Dirty Play (A Nolan Brothers Series Novel ~ Book 3)

by Amy Olle

  “It was awesome.” She leaned forward to look past Haven. “Grandma, can I play hockey?”

  Haven laughed and turned back as a group of women with small shovels skated onto the ice. Dressed in green hot pants and tiny blue jerseys that accentuated their bare midriffs and ample cleavage, they cleared slush and shavings from the surface of the ice.

  From the stands, men leered and catcalled. One jiggled her breasts to a raucous gang of men plastered to the glass near center ice.

  Haven looked down to find Clara Bell watching the display with huge round eyes.

  At one time, Haven had thought her only worth lay in her physical assets. Men liked her body and she thought that meant they liked her. But that wasn’t at all what their attentions meant. In fact, the more she packaged her body with the intent of gaining their notice, the less they seemed to think of her as an actual human being worthy of anything more than an object for their entertainment.

  The second period began right where the first ended. Less than a minute in, Jack poked the puck away from a Toronto forward and sent it floating toward open ice. It was a foot race, and Jack handily beat the other players to the disc. The crowd, sparse though it was, surged to their feet to cheer Jack on his wild drive toward the net.

  A foghorn blared and red lights flashed. He scored!

  The Renegades held on to their lead as the second period neared an end, but with three minutes remaining, the refs charged a Renegades player with a penalty. On the power play, Toronto set up in front of the Renegades’ net. A scrum broke out in one corner and when the puck squirted out, Haven followed it across the ice.

  So she missed what happened to cause one of the Renegades players to suddenly drop his stick and skate toward the bench. The ref’s whistle blew, calling play to a halt.

  Haven shot to her feet, tracking the player. “What happened? What’s he doing?”

  A trail of red droplets dotted the ice in his wake, and a hushed pall fell over the crowd.

  Aside from an icing or offside infraction or a player penalty, the refs didn’t stop the clock in hockey. Teams made line changes on the fly and once in a great while, late in a game, a coach might use a time-out. But not often, and definitely not in the middle of an offensive strike.

  “That player’s hurt,” Harlon said.

  They all stood, trying to see what was happening. Players from both teams stood around Milwaukee’s bench, talking some but mostly just standing together.

  Above the arena floor, a replay of the game’s last moments displayed on the jumbotron.

  All the air sucked from the arena when the shot showed a Toronto player falling and his skate slashing across number fourteen’s face.

  Harlon cringed. “Oh man, I think that kid took a skate blade to the eye.”

  Mel gasped and Clara Bell climbed onto her lap. Mel distracted Clara Bell as they replayed the scene once again.

  Harlon shook his head. “Oooh, that looks bad.”

  Haven’s feet moved under her. “Will they take him to the locker room?”

  “I’d expect so….”

  The door fell shut on Harlon’s words. Haven charged down the hall and plunged into the stairwell. In the concourse, she started to run, but soon, bodies poured out from the seats. The second intermission had arrived.

  At security, Haven flashed her badge and burst into the bowels underneath the arena. She sprinted toward the locker room and shoved her way through the crowd blocking the door.

  Inside, a thick, heavy silence hung over the room. Players milled around, looking lost. Her gaze scanned the area until she spotted the huddle of people in an alcove off the main area.

  From outside of the group, Coach looked on, a grim set to his features.

  In the chaos, no one noticed her approach.

  The player lay on an oversized doctor’s table while around him, men uttered medical terms and phrases Haven didn’t understand.

  “How is he?” she heard herself ask.

  “They’re trying to stop the bleeding so they can assess the eye,” Coach said.

  Blood soaked through white towels pressed to the player’s face and lying in a heap on the floor.

  A woozy dip buckled her knees, but she managed to stay upright by gripping the edge of the table. The sharp metallic smell rushed over her, and with it, flashes of memory flitted through her mind.

  She remembered coming to in the passenger seat and looking over to see Ryan. Blood had gushed from his nose in an unrelenting river.

  It wasn’t right, all that blood. She knew it wasn’t right, but still, she’d released her seat belt latch and climbed over the center console, screaming with the wrench of pain in her shoulder. Cupping her hands, she’d tried to catch the blood that poured from Ryan’s nose so that they might return the life to his body. Even though she knew.

  It was too late to save him.

  He was already dead.

  Blood had filled her hands and soaked her T-shirt. The shirt would be ruined. She remembered thinking what a stupid thought that was to have just then.

  Blindly, she’d turned away and stumbled from the car. Her knees pummeled the pavement when she went down. She was vomiting and sobbing.

  He was dead.

  He was dead.

  He. Was. Dead.

  In the locker room, someone pulled the towel away from the wounded player’s face. Red stained his skin. Beneath the red-tainted wetness, a large gash ran diagonally from the center of his forehead, over his eye, and across his right cheekbone.

  Her world went black.

  Jack bit out a sharp curse as the locker room descended into chaos.

  A teammate taking an ice blade to the eyeball hadn’t sent his teammates into hysterics, but a wilting female had.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  Riley, the third line grinder, danced over her. “Should we pick her up?”

  “Leave her.” The team doctor barked the order while still tending to the wounded player, Gus. “Did she hit her head?”

  “Oh, yeah. She went down like a limp—”

  “Get an inhalant.”

  Soon, a tiny white packet passed down the line of men huddled around the table.

  “Hold it under her nose.”

  Riley backed away. “Uh-uh. I’m not touching her.”

  With a sigh, Jack shoved to his feet. In skates, he crossed to Riley and snatched the tiny pouch from his hand. He cracked it to release the ammonia and crouched over Haven to press the packet under her nose.

  She roused immediately.

  Her eyelids fluttered and then blinked opened. Confusion puckered her forehead as she gazed up at him, and for one brief moment, he glimpsed in their brown depths a sadness so dark and so deep it knocked him back.

  Then her gaze clamped on to his face and a soft smile teased her mouth. “Jack.”

  The way she whispered his name grabbed at his insides. “Hey, boss.”

  It all seemed to come back to her then. Her head moved from side to side, taking in the many men in skates and hockey garb staring down at her.

  She cursed and started to sit.

  “Take it easy,” Jack murmured. “You bumped your head pretty hard.”

  Even as he said it, she cringed. He slipped his fingers into her hair and felt the lump forming on the back of her noggin.

  “Send her to the quiet room?” Avery asked, referencing the trainer’s room used by team doctors to assess players for symptoms of concussion.

  One of the doctors crouched beside Jack. He shined a penlight on Haven’s face and peered into her eyes.

  She pointed to Gus, still laid out on the table. “How is he?”

  “He gets to keep his eye.” Relief, and a touch of befuddled amusement, tinged the doctor’s voice. “I don’t know how the skate missed it, but it did.”

  He killed the light and stood. “I don’t think the quiet room is a bad idea. Let’s get you an ice pack and let you rest in there for a few minutes.”

  “All right,
guys.” Coach stepped over Haven’s legs. “Let’s gather round.”

  Men shifted away, closing around Coach.

  Haven climbed to her feet, but when she swayed slightly, Jack caught her by the arm.

  “I’m okay,” she murmured.

  As she shuffled off in the direction the team doctor had disappeared, he clenched his scalding hand into a tight fist.

  Back on the ice, thoughts of her kissable mouth and sad doe eyes dominated his mind. So much so that he didn’t see the defender flying at him and wasn’t ready for the jarring check into the boards. The hit rocked him, and he was slow to get up, but managed to get to the other end of the ice in time to deflect a wrist shot.

  Problem was, the redirected puck slid toward Toronto’s best shooter, left wide open by an out-of-position Renegade. The shooter wound up and let it rip. The puck wobbled through the air. Milo flailed in an attempt to make the save, but he was too late.

  Tied game.

  After that, the floodgates seemed to open. A Toronto player picked the pocket of the Renegades alternate captain, Bryce, and scored off the breakaway. They then put the game out of reach with a power play goal at the two-minute mark.

  It was the team’s eighth loss in a row.

  While he watched the other team celebrate, fury whipped through him. He didn’t know who pissed him off more: Bryce for playing soft and letting Toronto back in the game, Haven for taking up prime real estate in his head, or himself for being too weak to evict her.

  At this level, every team had talent. Enough talent that they should be able to compete. To steal a game here or there. This team wasn’t stealing anything that wasn’t gift-wrapped and handed to them on a silver platter.

  They were pathetic.

  Disappointment and humiliation ate at him.

  In the locker room, Bryce threw his helmet into the row of metal lockers with a thunderous rattle.

  Then he whirled on Milo. “You’ve got to snap out of this slump, man. You’re killing us out there.”

  Milo sat with his head hanging down.

  “Did you hear me, Bishop? You suck.”

  Jack snapped. “Lay off him.”

  Bryce whipped around, his face red with anger. “I won’t lay off him. I’m tired of losing games, and I’ll say whatever needs to be said until this team stops rolling over like a goddamned dog.”

  “You’re tired of losing games?” Jack threw his gloves into the back of his locker. “Then why don’t you take care of the puck? Or play some fucking defense?”

  Someone behind him snickered.

  Jack twisted toward the sound. “You think this is funny?”

  “Fuck you,” Bryce said.

  Twisting back around, Jack locked gazes with Bryce. “You know what? You’re right. Fuck me. You wanna be last in the league? You wanna be remembered as that team that couldn’t compete? You wanna be laughed at in every arena in every city in two countries? Then fuck me.” He turned toward the snickers. “Newsflash, fellas. We’re the joke.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jack ignored their gutless alternate captain, Bryce.

  “This isn’t the NBA, boys. This is hockey. This is war. When you step out on that ice, if you haven’t put in the work, if you lack the focus, or the drive, or the killer instinct, you will be shredded. They will rip out your guts and leave you empty.” Jack faced Bryce. “This is a man’s game. Act like one, or get the fuck out of here.”

  “You’re way out of line,” Bryce informed him.

  Jack approached the smug asshole. “It was your man.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The score to tie it, that was your man left wide open. No one else’s. And the breakaway was on you as well. Until you take care of your business, you’ve got no right to call out anyone else in this locker room.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Two veins popped out on Bryce’s forehead. “You walk in here on the first day and think you know everything? Well, you don’t know shit.”

  “I know hockey, and I know why we lost this game. Because you didn’t pick up your man. You didn’t take care of the puck.”

  Jack thought Bryce would charge him, or hit him, and he was ready for it. Invited it, actually.

  But just then, movement out of the corner of his eye caught his notice. He turned his head as Haven emerged from the trainer’s room. She appeared pale, but well-balanced—

  Bryce’s fist crashed into his jaw.

  Pain exploded in Jack’s head. Unprepared for the blow, he lost his balance and tumbled to the concrete floor. He lay there a moment, embracing the pain.

  With a groan, he rolled to his side and two sneaker-clad feet appeared in his line of sight. She crouched down beside him and, without saying a word, held out her ice pack to him.

  Jack pressed the lukewarm bag to his sore jaw and glared at her.

  She was worse than a distraction.

  She was a disaster.

  And damn it all if the fire and fervor pumping through his body didn’t surge to his groin when he caught the slightest hint of her shampoo, whatever the hell brand she’d used that day.

  Lust crashed into him with the force of an illegal crosscheck, and the need to return to that hot, secret place between her thighs consumed him.

  One more night. That’s what she owed him.

  One more night was all he needed to slake his lust and get her out of his system.

  Hey, asshole, she’s your boss. Touch her and you will regret it. You could lose everything.

  While his mind pleaded reason, his body snarled, She’s mine.

  One. More. Night.

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the time Haven returned to the owner’s suite, it neared eleven o’clock, and Mel and her family had gone. She collected her coat and purse, and on her way out flipped off the lights.

  The arena had nearly emptied when she made her way to the south entrance, but as she approached the doors to the employee parking ramp, she was startled to find Jack leaning against the wall near the exit, his bag on the floor at his feet.

  She slowed her steps.

  Spotting her, he straightened away from the wall. “Headed out?”

  His dark hair still wet from the shower, he wore a black suit beneath a charcoal-gray wool coat.

  “I’m going to grab a cab.”

  “No, you’re not.” He plucked his bag off the floor and, tossing it over his shoulder, pushed open the exterior door. He held it for her. “I’ll drive you.”

  With the cold air sweeping in, her heart froze. The only thing she disliked more than driving was riding in a car with someone else. Though she supposed if given the choice of putting her life in Jack’s hands or those of a random cabbie, she’d probably take her chances with Jack.

  He assumed a different reason for her hesitation.

  “Haven, please. We need to talk.”

  “What do we need to talk about?”

  His gaze swept the area behind her. “Not here.”

  Among her many flaws, Haven couldn’t control the wounded, angry-at-the-world teenage girl inside her.

  “Are we going to talk about all the ways I’ve ruined your life?” She saw her blow hit its mark. “Or would you rather talk about the next hockey player I’ve decided to seduce? I think I might acquire an entire team full of men I’ve fucked. That way—”

  The door fell shut and in a flash of movement, he snatched her to him. “Stop it.” He buried his hands in her hair. “Please, just stop. I was angry, and I lashed out at you.” Nuzzling her ear, he inhaled deeply and then pulled back. “It was wrong. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.” Regret, real regret, tugged at his smooth features.

  His face, his words, his touch, all acted as a balm to her battered heart. She choked back sudden, silly tears.

  “Where are you staying?” His fingers toyed with her hair.

  “At Hamilton Place.”

  She felt him stiffen and she drew back so that
she might see his face, but he turned away before she had a chance to read his expression.

  Lacing his fingers through hers, he pulled her out into the cold night. With his other hand, he slid a set of car keys from the pocket of his wool coat as they moved through the ramp toward a sleek black utility vehicle.

  They ducked inside and shut out the chill. He exited the ramp and eased onto the dark street. At his driving, slow and smooth, without any of the aggression she saw in so many others, she relaxed in her seat.

  In the dark confines of the car, his scent, fresh like clean earth, filled her senses. She laid her head on the headrest and studied his profile, the subtle perfection of his features and the shadowy whiskers along his jawline. A shiver passed through her when she recalled the feel of his scruff on her inner thighs.

  Heat warmed her skin and she turned her face to the window. It was New Year’s Eve and people packed the sidewalks and spilled out of bars.

  “How’s your head? Any headache or nausea?”

  “A little.” Though she wondered if the nausea was a product of her slight headache or the heartsickness brought on by the memories. “How about your face?”

  “All in a day’s work.” His tone remained light while his smile struggled to form. “I suppose Gus should get all your sympathy. He deserves it more than I do.”

  A ripple of nausea hit her.

  Jack reached over and grasped her hand. “Hey, it’s all right. He’s going to be all right, and he’ll have a badass scar to show for it.” He stole another glance at her. “It really upset you, didn’t it?”

  “I’m okay.” She watched the streetlights roll past. “It’s just… all that blood. It caught me off guard, I guess.”

  “Because of your car accident?”

  She nodded.

  He didn’t let go of her hand until he turned the SUV into her lot.

  Leaning forward in his seat, he peered up at the twenty-story stone structure. “You on the top floor?”

  “It’s my dad’s place. I’m just staying here… for now.”

  She didn’t know why she told him that, except she didn’t like him painting her with the broad brushstrokes of spoiled rich girl.