“I should make him shake all over you just for that.”
“I’m sorry.” My apology was mixed with laughter, which quickly turned to shock when Pucks trotted over to me and started wiggling. “Hey, don’t do that over here,” I exclaimed.
Gabe grinned. “Totally deserved. At least I didn’t have to go in, or you would be in so much trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’d toss you into the lake. Or spank you?”
I sucked in a breath.
“You know. If you’re into that sort of thing.” Then he freaking shrugged like he hadn’t just set my body on fire again.
“Uh, maybe? I don’t know.”
He dropped down next to me on the blanket and cupped my jaw. “You’re going to kill me, you know that?”
“You started it. Should we skip lunch and head home?” I asked.
“Nope, we are going to finish our hike and enjoy the day, and I’m going to tease you until you can’t take it anymore, and then we’ll go home.”
My lips parted and I stared at him.
“Want a strawberry? They’re super juicy.”
I swallowed hard and nodded as he fed me. Holy fucking hell, how was I going to get through the rest of this hike?
TUCKS
“Off the pipes, ouch,” I called out to one of the Carolina players as Dom caught the puck and my boys started heading back down the ice to Carolina’s side.
I tapped each side of my net, thanking the poles as I always did. “Big help, guys,” I muttered, squaring my shoulders and smacking my stick against my leg pads. We were six days into our first away trip of the season and that meant six days since I’d had Dani in my bed. We’d ended our hiking day back at my place and had only left the bed to grab food and take Pucks out. It’d been fucking amazing. What I wouldn’t give to wake up with her in my arms every morning. I was so gone for her and I didn’t care.
Well, okay, I did care. I wanted more. But I didn’t want to bring it up, just in case it ended up blowing up in my face. I wasn’t ready for Dani to walk away from me. We’d posted a video of hiking with Pucks, with him trotting alongside Dani, and her slipping him some food from our picnic. She claimed she was acat person, but she was falling for Pucks—not that I could blame her. My pup was the best. The video had racked up views, as usual, with mostly positive comments.
Roger had been blissfully absent from the comments on that video, but he hadn’t been able to contain himself when I put a flirty picture of me feeding Dani strawberries on my account. The guy was pathetic, but Dani still had him blocked on her end and she wasn’t asking to stop our ruse, so I probably needed to send the guy a card or something.
I did wonder if she’d missed me this week as much as I’d missed her. Probably not, but a guy could hope.
The texting we’d done over the last week had been sporadic, and I couldn’t wait to get home tomorrow. I had a surprise for her. Yeah, she hated them, but this one she was going to love.
We’d played decent on our road trip, losing to Florida in overtime and then trouncing Tampa four to one. Hopefully, we’d beat Carolina tonight and go home with five points. We had one last away game of this trip, but it was against the Blizzard, so that was basically a home game. I couldn’t wait to have her in the stands and see what shit Roger spewed at me on the ice.
He was an annoyance I’d deal with if it meant I could keep Dani. And fuck, that was pitiful.
I shook my head to focus back in the game. I couldn’t be daydreaming about Dani if I wanted to win, even if she’d given me an extra pep in my step when I was between the pipes. Maybe she would stick around if she knew she was my good luck charm. I was sitting at three wins out of three starts, and yeah, the season had just started, but I felt optimistic about this year.
I did a little hop on the ice to get my blood flowing and glanced down to the opposite end of the rink. My boys were still battling it out, and I knew our second line had to be gassed by now. They were just passing the puck back and forth, attempting to find the right angle as Carolina tried to snag the puck away.
It was currently on Dom’s stick and he passed it to Haldy. Haldy was one of the younger guys on the team and phenomenal. Injuries had plagued him last year, but he’d looked great in training camp and in our first few games. I glanced up at the Jumbotron to get a better view. Haldy deked around one of Carolina’s D, skating behind the back of the net, and then took his shot. The angle was sick, and it slid right under the goalie’s leg pad. Fuck, those shots were difficult to anticipate. I almost felt bad for the guy, but only for a split second.
I jumped again with a shout and pointed my stick toward my teammates at the other end of the ice. I couldn’t skate over to them as they hugged. No zoomies tonight, and especially none in the middle of the game. We were now up three to zero with five minutes left in the second. I was sitting pretty confident, but never cocky.
Cocky got you nowhere; it was true results that mattered.
Thirty minutes later, I crouched down. We were a few minutes into the third period and I was holding strong, keeping Carolina out of my net. It was still three to zero and I was doing everything I could to keep that zero.
One of Carolina’s forwards crowded into Timmy, who crowded into me. I lost track of the puck for a second, my eyes darting around the side of Timmy.
