Puck You: A Reverse Harem Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Her Hockey Harem Book 1) Read online

  We don’t need some newspaper cunt to rehabilitate our image. If the refs just let me play the game my way, the Stormbreakers would rule the whole damn league without breaking a sweat. Only problem is, my way tends to get me in a little trouble. Okay… a lot of trouble. But it’s not my fault that none of the pansies on the other teams know how to handle me. That’s their issue to tangle with, not mine.

  “You fuckin’ showed her, Don,” says Chase. Chase is my fellow winger on the squad. Most of my job in a game is to give him space to work his magic. “You see her face when you spread your legs? Looked like she wasn’t sure whether to run away or drop to her knees and get to work.”

  I sigh. Chase and I might be partners, and I trust the guy with my life, but I can’t deny his mouth has a tendency to run away with him.

  “Yeah, well.” Donovan’s locker is next to mine. He’s already down to his underwear. He’s always the first one out, leading the team. And I’m always right behind him. We came onto the squad as rookies together, we’re as good as brothers. “She needs to know we’re not gonna be pushed around. She might have talked a big game in her column, but this is real life and she’s gotta face some consequences.”

  “Looked fuckin’ good, though,” Ash, one of our defensemen, drawled. He’s grinning to himself like it’s all a big joke. Figures he wouldn’t take this seriously. I don’t think that guy can take anything seriously. You can tell from the way he shows up for practice still wearing his cowboy hat. Even our very own down-home country boy has a bone to pick with Madeleine, same as the rest of us. “Those little heels with the tight skirt wrapped around her hips. Kinda makes a fella just wanna…”

  “Fuck her.” I slam my locker door with a clang, silencing the conversation.

  I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t even wanna think about those big hazel eyes or those fuck-me lips of hers. I hate the bitch. But even then, when she was standing in front of us with those elegant curves on full display… The way she flushed at Don confronting her with just what she’d gotten herself into…

  Fuck.

  With Madeleine Christensen in the building, it’s hard to think about anything else.

  “Yeah,” Garrett is one of our defensemen. If there’s something outrageous to be said, he’s the one saying it. But right now, he’s just putting what we’re all thinking into words. “Fuck her—I’d like to.”

  Piotr, our big Russian goalie, has his shirt off and is unbuckling his pants. “She was showing off.” He’s a man of few words, so it’s worth listening when he speaks. “She didn’t used to be that hot.” He pauses for a moment, belt held tight in his hands. “Did she?”

  “You see her at the Hall of Fame induction last season?” asks Chase. If any of us would remember it, it’s him: After all, it was his famous dad who was the one being inducted. “I dunno, man. She can turn it on pretty good, you ask me.”

  “Who cares how good she looks?” I snarl. “That story she wrote about my fight two seasons ago got me suspended for three goddamn months.” The famous brawl outside Club Pulse. In reality, I’d just been trying to break up a fight between some pissant and his girlfriend. To hear her tell it, I was just a thug throwing punches at strangers. “The only thing I want from her is a little payback.”

  Off come my underwear. We’re all naked now. Six big, athletic guys in one tiny locker room. Ash had once said that if we didn’t want to play hockey anymore we could just install a webcam and make about the same money. He might be the team joker, but he probably had a point with that one.

  “Oh, but if you want payback…” Garrett again. He’s smirking like a wildman. “Why not take it out in the form of some of that sweet pussy, am I right?” He laughs, gyrating his hips, his cock whirling. Staring at my teammates’ dicks isn’t really my thing, but with all of us naked in the room, it’s impossible for us not to notice that all of our temperatures are a little up. Other things, too.

  “Don’t worry, boys.” Donovan is fully naked now, but he’s speaking with Armani confidence. Piotr might be the biggest guy on the team, and I might be the toughest, but Don can grab the attention of anyone and everyone when he speaks. Whatever kinda raw magnetism a guy can have, he has it. “You all saw her in there. She’s begging for it. We’ll all get a piece before too long.”

  “Okay, which one of you bastards took my pho—” I hear Madeleine’s voice first, yelling from outside the door. It’s obvious what’s about to happen. Before anyone can think to stop her, she’s barrelled into the locker room.

  We’re glistening with sweat in the locker room’s near-sauna heat. We’re all fully naked. And the woman we’ve all just been talking about hate-fucking has run right in.

  I’m the first one to speak up. I turn, widen my stance so that she can see just what she’s dealing with, look her straight in the eye and make my demand. “What the hell do you want now?”

  4

  Madeleine

  One second, I’m furious. I get that they hate me and all, but I can’t believe that they’ve actually go so far as to steal my phone. I storm past the coach and head straight for the locker room. I’m a woman on a mission.

  And the next moment, I’m a deer in the headlights—if those headlights were six beefy dicks swinging between 12 muscular thighs.

  I’m not exactly sheltered. I’ve had a couple of boyfriends. Mostly losers trying to hitch themselves to my star or slick pricks more interested in their careers than in me. But I’d never seen anyone who’s even close to being as in shape as the entire first team of the Seattle Stormbreakers are.

  This is any woman’s dream. And I’m not just any woman. I’ve been reporting on the Stormbreakers for more than half a decade, noting down every rumour of Donovan Stone’s illicit liaisons and Garrett Fleming’s wild parties. Seeing the legends in the flesh is more than I expected when I woke up this morning. Specifically seeing them in the flesh…and nothing else. A heat throbs beneath the fabric of my panties and shoots straight up into my core as my lips fall open and my eyes widen, staring.

  They might hate me, and I’m not so fond of them either—but seeing them like this, I’m left gawking at them all like a starstruck fan.

  The first to speak is Jared, the team’s enforcer. A few years back, he got involved in a nightclub brawl and my report on it got him suspended. A real tough-guy with the reputation to back it up. Up close, I can see just how tough he is. Layers of rippling muscle thick and taut enough to bounce a quarter off of. I’ve seen him play some of the biggest guys in the league off the ice. Now I can’t help but wonder what he could do if he were to put all that power to…other uses.

  It takes me several long seconds to come out of my reverie.

  “My phone.” I say drawing myself up to my full height as I try to regain some composure. It’s a little late for that. I can feel the heat in my cheeks. I know they’ve seen me staring. I can feel how wet my pussy has gotten, too, though I pray to God that they can’t tell that.

  “Do any of us look like we have a phone on us right now?” Chase is the one to speak up this time. He spreads his arms slightly, letting me get a good look at him. That famous cocky smile on his boyish features makes him look like every high school jock I ever had a crush on.

  One look at Chase and you can see the confidence that comes with being a member of the Halloway family. His dad’s one of the sport’s all-time greats, MVP for half his career, Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. His brother’s the captain and star of the San Francisco Rush, a legend in the making. Chase has always been the black sheep. He’s talented, but his motormouth and ego mean he’s never lived up to the family name. That was how I first made an enemy of him: a few choice quotes from dear ol’ dad in a profile of the Stormbreakers’ newest star.

  Looking at him naked, I suddenly think there might be reasons for his confidence other than being from a sporting dynasty. Any man carrying around that kind of package would have plenty of reasons to be smug even before you added world-class sports s
kills and a famous name to the mix.

  The men have stopped everything they’re doing just to focus on me. I see the glint in their eyes, something predatory and almost…hungry. Chase is still gesturing, showing off that perfect body. Jared’s arms are crossed over his broad chest. The rest are posing like underwear models, sans the underwear. Now it’s hard to tell who’s staring—me or them.

  “My phone’s missing from my purse and I know it was one of you who I took it.” I try to stay angry, but the only thing that’s keeping my temperature up now is pure, undeniable, irresistible lust.

  “We don’t have time for this.” Donovan steps forward from the rest of the group. He moves up next to me and turns to face the team. My heart’s pounding so hard from being near him I’m surprised he can’t take my pulse from where he’s standing. He’s so commanding. I can feel the way that the men hang off his every word. And with an ass like his… Fuck. I’d like to hang off his hips while I ride him like a stallion. “If anyone here took Madeleine’s phone, give it back.”

  “Aw, hell,” Ash Macfarlane grumbles. Still naked, he swaggers across the room like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He bends over, affording me a hell of a view of his own toned ass as he fishes through his pile of discarded clothes. He stalks back to me with my phone in hand. He doesn’t look guilty. He’s smirking like he’s proud of himself, sticking that gorgeous chest out in defiance.

  I should have figured it’d be him. Ash might have a reputation as the good guy on this team of bad boys, but anyone who knows him says different. Everything’s a big joke to him. He’s never met a rule he didn’t want to break just to say that he had. That includes a few choice misdemeanours back in his teens, a juvenile criminal record I’d splashed all over The Shredder’s front pages.

  “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Don.” Why isn’t he apologising to me directly? “Just thought I’d get a rise outta the little lady.”

  “Is that so?” I move forward to place myself between the boys, literally pressing myself between their bodies to take center stage. If they want to act like I’m not even there, they’ll have a harder time of it now. But being surrounded on both sides by all this male flesh makes my heart race. I feel my pussy throb again as I take a daring step closer. “Judging by the look of you all, I’d say it’s me getting a rise out of you.”

  Ash’s cock is starting to fill out from the attention I’m paying it, especially with the way I’ve all but pressed myself up against him. I’m desperate to reach out and grab it. In fact, my willpower is fading to do anything but take Ash’s cock in my hand when Donovan speaks up, bringing me back to my senses for the second time in so many minutes.

  “Alright. Ash, give the woman her phone back. And I think you’d better escort Madeleine out of here before she faints from overheating. The rest of you, get dressed and get on the ice.” He claps his hands in two short bursts.

  Just like that, the guys break out of their line-up and return to their stations to dress. All but Ash—who only has eyes for me. But as his cock turns to a full hard-on, he finally turns and grabs a pair of boxer briefs to throw back on.

  I can still see how stiff he is beneath the soft grey fabric when he sighs in my direction and cocks his head toward the door.

  5

  Ash

  I’d rather be out on the ice with my team than babysitting Madeleine, but I follow Don’s instructions all the same. Everyone might think I’m nothing more than the team’s asshole resident prankster, but even I know not to break everyone’s focus for the sake of a stupid joke gone too far.

  Grabbing the street clothes I’ve just changed out of, I pull them on, making sure to stay flexed for Madeleine since I know she’s still staring. When I turn back to her, her eyes are lingering on me, hazel orbs glittering even though she’s trying to play it cool. She’s clearly decided that she wants to stare us all down, dare us to fight back against her defiance. She should have known that that just meant that she’d be even more fun to break. She leans against the wall, her arms crossed and a pout as bratty as it is sexy on her face.

  It takes everything in me not to turn around and do something I’d regret right now. It’d be so easy to show her just what I think of her smug little attitude. Press her right up against the wall, make sure I get to be the first one on the team to get my payback. The first one to make her scream and cry out my name and admit that she really shouldn’t have fucked with us over the years.

  I might not be as short-tempered as Jared or as impulsive as Garrett, but I just can’t stand people acting like they have power over me. That’s got me into trouble with referees, coaches, and the league as a whole throughout the years. Now I can tell it’s going to get me in trouble with my team’s five-foot-six brunette problem.

  The rest of the team dress in their gear and head out onto the ice, skates in hand and sticks at the ready. I turn back around and grab Madeleine by the arm. Compared to the players I’m used to manhandling on the ice, she weighs nothing, easily pushed around as I drag her straight out of the locker room and down the hallway back towards the concourse.

  “Here’s your damn phone back,” I snap, handing it over. It had been so easy to snatch out of her purse when she’d walked into the room. I saw taking it as a simple message that we weren’t going to just say what we wanted when it came to her—we’d be doing anything we wanted to her, too. There were no boundaries we wouldn’t cross, no barriers to what we’d do to make her time here as inconvenient and difficult as it could be. The faster she realized that, the quicker she’d be out of our lives.

  “Stealing my phone? What are you, 16 years old?” She snatches it out of my hand. The motion puts her close to me, but I stand my ground. The way that she stepped to me when I was talking to Don, I know that she’s willing to try and use that hot little body of hers to throw me off-balance. As far as I’m concerned, two can play at that game. I want her to feel all of me, let her know that she’s dealing with someone just as defiant and confident as she wants to think she is.

  “Oh, that one’s rich.” I keep my voice down and a smile on my face, but I can feel my pulse racing with anger at her challenging me like this. I’m not gonna let her get away without landing a few blows of my own on that big puffed up ego of hers. “I’m not the one who built a whole career on bullshit gossip like I’m a high school girl.”

  That pushes things just a little too far.

  “You bastards really think this is funny?” She tries to swing her fist into my chest out of frustration, but I catch her tiny wrist in my hand and seize her, stopping her motion dead as she slices through the air.

  Suddenly she’s completely under my power.

  Something tells me she might even like it, too.

  I smirk, not letting her go. I’m barely even holding her. She could easily break free if she wanted to. But the way that she’s pointing herself at me, the way that she’s looking up at me…. She knows what I could do if I chose to. I reckon maybe part of her actually wants me to do it. Pull her against me, claim a little easy revenge from those pouty lips of hers as I press my own against them.

  “I kinda wanted to see if you had any nudes saved,” I tease instead. “Always did wonder about what you’re hiding under all those prim little shirts and skirts.”

  “Keep wondering,” she shoots back, pulling her hand away from me with a dismissive jerk. She rearranges her clothes immediately, straightening her skirt and brushing long strands of hair out of her face as she tries to regain her composure. “I don’t go around letting just anyone get a look at the goods. Unlike some people.”

  “Given the show you just got from me and the boys, I’d say we’re due to see something in return.” I stare her up and down, my eyes tracing her nimble, sexy figure. She looks good enough to eat. Good enough to fucking devour. I can tell that if I were only to push her a little in the right direction, she’d crack under the pressure.

  Shame that I don’t have the time for that right now. As I’m
heading back to the locker room, I turn around. She’s stood checking her phone with a little furrow in her brow. Maybe there really were nudes on there. I was never really gonna look. I do have some standards. I wanted to give her a little scare.

  “You should head to the stands and catch the practice first-hand,” I tell her. “All those stories about us and I bet you’ve never come to a single game.” She’d hardly have been welcome if she had, but the point remained. “You’ve never seen anything like us when we’re going hard on the ice. Or off it, for that matter. Maybe you’ll see somethin’ you like for a change.”

  She only glowers in return, cheeks caught up in a soft pink blush. “Somehow, Ash, I doubt that.”

  Christ. She’s not sure whether she wants to be pissed at me, or if she wants to tear her panties off and jump on me like a cowboy with a bucking bronco. I can’t blame her, either. Most women who find themselves thrown in this deep with the whole squad would barely be able to string words together. But even as I shrug and turn, I can feel her lingering. Watching me go.

  That makes me chuckle. That’s certainly not the action of a girl who’s desperate to just get on with her job and be rid of a bunch of bastards she can’t stand. It’s almost like she enjoyed the way I was teasing her. And if teasing her is the best way to break her…I guess that’s exactly what we’ll do.

  6

  Piotr

  It’s the first practice of the new season and I’m stuck doing puck handling drills. Elsewhere on the ice, the guys skate around, building up speed and dribbling or trying out a few tentative passing drills. But I’m left tapping that little black disc back and forth, moving it around the goal area all on my own. It’s all by the coach’s oder. No one will do save drills with me just yet. Even just for practice, the guys will need to get their confidence back after the long break before Coach can allow them to take me on.