Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny (Taking Shots)

by Madsen, Cindi

  And I was already jaded enough, thank you very much.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryder

  I’d tried to give Lindsay her space because I knew what happened when she felt crowded, but something didn’t look right when she changed directions and bolted for the nearest exit. I excused myself and followed after her.

  She stood off to the side, arms wrapped around herself. Every day the temperature was getting a little warmer, but with the sun down, it was way too cold to be outside in a dress like the one she had on. Not that I was complaining, because it was a shame to cover any of her, but I could tell she was freezing.

  I shrugged out of my suit coat and offered it to her. At first she tried to refuse it, so I draped it over her shoulders, wrapped it around her, and then used the sleeves to tug her closer. “You okay?”

  She nodded and gave me a watered-down version of her usual smile. “Just needed some air.”

  “Did my mom say something?” I guess the better question was what did she say. I’d seen her talking to Lindsay right before her entire demeanor changed, and while Mom would be glad to have information Dad didn’t about my life, I should’ve realized she’d dislike Lindsay strictly because she didn’t get to choose her. “If she did, you should know it’s not you. She just wants to be the one to control who I date.” Dad got to control how I practiced and my career, so I’m sure Mom thought it was a fair arrangement, but I was sick of feeling like the rope in a tug-of-war.

  “She introduced me to Andrea Green, which was really nice of her.”

  I had a feeling there was more to the story, but since Lindsay clearly wanted to sidetrack the conversation, I decided to let her. For now. “How’d that go?”

  Her smile turned genuine. “Awesome. She writes these amazing articles, so we talked about that some, and when I confessed that I my true dream career would be editing fiction, she told me she’d poke around and see if she could find any openings. She warned me that I might have to complete another internship, or settle for a really low salary, and the lack of pay while living in such an expensive city honestly terrifies me a little, but she also advised me to follow my passion. She said life’s too short to do otherwise.”

  “I agree with her.”

  Lindsay pursed her lips together.

  I pulled her closer, so that her chest bumped against mine. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re thinking that that’s easy for me to say, because I don’t have to worry about money like you do,” I said. A slightly guilty expression flickered across her face. Bingo. “Admit it. I was right. I’m getting scary good at reading you.”

  “Scary good,” she agreed, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “Okay, so maybe that did cross my mind for half a second. Which isn’t fair. I know how hard you’ve worked to get to where you are.”

  Most people saw the money and semi-fame and their first thought was that I was lucky. I couldn’t argue—I didn’t want to be like the schmuck at the table who bragged about his boat and his cushy job he was obviously overpaid for when there were so many people who barely scraped by. But all my life it felt like if I didn’t toe the line, I’d get left behind. No going to Dad’s hockey practices or games, which I’d loved as a kid, and Mom would leave me behind with the nanny, who never let me have friends over. I wasn’t sure why being left terrified me so much when I was little, but I learned the more silent, the less I moved, the more my parents tolerated me.

  Unless it came to the ice, then Dad would chew my ass if I didn’t move the way he wanted me to. If I wasn’t focusing on every aspect of the game. If I seemed too smug or too pissed about a play or a call, or a win or a loss.

  Ever since the affair and the subsequent divorce, I’d been the pawn, the fill-in for Mom when she needed to look family oriented without a husband, and the star athlete Dad wanted to keep his legacy going. When they needed to rant about each other, I was there, and the less I said, the sooner it ended, even though I still always felt like I ended up betraying someone, even when I didn’t say a word.

  So yes I was lucky, but it was a lot of fucking work falling in line at all times, and the only time I felt truly free to let go was with this stunning creature who was pressed against me, warming up my chest in more ways than one.

  I wanted to get back to where we were earlier, before we were interrupted and when kissing seemed inevitable. Now we were almost as close, but she’d put up a wall and she was determinedly keeping her chin straight. Something had changed, and I was certain I could pinpoint the cause. “What did my mom say to you?”

  “She said she admired me for how hard I worked to become an editor. Even though she called my paper little, and I’d argue it’s rather fat.”

  As far as Mom’s jabs went, that wasn’t so bad. “The fattest,” I said, and Lindsay smiled, but there was still too much sadness in the curve. When she didn’t say anymore, I figured that was all she was going to give, and I didn’t want to trigger her flee response more than the event and my mother already had. “Ready to get out of here?”

  “Unless you’re needed in there? I’d understand.”

  I lowered my forehead to rest against hers. “I need to get out of here and be with you.”

  “Ryder…” She exhaled a shaky breath.

  “Let me guess. No stream crossing—see, scary good at reading you.”

  She wrapped her arms around me in a hug, but before I could get a good grip in return, she stepped away.

  Just like that, it felt like I’d lost her again.

  I told myself it was for the best. It would certainly help me with my goal to focus on hockey and the big games we had coming up. Lindsay and I already had enough stacked against us, and playoffs would only add to it.

  If only the hollow sensation spreading through my chest would go away, then maybe I could convince myself to believe it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lindsay

  Confession #12: I have no clue what Ryder’s talking about.

  My math tutor told me he was short on time this week, but that I could meet him at the gym and he could multitask.

  Maybe he could, but I sure as hell couldn’t. I started out okay. We exchanged friendly greetings, which now included a quick hug. It took me a few days of telling myself that it didn’t matter what his mom thought about me—that maybe I still looked like the puck bunny type, and maybe I used to even be one, but I wasn’t anymore. People were going to judge me, but the only one who’d lose out if I decided to let that keep me from seeing Ryder was me.

  Plus, my math professor introduced yet another new concept, which we’d of course have a quiz on, and I desperately needed help.

  Plus, plus, I really wanted to see Ryder. Craved it, to be honest.

  Last night I left him a message, and after having a slight panic attack over thinking he was blowing me off, he texted me back, asking me to meet him during his morning workout session—which was at the butt-crack of dawn, an hour no person should be awake, much less pumping iron.

  I’d shown him my assignment, and he started in on the machines while explaining the rules and concepts, not even needing to look at the book to know what I was talking about, which was kind of amazing.

  As he spoke in that deep, tingle-inducing voice of his, I forced myself to focus on my textbook. I even managed two whole problems with very little input from him.

  But then I asked him a question about functions, and midway through his explanation I stopped paying attention to the words. Instead, I noticed the way the veins in his arms popped out when he brought the handles of the pec fly machine together, the weight on the pulley system clanking when the weight slid back down. Then I was watching the muscles in his chest flex. My thoughts drifted to what he’d look like out on the ice, and that led to thinking about what he’d look like without his shirt on, those pecs he was working fully on display, and suffice it to say, the math concepts he’d been spouting off between grunting
reps got lost somewhere in the hot swirls of lust and ovary implosions.

  “Lindsay?” He sat up and wiped his forehead with the bottom of his shirt, and I caught a glimpse of drool-worthy ripped abs.

  “Um, sorry.” I glanced down at my notebook, which had a smear of graphite that started as x to the third power before my pencil ran off the edge of the page, leaving a jagged line. “I got lost.”

  “At which part?” He switched to the leg machine, adding more weight onto the sides.

  The part where you started being too sexy. “I guess the beginning of this problem?”

  He paused the movement that was causing the muscles in his thighs to flex and release, flex and release, and straightened. He gave me an inquisitive look that made me think I’d been busted checking him out. “Maybe we should take a break.”

  “A break sounds good.” I set aside my textbook and notebook, happy to give up the pretense of doing math.

  “Come ’ere.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.” His voice was low and more commanding than normal. Which must be why I stepped toward him. I hesitated a foot away, and he whipped out his arm, caught my hand, and pulled me closer.

  My heart beat so hard I thought it might burst right out of my chest.

  “Were you, or were you not, checking me out?”

  “Are you high on testosterone right now?” I asked. He wasn’t usually so straightforward, and I wasn’t sure how to react to this version of Ryder. The confident way he’d called me out and jerked me toward him sent my hormones into overdrive, and set my in-danger-of-falling-for-a-hockey-player sensor on high alert.

  “It’s possible.” He tugged my hand, bringing me close enough that my hip bumped his leg. “Now, how about you answer the question?”

  “I may have been doing a little ogling.” I lifted my chin. It wasn’t like he didn’t know I was attracted. I’d pretty much laid it out before. “What? Friends can’t ogle their friends?”

  “Shit, I hope that’s not a rule, or I’ve been breaking it all fucking morning.”

  I wasn’t sure how he possibly could’ve been checking me out, considering he’d been lifting all those heavy weights. I resisted the urge to smooth a hand down my ponytail.

  “Now come spot me so I don’t have to keep craning my neck to check you out.”

  I wasn’t sure who was in charge of my body, because she nodded and just went along with it.

  He moved to the bench press and I stood behind his head, the way I’d seen people do at the gym before. The old me used to spend a ton of the time in the gym. The more in shape, more toned, the better chance of catching a hockey player’s eye. Plus, there’d been times I’d found out where teams worked out and “randomly” bumped into them there.

  Ryder’s large hands wrapped around the metal bar.

  I frowned as I studied the weights on the end. “Um, if you can’t push the bar back up, I don’t think I can lift it with how heavy it is, even with your help.”

  “It won’t come to that. Like I said, this is about less neck strain.” A cocky smirk twisted his lips and he waggled his eyebrows.

  “What’s come over you this morning?” I asked. What I didn’t add was that I liked it, despite my best attempts not to.

  “I’m just in a good mood.” He lifted the bar, slowly lowered it to bump his chest, and then lifted it again, pushing out rep after rep.

  “And you’ve got all that testosterone pumping through your body. Like I mentioned a second ago.”

  “Thanks for noticing, friend,” he said between reps.

  “Sure thing, buddy old pal.”

  Without realizing it, I’d wrapped my finger around the end of my ponytail and bit my lip. Judging from the heat in Ryder’s eyes, he’d noticed.

  I told myself I should probably cool it with the coquettish gestures, whether they’d happened on autopilot or not, but I was having fun with our little exchange. Friends could flirt a little, right?

  I draped my arm on one of the rests for the bar and batted my eyes at him. He continued to lift the bar, but I could tell his concentration wasn’t as steady as usual—I figured all the staring I’d done this morning, including during his first set of bench presses, practically made me an expert.

  Maybe not all of the old me was so bad. She did know how to snag guys’ attention, and I only wanted one guy to pay attention now. Just him and me, no competition involved.

  I moved around the bench and stepped over him so I was straddling him but still standing, which left plenty of space between our bodies. “I think I can spot you better from this angle.” I gripped the sides of the bench, right by his hips and bent forward, flashing a little cleavage while I counted out his reps with him.

  “Now I know…you’re…” He pushed the bar up, straining more than he had during the last few presses. “Trying…to kill…me.”

  “I was going to get mad about you being so bossy earlier, but I think punishing you this way is more fun.”

  A loud metal clank echoed through the room when he slid the bar home. He sat up on his elbows. “I hope you know turnabout is fair play.”

  “Bring it.”

  He started to reach for me, and I quickly stepped over the bench and crossed my arms. “Next machine, right?”

  “Actually, I need to do some weighted push-ups.” Ryder set up in plank position. “Hop on.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  I sat on his back, sidesaddle, half expecting him to jerk out from under me as punishment for teasing him earlier. He lowered his body mere inches from the ground and I rode up and down, up and down, feeling the muscles bunch and move underneath me—which was its own form of punishment. Every thought turned to how strong he was. How much I’d like to see all those muscles without a shirt in the way.

  Once he’d counted off twenty-five, he stood and, as if he’d been reading my mind, peeled off his shirt.

  I stared. Not subtly, either. Nope, totally unabashed, taking in every dip and groove of his sweat-glistened skin.

  “Since we’re playing dirty,” he said, shooting his wadded shirt over to his bag. He grabbed my hand. “Last machine. I’m not sure you can handle it, though.”

  “I’m not sure you can handle it.” As far as comebacks went, not my best, but I mentioned he was shirtless and crazy ripped, right?

  He sat down on the leg machine, the one where the seat reclined at a forty-five-degree angle, and then he lifted the weighted bar that rested at shin-height with his legs.

  He reached for my hand, and since I’d already talked trash, I took it, even though I was starting to think I wouldn’t be able to handle it. He pulled me toward him, and I had no choice but to run my shins into the weights or to straddle the machine. I chose straddling, but kept space between us like I had earlier.

  My heart hammered against my rib cage, beating in time with his leg lifts, the steady clink of the weights filling the air. Ryder’s eyes remained locked on mine, and energy crackled in the air between us. He sat up enough to run his hands up my thighs.

  A dart of heat shot through my core, and my breath lodged in my throat. Ryder’s fingertips skimmed the skin between my pants and shirt and desire danced across my nerve endings. Still our eyes remained fixed on each other, and I wasn’t sure I was taking in oxygen anymore.

  A distant part of me whispered that if I didn’t stop this…whatever we were doing, I’d be in trouble. But fighting my attraction to him was exhausting and the ache that’d formed between my thighs grew more persistent, drowning out silly things like common sense.

  I leaned over like I had before, my hands braced on either side of him. He lifted the weights again, and then he brushed his lips against mine, just a quick slide of soft lips.

  My throat went completely dry. I pressed my palm flat against his stomach and slowly slid it up, feeling his firm chest and the hammering of his heart, which echoed mine.

  Ryder gripped my hips and pulled me down t
o sit on his lap, eradicating the space between us. He lifted the weights with his legs a few more times, each rep bumping me tighter to him. Friction was definitely happening, and with each lift, it became clearer and clearer how much it was affecting him as well.

  The tiniest whimper escaped my lips and he raised an eyebrow that added even more smugness to the curve of his tempting mouth.

  Two could play dirty. So I sank farther into his lap and he groaned.

  Of course, all it did was give me dirty thoughts and turn me on that much more.

  He lifted his legs two more times, the movement shaky. He slowly ran his fingertips up my arm, across my collarbone, up my neck, and then he reached back and tugged my hair free of its ponytail.

  He drove his hand into my hair, cupped the back of my head, and for one torturous moment, time stopped, both of us suspended right there on edge of crossing lines.

  Or crossing more lines, as we’d clearly already crossed a few.

  I licked my lips and he yanked me to him as he sat up. Our mouths crashed together somewhere in the middle, and there was nothing tiny about the moan I let loose as his tongue met mine. I rolled my hips and he groaned, growing even harder underneath me. Desire and lust crashed, thoughts turned hazy, and my focus narrowed to his lips, his hands, his hard body underneath me.

  I melted into him, throwing myself fully into the kiss and telling myself I’d worry about repercussions later. My fingers traced his firm pecs, shoulders, biceps, abs—all the sexy muscles I’d wanted to touch since I’d shown up this morning. Hell, since the first moment I saw him.

  He slid an arm around me and brought me to lie tight against him as he stroked my tongue with his. “God, Lindsay.”

  I was just about to respond with a compliment of my own, something super coherent like holy shit you can kiss, but the sound of the door opening broke through the sounds of our labored breaths.

  I nearly face-planted as I tripped my way off Ryder, and I barely righted myself in time for Hudson and Dane to step through the door.