New Spicy Hockey Romance on Kindle+! ALL PUCKING IN by K.C. McDermott

CHAPTER ONE

Celena

I pull the lever on my slot machine, not bothering to watch the reels spin as I scan the area across the way. The machine is a blinking, blooping riot of sound and color, surrounded by a carnival of more sounds and colors that I barely notice. For once, gambling is secondary to why I’m here at the casino on a Saturday night.

Most modern slot machines don’t even have levers anymore, just a button or touch screen, but there are a few machines in this part of the casino that still have arms for the old-school crowd. Using the lever is my attempt to keep my gambling in check. I reason that it will slow me down, and when I get too tired, that will be my cue to stop.

I try to ignore the thirty-day chip from Gambler’s Anonymous that beats like a tell-tale heart inside my purse. 

I need to be here. Gray Mackey, my best friend, is meeting some players from the Hartford Hydra NHL hockey team tonight at one of the clubs. She’s been working with their star center, Ash Gunnarsson, to fix a focus issue he’s been having on the ice. She also has a thing for the guy, but she’s fighting it every step of the way.

I’m proud of her for coming out tonight. Gray isn’t a seize-the-bull-by-the-horns kind of woman, so this is a big step.

If she would ever get here. 

I hunker down behind my machine as I pull the lever again. I’m barely paying attention, the motion so automatic it’s like driving. I take a quick glance when the reels stop, but I’ve got nothing, and I pull again.

My slot machine has a limited view of the escalator Gray will need to take to get up to one of the clubs. There are two clubs here, but the one on the other side of the casino draws a younger crowd. The one I’m sitting near is more upscale, the type of place professional athletes with multimillion-dollar contracts would choose. Or so I hope.

I should be able to see Gray coming as long as she uses the parking garage closest to this area, but if she forgot where to come in and uses another garage, she may walk right past me.

I look back at the escalator to the club and do a doubletake. There’s a huge man moving toward it, and even from here I can tell he’s attractive. He’s well over six feet tall, and I have to wonder if he’s one of the Hydra’s players as my eyes meander over his obviously muscled body.

Either that, or he’s a stripper from the all-male review that’s in town. 

The guy’s hair is jet black, and he’s wearing black pants with a pristine white dress shirt. His jawline could cut glass, and he moves with a grace and surety that’s nothing short of magnetic.

I barely register my slot machine chiming a small win, and I pull the lever again as I watch the man stop at the bottom of the escalator. A shorter man with a young boy in tow approaches him hesitantly. The kid looks maybe eleven or twelve. It feels late for him to be out, but the casino has an arcade around here somewhere. Being childless myself, I can’t really judge another’s parenting.

The boy looks up at the giant black-haired man, and I think I read a mixture of awe and nervousness in his expression.

For a moment, I think the tall guy will turn away. Instead, he drops to a knee and pulls what I assume is a black marker out of his pocket. He signs the kid’s t-shirt, then smiles and puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder as the father takes a picture. 

Almost certainly a Hydra player then. Or a movie star?

The giant stands and shakes hands with the father before stepping onto the escalator and letting it carry him up to the club that overlooks this part of the casino.

The excited chiming of the slot machine pulls my attention back, and I see I’m somehow up almost five hundred dollars. I have no idea how many times I pulled the lever while I was watching the man, but apparently he was good luck. I should quit while I’m ahead…

I pull the lever again.

My phone chimes with an incoming text.

Gray: I’m going home to change.

I roll my eyes and start typing. I talked Gray into wearing a slinky black dress tonight and – unsurprisingly – she’s freaking out about it. I made her buy the dress a little while ago, and she’s found one excuse after another not to wear it until now.

I’m shocked she wore it tonight, but I suspect Ash has something to do with her willingness to look sexy for once. Gray refuses to entertain the idea the guy could be into her, but I’d put money on it that he is.

Of course, there isn’t much I won’t put money on, and that’s the issue.

I send a response.

Celena: No, you’re not. You’re going to go in there and rock that dress in front of those professional hockey players like the smoking-hot goddess you are.

Gray rounds the corner toward the escalator just as I send the second text, and I duck back behind my slot machine. She steps onto the escalator and tugs at the hem of the dress before she starts typing. 

Gray has an hourglass figure she insists on hiding because of a few softer spots on her body, but I guarantee no one will notice them tonight. Not in that dress. She’s going to give Ash Gunnarsson a permanent hard-on, and with any luck, she’ll get laid. About fucking time too.

Gray: What if one of my students sees me?

I sigh and pull the lever on the slot machine before typing.

Celena: And what? Realizes you’re an adult woman with a life beyond school?

Celena: Putting my phone away now. Just go.

Gray steps off the escalator at the top, and I lose sight of her as she moves to the club’s entrance. I’m tempted to go up and find a corner to watch her from, but I’m not dressed for clubbing, so I doubt they’ll let me in. 

She didn’t invite me out tonight, and it’s because she didn’t want me in the casino. Not that it did any good. I appreciate that she’s trying not to lead me into temptation, but I’m a big girl, and sometimes her ‘protection’ chafes.

I look back at my slot machine and jolt to see I’m up eight hundred dollars. Every fiber of my being screams at me to keep going, to ride this wave of luck, but for once there’s an unfamiliar voice in my head whispering at me to stop. 

It’s a small voice, an angel on my shoulder barely the size of a lightning bug. It doesn’t quite compare to the Godzilla of a devil on my other one, but it’s there.

I’m about to hit the button to cash out when a man thumps down in the seat next to me, and I groan.

“Celena, baby,” he says, and his voice has the feel of just-drained motor oil. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you here.”

Yup. Thirty-six days.

I turn to Marco. We dated once upon a time, but his presence now scratches over my skin like a coarse wool sweater.

I still see vestiges of why I found him attractive in his high cheekbones and the dark allure of chocolate brown hair against his tanned skin, but everything else about the man sets my teeth on edge.

I feel someone standing on my other side and glance over to see Rodney, aka “Goon One,” boxing me in so I can’t slip away.

Rodney has short dark brown hair that’s slicked back with gel, and his face looks like he was an extra in every mafia movie ever made. He’s a foot or so from me, his groin nearly in my face, and I’m tempted to ‘accidentally’ swing my elbow into it. 

“What can I do for you?” I ask Marco.

“You can pay me the money you owe me, for one,” he says casually. “Or you can come back and work for me again.” He grins. “Or we can negotiate other options.”

I make a noise of disgust at his not-so-veiled suggestion I sleep with him. Even if the sex had been good, which it wasn’t, I’m never letting him near me again.

I hit the cash-out button on my machine, snatch the piece of paper that prints out my winnings, and shove it against Marco’s chest.

“Here,” I say. “Put this toward my principal.”

Marco pulls the paper off his chest and looks at it. “You were doing good, baby,” he says, and the endearment rakes over my scalp. I’ll never be able to let another man call me baby after Marco.

“Only six hundred ten thousand, and two hundred more dollars to go,” he says, tucking the paper into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. 

“Great,” I say. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” 

I try to rise, but Rodney pushes me back into the seat with a meaty hand on my shoulder that lingers longer than needed. I’ve never liked the man, and I wonder if Marco has ever noticed the way his right-hand goon leers at me.

“You do remember we’re in a casino with cameras that cover every square inch of it, right?” I say to Marco.

He looks at Rodney and flicks his chin up the barest amount. Rodney removes his hand and steps back, and I rise from my seat.

“No blackjack or poker tonight?” Marco asks. “The slots are a bit tame for you, aren’t they?”

I shrug. “I skipped the gym earlier. Just getting my arm workout in,” I say, miming the motion of pulling the lever.

Marco chuffs a laugh and lets his eyes run up and down my body. I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but I might as well be naked under his stare.

I turn and start to leave.

“I’ll send the boys by tomorrow to get the rest of your payment for the week,” Marco says, just loud enough for me to hear over the dinging, clanging, chiming cacophony of slot machines around us.

I pause long enough so he knows I heard, then head toward the parking garage. Well, first the Krispy Kreme, then the garage.

I want to get as far from Gray as possible. Marco knows she’s my friend, but I don’t want to put her back on his radar. It’s bad enough I got myself into this shitty situation. I refuse to drag Gray into it too. She never liked Marco, and I can’t bear the ‘I told you so’ look I’ll get if I ever have to explain what a clusterfuck I got myself into with him.

I pick up my pace when Marco doesn’t stop me, then fish in my purse for the thirty-day Gambler’s Anonymous chip. The thing throbs in my palm as I clasp it tightly before dropping it into the next trashcan I pass.