"Excuse me, Logan?"
He looked up to find a woman standing in front of him — red sweater, tight blue jeans, black boots. Long dark brown hair and dark brown eyes to match. She was heavenly.
"I'm Maxine Quinn, reporter for the Detroit Herald."
A professional journalist. She was off limits. Of course.
Except there was Logan's other memory of Max, one that he had never mentioned to anyone. Not to his friends and definitely not to his teammates.
A year ago. This same damn hotel in Denver that they always stayed in when the team was on the road. Snow finally tapering off outside after a storm dumped piles of the white stuff in only a few hours. The Pirates had already been here for 24 hours, champing at the bit to play, only to have the game postponed because of the weather.
It was late. The team was getting stir crazy. A few of the guys were playing cards while some of the reporters were sitting around telling stories about the crazy road trips they were on back in the '80s. The coaches started yammering on about the old days. Nachos, beers, Alex swearing in Russian as he lost another hand of poker. Some of the guys moved all the furniture out of a rookie's room and into the hotel lobby.
No one was paying attention to Logan as he slipped out of the hotel room they were all in to get some candy from the vending machine down the hall. No one saw him run into Max, who apparently had a thing for whiskey when she was trying to write a column. No one noticed them talking shop as he walked back to her hotel room and she invited him in.
It was a totally innocent move. They were on friendly terms. Reporter and player debating which team in the eastern division was looking the best for a possible playoff run. Innocent conversation.
Until somehow it became a whole lot less innocent. Logan couldn't remember who made the first move, but he really didn't care. He just knew she tasted sweet and her skin was soft and warm under his calloused fingers. And her breasts — damn, they were the best breasts he had ever put his mouth on. And all that was even before he made her moan, her nails digging into his back as she came hard and took him for all he had.
He stayed with her for awhile, her warm body so close to his before he quietly slipped out after she fell asleep. The hall was silent, the players all tucked in for the night by the time he got back to his room. Alex was snoring as Logan gently shut the door behind him, thankful that his tryst wouldn't be noticed by anyone.
If only it had been more than a tryst. After weeks of not mentioning it, not saying anything, after the new year and more road trips, he finally had a fleeting moment with Max when no one else was around. That was the moment she told him their night together could never happen again.
"You can't tell me you didn't have a good time," Logan teased.
"It was a mistake. I'm a reporter, and we can't do that again," she replied.
"Really, Max?"
She just gave him a stern look and turned, the tails of her bunny slippers bitterly bouncing down the hall as she headed back to her hotel room. Alone.
The bag of ice on Logan's shoulder started to shift, and he quickly grabbed it to hold it back in place. Leaning back, his head hit the headboard of his bed as he exhaled. He had his share of women since that night a year ago — he was a hockey player in a hockey city after all. But none of them could live up to Max.
That one night with Maxine Quinn. Reporter for the Detroit Herald who was totally off limits.
A New Holiday Hockey Romance
Late 2018
Buried Treasure (The Detroit Pirates Book 2) Page 17
