Page 9 of Dirty Puck

Being young and vulnerable, it was safe to say he’d impressed me right out of my pants. We’d dated for a year before I’d found out I was pregnant. Dane hadn’t taken the news well and had gotten drunk before practice. One good fall on the ice later and his career on the ice officially ended.

Now most of our interactions involved me trying to get him to help me with Benny’s bills. Something he never seemed able to do. Go figure. It was my fault. I needed to go through the courts to have it enforced, but every time he started with his sob story, I just didn’t have it in me to fight it. The man was responsible for half of my son’s DNA. But our interactions always left me feeling low. Cut to Mrs. Grazia. If you asked her, I’d never made a bad decision in my life.

And I planned to keep her in Benny’s and my lives as long as possible. If the day came when she couldn’t take care of herself any longer, I’d step up. One hundred percent. Without a second thought.

Not all heroes wore capes. And Mrs. Grazia was definitely my hero.

“Let me take you and Benny out for breakfast, then. I’ll come get him about ten.”

“Okay,” she said. “Eleven is fine.”

“Mrs. Grazia?—”

“Sleep,” she ordered before hanging up on me.

At the end of the night, I changed into my street clothes, clocked out, and drove home. First thing first, I showered the night off my skin. I’d just rinsed the conditioner from my hair when there came a knock on my front door.

What in the…? Who’d be knocking at this time? I wrapped a towel around myself and walked out to the living room, grabbing up my phone from the coffee table where I had it charging. The pounding needed to stop so my neighbors didn’t wake up, but if I needed to call the cops, I would.

I looked through the peephole. Reece? What was—and then it hit me. The deal. He’d said he’d be over tonight.

He raised his hand to knock again and I opened the door. His eyes heated when they took me in with wet hair and in nothing but a towel. “How’d you get in?” I asked. “You have to be buzzed in.”

“Some drunk guy held the door open for me.”

“Well, that’s great. I told you tonight wasn’t a good night.”

“Yeah, and I demanded your address and you gave it to me, so I guess it’s a fine night.”

Fuck. Why’d I give him my address?

Well, he’d made the drive here and he looked particularly hot in his jeans and that tight T-shirt. “How does this work, then?”

“What do you mean? I think you know how it works, Bree. Is your kid here? Do we need to worry about that?”

“No. And I mean, do I offer you a drink? Is there kissing? Or am I supposed to just drop down on the sofa and spread my legs?”

“Do youwantto just spread your legs? Because I’m good with whatever.”

“You said this is just fucking. Well, I’ve never done this with a man I didn’t pick up in a bar. In a bar, there are drinks and small talk, a build-up. So I’m not sure of the rules.”

He snickered. “You want me to kiss you, just say so, babe.”

“Never—” I couldn’t even get the rest of the sentence out before he stepped forward, capturing me in his arms, that tractor-beam gaze dropped to my lips for a hairsbreadth of a moment before he crushed his mouth to mine. It took me so completely off guard that I hardly had time to suck in a breath first, but the power in his lips made asphyxiation worthwhile.

This time, he let me run my fingers through his hair. His warm skin prickled with goosebumps when I touched it and he groaned, lifting me. I wrapped my legs around his waist. Reece walked me over to the sofa, dropped a knee to the cushion, and let go of my bottom without releasing my lips. He pulled the towel from my body. I wanted every part of this man to touch me. And as if he read my thoughts, Reece moved his hand down my stomach, over my pelvic bone, to play with my sex. When he found a small thatch of curlsthere, he groaned again and began twisting the strands around his finger.

To show him I wanted more, I yanked his T-shirt up. It took a couple of tugs to get it over his broad, muscled shoulders, but while I busied myself with that, he found my center, pressing and rubbing my clit with all the finesse of a man whoknewhow to pleasure a woman. It’d been so long since a man had touched me this intimately.

Yes, I flirted with the men at the arena, but actually getting time to go to a bar? It’d been about a year since I’d last gone out. Mrs. Grazia offered, but I didn’t want to take advantage of her kindness.

I shifted my pelvis forward to make greater contact with the skin of his finger. “Need more?”

For shit’s sake, stop talking. I tried desperately for more of that delicious friction. The bastard stilled his finger and then pulled his whole hand away.

“Asked if you need more. You answer me. I ask you any question, you answer me. Not playing around.”

“Okay,” I breathed.

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