Love Pucks and Other Stories Read online

  Love, Pucks, and Other Stories

  Rush Hockey #4

  Elise Faber

  LOVE, PUCKS, AND OTHER STORIES

  BY ELISE FABER

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

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  LOVE, PUCKS, AND OTHER STORIES

  Copyright © 2023 Elise Faber

  Print ISBN-13: 978-1-63749-091-4

  Ebook ISBN-13:978-1-63749-090-7

  Rush Hockey

  Big Puck Energy

  Filthy Puckboy

  So Pucking Over It

  Love, Pucks, and Other Stories

  All’s Fair in Pucks and War

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Newsletter

  Rush Hockey

  Also by Elise Faber

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Billie Rose

  My town was in ashes.

  Monroe’s Bar, with its wide green columns and huge plate glass windows and old wooden bar sticky from years of use, had been reduced to a skeleton. All that remained was the foundation, the footprint of a place that I’d grown up walking by.

  Skipping along the sidewalk that ran in front of it.

  Skipping along the sidewalk that ran the full length of Main Street.

  Skipping along all the places that were familiar and safe and mine. This was my happiness, my childhood, my life.

  Then I’d grown up.

  And I’d made memories inside of Monroe’s.

  Laughter filling my ears as I leaned against that sticky wooden bar top.

  My first taste of beer—and thinking it was disgusting but drinking it anyway because my dad had wanted to share it with me on my twenty-first. And yeah, I lived in a small town and there wasn’t much to do except play hockey and watch hockey and drink and get high and make out on the Ridge—but my dad had talked about sharing a beer with me at Monroe’s from the time I’d become familiar with what a beer was.

  I hadn’t wanted to take that away from him.

  Not when I wasn’t what he wanted.

  Not when I could never be what he wanted.

  Billy.

  My older brother.

  Who’d died before he was two years old. So young and yet still a tiny human I felt like I knew because the memories he’d left behind were vast.

  How he’d giggled when my dad blew raspberries on his belly. How he hadn’t slept more than two hours at a time for the first six months and then one night he’d gone to bed and slept for a full ten, freaking out my parents when they, too, had woken after finally getting a full night’s sleep after all those months. How Billy had always kicked off one sock—just one—and how it was always the right sock.

  How, just after he’d turned one, he’d had a seizure—intense, long, and frightening.

  And then how he’d had more.

  So many more.

  That the doctors hadn’t been able to find the cure for or the cause of, and then, one day…

  He hadn’t woken up.

  I’d been in utero then, my mom nearly seven months along. Initially, I’d been a joyous surprise. A sibling for Billy. A surprise addition to the large family they’d always wanted.

  Then I’d become a burden—a parasite that made her sick and tired when she needed to care for Billy or go to his appointments. Something that had taken attention and focus away from her son, who she’d known wouldn’t be on Earth much longer.

  Something that had then become been a painful reminder of all she’d lost.

  Then I’d been born…

  My parents loved me—I had no doubt about that.

  But they were also sad I was there, and Billy wasn’t. I had no doubt about that either.

  So…I’d saved the beer for Monroe’s and my dad, giving him the memory he craved, even if it wasn’t with the child he’d wanted it to be, with the son he’d wanted it to be with.

  And it was fucking awful.

  The beer (and maybe also the bittersweet knowledge I held in my heart that I wasn’t what he wanted).

  I’d still choked it down anyway, had smiled and told my dad that I loved it, loved spending that time with him. Just like I still choked them down when we met up weekly for a cold draft, listening silently as he rattled off all the things I needed to do.

  Because—like I said—I knew I was loved, and I loved them just as much.

  I just wasn’t…

  Enough.

  “No,” I whispered. “Billie. Enough.”

  Of the thoughts, of the memories, of the fact that I was staring at a place that had been a hefty chunk of the backbone of River’s Bend, and it was just…gone.

  Turned to ash by a fire that had torn through my town.

  Same as Haggarty’s, the other bar on the opposite end of downtown. Another chunk of that backbone. And Sip and Purl—the wine bar-slash-yarn-and-fabric-store where I’d taken knitting classes. Just a mayor supporting her town’s small business even though I’d hated every moment of those lessons.

  Clearly, I wasn’t cut out for knitting.

  Not unless it was to use the needles to stab someone.

  Say a certain annoying hockey player who lived to annoy me.

  That thought—stabby, stabby—brought a smile to my face even though smoke was still in the air, and heat seemed to resonate off the wood and charred buildings. But it faded just as quickly as the thought did.

  Because even the roads had been scorched.

  The roads.

  Which meant that—fuck—rebuilding would be…

  The biggest project I’d ever undertaken.

  The worst project I’d ever undertaken.

  So, yeah, there wasn’t much to smile about.

  I just kept moving, seeing—but not really allowing myself to fully process—that Wag’s Pet Store was gone.

  I’d just bought my niece’s puppy, Spock, a pretty collar from there. Taking way too long to make my selection from the racks and racks of collars. Bailey, my niece—but more like best friend since she was only two years younger than me—had loved it.

  Niece. Best
friend. Only two years younger.

  How all of that went together was a long story—really long—but the important thing was that we were close.

  Close enough that Wag’s had been added onto my regular rotation—and not just because of the pretty collars, but also because they’d baked and decorated beautiful cookies for dogs.

  And now, all that remained of Wag’s was concrete and spikes of rebar.

  A sharp bolt of pain ricocheted through my insides.

  Right.

  Enough.

  I needed to go.

  To find somewhere to breathe and process and—

  My eyes stung. The world went blurry.

  “Not the time, Donovan,” I whispered, fully aware I was talking about myself in the third person. But better that than breaking down, than allowing the sobs that clung to my lungs, that squeezed the air out of me with each and every glimpse of the damage, to escape.

  I had to stay strong.

  I had to be what the town needed.

  Even if the Civic Center, with its historic buildings and where I’d spent the last six years working my ass off for the town, was gone.

  Even if the grocery store—not a chain one, but a small supermarket that had been owned by the Brown family since the Gold Rush days—was gone.

  Even if all the restaurants—the diner, the pizza place, the Greek gyro stand that had just been opened by a young couple who’d recently moved to town, Luna’s Italian Eatery, the deli, and the Chinese restaurant—were gone.

  My history.

  My work.

  My life.

  Gone.

  Which was why the sobs I’d been holding in for the last days—ever since Bailey had called and activated the phone tree, reporting the fire—had to stay held. Why I’d used every bit of my focus to make sure each and every resident—human, furry, feathered, or otherwise—got out safely.

  It hadn’t been enough.

  I’d failed.

  People had died.

  And for two hellish days, I’d thought my niece, Bailey, had died with them.

  Bailey, who’d been through a lot. Too much—and not just having to outrun a fire on horseback with a dog and steer in tow.

  She’d survived. Then and now. Survived too fucking much.

  And…I hadn’t been what she needed either.

  One of the damned sobs choking me escaped, making a wretched, awful sound that revealed too much. Sucking in a breath, trying to shove them down, lock the emotions away, I dropped my gaze to my feet, hurrying down the charred wooden boardwalk. I needed to find somewhere that wasn’t burned, wasn’t ash, wasn’t destroyed.

  But the fire clung to the air, to my lungs, my hair. There was soot on my cheeks, making it hard to breathe, and the world looked alien, dystopian, wrecked.

  And eerily quiet.

  My busy, happy town was gone.

  Gone.

  Tears blurred my vision, choked me, threatened to escape the cage of my lashes.

  Fuck.

  “Fuck.”

  Because I knew there was no holding in the sobs. They were too big, too overwhelming, too—

  I needed to get in my car.

  I needed to get away.

  I needed a few moments to just…cry with no one seeing. Needed time to—

  “Oof!”

  Warm hands came to my shoulders, steadied me as I bounced off a big, strong chest (a big, strong chest that was part of a big, strong body…that was, incidentally, part of a big, strong man).

  A man I recognized even through the blurred, watery lenses of my tears.

  Because he was a man I hated.

  Joel Marshall.

  Sexy, smart, funny, kind…to everyone but me.

  To me, he was an asshole.

  I heard it then—that assholeness—in the lazy drawl of his voice. Felt it in the way he quickly set me away from him, as though he couldn’t stand to be within five feet of me, as though I was so disgusting that my body touching his was enough to send him running for the toilet.

  “Slow down there, harpy.” A caustic order that sliced as deeply as the disgust.

  Because…yup. Harpy.

  That was me.

  The unwanted daughter.

  The annoying, bitchy woman who filled men with disgust.

  The harpy who—

  All at once, the last of my control of those sobs splintered.

  They erupted out of me, tears pouring down my cheeks, my breath hitching, my body bending in half as I shattered into pieces and completely lost it.

  In front of the man I hated.

  One

  Joel

  Warm, sexy woman pressed against me.

  My arms tightened, drawing her closer, feeling her ass brush my cock. My naked cock. And, hell yeah, all of me was naked.

  Happy place.

  As in my happy place.

  And my favorite way to wake up, even if my mind was still foggy from sleep and it was still dark outside, the faint gleam of dawn barely penetrating the windows.

  Penetrating.

  Yeah, that was my happy place too.

  Lips curving, I buried my face in her hair, thrusting my hips forward, hoping the movement would wake her. Her breathing was even, slow and steady despite the gentle rocking of her pelvis that rubbed her ass again my dick. As though she wanted more, even while she was sleeping.

  Well, I’d be happy to give it to her.

  A morning fuck? Okay, that was my happy place.

  Slick, hot pussy.

  Warm, lush curves.

  Soft, silken skin.

  Woman.

  Her cries of pleasure in my ears, her pussy convulsing around my dick, starting my day with an orgasm that cleared away the dredges of sleep and—

  “Mmm,” she moaned softly, her body arching against mine as I ran my palm over her stomach, sliding it down and then up, testing, discovering.

  She was naked too.

  Yes. Yes.

  Up.

  Up first.

  I ran my hand along her side, up to cup a breast that overfilled my palm, immediately feeling her nipple bead against my skin.

  Her breath hitched, body startling.

  “You with me, love?” I murmured.

  “Mmm,” she moaned again, my fingers pinching lightly, rolling deliberately, but not giving me the words I needed.

  It might be the butt crack of dawn, a hangover clinging to my mind, making my head hurt and my brain not want to function, but I wasn’t so lost as to not need the words.

  “That’s not telling me you’re with me, love,” I said.

  Her body stilled.

  I plucked at her nipple. “You awake, baby?”

  A shudder, her hips jerking, ass pressing, but quiet words that cleared a bit more of the fog in my mind. “I’m with you.”

  Thank fuck.

  I flipped her to her back, slammed my mouth down on hers.

  Fuck morning breath. I needed to kiss this woman, to feel her mouth on mine, to know if it matched the ass pressed against me. Then I needed to kiss her other places, make sure I tasted every inch of the silky skin covering her curves since I couldn’t see them in the dark room.

  That was something I had a vague recollection of doing the night before, recollections that were blunted, if the throb in my head and the taste in the back of my mouth were indicators, by copious amounts of tequila.

  Not an issue.

  I’d remedy that by kissing every inch of her again.

  Immediately.

  Her tongue tangled with mine, her moans drifted in my throat, her legs parting, wrapping around my hips, cradling my body in the apex of her thighs.

  Fuck.

  That was good.

  That sent any memories skittering, my mind focusing on the then and there, on the woman beneath me in my bed.

  The dark meant I couldn’t see much of her, just the faint glow of her hair, turned silver in the dim light, a glimpse of pale, naked skin, of breasts and curves and—
/>
  Her arms curled around me when I bent, trailed my tongue along her throat, tasting her skin, all sweet and tart and woman, making it so that I didn’t have a chance to take in more than that glimpse of her, of those curves and pale skin, her light hair before her fingers were weaving into my hair, drawing me closer, wrapping her legs around me, brushing that wet pussy against my cock.

  Hot.

  Slick.

  Fuck, I didn’t want to lose that.

  She was small, almost tiny, and when she was pressed against me like this, that wet pussy, the soft curves, my mouth on her skin, I didn’t want to move. I wanted to keep tasting her, keep feeling her. I just…

  Wanted to taste all the other parts of her too.

  Fucking decisions, man.

  Her fingers tensed in my hair, a slight downward draw that told me enough.

  Told me she wanted my mouth on other parts of her body as well.

  Told me she wanted me to get to work.

  I grinned, nipped at her throat.

  Luckily, this was my favorite type of work. Aside from hockey, that was.

  So…I got to work. Trailing my tongue along her throat, losing her pussy for the greater good as I slid down, her legs falling away as my body shifted, as I dropped my head and sucked one of her nipples deep.

  Her breath caught, a moan tumbling from her lips, fingers tightening, body rocking.

  Turned on. A lot.

  With very little.

  Then again, I was the same.

  My dick was throbbing, demanding I slide through the slick folds of her pussy, thrust inside and do it deep and hard and repeatedly.