn’t?

I stop being the team nutritionist.

I become Griffin Novak’s little sister.

The puck bunny who blew a rookie in a black-tie sex den—then showed up on payroll.

---