Fall For Me (The New York Blaze Hockey #3)

Chapter 1

One

Sean

Cal and Aspen’s Wedding

One Year Ago

“Nope. Not happening. Don’t even fucking think about it,” Aiden warns when he busts me staring at Hannah from across the room.

All night, I’ve found myself casting secret glances in her direction.

She’s completely off-limits, which is probably why my fingers itch to connect the dots between those freckles on her creamy white skin.

I’m betting it’s also why my eyes wouldn’t stay the hell off her long, toned legs, last night too.

Damn, the things I would do to her. It’s a shame she’s not my type.

Five minutes into our introduction years ago was all it took to have her pegged.

Vanilla.

Which is how I like my dessert, not my women. I have a taste for the wild ones. Women who know how to fuck and be fucked—roughly, I might add. Hannah Jenkins is too reserved to be that type, but she’s still sexy as hell.

Breaking my gaze, I lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The fuck you don’t. You’ve been looking at her all night . . . and last night for that matter.”

“I don’t remember shit about last night.”

My eyes travel back to Hannah again as she dances, lifting her hair from her neck, and I imagine myself wrapping those long, auburn locks around my fist.

“I remember it clearly.”

The irritation in his voice pulls my gaze and forces my focus back to him. “You have a thing for Hannah?”

“She’s my best friend.” Aiden tosses back his whiskey and sets the empty glass on the table.

Best friend. Ha! Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.

“Is that why you did a body shot with her last night? Because she’s your ‘best friend’?”

“Nope. I did a body shot with her ‘cause it was on the bingo card . . . and to protect her from you.”

“She doesn’t need protection from me. I don’t know what you think you saw last night, or tonight for that matter, but I’m not interested in Hannah. She’s too . . . bland.”

The memory of meeting her for the first time creeps into the forefront of my mind. I’d just started the season with Boston, and this guy I once thought I knew named Owen, dragged me out with him one night. His then-girlfriend, Savannah, brought her college roommate up from New York.

Savannah was a spitfire. Untamed and hot as fuck.

I figured if Savannah’s friend was anything like her, I’d be balls fucking deep inside her by the end of the night.

When Hannah strolled into the bar, looking all doe-eyed and so goddamn innocent, I knew right then my night was shot to shit.

Every time she’d cast a glance in my direction, a blush would bloom across her cheeks, then she’d look away.

Forget coaxing a conversation out of her; that was like pulling teeth.

A squeaky “hi” was the highlight of our night. She was a fucking bore.

Aiden plucks his cell from his pocket and looks down at the screen.

“Don’t pretend to know her, ‘cause you don’t,” he says, firing off a text with quick thumbs, then pocketing his phone with a smile on his face. “I’m about to head out.”

“Was that—”

“Yep.”

I huff a laugh and shake my head, relieved of the subject change. “What’s it going to be tonight? The T. Rex?”

“Maybe.” He laughs, looking out over the dance floor. “Where’d Hannah go? She was just here.”

“Like I keep up with her.”

He cuts me a look I don’t care to decipher before turning to leave. “If you run into her, tell her I’ll catch up with her tomorrow.”

Yeah. I have no plans of initiating a conversation with that woman.

As Aiden leaves, I head toward Cal and Aspen to congratulate them on an institution I firmly believe is a complete crock of shit.

I’m not cynical. I’m a realist.

Marriage is nothing but a social convention we’ve been conditioned to follow. Another box to check. Date, fall in love, get engaged, tie yourself down to someone until one or both of you are miserable as fuck or they betray you, have fucking babies, then rinse and repeat.

Fuck. That. Shit. No, thank you.

Cal extends his hand to shake mine. “I’m glad you came, man.”

“Of course. Thanks for the invite.” I turn to Aspen, and she wraps one arm around my side.

“Thank you for coming, Sean,” she says, releasing me.

“You’re welcome. And you look beautiful. Congratulations.”

Turning to leave, I catch a flash of Hannah walking out the wrong door.

She’s knocked back a few drinks tonight, so she’s probably drunk or turned around.

I don’t care. She’s not my problem. My legs begin to move of their own accord, but instead of heading out the way I came, I find myself striding out the same door she took into the garden and follow her along the path lined with flowers.

What the fuck am I doing?

Her hair flies behind her as she rounds a bush of pampas grass, clueless that she’s being followed.

As I begin to close the distance, she glances over her shoulder, and I step back, hiding myself behind long blades.

Peeking around them, I see her back turned, so I step out into the open.

She bends at the waist, swiping her hand through the water and a laugh bubbles out of her mouth while she gathers her dress and steps into a fountain.

And I watch.

Curious, I find myself moving closer. I don’t understand the draw.

I don’t want anything to do with her. So why am I still walking in her direction?

I pause mid-step with the intent of turning around to head back inside, but then her voice, singing along to “Levitating,” floats through the air, and I can’t help but stop and look up at her.

She shakes her ass, loudly belting out the lyrics she’s memorized, then trailing off, and quietly mumbling the ones she hasn’t.

And I laugh—something I haven’t done in a long ass time.

Before I realize it, I’ve closed the distance between us as if I’m the one who’s been levitating . . . straight to her.