Page 12 of The Pucking Date
I shake him off. He’s not part of tonight. Not part of my next chapter.
I reach for the water and twist the knob. It sputters once before surging to life, hot, deliciously so. Steam rises, swirling around my shoulders as I step into the spray. And then I let the water do the work washing off the salt, the sand, and whatever’s still clinging to me from before.
I close my eyes. Inhale deep. Let the moment settle.
Then I hear it. The soft creak of the bamboo gate behind me.
I freeze, eyes snapping open, heart slamming against my ribs, just as someone steps in.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Tugging a fitted gray T-shirt over his head, the fabric sliding up to reveal golden skin and a ridiculous stretch of abs.
Faded across the back just visible in the moonlight is the number seventeen.
Finn O’Reilly.
The shirt clears his face at the exact moment our eyes meet, and for one charged, electric second, neither of us moves.
Of course he’s here.
And of course he looks like he stepped off the cover ofSports Illustrated: Sin Edition.
My chest tightens. All that work in Shanghai, all those weeks convincing myself it was just a meaningless one-night stand, crumble in an instant.
He’s pure hockey sin, designed specifically to wreck women’s resolve—defined abs, a devastating Vdisappearing into board shorts, cut obliques that short-circuit my brain.
I’ve traced those lines with my mouth. Tasted every inch of skin between them.
And now, just looking at him—at the body I remember far too well—all my synapses go offline and my knees forget how to function.
I’m fully naked, standing under a stream of hot water, and he’s just there, dripping moonlight and confusion, staring at me like I’m something he forgot he wasn’t supposed to touch.
My body remembers him before my brain catches up. I force myself to look away, but it’s too late. He’s already seen the want in my eyes.
He removes his ear buds, his gaze dropping, slow, assessing, remembering.
My stomach flips. My pulse forgets its job.
“Are you fucking serious, O’Reilly?” I snap, crossing my arms, only to immediately regret it as it pushes my breasts up like a goddamn display window. I want to sound confident, but my voice cracks on the last word
He stops cold, sucks in a breath.
“Jesus, Novak. Seven weeks of nothing, and this is how I find you?” His voice is low, rough around the edges.
I glare. “The door was locked.”
“Not locked enough,” he mutters, eyes dragging over me. His jaw flexes. His eyes drop, and it’s not curiosity on his face.
He looks like he’s about to burst into flames.
Seeing him again, in this light, with that look in his eyes, I know exactly what’s racing through his head.
Because it’s tearing through mine too.
The feel of his hands. The weight of his mouth. The way he touched like he had all night but no time to waste.
My brain starts short-circuiting; cue the dirty highlight reel in full HD.
The first time he touched me, it was like touching a live wire in a thunderstorm. Desperate. Rough. Possessive in a way that had no business feeling as good as it did. In a few hours, he erased every man who came before and left nothing behind but him.
