by Anya Nowlan
“What’s so funny, baby?” Heath asked, confusion in his voice, though he planted a kiss on her neck that she didn’t entirely hate.
“I just realized you’ve fucked over half my family today, one way or another.”
“Oh, you say that as if I’m done with you,” Heath said with a chuckle.
That sobered her up well enough. Sable moved forward, forcing Heath to pull out, and she had her pants up before he caught onto what she was doing.
“That’s well and good, but I’m done with you, lover bear,” she said, zipping up and pulling the door open before Heath could do so much as pull up his boxers.
She strode out of the utility closet they’d just intimately shared with long, purposeful steps, grinning to herself as she left one of the biggest stars in the country standing around with a dazed look on his face and his cock hanging out.
Not that she wasn’t going to think about that cock very, very fondly from now on. But she couldn’t very well let him know that, right?
This year can’t get any weirder.
Sable was going to be wrong about that. It definitely could get weirder.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sable
“I can’t believe this shit,” Jax hissed, tugging at the collar of his jersey as the Shifter Grove Shovelers were waiting for the final third to start.
They were behind by one goal on their own home ice, the second game against the San Diego Predators having gone nowhere but south since the faceoff began.
“What?” Heath mumbled, barely looking at his friend and teammate as he searched for a familiar face in the stands.
A face that had made herself either entirely scarce or wasn’t there at all. It was the latter that had kept Heath fucking up all game, missing easy shots and getting plowed into by fucking grinders who hadn’t managed to even touch him last game. It was like a bit of the magic was gone that evening, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why that was.
It was because Heath hadn’t seen or heard from Sable in more than a week now. And he couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t directly related to the little minx who had made his head spin more than a week ago in San Diego, and who had since been very, very talented at ignoring the fact he existed altogether. Which wouldn’t have really been a problem if he could have managed to think about anything other than her since their little quickie in the supply closet.
“It’s this damn jersey. It’s like a size too small. And some of the guys had to grab their personal sticks, long retired, because we didn’t have enough gear, and half the stuff came in at wrong sizes.”
“Yeah, the supply team’s been fucking up hardcore,” Cannon agreed, before the whistle sounded and they could jump on the ice again.
Truth be told, the Shovelers didn’t really have a supply team. Most of their organization was in shambles since the team had gotten suddenly moved from Chicago to the small Idaho town, and frankly, thinks weren’t looking that promising in regard to the “ecosystem” that every team needed.
While the players were getting better and better—Coach’s wise assumptions on the fact that some wilderness and fresh air would do them good and help them connect with their shifter sides—everything else had been going steadily downhill. The ice rink, the Shifter Grove Ice Arena, was finally finished, placed a good ten miles outside of Shifter Grove in hopes of keeping the bustle at least somewhat out of the small town when the Shovelers were playing local games, but without a dedicated team to run the place, it was really only a giant hockey rink and that was that.
Many of the people who’d comprised the Chicago Bluehawks support squad in Chicago had chosen not to move along with the players, and it left some very visible and palpable holes in the organization that were yet to be filled. Luckily for Heath, he was too busy obsessing about Sable to really notice these things.
He cracked his shoulders as he took to the ice, finding his spot so Cannon could pass him the puck at the first opportunity and he could try stealing another goal. But his heart wasn’t in it, and as he had done during the first two thirds, he was doing it again now—scanning every face in the crowd for Sable. His auburn-haired girl, though he had a few rude words in mind about her, considering the way she’d been ignoring him.
He’d found her number the very next morning, swiping it away from the Predators’ organization thanks to one well-placed call and pretending to be someone on the Shovelers’ team needing to get in touch with her about gear logistics for the upcoming two games in Shifter Grove. She’d picked up at once but the moment she’d recognized who he was, she’d started obviously screening his calls.
But Heath hadn’t been driven away. Oh no. Her playing coy only made him go harder. So he found her on SassyDate and got ignored. And then he’d gotten her address much the same as he had the phone number and he’d been bombarding her with flowers and thoughtful little gifts every damn day and still, still the woman would not take his calls.
She’s making you go crazy. Snap out of it.
Far easier said than done, it would appear.
Heath shook his head, trying to clean the cobwebs out and give the game the attention it deserved. He burst into movement and a few tense seconds later, he stole the puck from a Predators’ defender. Gritting his teeth, Heath dove across the ice toward the Predators’ goal, but the slightest flash of brown eyes in the stands caught his attention and he almost head-butted into one of the Lynderly brothers.
Suffice to say, the puck got stolen from him and the woman he’d noticed had definitely not been Sable.
“Watch where you’re going, asshat,” Cayman snarled, his eyes flashing gold.
Usually, this sort of response would have made Heath raring to go, taunting the other guy until he’d crack and do something stupid. But today it was Heath doing all the stupid shit, not even entirely realizing why this was.
“Only asshat I see here is you, Lynderly. Tell me, is your pretty little sister anywhere around here?” Heath asked, breaking away from the man but knowing full well that he must have been following by close enough.
It had been the Lynderlys’ assignment to stay on him and fuck with his game as much as they could, and this time they’d been pretty damn successful. Though, truth be told, it was the third Lynderly who wasn’t on the ice at all who was doing the best job at it.
“The fuck do you know about my sister?” Cayman sneered the next time they came face-to-face, Heath narrowly dodging getting flattened against the partition when the big oaf of a man caught him in his sights.
“Oh, I think she’s a Shovelers fan more than she is a Predators fan, if you know what I mean,” Heath said with a wide grin, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly and enjoying the flash of rage he saw on Cayman’s face.
“Don’t you fucking talk about my sister like that,” Cayman roared, and it was then that Heath knew that this was probably going to get him a fight not too long from now.
But he couldn’t shut up, his gaze all the while searching for that familiar hurt and hurtful pair of lips in the stands.
She has to be here. Where else could she be, he mused, only absently aware of the fact that the clock was ticking out and they were still behind by one.
Heath had never felt like that. Lost, scatterbrained, unable to focus. Usually, he would go out two nights before the game, find a willing enough girl to take back to his place, fuck her until she was a whimpering mess of thankfulness, and then be at his full strength by the game, aggressive and ready to go. But ever since Sable, he’d lost his appetite for women.
In fact, they suddenly didn’t interest him at all. Except for one. Sable.
His mind was fixated on her. The usually entirely angry and almost uncontrollable Heath Locklear was overcome with indecision that day on the ice, and everyone must have seen that he wasn’t quite himself.
A few more plays passed and Heath managed to stay in the game well enough to at least make a few attempts on the goal, but it was with two minutes left on the clock a
nd the puck on his stick that Heath fucked up for the last time that night. The goal was already in his sights, his brain calculating exactly what kind of shot he should make to outplay the Predators’ goalie, when another woman who could have been Sable caught his eye.
And there she was, up in one of the farthest rows, with her Predators hoodie pulled down to her eyes, sitting all bundled up. Heath practically stumbled over his skates, his heart leaping into his throat and his bear roaring within him, desperate to get to her right that instant. But Heath never got a chance to finish that thought. Two massive, solid bodies came barreling into him, and the next thing he knew he was staring up at the sneering faces of Caleb and Cayman Lynderly instead of Sable, flat on his back with his world spinning.
He’d gotten thrown into the partition by both of the men, his split-second distraction having cost him the goal, the tie, and by the feel of it, a fractured rib.
“Not so tough now, huh?” Caleb growled as Heath hopped up gingerly, tossing his gloves off.
The fuck hasn’t she been returning my calls or messages?
What he should have been asking was why he was thinking about this during the game that could decide whether or not they make it to the regional playoffs, but nope, Heath’s brain wasn’t feeling very cooperative that day.
“Fuck you,” Heath growled, their helmets now flying off too and Heath lunging for Caleb, fists balled.
He must have gotten in at least two or three good punches at the Predators’ grinder before someone pulled him off, his vision flashing red with rage. It was as much at the Lynderly twins for fucking with his game as it was simple frustration at Sable being so… her.
“Chill the fuck out!” Cannon practically screamed in Heath’s face, shaking him a few times so Heath would pop back into the moment.
“I am fucking chill,” Heath snorted, ripping himself away from Cannon and the other hands holding him back.
He knew where he was going. Time-out. He spent the rest of the damn quarter there, watching the seconds tick by in excruciating slowness until the Shovelers’ loss to the Predators 2–3 was confirmed and the horn was blown. All the while, he’d been glaring daggers up at Sable’s seat, wishing he could storm out of there, catch her, and ask her what kind of game she was playing with him.
She doesn’t owe you anything. It was just a hot fuck in a goddamn broom closet.
Rationally, he knew all of this. But irrationally? He wanted his woman and he was ready to do anything for it. The why and the how would have to be figured out later. At least now he knew for sure that she was in Shifter Grove and that gave him something to work with. It gave him a shot. Though why this mattered more to him than the fact that they’d just taken a loss from the Predators was completely beyond him.
You’re not getting away so easily this time, baby.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sable
As soon as the horn was blown, the rest of the Predators’ support team that had been hiding out in the back rows—the only place they could get tickets—had all jumped up and started cheering their asses off. But Sable for some reason didn’t particularly feel like celebrating, though she had a slight smug smile on her lips that kept coming and going, sort of wavering along with the beat of her personal confusion.
On one hand, she’d just seen the insufferably cocky Heath Locklear get schooled on hockey, which was definitely a boon along with the fact that it was her team that did the teaching. On the other hand, she’d seen the way he’d looked at her, sort of hurt and hopeful at the same time, and that made her feel worse about her bout of gloating.
What if he was being serious with everything?
The thought was unnerving. Ever since their little run-in at the bar in San Diego, Sable had been trying to forget the fact that Heath ever existed, and he on the other hand had been making it completely impossible. She’d blocked him on SassyDate and every other social media site, she wouldn’t accept his gifts, and she didn’t even check the blogs on what he was up to. Well, almost all of that was true.
She’d totally checked the blogs, which had been curiously empty of any trademark Locklear antics since the first game. Usually the day after the big game, there would be some kind of news about Heath trashing a hotel room, or completely horrifying two “innocent, sweet” puck bunnies, or getting drunk in public, or any manner of wild situations one could expect a millionaire hockey bear to get into.
In the back of her mind, she’d been wondering if maybe, just maybe, Heath was actually interested in her, but that sounded so damnably ludicrous that she kept pushing it out of her head. After all, Heath Locklear was the last guy she wanted to be with right now.
Right?
“Oh man, they got it good this time,” Jacob from Billing was saying as everybody gathered their stuff. “I hear this place only has like one bar. I don’t know how they intend to fit everyone.”
“Most of the crowd was made up of Shifter Grove locals, and they only opened a few stands for this game,” Sable said with a shrug. “They’re banking on cable broadcasting because there aren’t enough amenities to house or service the fans around here. As far as I understand it the owner intends to keep it that way with the Shifter Grove games. Why do you think we were up in the nosebleed section of the two stands they opened up to begin with?”
“Weird. Why move a team out in the middle of nowhere?” Jacob asked, putting his jacket on.
“Eccentricity usually answers all of those questions,” Sable said, snaking her phone out of her pocket as she began trudging down the steps and toward the exit in her tall friend’s wake.
She idly scrolled through her recent apps until she found SassyDate. Without thinking about it too long, she opened up the contact requests page and tapped on recent contacts until she found Heath again, a big, red Ignore label behind him. She hit Accept quickly and shoved the phone back in her pocket.
Screw it. I’m here anyway.
***
At this point in her life, there were very few things that could really surprise Sable. A blizzard in Hawaii in July, reasonable choices in domestic politics, and Heath Locklear showing up at her doorstep with hot chocolate and a confused and apologetic look in his eyes were three things really high up in her list of “never going to happen, ever.”
And yet here Heath was, offering her a hot chocolate and looking like someone had beaten him up recently. Emotionally, that is. Physically, he sort of looked like shit too, but she could mostly thank her brothers for that one.
“Thanks for seeing me,” he said as the two of them sat on the tailgate of his big red Ford truck, dangling their feet over the edge and looking at the dark tree line off of the Hamilton compound.
Sable and the rest of the Predators had been settled in at the Hamiltons, a family of firefighter werebears and their wives and kids. They happened to be the only ones in the near vicinity with enough land and houses to put up out-of-towners for a little while. Though they weren’t running a hotel, it could roughly be called a bed and breakfast, and the food was better than anything Sable had eaten in any five-star restaurant.
“No problem,” Sable said lightly, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the house in the distance.
She’d snuck out without anyone noticing, or at least she hoped so. Considering how violently pissed off her brothers were at Heath lately, it wouldn’t have been a good idea for them to know that their arch nemesis was on the premises, flirting with their stepsister.
“I know they’re not your brothers, you know,” Heath said mildly, sipping his hot chocolate.
Even in the darkness, she could see the clever spark burning in his eyes. The one that pissed her off and sort of enthralled her at the same time.
“Oh? You’ve been stalking me?” she asked with a grin, though she’d intended to scowl at him.
“Didn’t the flowers and the gifts say as much?” he asked pointedly.
“I never received them,” Sable said half-heartedly, suddenly feeling very guilty abou
t sending everything back.
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Heath responded, nodding.
Sable’s mother and Cayman’s and Caleb’s father had gotten married a few years back. It was one of those magical moments where a werewolf who’d lost his mate twenty years ago and another widower find each other and everything’s suddenly peaches and rainbows. While Sable was happy to see her mother on the top of the world suddenly, feeling better than she had in a long time, she wasn’t exactly the closest friends with her stepbrothers.
They were classic Alphaholes, not big enough for their own egos, and while they had their moments, they seemed to mostly run off of steam and self-satisfaction. Even the way they pretended to “protect” Sable from any guy they didn’t like seemed sort of far-fetched. No surprise that they’d been really big fans of her and Mackey Aldren together, though.
“Any particular reason for that?” Heath asked after a while.
Sable looked at him, opening her mouth and closing it again a moment later. What was she supposed to say? “Sorry, I figured fucking in a utility closet was as intimate as we were going to get and I didn’t want to be led on? You’re a manwhore and I don’t need that?” Both? Neither?
“I… well, we fucked in a broom closet, Heath. It’s not exactly the beginning to many torrid love-affairs, is it? I’ve heard about your style and how you fuck around like someone’s after your dick and if you’re not shoving it in someone it might get forcefully removed from you. I didn’t want any part of it.”
“You mean any more part of it,” he muttered wryly, receiving a snort from Sable in response.
“Right.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a sigh and a gulp of the hot chocolate, which was surprisingly good.
Something about the Shifter Grove local cuisine was hitting all the right notes with Sable, and that was saying something for a San Diego foodie. She clunked the heels of her snowy boots against the car with a low thud, twiddling the cardboard cup in her hands.
