Chapter 2
“Do you have to leave so soon?”
I glanced over at Orla. Damn, she was hot. Fucking on fire hot, but she was also dangerous. I needed to get my shit together. I shouldn’t be doing this, especially with her.
“I should. Lex could show up at any minute.”
She rolled her eyes and let the bedsheet slip down to her waist. She had the most fantastic set of tits I’d ever seen, bought and paid for my Lex, but did that matter? Sure, I preferred natural, but whoever had done Orla’s tits needed a raise. They weren’t massive, but still big enough to stand out. And her nipples stood at attention, waiting to be sucked and pinched. The harder the better, or at least she liked it that way.
“He won’t be home for hours. When he hits the casino, especially the poker tables, sometimes he doesn’t come home until morning.”
He’d hid that addiction well, and from what Orla had said, he especially liked online gambling, something he could do on the road when he was bored. But when he had time, he liked to be there in the flesh. And that was a huge problem for him, but not for me and Orla.
“Still, I need to get going.”
She pouted, and those huge blue eyes of her were sucking me in. My afternoon tryst had to be cut short. I’d promised Ethan, one of my best friends, that I’d help him and finish setting up the furniture for the nursery. He and Tangi, Ethan’s fiancée, had bought a new house and were moving in soon. The house was almost ready to go except for the furniture for their daughter Madeleine’s bedroom, and a few last-minute finishes. The little stinker wasn’t even six months old, but she needed her own room, at least to give Tangi and Ethan some private time.
“How about another hour?” she said, crawling across the bed toward me.
My cock was getting harder by the second. Her firm and perky ass was wiggling just the way I liked it. Fuck. She was going to make me late. “I need to be at Ethan’s in half hour, and I still need to go home to shower and change.”
“You’re no fun,” she said and licked her full and swollen lips.
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll text you.”
I didn’t kiss her goodbye because we didn’t do that shit. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and it wasn’t like I had feelings for her. We were having a good time, the dangerous kind. I’d never hooked up with a teammate’s girl, but something like Orla had me losing all my judgment. The first time I’d seen her, years ago in the players’ lounge, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The long, wavy dark blonde hair, legs that went on forever, and of course, the tits. She was the most gorgeous woman in the room, and she knew it. And I was being reckless by screwing around with her.
I grabbed my keys and waved, jogging to the elevator. Thankfully, she and Lex didn’t live far from me, and by the time I got home, my cock had settled down. I took a quick, cold shower and headed to Ethan’s, getting there only a few minutes late. He let me into the house, and there in his empty living room was Tangi, holding Maddy. But along with Tangi was a tall blonde with her hair in a ponytail, wearing skinny jeans and an oversized pink sweater. She didn’t smile at me the way Tangi and even Maddy did.
“I know I’m late,” I said, giving Tangi a hug and booping Maddy on the nose, which elicited a laugh from her. The kid was so cute and had already fallen in love with her uncle Jeremy.
“Not too late. We just got here. I just finished showing Jill the house. Do you know Jill?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t,” I said, flashing my biggest smile.
“Jill is my one of my best friends,” Tangi said. “She’s also the new PR director for the Kodiaks.”
Right. Ethan had mentioned that. I figured Jill would be dowdy since he hadn’t said much about her, but she was kind of hot in a simple way. She didn’t have a ton of makeup on, and if she had a hot body, it was hard to tell under the massive sweater, but she had long and lean legs, that was something. But she was off limits. Then again, so was Orla, and that hadn’t stopped me.
“Welcome to the Kodiaks family,” I said.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” she said with disinterest.
I waited for her to say something else, and when she didn’t, I turned to Ethan. “Should we get started?”
“Yup. I already took a look at the directions, and I’m lost. We should have gotten preassembled furniture.”
While the ladies looked over paint swatches for the living room, Ethan and I got to work in the nursery that had already been painted.
“The place is coming together,” I said.
“We paid extra to get it done. I want us in before the season starts. That’s why I told them to paint the nursery first. I want as much time as possible to air it out for Maddy.”
I took in the room. The contractors had done a good job, and I would know. My dad had been in the business most of his adult life. If I hadn’t made it in hockey, I’d be following in his footsteps. “You’re getting there.”
“We’re just waiting for some things to come in, then the last of house needs painting. I also want to put in an all-new security system. I want to know my family is safe when I’m out of town.”
As he laid out the pieces to the changing table, I couldn’t believe this was the same guy from a year ago, engaged to someone who wasn’t Tangi. A woman who was exactly the wrong person for him. Here he’d come, full circle to be with the right woman, and suddenly he was engaged to her and had a kid. A lot could happen in a year.
I took a look at the instructions, which weren’t that straightforward, but I figured them out. I’d always been good with that kind of stuff, helping my dad with projects and jobs. I probably would have been a carpenter, and still planned to do something like that when hockey was over. I loved creating, which was probably why Ethan had me helping him with this. Within an hour, we had the changing table set up and had moved on to assembling the crib.
“Were you with your mystery woman before you came here?” Ethan asked as we took a break with some beers.
“She’s no one special,” I said.
“The same ‘no one special’ you’ve been hanging around with for months? That’s some kind of record for you.”
I was having my fun, and Ethan wasn’t going to shit on that. I figured once I hit my thirties, when my career started to wind down, then I’d think about settling down. Far too many guys had gotten married and started a family way to young, and I’d seen firsthand how it had affected their gameplay. Nope, that wasn’t going to happen to me.
“When I find the right woman, you’ll be the first to know. But this one isn’t it.”
Ethan narrowed his gaze. “I guess I find it weird that you’re keeping her a secret. You usually don’t do that. Unless it’s serious.”
If only he knew … Nope. This wasn’t serious, just dangerous. “It’s not.” I could see him opening his mouth to say something else, but I cut him off. “Before you even ask, no, I’m not bringing her around.”
“How did you know I was going to ask that?”
“I know you better than you think. Just like I knew that Brandi was bad for you, that you should have never fucked up your relationship with Tangi, and that the two of you were meant to be together.”
Ethan grunted something unintelligible, and we headed back to join the ladies. They were in the living room, looking at something on Tangi’s iPad. Tangi looked up when she saw us.
“You’re done already?” she asked with surprise.
“It wasn’t that hard,” I said.
Tangi seemed confused. “Oh. Because Ethan’s been working on it all morning.”
“Not all morning,” Ethan protested.
“Busted,” Jill said and laughed.
I had to admit she had a gorgeous smile when she let it loose, which so far, hadn’t been often.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Tangi asked me. “It’s the least we could offer you for helping with that furniture that would have taken Ethan weeks to put together. We were looking up some places in the area, and there is an Italian place nearby. It’s got some great reviews.”
I could see a twinkle in Tangi’s hazel eyes, almost too playful, but I was starving, and Italian food sounded like a great idea. Forty-five minutes later, the dining room table was filled with two pizzas, chicken parmigiana, gnocchi, two different salads, and some garlic breadsticks. I figured it could be my cheat meal for the week.
We sat down, and I piled my plate full of food while Ethan grabbed us a few more beers, and the ladies sipped wine. I glanced over at Jill who seemed completely disinterested in me and Ethan. She had her focus on Tangi, and that gave me a chance to check her out some more. She’s was likely Tangi’s age, but she looked more mature, not that Tangi acted like a kid or anything. Jill seemed older. Her blue eyes popped against her lightly tanned skin, and her dirty-blonde hair was swept up into a high ponytail that still managed to make her look all business. Maybe a little uptight?
She caught me staring, and I smiled, but she didn’t return the smile. In fact, she gave no reaction at all, and set her attention back to Tangi. Whoa! She certainly didn’t like me for some reason, and I barely knew her.
Ethan decided to get in on the conversation with the ladies, though I was pretty sure they didn’t want him to.
“How is the job going so far?” he asked Jill, obviously to be polite.
She shrugged, but remained stone-faced. “Good. I haven’t been at it long.”
“What did you do before?” I asked, then tore off a piece of a garlic breadstick.
“I worked for Richardson’s. I was head of PR for their Canadian expansion.”
Impressive. “Sounds like a great job. What happened?”
“The expansion was a disaster, and I was fired along with most of the middle management. We were the fall guys.”
“That sucks,” I said. “Good thing Ethan helped you get this job.”
Any speck of warmth on her face—and it wasn’t much—evaporated in a split second.
“I got the job on merit.”
Shit. “Of course you did. I was just pointing out that Ethan’s help didn’t hurt.”
Her blue eyes were like laser beams, silently cutting me to shreds.
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Ethan mentioned the job, and I applied. Are you suggesting something else happened?”
I glanced over at Ethan and his wide eyes were warning me to shut up. “I have no idea what happened. I just figured he’d helped.”
I was sure I’d heard Tangi groan as Jill twisted in her seat to better face me. “Why? Because I’m a woman.”
I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks. How had this happened? “No, I wasn’t saying that at all. I figured maybe you used him as a reference and that he said you’d be perfect for the job. Honestly, I have no idea either way.”
“Who wants more to drink?” Ethan asked. “I’m sure we have another bottle of wine somewhere.”
Jill wagged her finger at me. “No. Ethan didn’t get me the job. I got the job all by myself if you can believe it,” she said sarcastically. “I was qualified for the job, and I had excellent job experience. Is that good enough for you?”
This chick had just handed me my balls on a platter. “Yes, totally fine. I’m sorry I said anything.”
“So am I,” Jill said, rolling her eyes.
What followed next was the most uncomfortable silence. Tangi snapped it by getting up and taking the plates away. Jill offered to help her and muttered something about hoping that no one got the impression she was doing women’s work by helping Tangi put the leftovers away. I wanted out as soon as possible. Once they were safely in the kitchen, I got up.
“I better get out of here before I say anything else stupid.”
“I should have warned you about Jill. She’s tough as nails. I’ve been afraid of her for over ten years.”
I patted Ethan on the back. “Sorry to leave you alone with her, but I’m outta here.”
The guy couldn’t blame me, and as I walked back to my car, my phone pinged with a text. Then another. Then one more. I glanced down, and my stomach did a flip-flop. The texts were from Orla.
Someone sent me these pics. They said they are going to post them online.
I waited for her to upload them, and when she did, I thought I was going to be sick.