Page 1 of Best Kept Secret (The New York Thunder #3)

OCTOBER

LOGAN

T he woman next to me has her hand on my dick and I feel absolutely nothing.

There’s something wrong with me. There has to be.

It’s been like this for a couple of months.

I mean, sure, I try to keep up appearances with my best friend, Happy, who would, respectfully, fuck a lamppost if it could consent, but lately, things have been different.

I blame my father. His phone call after tonight’s win was anything but congratulatory.

You should have done this, Logan . You should have done that .

Where was your head, Son? You’ll be riding the bench if you keep this up .

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if maybe it’d be easier riding the bench than putting up with his shitty play-by-play analysis after every game.

I’m a twenty-four-year-old professional hockey player for Chrissake; I should be getting my dick sucked right now, not having some weird, existential crisis in the middle of a Detroit night club.

“You wanna get outta here?” The big-breasted blonde sitting pressed up against me practically purrs in my ear, pulling me from my thoughts .

I don’t look at her. I can’t. If I do, I’ll see that you-can-put-it-anywhere look in her fuck-me eyes, and, hell, I’m only human. Instead, I take a sip of my Jack and Coke, jaw ticking as I stare straight ahead at the silhouetted bodies moving in time with the generic music out on the dance floor.

“Nah, I gotta get back to the hotel,” I say gruffly, shifting in my seat in an attempt to shake her hand off my junk. “They do bed checks at midnight.” Of course, that’s a lie. This is the NHL, not sleepaway camp, but fuck it, she doesn’t know that.

She huffs. “Well… are any of your teammates up for a good time, at least?”

Nice . My jaw clenches as I look around at the guys in the VIP.

Happy currently has his hand up a woman’s dress, so I think he’s good for now.

Alex Henry is married with a newborn. Josef has a girl back in Iceland where he’s from.

And Dallas is… my brows knit together when I realize our goalie is AWOL.

Dallas is an even bigger whore than Happy.

If anyone is willing to take one for the team, it’s Dallas Shaw.

I tip my chin at Alex, yelling over the thrum of bass, “Where’s Tex?”

As if on cue, Dallas’s lofty six-four frame comes into view as he shoulders his way through the throng of clubgoers, but my face falls when I notice he’s not alone, holding the hand of a smoking hot little redhead.

“What’s up, fellas?” Dallas shouts over the music as he climbs the steps to the VIP.

Tits McGee sits up a little straighter beside me, and from my periphery I see her push her breasts out even more, her gaze set firmly on Dallas, like a lioness zeroing in on her prey.

“Where you been?” I ask.

“Dinner,” Dallas says, nodding to indicate the redhead next to him.

My brows knit together. Dallas Shaw taking a woman to dinner? I get another look at her, and, I mean, yeah, she’s cute as hell, but she’s definitely not his usual type, that’s for damn sure .

“Who you got here?” Dallas asks, abandoning his date and approaching the woman next to me with an appraising eye and a grin that shows off the infamous Dallas Shaw dimples. He holds a hand out. “Dallas Shaw. Voted sexiest goalie, two years in a row.”

I catch the redhead roll her eyes, muttering something under her breath, and I feel my lips twitch.

The woman next to me jumps up from her spot on the couch, shaking Dallas’s hand eagerly, with the same hand she’d just been using to fondle my shaft. “I’m Charlotte.”

“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing, Charlotte,” Dallas coos, allowing his gaze to trail up and down the blonde, the cute redhead all but forgotten.

“Wanna dance?” Charlotte asks, reaching out and dragging one of her long, pointed nails down Dallas’s front, landing at his belt buckle and giving it a suggestive tug.

“Lead the way, little lady.” Dallas juts his chin toward the dance floor, and the blonde snags his hand, tugging her with him, the two of them disappearing into the mass of gyrating bodies.

Slack jawed, I look from the dance floor to the redhead still standing there on the spot Dallas just ditched her in, looking more than a little affronted. And, I’ve got to admit, that was a shitty move, even by Dallas’s already low standards.

Tossing back the rest of my drink, I push up from the couch, smiling tightly. When she notices me approach, she stands a little taller and tucks her hands into the pockets of the tight-ass jeans she’s wearing.

“Sorry about him.” I feel the need to apologize for my teammate, tipping my head in the direction he just disappeared.

When she looks up at me, I’m momentarily lost within her pale green eyes, captivated by the freckles that dot her nose and cheeks.

Holy shit, it’s as if I’ve been smacked in the face.

She’s fucking beautiful. I swallow around the lump that’s suddenly wedged itself in the back of my throat, tucking my hands into the pockets of my suit pants.

“He’s kind of a… man-whore,” I say for lack of a better explanation.

“Yeah, I know,” she says with a derisive scoff, adorable dimples popping in her cheeks as she offers a half-smile. “He’s my brother.”

I stare at her, unblinking.

Did she just say… brother?

Fuck. Me. This is unfortunate.

MILLIE

I see it the moment I tell him Dallas is my brother.

The fight or flight response. Like I’m a rattlesnake in the S formation, about to strike at any second.

I’ve had to deal with this reaction pretty much my whole life.

The price of being the little sister of not only an overprotective athlete, but the little sister of an overprotective cattle rancher who carries a gun almost everywhere he goes.

“Wait—” He rears back, looking me up and down in disbelief. “You’re Dallas’s little s-sister?”

“I mean, I prefer Millie , but yeah.”

“Wow. Um, okay… I’m—” He clears his throat, tugging on the back of his neck. “I’m Logan,” he finally manages.

I look down at his big hand hanging in the air between us and I shake it, startled by the snap of energy that surges up my arm the second we touch. I’m sure he feels it too, his brow furrowing as he looks down at our joined hands before we each pull away from one another like we’ve been burned.

“Can I, um—” Logan uses that same hand to push his wavy hair back from his face, eyes intense as they bore down at me. “Do you want a drink, M-Millie? ”

I can’t help but smile because the guy can barely string a sentence together. And for a big, tough, professional hockey player who probably has women throwing themselves at him wherever he goes, it’s kind of refreshing. And adorable.

“Sure.” I slap him in his chest, stepping around him and heading for the bar as I call over my shoulder, “You’re buying.”