Scoring Hearts

4

Seriously. Every time I turn around, he’s in the midst of some form of debauchery. On the kitchen counter, the living room couch, the dining room table—dude’s gotten it on in every inch of the off-campus house the four of us share. He’s a total slut and completely unapologetic about it.

Granted, I’m not one to talk. I’m no monk, and neither are Logan and Tuck. What can I say? Hockey players are horny motherfuckers. When

we’re not on the ice, we can usually be found hooking up with a puck bunny or two. Or three, if your name is Tucker and it’s New Year’s Eve of last year.

“I’ve been texting you for the past hour, man,” Logan informs me.

His massive shoulders hunch forward as he swipes the whiskey bottle from the coffee table. Logan’s a bruiser of a defenseman, one of the best I’ve ever played with, and also the best friend I’ve ever had. His first name is John, but we call him Logan because it makes it easier to differentiate him from Tucker, whose first name is also John. Luckily, Dean is just Dean, so we don’t have to call him by his mouthful of a last name: Heyward-Di Laurentis.

“Seriously, where the hell have you been?” Logan grumbles.

“Study group.” I grab a Bud Light from the table and pop the tab.

“What’s this surprise you kept blabbing about?”

I can always tell how plastered Logan is based on the grammar of his texts. And tonight he must be s**t-faced, because I had to go full-on Sherlock to decrypt his messages. Suprz meant surprise. Gyabh had taken longer to decode, but I think it meant get your ass back here? But who knows with Logan.

From his perch on the couch, he grins so broadly it’s a wonder his jaw doesn’t snap off. He jerks his thumb at the ceiling and says, “Go upstairs and see for yourself.”

I narrow my eyes. “Why? Who’s up there?”

Logan snickers. “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re up to something?”

“Jeez,” Tucker pipes up. “You’ve got some major trust issues, G.”

“Says the asshole who left a live raccoon in my bedroom on the first day of the semester.”

Tucker grins. “Aw, come on, Bandit was f*****g adorable. He was your welcome back to school gift.”

I flip up my middle finger. “Yeah, well, your gift was a b***h to get rid of.” Now I scowl at him because I still remember how it took three pest control guys to de-raccoon my room.

“For f**k’s sake,” Logan groans. “Just go upstairs. Trust me, you’ll thank us for it later.”

The knowing look they exchange eases my suspicion. Kind of. I mean, I’m not about to let down my guard completely, not around these assholes.

I steal two more cans of beer on my way out. I don’t drink much during the season, but Coach gave us the week off to study for midterms and we still have two days of freedom left. My teammates, lucky bastards, seem to have no problem downing twelve beers and playing like champs the next day. Me? Even a buzz gives me a rip-roaring headache the morning after and then I skate like a toddler with his first pair of Bauers.

Once we’re back to a six-days-a-week practice schedule, my alcohol consumption will drop to the usual one/five limit. One drink on practice nights, five after a game. No exceptions.

I plan on taking full advantage of the time I have left.

Armed with my beers, I head upstairs to my room. The master bedroom.

Yup, I was not above playing the I’m-your-captain card to snag it, and trust me, it was worth the argument my teammates put up. Private bath, baby.

My door is ajar, a sight that snaps me right back into suspicion mode. I warily peer up at the frame to make sure there isn’t a bucket of blood up there, then give the door a tiny shove. It gives way and I inch through it, fully prepared for an ambush.

I get one.

Except it’s more of a visual ambush, because damn, the girl on my bed looks like she stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Now, I’m a guy. I don’t know the names of half the s**t she’s wearing. I see white lace and pink bows and lots of skin. And I’m happy.

“Took you long enough.” Kendall shoots me a sexy smile that says you’re about to get lucky, big boy, and my c**k reacts accordingly, thickening beneath my zipper. “I was giving you five more minutes before I took off.”

“I made it just in time then.” My gaze sweeps over her drool-worthy outfit, and then I drawl, “Aw, babe, is that all for me?”

Her blue eyes darken seductively. “You know it, stud.”

I’m well aware that we sound like characters from a cheesy porno. But come on, when a man walks into his bedroom and finds a woman who looks like this? He’s willing to reenact any trashy scene she wants, even one that involves him pretending to be a pizza guy delivering pies to a MILF.

Kendall and I first hooked up over the summer, out of convenience more than anything else because we both happened to be in the area during the break. We hit the bar a couple times, one thing led to another, and the next thing I know I’m fooling around with a hot sorority girl. But it fizzled out before midterms started, and aside from a few dirty texts here and there, I haven’t seen Kendall until now.

“I figured you might want to have some fun before practice starts up again,” she says, her manicured fingers toying with the tiny pink bow in the center of her bra.

“You figured right.”

A smile curves her lips as she rises to her knees. Damn, her t**s are practically pouring out of that lacy thing she’s wearing. She crooks a finger at me. “C’mere.”

I waste no time striding toward her. Because…again…I’m a guy.

“I think you’re a tad overdressed,” she remarks, then grasps the waistband of my jeans and teases the button open. She tugs on the zipper and a second later my d**k springs into her waiting hand. I haven’t done laundry in weeks so I’ve been going commando until I get my s**t together, and from the way her eyes flare with heat, I can tell she approves of the whole no-boxers thing.

When she wraps her fingers around me, a groan slips out of my throat.

Oh yeah. There’s nothing better than the feel of a woman’s hand on your c**k.

Nope, I’m wrong. Kendall’s tongue comes into play, and holy s**t, it’s so much better than her hand.

A

, Kendall snuggles up beside me and rests her head on my chest. Her lingerie and my clothes are strewn on the bedroom floor, along with two empty condom packages and the bottle of lube we hadn’t needed to c***k open.

The cuddling makes me apprehensive, but I can’t exactly shove her away and demand she hit the road, not when she clearly put a lot of effort into this seduction.

But that worries me too.

Women don’t get all decked out in expensive lingerie for a hookup, do they? I’m thinking no, and Kendall’s next words validate my uneasy thoughts.

“I missed you, baby.”

My first though is s**t.

My second thought is why?

Because in all the time we’ve been hooking up, Kendall hasn’t made a single effort to get to know me. If we’re not having s*x, she just talks non-stop about herself. Seriously, I don’t think she’s asked me a personal question about myself since we met.

“Uh…” I struggle for words, any sequence of them that doesn’t consist of I, miss, you, and too. “I’ve been busy. You know, midterms.”

“Obviously. We go to the same college. I was studying, too.” There’s an edge to her tone now. “Did you miss me?”

Fuck me sideways. What am I supposed to say to that? I’m not going to lie, because that’ll only lead her on. But I can’t be a d**k about it and admit she hasn’t even crossed my mind since the last time we hooked up.

Kendall sits up and narrows her eyes. “It’s a yes or no question, Garrett.

Did. You. Miss. Me.”

My gaze darts to the window. Yup, I’m on the second floor and actually contemplating jumping out the frickin’ window. That’s how badly I want to avoid this convo.

But my silence speaks volumes, and suddenly Kendall flies off the bed, her blond hair whipping in all directions as she scrambles for her clothes.

“Oh my God. You are such an ass! You don’t care about me at all, do you, Garrett?”

I get up and make a beeline for my discarded jeans. “I do care about you,” I protest. “But…”

She angrily shoves her panties on. “But what?”

“But I thought we were clear about what this was. I don’t want anything serious.” I shoot her a pointed look. “I told you that from the start.”

Her expression softens as she bites her lip. “I know, but…I just thought…”

I know exactly what she thought—that I’d fall madly in love with her, and our casual hookup would transform into the f*****g Notebook.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother laying down ground rules anymore. In my experience, no woman enters into a fling believing it’s going to stay a fling. She might say otherwise, maybe even convince herself she’s cool with a no-strings s*x-fest, but deep down, she hopes and prays it’ll lead to something deeper.