Page 3 of Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny

He stopped just short of the threshold. “Hey, Lindsay.”

Confession #2:Ryder Maddox’s deep, sexy voice sends fuzzy tingles through my entire body, and I’m powerless to stop it.

I inclined my head in a weird nod thing. “Ox.”

A frown pulled at his mouth. Right. He’d asked me to call him Ryder. Referring to him as Ox kept him at more of a distance, though, and as a former puck bunny with a persevering attraction to jacked guys who slam other dudes into the boards on a regular basis, I needed as much distance as I could get to avoid a relapse.

He braced his hand on the doorframe right above my head, his massive body on display for anyone who wasn’t strong enough to resist looking—a.k.a. me. “You know, instead of hiding from me, you could’ve just mentioned you needed to get to the tutoring center.”

My internal organs shriveled in on themselves and heat rose to my face. “Hiding? I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” My voice freaking squeaked, dang it. I used to be smooth. I could flirt my way into or out of most any situation. Proof that if you didn’t use something, it got rusty. I didn’t want to dwell on what that meant about certain body parts.

The look he gave me made it clear he wasn’t buying it. His trim dark brown hair was more on the good boy side of the fence, but the messiness on top hinted at it being barely contained, and something about his all-American-boy-with-secrets-buried-under-the-brawny-surface vibe made me short circuit around him. “Are you here for math help?”

“I…” Since I was hiding from life in general tonight—first Ryder, and then math—I didn’t know exactly how to answer that, so I redirected. “Are you?”

“No. I stop in to help here and there when I can.”

“Wait. You purposely submit yourself to torture of the mathematical kind?”

The guy cracked a smile and it made my traitorous heart flutter. “You say tomato, I say challenging equations are fun, and I enjoy helping other people understand them. But as much as I’d like having you think I’m simply a magnanimous person, if I help out a few days, my professors also cut me slack on missing classes for games.”

Magnanimous? Was he for real? Sure, our few conversations were mostly at loud parties where talking wasn’t really an option, but I’d never heard him talk like that. Automatically I turned suspicious. Who told him I was a word nerd? Whitney? Would she have sold me out? Or was I that transparent? Either way, it’d take more than fancy words to win me over. I knew better. Now.

“Anyway, I better get going.” I started past him, deciding I’d come back tomorrow, but he gently caught my arm.

“Didn’t you need help? I’ve got some time.”

I glanced back at the dynamic math-tutoring duo, thinking I’d rather take my chances with them, because at least I wasn’t attracted to either one. The simplest touch from Ryder made me think about how he’d gotten the calluses on his fingertips, which in turn caused me to picture him on the ice with his hockey stick in hand, and then there were definite heart palpitations. This boy was dangerous with a capitalD. Except I’d edit that out, because it’d look weird on the page.

Focus, Lindsay, focus.I licked my lips, working to form words.

“I can tell you’re trying to make up some excuse, so let me save you the trouble. You and I are going to that table right there”—Ryder jerked his chin toward the back of the room—“and I’m going to tutor you.”

I let out a shallow breath, unable to ignore the heat of his hand seeping deeper into my skin, but doing my best not to show how much he affected me. “What makes you think that regardless of the many people who’ve tried—and failed—to teach me math,you’llbe the one to succeed?”

“Because once I set my mind on something, I do whatever it takes to achieve it.” Not a single blink, his gaze so steady I fought the urge to squirm. “Tell you what. If I can’t help you understand at least one concept you’re struggling with, I’ll leave you alone.”

A strange clash of relief and disappointment went through me. Leaving me alone would help my resolve to not crush on him, but part of me died a little at the thought.

“But…if you do understand your assignment by the end of our session, I get your phone number.”

My pulse beat faster and faster. That was a bad, tempting, horrible idea. At the same time, I was at the end of my rope. I was close to failing a class I needed to graduate, and I couldn’t afford doing a take two of my senior year. Honestly, I couldn’t afford this one, but thanks to loans I was squeaking by.

What did I have to lose? Besides an hour of wrestling my unwanted attraction to Ryder, but so far I’d done okay-ish in that area. And I could always ignore his phone calls if it came to that. “One hour,” I said.

He glanced around and then leaned in, as if we’d made some kind of backroom deal. “One hour,” he echoed, and something about the way he said it sounded way too delicious to possibly involve anything math related.

Chapter Two

Ryder

What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t good at making conversation, especially with this beautiful girl who seemed pretty uninterested in me every time I’d tried to get her to hang out. But once in a while I caught her checking me out—like a minute ago when I leaned against the door—which kept me holding on to that glimmer of hope.

I followed her as she weaved around unoccupied tables with chairs all askew, my knees constantly bumping into something in the way-too-narrow aisle.

As a guy who slammed grown men into the boards on a regular basis, I was familiar with people who were hard to pin down, but Lindsay took things to a whole new level. After weeks spent trying to find out more about her, I’d told myself I should move on already, but I couldn’t quite convince myself to walk away. Once I set my mind on something I never gave up, no matter how shitty the odds. But if I struck out tonight, I supposed it was time to listen to my roommate and teammate, Dane, and let go of my crush on Lindsay Rivera, who apparently hated all hockey players, end of story.

My gut tightened, and instead of dwelling on that, I decided to switch to playing offense for a while, and make every second we had right now count. Taking advantage of the excuse to touch her, I placed my hand on the small of her back and pulled out a chair for her.

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