Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Score.

Tate pounded the air with his free fist, “Yes!” Then rested his helmet on the ice, laughing.

Beckett skated a circle around Tate, also laughing. “You lucky son of a— Oooooh…”

Tate didn’t need to look to know someone had walked into the rink. And by the language shift, that someone was female. Tate’s stomach might have been numb from the slab of ice beneath him, but that didn’t keep the butterflies from taking flight.

He tried to catch his breath while he constructed those walls Lisa had taught him to build. Walls that worked relatively well against the woman who had lied to him and cheated on him within a year of their wedding vows. Not so well against a woman who’d made no promises, given Tate nothing but pleasure, and pulled him from a darkness he’d been wallowing in for far too long.

“Hey, Olivia,” Beckett said. “I was just using Tate as a Zamboni.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a game,”—her voice touched his ears and a pleasure-pain sensation cut through his gut—“but it looked to me like Tate smoked that puck past you.”

In any other situation, Tate would have found that both hilarious and sweet. But there were too many emotions dogging him. And hearing her voice now, he didn’t know how he could have mistaken Quinn’s voice for Olivia’s. They were very similar, no doubt. But Olivia’s held an in

tangible quality of…seriousness wasn’t quite right. Maybe worldliness. Olivia’s voice held a certain sultry, mysterious, knowing, jaded edge. Where Quinn’s was straightforward, open, compassionate and sweet.

“It’s not always about the score,” Beckett told her. “We’re working on techniques. Donovan’s mastering the corpse on ice. While he’s trying to figure out how to get back on his feet, I promised Eden I’d talk to you about our wedding.”

Tate rolled his eyes, pulled his knees in, and only now realized how the last week had caught up with him. He hadn’t been sleeping and he’d been working out like a lunatic. All of which he was feeling now.

He shook the ice from his jersey and looked up, tensed for the sexual punch at the sight of her. But she wasn’t the vixen he’d been expecting. Maybe the one he’d built up in his mind. She had wandered into the bench area were a half wall separated her from the ice. She was wearing faded, worn jeans and a sweater, one with an uneven hem and thick fringe all around the edge. Her hair was pulled back on top, loose on the bottom and a few stray strands fell across her forehead and around her face.

And man, what a face. He hadn’t been drunk that night. It hadn’t been too dark. And she was even more fucking beautiful in full fluorescent lighting.

Those big blue eyes shifted from Beckett to Tate, and they were filled with apprehension and apology. Her lips turned in a cautious smile, but it was real. And warm. And even sparkled with an enthusiastic little light, as if she were excited to see him.

Fuck me to hell and back.

Like a boxer guarding one area, he’d left another vulnerable. His heart took the brunt of this kick, and the pain put enough fear into him to spur some self-preservation. Because Tate knew in his gut Olivia hadn’t come on her own. He’d bet his next signing bonus—God willing he got one—that Quinn had marched home and given Olivia a piece of her mind two days ago.

He should have known Quinn would tell her. And God… Mortification burned through him in a thick swath of fire.

Beckett was asking her about catering the wedding, but Olivia never took her eyes off Tate. And Tate never moved from center ice.

“We chose the last Saturday in August,” Beckett said, “because that still gives us ten days for a honeymoon before training camps start.”

When Tate didn’t move toward her, the sparkle in her eyes dimmed. She returned her gaze to Beckett. “Thank you for the offer. I really appreciate it, and if I were going to be here, I would absolutely be all in. But I’m starting school soon, and in late August I’m going to be learning to use blades as well as you do, but for a whole different purpose.”

Beckett turned on the charm, pulling out the playboy smile he hadn’t used on anyone but Eden since his fiancé walked into his life. “I’ll make it worth your while. Next to Lily, Eden is the most precious thing in the world to me, and I’d do anything to make her happy.”

Olivia’s shoulders softened. Her head tilted. She pulled her hands out of her pockets to cross her arms against the chill. “That is so ridiculously sweet it makes my heart hurt, but the truth is, I’ve been working ten years for this forty-thousand dollar scholarship, and if I don’t use it, I lose it.”

Beckett propped a hip on the wall of the rink a few feet from Eden. “Forty grand? Where are you going?”

“Le Cordon Bleu.”

That soft, fluid French accent cut through Tate’s chest like a sharp knife through butter and set his groin on fire.

“Tate… N'arrete pas, n’arrete pas… Dieu…”

“Tate… Don’t stop, don’t stop… God…”

He’d ended up learning a little French that night. And even though the memories still thrilled him, they also cut at him. As did the fact that they’d spent eight intimate hours together and she hadn’t once mentioned a fucking forty thousand dollar scholarship. He’d tried to get her to talk about herself, but she’d always turned the conversation back around to him or to sex and he’d fallen for it, thinking he’d be able to talk her into a date, another night, something…

But no. She’d bailed before the sun came up. Such a player move.

He was done. He’d been through this. This trying and hitting a brick wall. He wanted to escape to the locker room, but she blocked his exit.