Pucking Around: A Why Choose Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 1)
Pucking Around: Chapter 13

I walk on jelly legs back inside the building, Mystery Boy striding silently at my side. Jake. His name is Jake Compton, and he’s not a mystery. Jake Compton, starting defenseman of the Jacksonville Rays.

And I didn’t imagine our chemistry. Over the last two months, I’ve downplayed it in my mind. The sex wasn’t that good. Our connection wasn’t that deep. I was tipsy. I was lost in the moment. Now I know the truth. It was real. All of it. Our connection, our heat, the instant passion, the way he reads me, the way I read him. What’s worse, he knows it too. He knows I can’t resist him.

Can I really survive ten months of this?

Make a list, Rach. Make a plan. I repeat the mantra in my head.

“I’m through here,” Jake mutters, pointing towards an open hallway that I think leads to the gym.

I nod, looking at my feet.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says. “I can’t—” He groans, tugging on the bill of his hat. “I’m a shitty liar, Rach. The guys don’t even let me play poker anymore because they say it’s like taking candy from a baby. I’ll try,” he adds. “I’ll…I won’t say anything about us. But I’m not a good liar.”

“Okay.” I don’t know what else there is to say.

“At the very least, Caleb is gonna see right through me,” he adds. “We don’t have secrets, Rachel.”

I glance up at him. There’s something in his tone—worry, jealousy, pain. He’s right, he wears every emotion on his sleeve. But why is he jealous? “Just ask me,” I say, desperate to relieve that look of pain.

He glances up and down the empty hallway before blurting, “Did you fuck Caleb?”

My eyes go wide. “What?”

“Last night, did you—” He groans again. “Fuck, I think I can take it. Just say it. Rip the band-aid off.”

“Jake, no,” I say, placing my hand on his arm. But then my indignation rises. “Did he tell you that we did—”

“No,” he says quickly. “No, he didn’t tell me anything about what happened last night…but something did happen between you,” he adds. “Didn’t it?”

I sigh, dropping my hand from his arm. “I’ll leave it to him to give you the humiliating details, but no, Jake. I did not have sex with Caleb last night. I slept on his couch with the dog.”

His hazel eyes go wide. “You—why—”

“Despite what you may think, I don’t go around having one-night stands with every handsome man I meet,” I add, my temper rising.

Jake’s dark brows pinch together. “So, you admit that he’s handsome.”

I grit my teeth, ready to tell him off, but then I see the hint of a smirk on his face. He’s in pain, he’s not happy with the conditions I’ve set for us, but he’s trying. I breathe a little sigh of relief. “I don’t know how to do this either,” I admit. “Let’s just…one foot in front of the other, okay?”

He nods, his face carrying such a look of a hurt puppy that I want to wrap him in my arms. But I hold back. I have to stay strong for the both of us. It’s easy for him to say he doesn’t care, but he could get in trouble same as me. He signed non-fraternization contracts too.

“I’ll see you around, Seattle Girl,” he murmurs, his eyes touching me in all the ways his hands can’t.

I don’t even try to suppress my shiver of want, even as I glower at him. “Seriously, Compton?”

He smirks. “Oh baby, just you wait. I’ve got the next ten months to slow burn the fuck out of this.” He brightens a little at the thought. Then he straight up laughs. “Oh, shit. This is about to become my new favorite game.”

I raise a wary brow. “What game?”

He grins, lowering his face closer to mine. “Operation Unravel Rachel. I may not be able to touch you, but by god I can look,” he says with a wink that I feel like a slap to my needy pussy.

Oh, fuck him. This is not happening. I’m not going to spend the next ten months getting edged by Jake Compton. I give him my best, bitchiest look. “Don’t you dare do what I think you’re gonna do.”

“Too late, Seattle,” he says with a laugh. “I’ll be seeing you around. All day. Every day. For the next ten months.”

I groan, watching him walk away with a new spring in his step.

I am so toast.