Page 8 of Never Pucking Ending

She doesn’t take it.

I start to wonder if I embarrassed her. If she’s too stunned to move or speak. But when I meet her eyes to apologize again, I stop myself as soon as I see how she’s looking at me.

With…interest.

I know the look well after years of seeing it from fans, strangers, and puck bunnies. But when I see the lust building in the flush of her face and unsteady rhythm of her breath, it’s an entirely different feeling.

Almost without thinking, I step toward her to close the gap. The towel is fisted in my hand, still between us so I don’t do something very, very stupid. Like touch her.

When she releases a shallow breath, and I see her throat bob with a swallow, I wonder if she’d even stop me if I tried.

My voice feels hoarse when I say, “Belle—”

But the words are quickly cut off by the loud ringtone of my phone going off in my back pocket. I reach for it and come crashing back into reality when I see my stepmother’s name flash across the screen.

“Fuck,” I say, almost pained by the brutal interruption. I’m not sure if I should be grateful or pissed, but probably the first. “It’s your mom.”

The words have her yanking the towel from my hand and putting a healthy distance between us. “I-I should change,” she says quickly, wrapping it around herself.

We stare at one another, my phone still going off in my hand.

“You should get that,” she croaks, embarrassment and desire thick in her tone as she gathers clothes from her dresser and scurries around me back into the bathroom.

I pinch my eyes closed when the door slams, and locks, behind her.

“Fuck me,” I whisper, swiping to accept the call.

“Hi, Nora,” I greet, walking out of her daughter’s room with a raging hard on.

After the quick ten-minute conversation about the next game they’re attending and where they should meet us for dinner afterwards, I hang up and grab my coat. I had every intention of inviting Belle out tonight with the guys but decide it’s for the better to leave without saying a word about it.

I send her a text on my way to the bar that Moskins texted me the address to before putting my phone on silent.

Me: Going out with the guys. Don’t wait up for me

That night, I’m one of the few players who has one too many drinks to try scrubbing everything that just happened from my mind.

CHAPTER THREE

Belle

There are a few things in my life that I’ll never be able to forget for as long as I live. Holding my dying grandmother’s hand as she passed in her hospice bed is the first. There’d been undeniable grief and sadness that took over my body for the loss of the woman I was named after. On the opposite end of the spectrum is when I signed the paperwork that deemed me the official owner of Belle’s Place in Pittsburgh. The absolute joy that buzzed under my skin as I signed my name on that line was so contagious that even the grumpy lawyer had cracked a smile. But the third moment that will forever be carved into my mind is last night, when I saw the way my stepbrother stared at my naked body.

I thanked whatever God existed that he’d at least walked in on me when I was freshly shaved and squeaky clean. An hour before then, I’d wondered when the last time I washed my hair or shaved my legs was. Safe to say, it’d been a while. And the girls that Jesse has always associated with were much more put together than that. They probably got Brazilian waxes every month and made sure they got routine haircuts that rid them of their split ends and overgrown roots. I’m lucky if I get my hair trimmed every six months.

It was hard not obsessing over the way Jesse’s nostrils flared as he took in my breasts. Or the way he stepped toward me, as if he couldn’t help himself. He’d watched me the way I’d seen him watch the puck on the ice—with very careful consideration. Like he’d been planning his next move.

And I don’t know what would have happened if my mother hadn’t called and broken the moment.

I’d waited for him to come home despite his message, listening for the telltale sign of tire tracks or the garage door opening and closing. I wanted to talk to him. Apologize for…I don’t know. Something. But nothing ever came, and I’d given up waiting when four o’clock rolled around with no sign of him.

He left a string of my messages go unanswered since I woke up just after seven.

Me: Are you okay?

Me: It’s not a big deal

Me: You know…the thing