One Night Penalty (Renegades Ice Hockey Romance #2)

Chapter 1

Liam

The Red Card Lounge is packed with bodies pressed together on the dance floor. The bass is loud enough to rattle the walls. It thrums through my chest as I throw back another whiskey, bobbing my head to the music.

“Nova,” Jake shouts over the music, slapping my back hard enough to make me stumble. “That blonde at three o'clock has been eye-fucking you for the last ten minutes.”

I glance over and sure enough, she's there. Pretty, sure, but forgettable. They always are.

“Not interested,” I call back, already turning away.

Logan slides up beside me, a cocky grin plastered across his face. “Your loss, man. More for me.” We crushed the Chicago Chargers tonight, and we’re all riding a high from our win.

Even Ethan, our defenseman, is here, nursing a beer in the corner and scowling at anyone who gets too close. For him, that’s about as lively as it gets.

My phone buzzes against my thigh, and I fish it out of my pocket. The screen lights up with a name I haven't seen in months.

Mom.

My stomach clenches. She never calls unless she wants to guilt me into coming to one of her forced family dinners, where I sit at a table with half-siblings I barely know and a stepfather who's made it clear I don't belong.

I stare at the screen until it stops buzzing, then shove it back in my pocket like it never happened.

“Everything cool?” Jake asks, eyeing me.

Jake has been my closest friend since I joined the Renegades, and he's got this annoying ability to see right through my bullshit. He's the only guy I told about my dad walking out, and that was only after too many beers and a particularly brutal loss where I'd been spiraling.

He didn't give me pity. Instead, he just listened and then told me to stop letting a deadbeat define me.

“Yeah, all good.”

But my phone buzzes again. Same name. Same sick feeling in my gut.

Fuck it. I can't deal with this here, not with the guys watching. I need somewhere quiet to call her back, figure out why she’s calling me after months of silence.

“I'll be right back,” I tell Jake, already pushing through the crowd.

I make my way toward the back of the club, eyes on my phone as I scroll to her contact. My thumb hovers over the call button. Maybe I should just ignore it. She made her choice a long time ago when Dad left, and she decided her new family was more important.

A body collides with mine. My phone goes flying. Ice-cold liquid soaks my shirt.

“I’m so sorry!” A feminine voice says, blonde head looking down.

“No, it’s my fault, I wasn’t—” I look up.

Everything stops.

Holy fuck.

“—paying attention,” I finish, a little breathless.

I've met a lot of beautiful women. It comes with the territory. But this. This is different.

Her eyes hit me first. Hazel and almond-shaped, with this slight downturn at the corners that makes her look like she's looking at you through lowered lashes. Bedroom eyes.

The kind of eyes that make you forget your own name.

Her gaze is direct, confident, intense. Like she's looking right through me, seeing something I didn't even know I was hiding.

Her blonde hair has textured layers that make me want to thread my fingers through it and mess it up. See what it looks like wrapped around my fist.

“Let me get you another drink,” she says, and her voice is like smoke.

I blink, trying to get my brain back online. “You don't have to.” I don’t even recognize the stunned tone of my voice. No woman has ever offered to buy me a drink.

“It’s the least I can do for bulldozing into you.” She's already moving toward the bar, and I find myself following her like a lost puppy.

We find two stools at the far end, away from the worst of the crowd. As she slides onto the stool, her black dress rides up, revealing creamy, well-toned thighs and heels that could probably kill a man.

As we order, I realize she doesn't seem to recognize me. At all.

When was the last time that happened?

Either way, I'm having trouble remembering how to breathe.

“I'm Nova,” I say, using the nickname without thinking.

“Avery.” She extends her hand, and when our fingers touch, pinpricks of awareness light up my skin.

I’ve never felt an attraction this strong.

I catch the bartender's eye with a subtle nod, and he's over immediately. “What can I get you?”

“Elderflower martini,” Avery says without hesitation.

I like that. A woman who doesn’t ponder over a simple drink choice. She’s ticked another box of my preference for women. Indecision is one of the biggest turn offs there is.

“Macallan 18, neat for me,” I say.

As the bartender moves away, I shift on my stool, angling toward her so our knees brush. She doesn't pull away, but her eyebrow arches.

“You're pretty forward,” she says, taking a sip of her martini when it arrives.

“When I see something I want, I go for it.” I let my gaze drop to her lips for just a second before meeting her eyes again. “Life is too short to play games.”

“And what exactly do you think you want?” Her voice has dropped lower, matching mine. Her eyes have a smoldering quality with an expression that's both mysterious and inviting.

“Right now?” I lean in closer, close enough to catch her vanilla scent. “To know if you taste as sweet as you smell.”

She takes another sip of her drink without breaking eye contact. “That's quite an assumption.”

“Is it wrong?”

Silence stretches between us. Her knee presses against mine with just the slightest pressure, but it might as well be a damn fire alarm for how it affects me.

“Ask me in an hour,” she finally says, and then straightens up. “So what do you do?”

“I play hockey,” I say, shifting positions too, but only because my erection is growing visible. All I can think about is the press of her body, the feel of those lips against me, and the way those killer heels would feel digging into my back.

Avery raises her eyebrows. “Like professionally?”

I grin, enjoying being a complete stranger to someone. “You could say that.”

“Well, I hope you're better at hockey than you are at carrying drinks,” she says in a serious tone.

I laugh. “Ouch. Right for the throat.”

A smile plays at the corners of her very enticing mouth. I wonder what she can do with those lips. “So what brings a professional hockey player to Chicago? Besides spilling drinks on innocent women.”

“Work,” I say, which isn't technically a lie. “You?”

“This is my hometown. I'm in PR.” She swirls her drink, ice clinking against glass. “Crisis management, specifically. I clean up other people's messes for a living.”

“Sounds stressful.” What’s stressful is sitting beside her in a bar, surrounded by people, instead of being in a private room with this gorgeous, sexy woman, undressing her, bit by bit.

Somewhere, I can find out if her skin is as soft as it looks.

“You have no idea.” She takes another sip, and I notice the way her shoulders relax slightly. “But I'm good at it.”

When I say I'm good at hockey in interviews, it comes out cocky, like I'm bragging. But when Avery says it, it's different. She's just stating a fact. Like she knows exactly what she's worth and doesn't need anyone else's validation to prove it.

So fucking attractive.

“What kind of messes?” I ask.

“The kind that make headlines.” She meets my eyes. “Politicians caught with their pants down, CEOs saying stupid things on Twitter, celebrities who think the rules don't apply to them.”

I stifle a laugh. That sounds exactly like me. “Celebrities, huh? They must be a pain in the ass.”

“The worst.” She leans forward, and I glimpse the curve of her full breasts against the black fabric.

My mouth goes dry, and suddenly the whiskey is only stoking the fire burning inside me.

“They live in bubbles where everyone tells them how amazing they are. Makes them think they can do whatever they want without consequences.”

I should be offended, but instead I'm fascinated. “Let me guess, recent client?”

“Too recent.”

The drinks keep flowing, and the conversation is easy.

Every word out of her mouth makes me want her more. The way she tilts her head when she's thinking, and how her tongue darts out to catch a drop of her martini from her bottom lip.

The bar gets more crowded, forcing us to lean closer to hear each other. Our knees stay pressed together, and somewhere between her third drink and my fourth, her hand finds its way to my forearm when she laughs.

The touch burns through my shirt, and I realize I haven't thought about my phone, the missed calls, or anything outside this conversation in over an hour.

Avery’s features grow solemn. “Ever had to choose between what you want and the smart thing to do?”

That’s a deep question. I don’t do deep with women, or with anyone really, except Jake, and even that is rare. I prefer to live life, not analyze it.

Still, I find myself thinking about my mother’s missed calls, about Jake telling me I'm wasting my potential, about the constant pressure to be the guy everyone thinks I am.

“Every day,” I admit.

“That's the thing about expectations,” she says quietly. “They're not really about you. They're about what other people need you to be.”

If I’m going to go in, I might as well go all in. I’ll never see Avery again, and she doesn’t know who I am. “Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just stopped. Stopped being what everyone expects.”

She leans in, intrigued. “What would you be instead?”

I don't have an answer for that. I've been Nova for so long, I'm not sure there's anything underneath. “I don't know,” I say honestly.

She reaches across the table, her fingers brushing mine. “For what it's worth, I think the real you is probably better than whatever act you're putting on.”

A laugh rips out of me. Now that is bullshit. She doesn’t know anything about me. “How do you know I'm putting on an act?”

“Because everyone is. Especially the ones who are good at it.”

The music shifts to something slower, and her features soften. “This is exactly the kind of thing I never do.”

“What kind of thing?”

“This. Talking to strangers in bars. Staying out past midnight on a work night. Being...” She gestures between us. “Whatever this is.”

I’m done talking. I lean in closer, my lips almost brushing her ear. “Want to get out of here? Maybe do some more things you never do?”

I pull back just enough to look into her eyes, letting her see exactly what I'm thinking.

Her eyes darken, and for a moment she just stares at me. Then a sexy smile spreads across her lips. “That's quite a proposition.” She takes a sip of her martini, never breaking eye contact. “And what makes you think I'm the kind of woman who goes to hotel rooms with strangers?”

“Maybe the better question is, do you want to be?”

She sets her glass down slowly. “You're assuming I haven't already decided.”

“Have you?”

“The moment you asked.” She leans forward again, close enough that her breath tickles my ear. “But I have one condition, Nova.”

The way she says my name sends heat straight to my cock. My pulse kicks up. “Name it.”

“This is just tonight. No numbers, no promises.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Whatever this is, it doesn’t go beyond tonight.”

That's exactly the kind of arrangement I prefer. No strings, no complications. “Just tonight.”

She finishes her drink in one long pull, then stands. “Then what are we waiting for?”

I'm already reaching for my wallet, throwing enough cash on the bar to cover our drinks and a generous tip.

“Second thoughts?” she teases.

“Just wondering if you're going to disappear on me in the elevator,” I throw back with a grin.

She smirks. “Only one way to find out.”