Playing Hard_A Chesapeake Blades Hockey Romance Read online

  "No, I mean work. As in, go in and punch a clock and actually work until it's time to punch out."

  "I don't get it. Why are you working?"

  "We all have to work, Johnson. That's how the bills get paid."

  "I get that part." He finally stood up, his body too close to her. Shannon took a hasty step back to put distance between them. Did he notice? If he did, he didn't say anything about it, just kept talking about work. "What I don't get is why. You get paid by the Blades, right?"

  Shannon's snort was immediate, loud and decidedly unladylike. "You're kidding, right?"

  "Are you saying you don't get paid?"

  "Oh, we get paid alright." Shannon pushed through the door, felt the cold night air wrap around her. She huddled deeper into the jacket and headed toward her car, Caleb keeping pace with her each step of the way.

  "Then why are you working a second job if you're getting paid?"

  Shannon rolled her eyes as she unlocked the car. "Because what we get paid amounts to chump change. Literally. It works out to be, maybe, a couple hundred a game. Maybe. And that's not everyone. Some of them aren't even making that. So yeah, pretty much everyone has another job."

  "You're pulling my leg."

  Shannon leaned her backside against the driver's door and looked up at Caleb. He was standing close—close enough that she could feel the tempting heat of his body, felt herself sway toward him. She stopped herself at the last second, thankful for the dark shadows hiding her blush, thankful that he didn't seem to notice what she'd done. At least, she didn't think he noticed. He was still watching her, those deep green eyes focused on her with laser intensity.

  "You're being serious, aren't you?"

  Serious? What was he talking about? Oh, that's right—they'd been talking about how little everyone on the team was paid.

  Shannon yanked her gaze from his and nodded. "As a heart attack. And as much as I'd love to stand here and discuss the gross unfairness of it with you, I really do need to get home."

  Caleb nodded and took a step back. He stopped, another frown creasing his face, then cocked his head to the side and watched her for a long minute. Like he was considering something.

  And yeah, there was a scary thought she didn't need. What could the man in front of her be thinking to put that expression in his face? Like he wasn't sure what to do, and just the mere thought of whatever he was thinking was enough to worry him.

  Shannon had no idea what that could be and she didn't want to find out. So she did what she always did, and let her mouth run free.

  "Are you constipated or something?"

  And yes, that definitely did the trick. Caleb's face cleared and he took another step back, like he couldn't get away from her fast enough. Then he stopped and oh shit, she was in so much trouble because one corner of his mouth curled into a devilish grin.

  "You really don't have a filter at all, do you?"

  "I do. I just don't use it very often."

  He nodded then did something completely unexpected: he stepped closer. Shannon curled her hands and jammed them behind her back, afraid she'd do something really stupid, like reach up and trace the fullness of his lower lip.

  "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

  "Uh—" She snapped her mouth closed, frowning as she tried to think of something, anything, that she had to do. Her mind was disgustingly blank.

  "You should come to the game with me."

  "Uh—what?"

  "Come to the game with me. We can watch from the owner's suite."

  "The game? You mean, the Banners? Aren't you, uh, aren't you going to be playing?"

  A shadow flashed across his eyes but only for a second before it was replaced with a carefree sparkle. "Not yet. I'll be cleared to play on Saturday. So how about it? Feel like going with me?"

  "Um…" Shannon hesitated, her mind still trying to deal with the unexpected disappointment. He was asking her to go to the game, that was it. Not a date, not like she'd been afraid of.

  Not like she'd been hoping.

  He simply wanted her to go to the game, that was it. Two hockey players, hanging out and chilling. Nothing more.

  "Um, yeah, sure. Okay."

  "Perfect."

  And then he did the one thing she hadn't been expecting: he reached out and cupped her chin with one large hand then leaned down and kissed her.

  He. Kissed. Her.

  Just the briefest touching of lips against lips. Warm. Soft. Almost tender. Certainly nothing that anyone would write down in their diary, if they had one.

  Which did nothing to explain the heat flaring inside her, the warmth that spread from where his mouth touched hers all the way down to her toes. Her heart slammed against her ribs, her breath lodged in her throat. At least she didn't do anything completely stupid, like jump into his arms and jam her tongue down his throat.

  Yeah, right. Only because Caleb was already pulling away, a small grin on his mouth as he looked down at her.

  "I'll call you tomorrow with the details."

  Shannon managed to nod. At least, she thought she did. Not that it mattered because Caleb was already walking away. She watched him get into his expensive SUV, saw him wave as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  Only then was she able to move. She jerked open the door and dropped into the driver's seat, cursing herself for not warming the car up.

  Cursing herself for letting one tiny little kiss fry her brain. It was just a kiss. Not even a real kiss. It was barely even a peck.

  And it meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Yeah, sure it didn't. That's why her heart was still fluttering and why heat still raced over her, warming her enough that she didn't even need to turn up the heat.

  One little kiss, my ass.

  Yeah, she was definitely in trouble.

  With a capital T.

  Chapter Six

  "You're being unreasonable."

  "And you're being an ass."

  Caleb clenched his jaw against the retort, knowing that Taylor was expecting it. He needed to catch her off-guard, not play into her expectations. That was the only way he was going to get what he wanted.

  He'd have it already if he hadn't been so fucking preoccupied last night. How the hell could he have forgotten to get Shannon's number from her? Especially after telling her he'd call her today. If he hadn't been so focused on that full mouth of hers, on the way she had tasted after that damn kiss that was embarrassingly brief—

  He still wasn't sure why he kissed her. It hadn't been planned. At least, not like that. The first kiss should have been one that knocked her off her feet. One that emptied her mind of everything except him and the next kiss. And the next one after that, until she was trembling in his arms, ready to follow wherever he led.

  Yeah, his fucking mistake. But she'd been leaning against the car, her head tilted back as she looked at him, full of attitude and sass. He didn't stop to think, just leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, just to see what she would do.

  Which was nothing. No clinging to him, no swift intake of shocked breath, no flash of desire. Shannon just stood there, staring up at him, her face scrunched up in confusion.

  Not exactly the reaction he'd been hoping for.

  Fine. No problem. He could rectify that starting tonight.

  If he could manage to get her damn phone number from Taylor.

  He leaned against the boards and crossed his arms in front of him, a small grin on his face. "Come on, Tay-Tay. It's just a number. What's it going to hurt?"

  She slid to a stop next to him, spraying snow against his legs. She raised her stick and he almost flinched, worried that she was going to slash him across the chest with it. Instead of hitting him, she simply used the blade to point at him.

  "No. I don't know what the hell you're up to, but no. I'm not going to help you set-up my friend that way."

  "Set her up? What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "Just what I said. I know you, Caleb. I know ho
w you operate. So you can just wipe that Look-At-Me-I'm-So-Charming grin off that stupid face. It's not happening."

  Caleb's mouth flattened but only for a second. He schooled his face into something a little less charming, a little more offended. "I can't believe you'd even think that—"

  "Oh, please. Don't bother, Johnson. It's not working."

  "Tay-Tay—"

  She cut him off with another slice of her stick, this one even closer to his face. He jerked back and almost lost his balance, caught himself before his feet shot out from under him. Wouldn't that be just perfect, to land on his ass in front of Taylor and have her laugh at him? Or worse, have her go back and tell everyone about it.

  "Shannon isn't one of your playthings, Caleb. Let it go."

  "I never said she was a plaything."

  "Really? I'm supposed to believe that you actually like her?"

  "Yeah. I do." It wasn't a lie, which surprised him as much as it obviously surprised Taylor. He did like Shannon—when he wasn't trying to keep from rolling his eyes at whatever came out of her mouth, like when she asked if he was constipated. Or maybe that was why he liked her: she didn't have a filter. At all. She didn't simper and coo around him, didn't fall all over herself trying to impress him.

  She was a challenge. And Caleb liked nothing better than a challenge.

  So of course he liked her. It made perfect sense when he thought of it that way.

  Taylor jammed the blade of her stick against the ice and stared at him, her gaze too direct, too intense. He almost looked away, caught himself at the last second. Looking away would be bad. Looking away would make him seem guilty—and he wasn't. Not at all. It was just that his idea of liking was completely different than Taylor's…in this instance.

  Caleb grinned, hoping it would throw Taylor off-balance, then shrugged. "Fine. Don't give me her number and I won't take her to the game tonight. Then she'll be sitting home, waiting and thinking exactly what you don't want her to think and then you can explain why I stood her up."

  "You're seriously taking her out tonight?"

  "Well, I was. But since I have no way of calling—"

  "Don't try to put that on me. If you were that worried about it, you would have gotten her number." Taylor tilted her head to the side, frowning. "Unless you already asked her and she wouldn't give it to you."

  "I didn't—"

  "Oh, man. I would have loved to see her put you in your place."

  "She didn't—"

  "Yeah, right." She started skating past him, heading toward the players' bench. Caleb hurried after her, shuffling his feet along the ice so he wouldn't slip and fall. Was she really going to leave and not give him Shannon's number? No way. No fucking way.

  "Taylor, just give me her number."

  "Not happening."

  What the hell? She was serious. She really wasn't going to give it to him.

  Something like panic swept over him. No, that couldn't be right, he never panicked. Maybe it was just disbelief that this wasn't working the way he wanted. That had to be it.

  A dozen different persuasive arguments raced through his mind. He dismissed all of them. Taylor was immune to his charms and he couldn't think of anything else to do.

  Well shit. This wasn't going the way he planned at all.

  Unless—

  "Then can you call her for me? That way I can at least talk to her and make arrangements for tonight." His voice carried just a hint of desperation, just enough to sound convincing. He ignored the fact that he wasn't acting and chalked it up to simple surprise that things weren't going the way he wanted.

  Taylor spun around, the surprise on her face matching his own—not that he'd admit it to her. Hell, he couldn't even admit it to himself.

  "You're really serious, aren't you?"

  He jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and nodded. "Yeah, I am."

  She studied him for a long minute through narrowed eyes, like she was trying to gauge his sincerity. Or like she was trying to figure him out. Yeah. Good luck with that. Nobody figured him out. Ever.

  Taylor finally blew out a quick breath, her gaze darting to the stick in her hand before shooting back to him. "Fine. I'll call her for you. Just give me five minutes to change. But if I find out you're playing her—"

  "I'm not."

  She muttered something under her breath, too low for him to hear, then spun around and headed back to the locker room. Caleb released his own sigh then made his way off the ice and over to the metal bleachers. He sat down, stretched his ankle, then looked around.

  The place was a fucking dump. Several of the overhead lights were burned out, and the insulation covering the steel ceiling beams was worn in more than a few spots. The warped and scratched metal bleachers had seen better days. So had the rubber mats surrounding the scarred and chipped boards around the ice. At least the glass looked relatively new.

  Maybe, if new meant replaced sometime in the last three years.

  Christ, how could anyone even play here? It reminded him of one of the rinks he played at when he was growing up, before he'd started climbing his way up on the road to the pros. It wasn't just how the place looked—it was the smell, too. That odd combination of stale water and sweat, of damp gear shoved into a bag and left to ripen for too long. Of faded dreams and hopes and—

  What the fuck was his problem? He dropped his head, reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to make his eyes water. Why would those thoughts even pop into his mind? He had no idea. All he knew was that he didn't have to worry about shit like that now. He'd made it to where he wanted to be: on top. Not in some shit league, pretending to play at a game most people didn't understand. Only the best made it to where he was now.

  And the best didn't play in shit holes like this.

  Taylor's voice pulled him back to the present. He shifted on the bench, watched as she moved toward him, the phone held to her ear. She came to a stop a few feet away, frowning as she watched him and listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone.

  Fuck. Had she called Shannon already? Of course she had. Taylor probably didn't want to take the chance of him seeing the number.

  Right. Like he wouldn't have it for himself by the end of the night anyway.

  "Are you sure? Because I can tell him to get lost, no problem."

  Caleb started voicing his objections but Taylor simply waved him away as she listened to whatever Shannon was saying. She nodded once, made a soft humming sound, then frowned and shot him a dirty look. "And you don't think this is a bad idea?"

  "Taylor—"

  She waved him off once more and moved back a step. "If you want to, fine. Just don't forget what I told you. Yeah, I know, but still…yeah, okay."

  Taylor blew out a quick sigh, lowered the phone, and looked over at him. "What time should she meet you there?"

  "I was going to pick her up—"

  Taylor's laugh was sharp and abrupt. "Nice try. What time?"

  "I was going to take her to dinner first."

  Taylor held up one finger, silencing him as she listened to whatever was being said before moving the phone away from her mouth. "Dinner isn't happening because she doesn't get off work until five."

  "Then how about five-thirty?"

  Taylor rolled her eyes. "That's not going to work. She has to go home and change and stuff."

  "Then—"

  "Six? Yeah, I'll tell him. Just remember what I said." Taylor disconnected the call then jammed the phone into the pocket of her warm-up pants. "She said she'd meet you in front of the will-call window at six sharp."

  Caleb pulled a deep breath in through his nose and willed his jaw to unclench. "Is there a reason you wouldn't let me talk to her?"

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Hm, let me think. Maybe so I could make the arrangements myself?"

  "No need to. They're made. Just meet her outside at the will-call window at six. Simple as that."

  "It's not as simple as that."r />
  "Sure it is. Nothing could be simpler." Taylor's smile flat-lined and she stepped forward to level a single finger at him. "And I'm telling you right now, Caleb. Don't you dare play her. If I find out—"

  "I'm not playing her."

  "Excuse me if I don't believe that. You know, on second thought, go ahead and try it. Shannon will eat you up and spit you out if you try. She'll shred you. And when she's done, if there's anything left, I'll have a go at you myself."

  Caleb's grin felt cold on his face. "Am I supposed to be worried?"

  "If you're smart, yeah."

  Anger washed over him—at Taylor's words, at her obvious low expectations of him, at his own reaction. He had no intention of playing Shannon. Did he want to have fun? Absolutely. Was he looking for a commitment? Not in this lifetime. And there was nothing wrong with that, not if he was upfront about it—and he was always upfront. Taylor making assumptions otherwise only pissed him off.

  And it wasn't like it was any of her business anyway.

  "Maybe you should let Shannon decide, don't you think? She's a big girl. Something tells me she wouldn't appreciate you running interference. Or whatever this is that you think you're doing."

  Taylor laughed, the sound mocking his words. "Just remember what I said."

  "Yeah, I'll do that." Did she catch the sarcasm in his voice? No, probably not. She was already walking away, heading for the door leading to the plush offices upstairs.

  Leaving him standing there, trying to figure out why her words of caution—her threats—irritated him so much.

  Chapter Seven

  "You okay? You look uncomfortable."

  Shannon shrugged and forced a smile to her face, barely nodding in response to Caleb's question. Uncomfortable? Why should she be uncomfortable? This was nothing more than a hockey game, right?

  Yeah. Sure.

  She'd never been so uncomfortable in her life. It was like she a was in a giant fishbowl, on display for everyone to see. Or like she was some exotic specimen on display behind a glass wall at a weird zoo. People were staring. At him. At her. At them.

  And she hated it.

  She knew Caleb would be following dress code and be in a suit, so she wore black slacks and a nice sweater instead of jeans. Not because she wanted to look nice for him—she didn't, even if it had taken forever to decide on what outfit to wear. She had taken time with her hair instead of pulling it back in her usual ponytail. She'd even tossed on a little make-up…just in case.