Page 18 of Hat Trick (Titans Hockey #1)

Chapter sixteen

Luca

H at Trick is more pub than bar so when the boys wanted to go out and celebrate our win tonight, Carter convinced them to come here instead of our usual joint so Emily and Annie could come.

Dressed in our suits, we're a spectacle next to the other casually dressed patrons, but we don't care.

The Titans and their families sit around a handful of booths in a room just off the main part of the restaurant.

After Carter, Emily, Annie and Gabe are set up at a booth, I offer to run to the bar to get us drink. I wave down the bartender and place our drinks order before I feel a small, delicate hand run up my back. I smile, thinking it's Emily.

"Change your mind?" I ask, spinning around only to have my smile drop when it's not the woman I expected.

The tall, rail thin, bottle blonde with too much makeup on in front of me is my one-time hook-up, Mandy.

The rail thin fiery red head next to her is Tasha.

My cheeks heat when I think about the fun the three of us have had in the past. I had appreciated their enthusiasm in the bedroom and how it had stayed there.

They weren't interested in being the next Mrs. Tavares but they did love the bragging rights that came with fucking a professional hockey player.

Mandy's hand runs up and down the lapel of my suit while Tasha moves in on the other side, pressing her fake breasts against my arm. Their combined designer perfumes are overpowering and I have the urge to hold my breath .

"Ladies. Nice to see you again." I try to give them a professional smile but I'm not even sure I'm pulling it off. The bar top is behind me so unless I feel like tackling the two women in front of me, I have nowhere to go.

"You know my place is just around the corner. Feel like having a little fun tonight?" Mandy asks, giving me her sexiest smile. I frown, unsure how I ever found that attractive before. It's fake. Her hair color, her breasts, her sexy persona - all fake.

"Not tonight, ladies. I'm just out with some friends."

"What about after you're done? It's been soooo long." Tasha croons, pressing her entire front against me now.

"There you are, baby. I'm so sorry I'm late." My hand is grabbed by a much smaller one and I'm tugged between Tasha and Mandy into the waiting arms of...Emily. Emily presses a quick kiss to my lips and wraps me in a full body hug.

"Say 'bananas' if you want me to stop," she whispers in my ear.

I'm stunned. I have no idea what's happening.

All I know is I'd much rather be touching and kissing Emily than the two women now behind me.

Emily pulls away slightly to take in my expression and give me a chance to safe word her?

I think? Did she just give me a safe word?

And that safe word is bananas? I keep my arms wrapped around her lower back, pressing her pelvis against me.

"You looked like you could use a rescue." She whispers smiling. My brain kicks in finally. I spin Emily to face them, but keep her tucked tightly against my side, my hand resting just over the swell of her hip. Mandy notices it immediately.

"Ah, yes. Mandy, Tasha, this is my girlfriend, Emily. "

The transformation between the two puck bunnies is truly stunning to watch. Mandy crosses her arms against her chest, pressing her fake boobs even closer to her chin, while Tasha thrusts out a hip, unimpressed. Their fake, flirty personas completely replaced with ugly snarls and defensive postures.

Emily sticks out her hand and offers them a shake. They each take it in turn, offering a limp handshake that grosses even me out.

"We didn't hear anything about you dating anyone." Tasha pouts.

"Yes, well..." I falter.

"We didn't want the paparazzi as a third member of our relationship.

We like to keep things quiet, don't we, baby?

" She rests one hand on my chest and lets the fingers of the other play with the hair on the nape of my neck.

Fuck, that feels good. I fight a whole body shudder.

She turns back to the girls. "Old friends of Luca's? " She offers.

"Very good friends of Luca's." Mandy replies, emphasizing the 'good' and trying to mark her territory. Shit, these women don't give up easily. Internally I cringe. I don't want Emily to have to deal with this shit. But before I can tell them to back off, Emily's already on the rebound.

"Oh, baby, how come you've never invited them back to the house?

I'd love to have other women to talk to so it's not all hockey and video games all the time.

" I smile. This kitten has claws. In two sentences she's let the puck bunnies know that we live together and that she hangs out with my friends regularly.

"Never occurred to me." I say, laying an open mouthed kiss on the crook of her neck. Under my hand I can feel her shiver at the contact and I keep my lips on her skin, smiling.

"You two live together?" Tasha asks, incredulously .

Emily beams up at me like I've hung the moon. "For about four months, now, right?"

I nod. "Just after the season started"

"I'm so sorry girls, you know how forgetful he is during the season, since you're all such good friends." I smile again, loving this masterful performance, before nipping and kissing my way up her neck, just behind her ear.

Tasha huffs before grabbing Mandy's arm. "Let's go find someone else to talk to." Mandy lets Tasha tug her towards the rest of the hockey players, looking to find a more willing victim.

"Call us sometime? So we can all hang out?" Emily calls out at the girls' retreating frames.

I chuckle, shaking my head, before I sit on one of the bar stools and pull Emily between my legs, so she's half standing, half leaning against my lap. I keep my arms wrapped around her waist, though, loving the feel of her against me.

"Sorry about that. I could tell you were uncomfortable but I didn't know if you'd want to be seen in public with me."

"Why wouldn't I want to be seen with you in public?"

"Because I look like this, and not like that." She replies, motioning towards herself and then the retreating puck bunnies.

"Not all hair and makeup?"

She huffs a frustrated sigh at me. "Luca, we both know I'm a five on a good day. You should be seen with someone who is a ten."

I shake my head at her. "Emily, you have no idea who I should or should not be with." I say. What I want to say is "You. You, Emily, is who I should be with. For real. Not pretend. And every day. Not just today. "

But I don't. I'm still trying to give her the time and space she needs to fall in love with me.

The boys have warned me off of her repeatedly.

"It'll complicate things."

"You can't give her the time or attention she'd deserve."

"What if you broke up and still had to live together?"

My bigger fear? What if while we're playing it safe, she finds someone else?

And then I have to watch the girl of my dreams kiss, hug, and sleep with someone else.

The mental image of some other man between Emily's legs, kissing and sucking and worshiping what's mine sends a fiery hot wave of jealousy through me.

"Woah. What just happened?" Emily asks, bringing her hand to my thigh and squeezing it. "You went really hard there."

Fuck the boys and their stupid rules. I'm going to make sure I'm the only man Emily's thinking about.

I slip my thumb up under her shirt and rub sweet little circles on the skin of her stomach.

With my other hand, I gently grip the bottom of her chin and turn her face so that she's looking directly into my eyes.

"I don't want hair and makeup. I don't want puck bunnies. I want sweet. I want kind. I want soft. I want someone waiting for me at home, smiling, when I come in after a long day at practice. I want someone to wear my jersey to my games." I pause for emphasis. "I want you."

The subtle twitches and movements of her face belay the mental gymnastics going on in her brain and I smile. She could never play poker. I smile against the crook of her neck .

"I know you're not there yet. And I'll wait. But for tonight, I need you to be my girlfriend in case any more bunnies show up." Relief is evident in her blue eyes as they sparkle back at me.

"Oh my God, Luca! Am I your bunny beard?

" She grins up at me mischievously. The laugh that rips from my stomach is full and welcomed and has her bouncing against my lap.

I grip her hips and slide her slightly down my thigh so she can't feel what her touch and her scent are doing to me.

Admitting my undying love for her was a lot.

Rubbing my hard cock against her thigh might just put her over the edge.

The bartender sets our drinks in front of us, and we each grab one, ready to head back to the table.

Gabe is playing peek-a-boo with Annie on his lap, while Carter feeds her cut up fruit.

We pass out our drinks before I slide in next to Carter.

But not before grabbing Emily's hips and sitting her on my lap.

Gabe's eyebrow raises.

I nod towards Mandy and Tasha hovering around the rookie table at the back. Mandy's in Matty's lap while Tasha is bent over Daniel, breasts resting on his shoulder, giving Kenny, sitting opposite, the view of a lifetime.

"Emmy here's my bunny beard. Pretended to be my girlfriend so Mandy and Tasha would leave me alone.

Now we've got to keep up the act." I smile, moving Emily's hair off of her shoulder so I can kiss it.

I revel at the goosebumps that appear on her skin after my kiss.

It makes me want to drag my tongue across them.

Carter peers around us. "Poor rookies. Don't know what they're in for. "

"So they really were old friends of yours? How long did you date for?"

Gabe scoffs. "Luca doesn't date. He..." Carter coughs loudly, cutting off the crude word Gabe was going to say. He shoots daggers at him and then nods at Annie meaningfully. "He...hooks up."

I bristle. "I date. I just haven't in a long time.

" Fucking Gabe giving Emily the wrong idea about me.

A part of me wonders if he isn't ruining my chances with her because he wants her for himself.

I saw the way he looked at her at the family day.

Was I going to have to fight my best friend for my future wife?

I take a swig of my beer while Emily sips on her glass of wine. Carter and Gabe get into a separate conversation about Coach and our next game, but Emily's watching me. I slide my thumb up under her shirt again and resume running circles over her soft skin.

Emily takes my other hand and laces her fingers through mine. "I know what it's like when you've changed. Or...at least...want to change, but no one around you believes it. They get it in their head that you're one way and that's it."

She takes the breath out of my lungs. That's exactly how everyone sees me - my family, the guys, the media.

I was the Titan's resident playboy. 'Commitment-phobe' my mother had called me.

'Perpetual bachelor' the tabloids said. 'Manwhore' the meaner publications said.

Even in the locker room the boys always joked about me hooking up with bunnies.

I hadn't picked up a bunny in years, but that was my reputation and it followed me around like a bad stench.

And spending years being told I'm one way, when I'm really not, I started feeling guilty that I wasn't hooking up with bunnies.

Even though deep down I knew that wasn't what I wanted anymore.

I'd spent the last few years in this limbo of 'am I?

' or 'am I not?' and I really hated feeling like I didn't know myself.

Or that, worst yet, I did but no one else did.

I squeeze Emily tighter against my chest. "Thank you," I whisper to her.

I've never felt so seen. In a matter of seconds, she had taken the two parts of me that were opposites and stitched them back together.

I am both - Luca the manwhore, and Luca, someone's future husband.

Luca the manwhore was my past. Luca, someone (hopefully Emily's) future husband is who I am now.

The rest of the world would catch up, but at least one person sees me - Emily.

I zone out the rest of the pub for most of the night. Husbands need to be steady, consistent, loyal, caring, and empathetic. I already am most of those things, I think. I just need to show Emily that I am.

But she already knows that. She sees me more than anyone else has in a long time. No. Emily's problem is within herself. I knew what it was like to change and no one around you believes in the change. I wonder how she's changed that no one recognizes.

She holds one of my cheeks in her hand and kisses my temple.

I spend the rest of my night vaguely listening in on the conversation, but really just imagining a future with Emily in it. I think of dates I can take her on, introducing her to my parents, the off-season vacations with her. I imagine being the man she needs me to be. The man she deserves.