Breakout Read online

  “Period or not, you owe me chocolate gelato.”

  A sexy smile. “Deal.”

  Then he was gone, and Rebecca was alone, her tube of Dior Rouge No. 999 dangling from her fingertips.

  She’d cried.

  And agreed to dinner.

  What in the fuck was happening with her life?

  Four

  Kevin

  He could barely concentrate on the drills, and Blue knew it.

  “What the fuck, dude?” his linemate hissed when they reset for the third time because Kevin had screwed up the path he was supposed to be skating.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, shutting off the parts of his brain that weren’t devoted to hockey, compartmentalizing the memory of seeing, of feeling a woman he’d never thought of as anything but steel and hard edges fall apart in his arms.

  He’d hoped that there might be something soft beneath that armor.

  He’d just never expected broken.

  Or his desire to step in and take all of those hurts away.

  He wasn’t a white knight. He definitely didn’t get his kicks by swooping in and saving women. But Rebecca was different.

  From the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, Kevin had known she was different.

  He’d wanted to get to know that different.

  And while a weeping female might normally turn him off, when that vulnerability was in the form of Rebecca, he wanted to—

  The whistle trilled.

  He got his shit together, pushed everything aside except for hockey, and moved. The ice crunched beneath his skates as he sprinted for the corner, slipping neatly in front of the defensemen and scooping up the puck. He passed it over to Blue, sprinted to the front of the net. But he wasn’t there to score. Kevin was a distraction, and he played his part well, jostling with the other defensemen before sliding back enough that Blue passed the puck off and then took his place.

  A quick shot. A pop as Blue deflected it down and low and far side—

  “Fuck,” Brit hissed as it slid home.

  Blue grinned. Kevin just breathed a little easier at not having fucked up.

  His heroic goal—though he hated when anyone referred to it as that because it had been the entire team who’d won the Cup, not just him and one moment—had secured him his first legit contract. He’d gotten long-term and big money.

  And the security of knowing that he’d be in San Francisco for a long time, or eight more years, at least.

  Now it was time to make those eight years count. To stop waiting for his life to begin, for the other shoe to drop.

  It was time to live.

  Hopefully, with a certain brunette with gorgeous chocolate eyes and an affinity for fire engine red lipstick and nail polish.

  “Gotcha,” Blue teased Brit.

  “Should have known you’d go far side,” she grumbled but tapped Blue on the shin guards with her stick. “Good one.” She poked Kevin. “Especially with this one’s wide ass blocking my view.”

  “I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly petite,” he said, lips twitching.

  “For a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound lightweight? Yeah, definitely petite.”

  “One might even say—”

  “A couple more times, boys,” Todd called. He was one of their assistant coaches and focused primarily on offense. “Then we’ll call it a day.”

  They cut the banter and got to work.

  Kevin loved the game, lived, and breathed the sport, but it was also his job and that meant focusing when he’d rather be down the hall pressing his advantage with Rebecca. It also meant going to practice, pulling his head out of his ass, and getting his shit together so he wasn’t the weakest link on the team.

  After which it meant being stopped for a quick interview two steps off the ice by a local blogger who’d been one of the earliest supporters of the team. Then being pulled aside to review some tape of his skating—his weakest part of the game.

  “See? There?” Steph said. She was a former figure skater and one of the most sought-after skating coaches in the NHL. The Gold had been lucky enough to get her on the payroll because one of their defensemen, Mike Stewart, was married to a former gold medalist and Sara Stewart, née Jetty, had competed with her in the same circuits. “You’re relying on your inside edge too much. If you can trust that outside edge more, your transition will be smoother and faster. It’ll save you time and you can get your ass back sooner, which I think Brit will appreciate.”

  Kevin grinned. “I think you’re right. Got some drills for me?”

  “Emailed already. And I’ll see you on-ice tomorrow at ten.”

  He nodded, thanking her, hating the idea of skating drills even more than practice drills, even while understanding that they were a necessary evil and that his game would be all the better for it.

  But . . . he’d heard his entire life what a shitty skater he was, and he’d made it to the NHL despite that fact.

  So, you think you’re too much of a hotshot to be coached now?

  It was his dad’s voice he heard when he was being unreasonable.

  Or if not unreasonable, then at least not in the right headspace.

  The truth was that he’d always struggled to focus on drills and practice and repetition and repetition and repetition. Games had been his bread and butter, allowing for freedom and creativity and to just be swept up in the action.

  Lucky that he’d been drafted by a team that allowed for that.

  The Gold played a definite system, but it wasn’t so stringent that it didn’t allow for improvisation.

  Kevin didn’t know what he’d do without that freedom.

  Well, he did know that he certainly wouldn’t have been able to stomach the notion of an hour of skating drills in the morning if it hadn’t been there.

  Steph tucked the tablet under her arm and waved, striding down the hall and pausing at the door to the locker room to holler, “Mika, Tal, Brian. Stop by my office before you leave.”

  Silence as she strode on before a trio of groans drifted into the hall.

  She turned back to Kevin and winked. “Music to my ears.”

  He snorted, shaking his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” A beat. “Without the groaning.”

  “Get it all out today,” she teased as she disappeared around the corner.

  He shook his head again then walked into the locker room and got down to the business of changing. If his inclination was right, then Rebecca would be regretting her agreement to dinner and be actively planning her escape.

  Not to worry, he had plans in place to stop that from happening.

  In the form of one nearly six-foot-tall blond beauty.

  Brit raised a brow when he passed her stall and sat down at the bench in front of his. But instead of shaking his head as he’d done every day for the past two weeks, he allowed the barest hint of a smile to slip out, along with a nod.

  “Really?” she mouthed.

  “Really,” he mouthed back. “So, little help?”

  “On it.” She stood, shrugged into her suit jacket and crossed to him. “Wash really good, Kev. Don’t want to blow this one.”

  “Noted,” he muttered.

  “And wine. She likes red wine.”

  Of course she did. He nodded his thanks at his teammate and set about the business of washing off the hockey stink and wrestling himself into something presentable.

  Or at least not nose-wrinkling.

  Because he’d waited more than three years for this chance and wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  Five

  Rebecca

  She smelled a rat.

  A lovely, very talented rat, but a rat nonetheless.

  “And then I thought that with the clothing offer coming in, I could use someone to help me overhaul my social media,” Brit said, sprawling into Rebecca’s desk chair. “I’m shit at it, and part of my contract with them is a certain amount of posts . . .”

  She went on about engagement and hashtags and scheduling
posts to hit a target demographic.

  All things that would normally be Rebecca’s kryptonite, or maybe the surefire way to get her to orgasm.

  But . . . the rat.

  Especially when Brit had snagged Rebecca by the arm as she’d headed out of her office, drawing her away from Gabe and Nutritionist Rebecca, locked in another typically tense conversation in the hall, before hauling her back into her office, shoving her down into her expensive desk chair, and then had taken up her current position.

  Read: blocking Rebecca’s planned escape.

  She should have left earlier, but she’d gotten caught up watching practice, under the guise of fixing her fuck boy of an intern’s subpar social media example posts, and had taken way too many stills of a certain player she’d sobbed on—fuck her life—and had been obsessed with since the first moment she’d seen him without a shirt.

  Fucking twenty-four years old.

  And fucking gorgeous.

  A smattering of chest hair, pecs that were perfectly squeezable, abs that were defined into perfect squares she was desperate to trace with her tongue.

  She was around gorgeous athletes day in and day out. Thus, the sight of a six-pack shouldn’t have made her cream herself.

  But Kevin’s six-pack?

  That was different.

  However, he’d also only been twenty-one then, more lean lines and lanky strength than the solid man he was now. So, she’d shoved that attraction down, had forced herself to be content with burning up the battery on her vibrator.

  Then the big win at the end of the season, followed by his words on the bench.

  I. Want. You.

  She still thought about the raspy way he’d told her that, how his gray eyes had flashed with lightning, how her breath had caught, and her thighs clenched. It had been the first time ever she’d felt incapable of strutting away in her four-inch heels and, namely, that had been because her knees had wobbled.

  Now his hot stare seemed to follow her everywhere.

  Worse?

  She found that she liked it.

  And she really shouldn’t.

  “ . . . I don’t know a thing about demographics or—”

  There was a knock at the door, and Rebecca would have had to be completely dense to miss the relieved expression on Brit’s face. Her friend popped to her feet and opened the door. To no one’s surprise in the room, Kevin strolled into the office.

  He didn’t say anything, his gray gaze locked onto her, studying her closely for a long moment before Brit pulled out her phone.

  “Oh, that’s Stefan. I’ll . . . catch you later, Rebecca.”

  Then she was through the door, and they were alone.

  Her office never normally seemed small, but with Kevin inside of it, watching her so intently, she found that all the air in the space had disappeared.

  “You’re feeling better,” he said, crossing over to her and leaning back against the desk. In front of her, mere inches away, sucking up even more air, making every nerve on her body stand up and take notice.

  “I’m always fine.” She closed a folder, stood.

  Kevin didn’t move, and instantly she regretted her decision to move.

  He’d been close before but now, barely a piece of paper could fit between them. “You’re not,” he murmured, tucking a strand behind her ear that had her stifling a shiver. “And that’s okay.” Fingers along the underside of her jaw. “No one is okay all of the time.”

  She swallowed hard, stared at him unblinking for a moment before she remembered herself. “Well”—another swallow—“I should go.” Nudging the chair back with her foot, she started to slip past him. “I’ve got a busy night ahead and—”

  He caught her arm.

  “I think you’re forgetting something?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I’ve just got a lot of work and—”

  “You need to eat,” he said. “And I seem to remember you promising to do that with me.”

  In cases like this, there was only one course of action.

  To play dumb.

  “Nope,” she replied. “I don’t remember that at all. In fact”—she snatched up a file at random—“I’ve got a slammed evening ahead of me, so you’d better leave me to it.”

  Lie.

  Total lie.

  She was ahead of work and with the season not yet underway, that workload was light. Something she suspected he most definitely knew, based on the way those gray eyes pinned her in place.

  Pulse pounding, it was difficult to maintain eye contact.

  But she was Rebecca Fucking Stravokraus. So despite the lie, despite the urge to look away—or worse to launch herself into his arms and taste that fucking glorious mouth instead of sobbing against that equally glorious chest—she stiffened her spine and kept her eyes on his.

  After a long moment, he released her.

  And no, that wasn’t disappointment she felt.

  Certainly not.

  No freaking way.

  Down that path led insanity, and Rebecca did not do insanity.

  But Kevin didn’t leave. He spun around and gathered up all the files on her desk, bent and scooped up her ridiculously expensive but amazing red Michael Kors bag, shoved the papers inside.

  “You can work at dinner.”

  Then he took her arm and started to lead her to the door.

  Two steps in, he stopped and stared down at her feet, one half of his mouth curving.

  He dropped her arm again, walked back to her desk, and snatched up her heels then crossed back to her, crouched down, and in some ridiculously sexy and totally insane version of Cinderella, helped her step into them.

  And she let him.

  Didn’t make a peep, just let him put on her heels, wrap his hand around her upper arm, and lead her from her office.

  She didn’t say anything when he paused to flick off the light, to shut the door.

  Not one word when he led her out of the rink and into the parking lot.

  Never in her life had she been completely mute, never had she gone along without a fight, never had she let a man lead her around by her arm.

  But Kevin . . . he was different, wasn’t he?

  Still didn’t mean she wasn’t herself and so, by the time he’d opened the passenger’s side door on his sleek black sedan, she’d regained at least a semblance of her personality.

  She side-stepped the opening, reached for her bag.

  He held it out of her reach, looked deeply into her eyes again, and shook his head, a slow, sexy smile curving his mouth.

  “Dinner, beautiful,” he said softly. “Is that such a trial?”

  Then he rounded his car, opened his own door, and got inside. She noticed that he tucked her bag—with her keys and wallet and all the files from her desk inside—on the outside of his leg. And while there was only a file or two that could use her eyes that night, the rest of the items proved more problematic.

  Hard to escape sans keys.

  “I’m—”

  “I’ll let you pick the wine,” he cajoled. “Cab? Merlot? Pinot Noir?”

  She could almost taste a really good Cabernet on her tongue, could definitely picture him staring at her with warm eyes as he poured her a glass, studying her as she drank, or maybe sharing the glass with her, his mouth touching the same spot on the glass as hers did . . . and then maybe touching hers without the excuse of a glass.

  “Just dinner, baby. One meal.”

  Rebecca hesitated.

  Such a slippery slope this was, and yet . . . fuck did she want to go out to dinner with him, to have just a few moments alone with this wonderful, beautiful man before she had to cut her losses and run.

  To that end, she sucked in a breath, dropped into the passenger’s seat, and closed the door.

  She almost didn’t hear the relieved sigh cross Kevin’s lips.

  But she did.

  And that little puff of air made her heart skip a beat.

  Because for whatever insane reason, he
wanted to spend time with her, too.

  Six

  Kevin

  He was fucking it up.

  Brit had been the best wingman he could ask for and—

  “Will you turn on the radio?”

  He cut his eyes to the right. “So you can ignore me?” The light turned red and he slid to a stop, twisting to face her fully.

  “You’re doing a damned good job of that already,” she said. “We’ve been sitting in silence for fifteen minutes. At least this way, I’d get to have something to fill the empty space.”

  Kevin winced at the sharp words, though she wasn’t wrong in the least.

  Hence the fucking things up. He’d been trying to come up with something to say that wasn’t fucking stupid.

  What’s up? Dumb. How’s work? Also, fucking dumb. You look beautiful. What was she supposed to say to that? I’ve been fantasizing about having you in my car, my space for three years, and now I don’t know what I could have been possibly thinking because you are way the fuck out of my league?

  Truth. But also both stalkerish and supremely pathetic.

  So silence.

  Which was just as bad as all of those combined.

  “You’re right,” he admitted.

  One brow lifted. “I’m right?”

  He shrugged. “Yes.” The light turned green and he accelerated, keeping his eyes on the road as he admitted, “I’m nervous.”

  “I make you nervous?”

  She sounded so absolutely incredulous that he couldn’t help but laugh. “Baby, I’ve seen guys’ balls shrivel up into walnuts from one glimpse of those gorgeous chocolate eyes.”

  Silence.

  Then a look very similar to the one he’d just described, but instead of making his balls crawl up into his body, Kevin’s dick twitched. He’d always loved that razor-sharp slice, the fire beneath the surface, and the way she didn’t take any shit.

  “And your balls?”

  A grin. “Right where they’re supposed to be.”

  “Probably because they’re so big,” she muttered.

  He snorted. She snorted. Then they were both laughing and that was so much better than the uncomfortable silence of the previous minutes. Because Rebecca wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, to demand something more.