Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
After a childhood spent being dragged around the country by her hockey coach father, Hayden Houston intends to take some time to figure out her future. Whether that future will include her currently off-again boyfriend remains to be seen. What it certainly won’t include is the for-one-night-only guy she just met at a bar.
It seems hockey star Brody Croft did not get the memo about being temporary. Big, bold and driven, he’s dedicated in everything he does. Up till now, that’s been his team—the one owned by Hayden’s dad. But his night with Hayden has sparked something he didn’t expect. The two of them are good together. Really good. There’s a connection he’s never experienced before, one he knows they’d be wrong to ignore. Even with a game-fixing scandal testing both their loyalties—to teammates, to friends…to family.
Part of Hayden wants to turn tail and run. A complicated relationship with a bad boy hockey player is exactly what she never wanted. But when it comes to Brody, Hayden is realizing that people can be so much more than what they seem.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
One
“I really need to get laid,” Hayden Houston said with a sigh. She reached for the glass on the smooth mahogany tabletop and took a sip of red wine. The slightly bitter liquid eased her thirst but did nothing to soothe her frustration.
The pictures staring at her from the walls of the Ice House Bar didn’t help, either. Action shots of hockey players mid–slap shot, framed rookie cards, team photos of the Chicago Warriors—it seemed as if the sport haunted her everywhere she went. Sure, she was a team owner’s daughter, but occasionally it would be nice to focus on something other than hockey.
Like sex.
Across from her, Darcy White grinned. “We haven’t seen each other in two years and that’s all you’ve got to say? Come on, Professor, no anecdotes about life in Berkeley? No insightful lectures about Impressionist art?”
“I save the insightful lectures for my students. And as for anecdotes, none of them involve sex so let’s not waste time with those.”
She ran her hand through her hair and discovered that all the bounce she’d tried to inject into it before heading to the Ice House Bar had deflated. Volume-enhancing mousse? Yeah, right. Apparently, nothing could make her stick-straight brown hair look anything other than stick-straight.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Darcy said. “Why do you have sex on the brain?”
“Because I’m not getting any.”
Darcy sipped her wine. “Aren’t you seeing someone back in California? Dan? Drake?”
“Doug,” Hayden corrected.
“How long have you been together?”
“Two months.”
“And you still haven’t had sex?”
“Nope.”
“You’re kidding, right? He’s not down with getting it on?” Darcy paused, looking thoughtful. “Or should I say, he’s not up with it?”
“Oh, he’s up. He just wants, and I quote, ‘to get to know each other fully before we cross the intimacy bridge.’”
Her friend hooted. “The intimacy bridge? Girl, he sounds like a total loser. Dump him. Now. Before he brings up the intimacy bridge again.”
“We’re actually on a break right now,” Hayden admitted.
“After two months?”
“Yeah. Before I left I told him I needed some space.”
“Space? Uh-uh. I think what you need is a new boyfriend.”
God, that was the last thing she wanted. Toss her line in the dating pool and start fishing again? No, thank you. After three failed relationships in five years, Hayden had decided to quit falling for bad boys and focus on the good ones. And Doug Lloyd was definitely a good one. He taught a Renaissance course at Berkeley, he was intelligent and witty, and he valued love and commitment as much as she did. Having grown up with a single father, all Hayden had ever wanted was a partner she could build a home and grow old with.
After her mom died in a car accident when Hayden was a baby, her dad had given up on finding love again, opting instead to spend more than twenty years focusing on his hockey-coaching career. He’d finally remarried three years ago, but she suspected loneliness, rather than love, had driven him to do so. Why else would he have proposed to a woman after four months of dating? A woman who was twenty-nine years his junior. A woman he was in the process of divorcing, no less.
Well, she had no intention of following her dad’s example. She wasn’t going to spend decades alone and then jump into marriage with someone totally unsuitable.
Doug held the same mindset. He was a traditionalist through and through, a believer that marriage should be valued and not rushed into. Besides, he had a rock-hard body that made her mouth water. He’d even let her touch it…once. They’d been kissing on the couch in the living room of her San Francisco town house and she’d slid her hands underneath his button-down shirt. Running her fingers over his rippled chest, she’d murmured, “Let’s move this into the bedroom.”