Page 31 of How to Puck Your Boss (L.A. Hawks Hockey #3)

Chapter Eighteen

O ver the next ten minutes, Penny quickly realized two things: Playing darts with hockey players wasn’t about how good you were, it was about how good you were at talking trash. And she had cold-bloodedly lied earlier because, goodness, she was fully letting herself be manipulated.

But it was unfair! Jack had his smile and his fingers, which kept grazing her body as if by chance.

It was always in a way that looked completely harmless to those around him, although she knew it was anything but.

Jack knew where she was sensitive. He knew that she could hardly breathe when he leaned over her and brushed his lips against her earlobe.

He knew that all he had to do was touch the sensitive spot on her upper arm to give her goosebumps all over her body.

He rolled up his shirt because he knew that she liked his sinewy forearms. And he laughed his hoarse, dark laugh because he knew there was nothing sexier.

Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t quite true. She herself laughed suspiciously often simply because Leon was an even worse loser than Jack and looked grumpier with every point that he and Penny took, taking the lead.

“That’s unfair,” he said when Penny had thrown a solid sixty points and handed him the darts. “The target is hanging too low. You’re shorter, so you can throw straighter.”

Penny snorted. “The target is hanging at the correct height. Maybe you should go to the team doctor and have your eyes checked.”

Leon glared at her. “I’m an eagle-eye!”

“Don’t be like that, Leon!” Fox announced. “She’s just better than you.” He winked at her appreciatively and Penny smiled broadly.

Jack was right. All she had to do was stop being polite and friendly and speak a language that the Hawks players understood. It was ridiculous, yet at the same time, it was great fun. She almost felt like she belonged, and she hadn’t had that feeling in ages.

“You have to be nicer to him. He’ll be crying by the end of the evening,” Jack murmured as she stood next to him at the line again.

“That’s good. At least you won’t be the only one,” she replied rebelliously, grinning at him.

He chuckled softly. “Your fighting spirit scares me.”

“No, no. It’s the fear of losing,” she corrected him flippantly.

“Hm,” he uttered with a smile. “Speaking of losing: do you really date losers on purpose?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

“That’s what Matt said earlier. That you go after losers who aren’t suitable for a long-term relationship.” He cleared his throat and turned his face away, unconcerned. “Is that true?”

Confused, Penny blinked. She had the feeling that the answer to Jack’s question was important. If she told the truth, would he change his mind and stop wanting to go out with her? If she only formed relationships that she knew were doomed to fail?

However, wouldn’t that be exactly what she would be doing if she actually started dating Jack?

She swallowed, wrapped her arms around herself, and finally murmured thoughtfully, “It’s possible.

I think…I do it to upset my parents, to some extent.

A little because I’ve always felt lost and was attracted to other lost souls.

A little because I…” She sighed. “Was too afraid of being the loser in a relationship, if my partner wasn’t the loser. ”

Jack gave her an irritated look. “In what life could anyone think you’re a loser, Penny?”

She laughed nervously. “Oh, you have no idea. The term was tossed at me about as often as the word crazy, until a few years ago.”

She felt Jack’s gaze on her, so she focused on Leon, who was throwing his darts, before asking quietly, “So, are you certain you still want to go out with me? Do you want to join my exes? It could make you a loser.”

“Oh, someone has to end your streak of bad luck with guys, right?”

She laughed. “Rather confident, aren’t you?”

“Not as confident as you are in your darts skills.”

“I’m leading by a hundred points! And it would be more if you didn’t…if you didn’t…”

“If I what?” he asked innocently, raising his hand as if to run it through his hair, but instead sliding his index finger along her temple.

“…do that!” she replied angrily, stepping back.

“Jack, it’s your turn!” Dax shouted, who had been casting disapproving glances in their direction all evening.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jack said innocently before answering his teammate’s call.

Jack threw seventy points and caught up.

His teammates oohed and aahed like a bunch of muscular cheerleaders, but it was to no avail.

After twenty minutes, Penny only needed sixty points to end the game.

Leon’s throws had become increasingly aggressive until Fox threatened to take away his darts before he hurt someone.

Jack wasn’t bad, but he missed the twenty too many times and Penny was more than confident of victory, even if she didn’t like the dangerous glint that had appeared in Jack’s eyes.

“Beat them all, Penny!” Lucy shouted.

Dax snorted. “You’re only rooting for her because she’s a woman!”

“No,” his girlfriend replied snippily. “I’m not rooting for Penny. I’m against Jack and Leon because they’re both arrogant idiots who deserve to finally lose.”

Dax frowned. “Well, if you put it that way… Come on, Penny, beat them all!”

She laughed and stood at the throwing line, but before she could raise the first dart, Jack sidled up to her…brushing her shoulder with his while his fingers gently glided over her palm. “Fine, I admit that you’ve played rather well so far,” he said. “But you haven’t won anything yet.”

She turned to him with narrowed eyes. “Stop it!”

“Stop what?” he asked innocently.

“Always touching me!” she hissed so quietly that none of the players heard.

“It’s cramped in here and my shoulders are so terribly broad.”

She snorted and turned to the others. “Could someone please move him away from here?”

“Sorry, trash talk is allowed,” Fox stated apologetically. “Those are our rules.”

But it wasn’t trash talk! It was…trash touching!

Annoyed, she turned back to the dartboard.

Jack slowly tilted his head so that from behind it looked as if he were just studying the board more carefully.

But, in reality, he was only doing it so that his stupid, stubbly chin would brush against her cheek and his scent of pine forest and sex – ugh, Jack! – would fill her nose.

The touch would have brought a weaker woman to her knees. She wasn’t about to let him win, though. Not at darts, or at the other game he was playing!

“I know exactly what you’ve been doing all evening, Jack,” she whispered heatedly in his ear.

“And what is that?”

“You’re trying to seduce me!”

He gave her a dirty smile that she felt deep in her abdomen, confirming her suspicion.

“And? Is it working?”

She swallowed. “No.”

“Liar.”

“Bad liar, obviously,” she corrected him softly before rubbing her neck where the hairs had stood up.

“Boss, you have to throw now!” Leon shouted impatiently. “End this humiliation.”

She sighed, nodded, and raised the dart.

“You know, Penny,” Jack whispered, his dark voice caressing her skin like a sensual touch, “if things were different…”

“But they’re not.”

“No. But if they were…”

“But they’re not!”

“No. But if…”

She ignored him and concentrated on the target in front of her. The dart rested on her fingertips as she prepared to throw it…

“…then I would give you orgasms number six and seven tonight.”

Penny flinched and the dart landed in the wall next to the board.

Penny glanced up at him in disbelief, heat filling her face and her stomach twisting strangely. “That wasn’t fair!”

Jack grinned and shrugged. “Oh, when is life fair?”

“Hey, what did you say to her, Jack?” Leon asked smugly. “That seems to have worked. Do it again.”

Jack’s grin widened. “Oh, I might do just that,” he murmured quietly. “Over and over again. If things were different.”

Penny gritted her teeth. “But they’re not!” she repeated quietly and threw the second dart. It landed in the twenty.

“But if they were…” Jack insisted.

“Then I would have asked if you wanted to see me again, okay?” she replied angrily, taking a deep breath. “If you hadn’t found the documents. If you had just stayed in bed and we had stayed in our bubble, then I would have asked if you wanted to go out with me.”

He nodded and squeezed her hand, which was hidden behind his broad back. “I know. Me too.”

Her stomach clenched. It was nice to hear. “But things aren’t different,” she murmured.

“You already said that.”

“Yes. I’m trying to remember,” she whispered, her hand squeezing his. “I forget every time I see you. I miss your touch even when I’m angry with you. You make things so incredibly difficult for me.”

His shoulders tensed and his irises darkened. “You can’t say things like that to me, Penny,” he murmured. “You can’t…”

“Be honest?”

“No! Not when that’s what comes out of it. Not if your ultimate plan is to turn me down and just be friends.”

She smiled shakily and the warmth radiating from Jack’s body found its way to her heart. “I don’t think anyone has ever said the word ‘friends’ so contemptuously.”

“And I tried so hard to make the word sound natural,” he remarked dryly.

She laughed and turned the dart over in her hand.

She was aware that everyone was staring at her.

She knew she should finally throw. The other players were probably growing suspicious.

But the words automatically flowed from her lips: “It’s weird, isn’t it?

We shouldn’t feel so much. We hardly know each other. ”

“I feel like I’ve known you forever. Everything that comes out of your mouth is true. And, you never ask me things about hockey, you only ask me about myself.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “But you’re so much more interesting than hockey, Jack. So much more than hockey.”

The corners of his mouth hinted at a smile. “I think you’re the only one in this room who thinks that.”