Forbidden Puck: A Hockey Romance

by June Winters

  They pierced his armor, and now I've got an easy opening to work with—to jam my hand into that gaping hole in his chest and claw and twist and pull at whatever meat and sinew I can wrap my fingers around.

  Because that's the kind of player I am: a pest. I make a living by getting under the skin of better players. My goal, to throw them off their game. To trash them, physically and mentally, until they're too broken down to skate or think straight.

  In other words, Coach was just asking me to do my job: to be a complete pain in Leroux's ass.

  I smirked. “You got it, Coach.”

  With that, we parted. I shoved the door to the dressing room open, where all my rowdy teammates were joking and laughing and tearing off their sweaty equipment.

  “Sup boys!” I boomed, making my presence known just as I always do.

  A chorus greeted me: “Beau.” “'Ey Beau!” “Sup Bradford.”

  I took my spot at my locker stall, right between my linemates: winger Vinny DeMarco and our captain, center Hunter Rockwell.

  Vinny was busy staring into his glowing cell phone.

  “What're you looking at there, Vinny?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

  With the flick of a wrist, Vinny scrolled through an endless page filled with cute girls. I recognized the app, MeatMarket, since I use it religiously myself.

  “Seeing who wants to meet up after the game tonight,” Vinny answered.

  For us young millionaire bachelors? Life as an athlete on the road is very, very kind. There's never a shortage of girls who want to meet us after a game, no matter what city we're in.

  “Jesus. She's a smoke-show,” I mumbled, commenting on one of the scantily-clad babes that Vinny cycled past. “Now why the hell did you go past her?”

  “She looks too high maintenance.”

  I scoffed. “You're not trying to marry a girl you met off MeatMarket, are you?”

  Hunter tried to explain on Vinny's behalf. “Vinny likes to find the right girl and craft her a personal message.”

  “Oh, I know, I've seen how he works.” I rolled my eyes. “I prefer the scattershot approach.”

  Hunter chuckled. “I know you do, Beau.”

  “Don't lie, you miss the single life. Don't you, captain?” I jabbed Hunter, needling my elbow into his ribs until he swatted me away. “You can admit it. You know the things that we say in this room are sacred. Ain't that right, boys?”

  Everyone else in the room grunted in agreement.

  But Hunter just rolled his eyes at me and laughed.

  “Someday, Beau, you're going to meet a girl who's gonna grab you by the balls and make you want to settle down.” Hunter nodded at me with this awful grin, as if he were passing down some kind of sage wisdom that only he and the other married guys could understand.

  And I tried not to choke on all that sap. I'd never seen a guy so disgustingly and happily married. Yeah, he's got a great wife—her name's Honor—a real cute kid, and a perfect place up in the mountains in Boulder. A really picturesque life.

  If, you know, that's the kind of life you want. A wife you have to be loyal to, when all these hot babes all over the country are dying to fuck your brains out. A kid that needs constant attention. And a home that needs taking care of.

  It's certainly not the life I want.

  I held up an invisible whip and snapped it at Hunter—the universal symbol for pussy-whipped. “Whippah! Whippah!”

  Hunter took his whip-lashings with a good-natured smile. “Ah, Beau. I'm so glad you're on our team now.”

  Hunter wasn't being sarcastic. What he meant by that comment was that he's glad he doesn't have to face me on the ice as rivals anymore. Players and fans always say I'm the type of player you absolutely hate to play against, but would love to have on your team.

  That's because I'll do anything to help our team win. I'll hit, I'll fight, I'll score a garbage goal. I don't care how dirty a play is. I'll cheap-shot a guy if I have to. I don't care how 'wrong' it is to hit a guy behind the play when the ref isn't looking, or ram him face-first into the boards. I don't care how my behavior flies in the face of the code and traditions of hockey or any of that boring-ass moral bullshit.

  I play to win. It's really that simple.

  And if you're wearing the same jersey as me, you'll never be happier that I'm fighting on your side.

  If you're wearing the other team's jersey? Buckle up, buttercup, because you're in for a rough ride. And you're gonna hate every second of it. Better get used to it.

  Vinny swiped right past a girl in a tube-top, who had conveniently taken the shot with the camera held right over her breasts.

  “Holy shit—her—wait!” I grabbed Vinny's wrist and tried to make him scroll back.

  Vinny wrestled his arm free and knocked my hand away. “You've got your own phone, dick-head! Use it!”

  I grumbled. “Fine. I'll show you how it's done.” I pulled out my own phone and loaded up MeatMarket. “Because getting laid isn't fucking rocket science, Vinny. You don't have to write these girls a goddamn poem. They want to fuck us just so they can brag about it to their friends. Not a single one of these girls want to get swept off their feet.”

  If a girl caught my eye, I put a check by her profile. Once I rounded up a few dozen girls, I sent them the same message:

  “6'3 millionaire pro athlete in town for two nights only. I'm hot and I do NOT want anything serious. Wanna meet tonight?”

  That message, along with my profile pic—which is my shirtless, flexed, and shredded upper-body—does the trick.

  “That easy, Vinny, that easy,” I chuckled. I closed MeatMarket, put it out of my mind, and took a look at Facebook instead.

  At the top of my feed, posted seconds ago, I saw a status from an old classmate I once knew.

  Holy shit, I thought with a smirk. Camille Kennedy, Little Miss Perfect, lives in New York City. And she opened a bakery? A vegan bakery? What the hell? That's so random.

  “Hey!” I piped up, grabbing the room's attention. “Anyone up for some sight-seeing in Brooklyn?”

  But the stares I got back told me all I needed to know. Athletes are creatures of habit and these guys wanted to go back to the hotel for their precious post-practice nap.

  “C'mon guys. I just want one person to come with me. Don't be so lame.”

  “You want to sight-see what, exactly?” Iggy Morrow asked skeptically.

  I pointed at my cell phone screen. “This broad I knew in high school. Apparently she opened a vegan bakery in Fort Greene. I wanna pay her a visit.”

  A wave of amused laughter began to ripple throughout the room.

  I peeked up and narrowed my eyes at the boys. “What? Why are you guys laughing?”

  Hunter patted me on the back. “Was this the one that got away, Beau? Is this why you're so fucked up in the head? A girl broke your heart in high school and you never got over it?”

  “Ugh.” Repulsed, I stuck out my tongue. “Are you kidding me? You don't get it. We were mortal enemies. I can't stand this chick.”

  “So …” Leif, our Russian goalie, was struggling to follow the logic, and his face was pinched with confusion. “So why would you ever want to go visit her, then? That doesn't make sense.”

  I shrugged. “Isn't it obvious? I want to gloat about how amazing my life is now, and here she is, slinging cupcakes. Lotta good being so much smarter than me did her, eh boys?”

  Leif slapped his forehead. “I take it back. Knowing you, that makes perfect sense.”

  “So?” I asked. “C'mon, somebody come with me.”

  “I'll go with you,” Hunter said as he rose to his feet. “But not because I approve; only because I want to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  I clapped Hunter on the back. “My man!”

  And then I lowered my gaze to my cell phone.

  Honestly, I couldn't believe I was even friends with Camille Kennedy on Facebook. God knows when that happened—we've hated each other since middle school. But
I hardly ever use Facebook, so maybe I just never noticed.

  I clicked her profile and flipped through some of her recent pics anyway. With each picture, my heart sank just a bit more.

  Well, I hate to admit it, but she still looks good, god damn it.

  It'd make this trip out to her bakery that much sweeter if she didn't.

  But no.

  She still had a deceptively cute face. Sure, she might look like an angel with that golden complexion. But really, that was just nature's way of giving her an ability to draw in poor and unsuspecting victims.

  And, oh that smile. That smile was just perfect—too perfect. Artificially perfect. She could trick probably anyone else with that smile, but not me. I knew Camille Kennedy well enough to look beyond that smile and peer deep into her emerald eyes instead. That's where I could see it, the bare truth, plain as day: for whatever reason, deep down, she wasn't happy.

  She'd probably never be happy, because that's just who she was.

  And who could forget those plump pink lips? What a shame that full set of DSLs ended up on her. If they were on any other girl? I'd die for just one chance to watch those glossy lips sliding up and down my throbbing cock.

  I flipped through more and more pics.

  Seeing her face again made my heart race—not in a good way. It was the same feeling I got whenever we were at each other's throats back in the day. Blood and adrenaline pumped through my veins as I prepared for battle.

  Funny, isn't it, how I can stare down the best players and toughest fighters in the NHL without batting an eyelid. But a girl from high school could get me all antsy and bothered. I loved this feeling, though. At the end of the day, it was exactly what I lived for.

  “That her?” Vinny asked, smearing his index-finger on my screen. Apparently, it was his turn to watch over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I snarled. I wiped his oily finger grease off my screen. “Don't touch.”

  “Huh. I see why you're all bent out of shape over her. She's kinda cute.”

  “Keep dreaming,” I said as I shoved him away. “She'd never fuck you.”

  Vinny cackled. “Damn, Beau! Look how jealous you're getting!”

  “I'm not jealous. I'm just saying, she was a smart chick. Valedictorian, actually. So she hated guys like us in high school. To her, we were just a bunch of 'fucking jocks.' Trust me, I heard those words from her lips more than once.”

  “Mm. Speaking of her lips.” Vinny practically drooled on my phone.

  I shoved him away. “Fuck off, Vinny. You toad.”

  He laughed. “You'd be all over her in a minute if you thought she was DTF, Beau. You know you would.”

  I stared at her picture and imagined it: the two of us, naked and sweaty, boning loudly and angrily, both of us hating how much we loved using each other's flesh to get off.

  “Dude, no,” I answered Vinny with a laugh. I pushed all those images of Camille out of my head—last thing I wanted was to get hard before I headed for the shower.

  “Bullshit,” Vinny hissed. “Nothing's hotter than a hate-fueled grudge-fuck.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  I shrugged and made my way for the shower.

  Not like she'd ever go for it anyway.

  Chapter 3

  A Familiar Face …

  Camille

  Flour sprinkled the counter-tops and littered the floor, dirty pots and pans over-flowed from the sink, and tiny beads of sweat trickled down my back. It was our busiest day since we opened a month ago.

  We still had a few minutes left before we locked the door and called it a day. In the meantime, Piper and I busily worked to bring order to the shop's chaos as quickly as we could.

  And now, all I could think about was finishing up these tasks so I could count down the drawer for the moment of truth: to see if we'd managed to break even for the first time.

  I finished sweeping and Piper hopped over to the dishes.

  “Okay,” I said. “It's almost closing time.”

  I counted up all the cash and ran the credit card numbers. Piper would never admit it, but I knew she was just as anxious as I was. We desperately wanted some sign that we were on the right path, that this business of ours would take off.

  I punched the last of the numbers into a calculator.

  Piper, elbow-deep in sudsy water, watched me over her shoulder.

  “Well? Well?” she asked.

  I sighed. “We're about a hundred short.”

  Piper's face fell. “Damn.” She paused to dig her spirit out of the dumps. “Well, hey, that's still better. We're making progress, Cam.”

  “Yeah …”

  The shop's bells jangled as two young men opened the door. I raised my eyebrow at the sight of the stylish men in sunglasses. Both were tall and well-built and fashionably-dressed.

  These two didn't look like our normal clientele. I wondered if maybe their girlfriends had sent them? One of the boys in particular seemed to have a familiar air about him. I couldn't quite place it, but as the two walked up to the counter, the feeling that I knew him grew stronger and more undeniable.

  Maybe I just wish I knew him, I thought, biting my lip at the sight of his bulging muscles.

  His chino shorts were salmon-pink and ended a good two or three inches above his knee—treating the world to a sneak-peek of his deliciously round and muscular thighs.

  Damn, he's built.

  His billowy heather-gray shirt fluttered in the draft that followed him in. The sheer shirt was half-way see-through. And thank God for that, because when his shirt caught the sunlight just right, the ridges of his hard, carved torso and mountainous pecs showed right through.

  Uh. Yum.

  They approached. But something about familiar-boy's cocky, perfect smile was deeply unsettling—because, strangely, that smile was the most familiar thing about him. I squinted into his opaque metallic shades, wondering about the eyes behind them.

  Do I know you?

  “Hi!” I said, forcing a cheer through my suspicion. I kept my eyes trained on him. “Welcome to Velvet Bakery.”

  “Hey,” the other guy said first.

  “Hey there,” familiar-boy said. “Wait a minute—aren't you—”

  And then he pulled off his metallic shades and revealed those tenacious, slate-gray eyes.

  And my guts twisted and knotted as my attraction turned to revulsion and horror.

  Oh. My. God.

  The theme of the day was high school flashbacks, apparently. First I wanted it, with the Pixies. But now I didn't want it, with Beau Bradford.

  And I felt sick to my stomach that I almost thought he was hot a second ago.

  “Rach?” Beau said with a shit-eating grin. “Rachel, is that really you?”

  Piper sidled next to me. I could tell by the way she elegantly glided to the counter that she thought these two guys were hot as hell. If only she knew!

  “I think you boys got the wrong girl,” Piper teased, adopting a Southern drawl for reasons that only Piper could know. She coquettishly flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I reckon there's no Rachel here.”

  I gritted my teeth with embarrassment.

  “No,” Beau said arrogantly, shaking his finger at me. “No, I'm pretty sure this is Rachel Kennedy. Apollo High School, St. Cloud Minnesota.”

  “… And this is Beau Bradford,” I mumbled, staring daggers at my old arch-nemesis.

  “Huh?” Piper dropped the accent and shot me an investigative look. “Wait, who's Rachel?”

  “I am,” I admitted with a sigh. “Camille's my middle name. I always hated the name Rachel.”

  Beau back-handed his buddy's chest and mumbled. “Oh, that's right, she goes by Camille now. I forgot.”

  I knew this was all an act, that this run-in was not a chance encounter.

  I said to Piper, “I've been going by Camille ever since middle school, but some people are apparently too meat-headed to remember simple facts.”

  “Wow, so you've kno
wn this guy since middle school?” Piper mumbled as she ran her eyes up and down Beau's muscular body.

  “Unfortunately,” I answered. And I didn't take my eyes off Beau either, but for different reasons entirely: you can't ever trust a snake.

  Beau extended his hand to Piper over the counter, with his eyes not-so-subtly going straight to her cleavage. Ugh.

  “Hi, I'm Beau Bradford,” he said, speaking smoothly and confidently. “I play hockey for the Colorado Blizzard.”

  “And he's very humble about it, too,” I remarked cynically.

  But Piper's jaw dropped.

  “Like, pro—professional hockey?” she stammered. “In the NHL?”

  “Yup.” Beau beamed proudly. “And this here's my captain, roommate on the road, buddy, and all around good guy, Hunter Rockwell.”

  “Hi ladies,” Hunter said, and he extended his hand for us both to shake. For his part, he looked like he had a case of some mild regret—like he didn't want any part of this.

  Beau butted in. “Hunter's a happily married man with a beautiful daughter, so don't get any ideas, Rach.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good to know you're still just as annoying as you were in middle school, Beau.”

  Beau took a look around our shop, and waves of hot embarrassment rushed over me. I hated that he was here. I felt so exposed, so naked and embarrassed. This shop represented my hopes and dreams—in some way, it was a private part of myself that I didn't want to show to anyone who knew me outside these walls.

  But who waltzed right in? Beau Bradford. Just so he could take delight in casting his eyes over something I never wanted him to see in the first place.

  “Nice little shop you got here, Rach,” he said at last.

  “Camille,” I corrected him curtly.

  “Right.” He grinned at me. “So, a vegan bakery, huh.”

  “Yep.”

  “I had no idea people even put meat in cakes in the first place.”

  I tittered at his expense. “You're such an ass. Vegan implies no animal products, not just meat. No eggs, no dairy.”

  “So what do you bake with? Tree bark and mud?”