DIRTY SECRET

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  It’s so sweet the way he thinks anyone would be looking at me closely enough to catch whatever look I’m giving him. “I’m not sure how any of that changes if we’re together. My friends—just friends and that’s not bullshit, by the way—are still going to hug me. And the way I’m looking at you? Well, no one is going to notice some look on my face, so maybe that’s not really an issue.”

  He brushes a thumb along the back of my hand. “I notice. And then we have to worry about them seeing the look on my face too. Allie, telling myself I can’t have you when you’re right here is killing me. And after what we just did, I’m thinking you don’t love it either. So why fight it? Why don’t we enjoy what we have while we have it?”

  How can he even ask that? “Because your career is at stake.”

  He gives me that hint of a smile. “And I’ll protect my career. I will. No one has to find out about us.”

  My pulse picks up. There’s something anxious and excited pushing at the walls I hide behind. There’s a whisper of hope winding its way through me.

  I could have this. I could have him. For a few months and then he’ll be moving across the country and I’ll move on with my life the way I’ve always planned to. For me it’s a low-risk opportunity that gives me a taste of the one thing I’ve sworn I won’t take. The one man I’ve always wanted.

  But for Vaughn… the risk is greater. “I don’t know.”

  “No?” he says, that deep, buried smile emerging even more as he cocks his head at me, eyes gleaming with a new light. Oh God, that look. “Guess I should probably start convincing you then.” And he sinks to his knees.

  Chapter 13

  Vaughn

  I am one compelling motherfucker when I put my mind to it. And yeah, I may have put my mouth and hell, the rest of my body, to it a few times too. But truth? Pretty sure Natalie was convinced before I made her come on my tongue the second time and definitely before I had her panting my name in the shower. And by the time I dragged myself out of her place this morning, it wasn’t with that brutal sense of finality from yesterday.

  It was with a sleepy smile and soft kiss. I’m still thinking about how nice it was on the plane before we take off for Pittsburgh when O’Brian drops into the seat beside me and ruins it.

  “What the fuck, man?” I cough, cutting him a sharp look, expecting to see shrapnel from a can of Axe body spray littering his suit. Make that his wrinkled suit. And damn, how many times did this guy cut himself shaving today? He’s a train wreck.

  “Sorry,” he groans as Popov and Diesel swear from the next row back and get up to move. “Bunny incident.”

  The hell?

  “Jesus, another?” Rux asks, walking past with one hand covering his nose. “Why the fuck can’t you get a girlfriend?”

  “Yeah, like you?” O’Brian fires back, running a hand through his hair. “When was the last time you had a regular girl?”

  Rux stops, meets my eyes, all Can you believe this guy? before leveling him with a look. “Dude, I’m not the one who smells like I’ve been dipped in a vat of Dark Temptation.”

  Rux keeps walking and O’Brian digs his AirPods out of his backpack.

  I don’t want to know.

  Except, I guess I do.

  Arms crossed, I jut my chin at him. “What kind of incident we talking about?”

  “The kind I shoulda known better than to let happen,” he says with a disgusted sigh. He shoves the sleeves up his wrists, exposing two rings of fresh bruises that have me fighting a grin my teammate probably wouldn’t appreciate.

  “You like being tied up?” Kind of surprising and not my bag, but no judgment.

  “No, asshole,” he grumbles. “I was trying to be a fucking gentleman.”

  Wiping my hand over my mouth, I push down the smirk threatening to bust free. “A gentleman?”

  “Yeah, man. I’m not a selfish lay. Carmen was into it and I figured why not let her do whatever got her off.”

  “Uh-huh. So you let her tie you to the bed.”

  He mumbles something under his breath and my brows shoot to the air vents above us.

  “Come again?” This is too good.

  “Handcuffs.”

  “Mmm… And?”

  “And she lost the fucking key. Or so she said.”

  Allie is going to love this. “You don’t believe her?”

  “Well she sure found it pretty quick when it looked like I was going to miss the plane.”

  Yeah, because there’s a cardinal rule amongst the bunnies. Fuck the players, but don’t fuck with their game.

  The pre-takeoff announcement sounds through the cabin and when it’s done I look back to O’Brian who’s wearing the kind of pissy look on his face I’m generally known for. I should cut him a break, but I guess I’m feeling sort of affectionate toward him today.

  “So this business with the body spray… was that part of the kinky shit she got up to while you were all vulnerable and at her mercy?”

  Barking out a laugh, he relaxes into his seat. “No, man. I was so late, I couldn’t go home. And even coated in a night of dirty sex sweat, no fucking way was I about to give her the opportunity to lock me in her bathroom while I showered. I had this suit in my trunk to get dry cleaned and I ran into a CVS for the body spray and a disposable razor.”

  “Jesus, you do need a girlfriend.”

  We start down the runway. “Aww, you applying for the position?”

  “Hard pass. And nice try there selling me on your generous lover bullshit, but I’ve got my pride, man. No way am I competing with all your bunnies.” Besides, I’ve got a girl.

  “Yeah.” Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he yawns. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

  I snort. “Glad you made it. We’re going to kick some ass tonight.”

  Giving me another fist bump, he grins. “Fuck yeah, we are.”

  I’m ready to knock off for a nap, when something occurs to me. “O’Brian?”

  He turns his head against the rest to face me. “Hmm?”

  “You had time to wash your hands though, right?”

  When he flips me off, I’m pretty sure it means yes. But I make a mental note to get some sanitizer anyway… and take a bath in it.

  Chapter 14

  Natalie

  The first week after we stopped fighting and gave in to this thing between us, I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to find someone from the press camped outside my door when Vaughn opened it to leave at four thirty in the morning. Or for him to come to his senses and tell me he had to put hockey first—that I was a risk he couldn’t keep taking. But instead, he kept showing up. Devouring my mouth like a starved man, whispering dirty promises against my lips… delivering on them so thoroughly and completely, that by the time he was done, I didn’t have the strength to worry about anything at all.

  The second week, I realized he was right. No one was watching us.

  The press cared about his hat trick in the game against the Maple Leafs and whether tensions were easing between him and Greg. No one caught on to how often our eyes met across the bar. They didn’t notice how my cheeks kept turning red from the texts he sent. They didn’t see the way he brushed past me in the crowd, close enough that I could feel his cock rub against my ass in a tease so effective it’s a miracle I didn’t jump him right then.

  The third week, I wasn’t thinking about anything beyond how many hours it would be before I had his hands on me again. Before he was inside me, making me feel like no one and nothing had ever made me feel. I told Helene, who was ecstatic, and George, who was not. I was laughing out of nowhere, thinking about the way he held me in his lap and told me the latest “Bunny Incident” with Quinn O’Brian and sighing over the stories he’d shared from when he was growing up.

  Now we’re doing the backward dance we’ve perfected around road trips, overbooked schedules, and family commitments. My toes barely touching the ground as Vaughn guides me toward my bedroo
m, pulling me in and up, his mouth barely breaking from mine long enough for air.

  We’re halfway to my room when I remember the conversation that started before I left for the clinic and bounced from phone to text to video and back again throughout the day. I dig my heels in and press my hands into his chest to stop him.

  Having come straight from practice, he’s freshly showered, wearing cuffed jeans that hug and hang over the hard-packed contours of his ass and thighs just right, and a navy button-down that’s fitted so perfectly it looks like they sewed him into it on the way over. And it takes everything I have not to feel him up over his clothes.

  “You don’t think it’s weird that we’ve been fooling around this long and I haven’t seen your place yet?”

  “It’s not weird.” Flattening his hands over mine, he drags them past his pecs to his shoulders. “Your place is awesome and mine—mine isn’t.”

  God, this guy’s body does crazy things to me.

  And Vaughn knows it too, because that cocky smirk is in place as he dips down to catch my mouth in another dizzying kiss. His tongue slides past my lips, stroking in and out in a dirty promise that has every part of me tightening in needy anticipation.

  Sifting my fingers into the still-damp waves of his hair, I’m about to climb him right here, but I force myself to take a breath instead.

  “So I can’t even see it? Ever?”

  This time when he comes in for a kiss, I pull away.

  His brow arches in surprise—and seriously, big, bad, tough Vaughn Vassar’s surprised face is kind of adorable. Which makes holding out on that kiss I want so bad even harder. But this thing with his place has gone on long enough. I get it that we can’t go out—I don’t want to—but my place is so small. And he already said it wasn’t a security thing. Apparently his digs are very private.

  So it’s starting to feel kind of weird that he doesn’t want to show them to me.

  I cross my arms and shrug.

  “Natalie,” he growls, giving me the crabby scowl that intimidates everyone who gets within fifty feet of him, but not me. Honestly, it makes me kind of hot, but I still don’t budge. And when his head drops forward in defeat, I leap up and shower his neck and jaw with kisses as he bands one arm around me and walks us to my room. “Pack a bag.”

  “It’s not ugly,” I say, shrugging off my black puffer coat in the back entry to Vaughn’s place. “I mean, it isn’t really what I’d have expected for a twenty-nine-year-old professional hockey player with the kind of disposable income you have, but—”

  “Babe, it’s ugly.”

  Fine, it is. It’s really ugly and not in any cool or intentional sort of way. From the outside it looks like any other graystone. Nice. Garage in the alley. Fenced-in little yard and a covered breezeway leading up to the back door.

  But once you get inside… “I don’t get it,” I finally say, shaking my head at what looks like an amateur rag-rolled zebra-patterned paint job, the brass accents, and Old-West-themed runners at the top of the walls. “How did you end up living here?”

  “I told the agent what I needed security- and privacy-wise. And moved in sight unseen.”

  “Yeah, but you could have had it updated. Painted.” I turn to face him. “Isn’t it supposed to be painted before you move in?”

  “I could have changed it,” he mutters, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “But…”

  And then I get it. “But you didn’t want to like it. Because Chicago isn’t where you want to be.” And he’s basically counting down the days until he gets to leave.

  “Turns out Chicago’s not so bad.”

  Chicago is pretty spectacular. And in spite of his differences with Greg, he seems to have found a rhythm with the team and O’Brian in particular that has Slayers fans everywhere taking notice. But the way he meets my eyes tells me it isn’t just the city he’s talking about.

  God, I’m falling so hard. More every minute we spend together.

  I know I should be careful. That I’m treading dangerously close to a line I swore I wouldn’t cross, to betraying a promise I made to myself when I was sixteen years old getting yanked out of yet another school so we could follow Greg to Dallas. But being with Vaughn just feels too good.

  And really what’s the harm in letting myself live out this fantasy while it lasts? It’s not like I’m going to throw away the life I’ve spent years building here. I have a job I love, I’m a coach for an amazing team, and a contributor to the community. I have friends and family and plans and priorities, and all of it means something to me.

  Vaughn means something too. More than I thought he would. But he’s a professional hockey player who’s signed on to a life of putting the NHL above all else. It will dictate where he lives, what his schedule looks like, activities he can or can’t partake in. It will be the thing he has to put first every single time and, to a degree, so will the person who chooses to be with him.

  I can’t sign on to a lifetime of being second best. It’s how I grew up. Second best to my brother. An afterthought to my parents. Barely a consideration in the choices that shaped the lives of our family.

  I need to come first. At least part of the time.

  I owe it to myself to make good on that promise. Which is why, when the season is over, no matter how much it hurts, I’m going to let Vaughn go.

  But until then, I’m going to revel in every dirty kiss, soulful embrace and hard-won laugh this man can give me.

  I look up into his gray eyes and pat his chest. “Chicago might not be so bad, but this place really is. I can’t believe you forced me to come over here. A good boyfriend would have protected me.”

  His head tips back and he laughs, the sound warming me through. After a breath, he asks, “Ready for a tour, baby?”

  I push my eyes wide. “You mean there’s more?”

  “Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up.”

  Dark trim and dated fixtures run throughout the space, but thankfully the wallpaper runners and offbeat paint jobs are limited to the back. Within, beige and browns stretch as far as the eye can see. “Umm… Where’s your furniture?”

  There’s a beast of an L-shaped sectional in his living room, black of course, like the oversized glass coffee table in front of it. But no carpet. No accent pieces. Just an enormous TV mounted on the otherwise empty walls and a pile of gaming equipment stretched across the floor.

  It’s like he was so pissed that he had to come here, he refused to make the space his own in any way. Like every time he walked in the door, he wanted the glaring reminder that he wasn’t staying.

  His dining room is more of the same. A massive table that implies at some point in the past he considered having company over. But there aren’t any chairs, and the only thing on the table are stacks of paperwork and a few boxes with team memorabilia probably waiting for his autograph.

  The kitchen is black and cream. New appliances next to aging cabinets that are mostly empty. The master bedroom… well, there’s a bed and another TV. A workout room with all the usual equipment.

  And then there’s the room. The one he almost threw his body in front of when I tried to look into it. The one I walked into anyway and had to back out of before my head exploded.

  “What the heck, Vaughn?” I gasp, peeking in again.

  Well, I guess that’s where all his furniture went.

  Clearing his throat, he rakes his hands through his hair and fists them at the back of his head. “I know. But it felt pointless to find places for everything when I’d only be here for a few months.”

  At my arched brow, he grunts out, “Fine, more than a few.”

  Like closer to ten. “You’re pretty serious about not getting attached, huh?”

  “Not so much as I was.” Such a sweet guy.

  Inside the room, the scent of cardboard hits me hard. Row after row of neatly stacked, meticulously labeled boxes housing the life Vaughn put on hold until he leaves Chicago fill half the room, while a Tetris-style jum
ble of furniture fills the other.

  I read the labels from the stack closest to where I’m standing: Trophies—box 3; Pucks; and Photos. That’s the box I’m itching to get into.

  “Can I look?”

  Vaughn nods, pushing off the doorframe to stand beside me as I carefully withdraw the top photo and unwrap the packing paper. It’s Vaughn and Jesse Garcia helmet to helmet, sweat dripping from their wide, grinning faces.

  I brush my thumb over his face and feel my heart taking another little leap in his direction.

  “Playoffs two years ago,” Vaughn offers, smiling down beside me. “We were on fire that night.”

  I remember. “You guys have such incredible chemistry. Is it hard playing for different teams after being paired up for so long?”

  “Fucking weird. Took me a while to get used to looking back on the ice and not finding him where I expected him to be. And then not having him to shoot the shit with after a game. Yeah, it was hard.”

  I get the feeling it still is. He’s syncing up with Quinn, but it isn’t the same. Though I can’t help but wonder… if they had the time, if it could be.

  “What do you think it is with Garcia that’s so different? I mean, I know when I played, there were a couple of girls over the years where it just clicked in a way it didn’t with others. But for you?”

  Vaughn picks up the box and nods me back out of the room. I think maybe he isn’t going to answer but when he sets the load down on the coffee table in the living room, he sits back with a sigh. Shoots me a sidelong look that’s almost silly. “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I don’t make friends that easy.”

  I huff out a little laugh and roll my eyes. “You? Shocking.”

  “Well it’s true. And it’s not just with the Slayers.” Stretching his arm along the back of the couch, he toys with a curl at my shoulder. “I guess, even when I was little, there was something about how I skated that set me apart. Gave my old man ideas about the kind of player he wanted me to be.”