Hot Puck (Rough Riders Hockey 2)

That got her attention. Her face grew comically close to the phone, and the screen went dark as her lips pressed against it for a split second. Then she was gone, and the image jumped all over the room as she ran to hand the phone to her grandmother with a distracted “Bye, Daddy.”

When his mother’s face finally came back into view, Beckett was already feeling lonely. “How long do I have before she goes to college?”

“Thirteen years. But you’ll start losing her to friends, sports, and boys a lot sooner.”

Beckett’s heart cracked. He huffed a groan and hung his head. “Thanks, Mom. I’m going to drown my sorrows now. Enjoy my daughter enough for both of us.”

She laughed. “Oh, you never have to worry about that, son.”

Beckett disconnected with an overwhelming amount of love flowing through him. Love right alongside a restless kind of loneliness. He glanced at the doors to Top Shelf again, and his mind drifted to Eden. That was another disappointment he was going to have to push into the background. He’d sent the flowers several days ago, and he still hadn’t heard from her.

Almost two weeks had passed since she’d hauled him to the ER. Even without any hockey knowledge, that was plenty of time for her to figure out who he was, how much money he made, and every other intimate detail of his life. At least everything except Lily. He was keeping Lily extremely under the radar until he had full custody. But either Eden didn’t care enough to look him up or what she’d found hadn’t interested her enough to call, because he still hadn’t heard from her. At this point, he doubted he would.

And that was a damn shame. Especially tonight. Because she would be the perfect woman to administer sexual first aid to get him through the lonely stretch ahead.

Since that wouldn’t happen, Beckett would have to entertain one of the offers he routinely received on any given night out on the town. Lucky for him, hockey was a popular sport, and smokin’ hot puck bunnies were everywhere.

He’d let the night play out. Who knew? Maybe he’d get an offer he couldn’t refuse.

5

Eden tapped the screen of her phone to check the time and found it five minutes later than the last time she’d checked.

Beckett’s game had ended almost an hour ago. She was pretty sure at this point, the closest she was going to get to Beckett Croft tonight was the recaps on the television over the bar. She’d begun to think maybe that was a good thing, judging by the sportscaster’s praise of Beckett’s work on the ice tonight. In this case, “work” translated into dozens of brutal hits and three fistfights.

Evidently, not only was it okay to fight in hockey, it was encouraged, reminding Eden that even the idea of a hookup probably wasn’t a smart move. In fact, she’d started to wonder if it might even border on pathological.

Though, halfway into her second lemon drop, Eden wasn’t sure she cared. Right now all she really wanted was a roll with a hot guy. She wanted the wet heat of a man’s mouth on hers. Ached for the heaviness of a man’s body pushing her into a mattress. Craved the burn and stretch of a man’s hard cock inside her.

What she’d really been dreaming of when she’d come here tonight was the idea of reclaiming a little of that spontaneous, sexually liberated woman she used to be years ago.

God, she hoped she still had some. She hoped it wasn’t something that shriveled and died when neglected. Because if that was the case, hers was dust in the attic.

A wave of young, handsome men in suits and ties and smart-looking overcoats or parkas streamed into the bar, and Eden’s pulse jumped. A few had women at their sides, but most were alone. And they didn’t look like businessmen or guys who’d bailed on a wedding reception to find some fun. They were unshaven, their hair was damp, and they had that just-worked-out glow. But it was the Rough Rider jerseys worn by the women at a few of the men’s sides and the way the staff and some of the customers greeted them that told Eden for sure that these men were members of the team.

But that didn’t matter to her, because the door closed behind the men, and Beckett wasn’t among them.

Disappointment tugged at her gut. From her tiny table in the shadowed corner, she scanned the men, searching for one who might make a halfway decent replacement for Beckett. But despite several fine specimens standing at the bar, none interested her.

Beckett had inspired her to dress up, do her hair, even put on a little makeup and come out alone in the hopes of seeing him postgame. No one at the bar even gave her enough incentive to get her butt out of the chair to start a conversation.

And wasn’t that just perfect? A battered woman only interested in hooking up with the baddest of the bad boy hockey players? If that didn’t scream psychiatric problem

, she didn’t know what did. Which made her wonder where a girl went to get a mojo tune-up.

Evidently, the universe had its head screwed on way straighter than Eden did. Maybe tonight was meant to be more about lessons than action. After all, the realization that she could get past the nerves for the right man was a good first step—even if Beckett hadn’t been the right man.

“Not meant to be,” she reassured herself and glanced around for the cocktail waitress to ask for her check. “Excuse—” But the woman passed in a blur, and Eden dropped her hand, exhaling, “me.”

She fished through her purse and—painfully—parted with thirty dollars. After laying it on the table, she reached for the drink and took one more sip.

When she tilted the glass back, her gaze fell on another man entering the bar, sliding out of an overcoat. Underneath, he too wore a suit, black and well cut for his large muscular build. His dark hair fell in a wave over his forehead, the sides layering out in an effortless sort of roguish carelessness.

Beckett.

Eden’s stomach lifted and flipped. Her throat closed in the middle of her swallow, and she had to consciously focus on getting the drink down without choking.

Lord, he was even better looking than she remembered.