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HALLIE

“Way too sexy for this office.”

“For our own good.” That came from the captain, I thought. Hux, maybe?

“Shouldn’t be allowed.” One of the plebs. Drayson. Grayson? Someone new to the team, mouthing off.

“Fuckkkkk…”

The communal groan went up as my office manager bent over at the water cooler, presenting her peach-shaped, and completely office inappropriate mini skirt clad behind to the ogling masses that made up the main cohort of the Jericho Chimeras Ice Hockey pro team.

The WAGS congregated about someone’s underutilized desk in the main front office of the home team building—no, not for that purpose—situated in the corner giggled. They usually did over any random muscled member of the team no matter who they were attached to at the time. Someone, I didn’t lift my head from the tower of marketing proofs scattered across my desk, you know, work, to check on who, broke off from the group and clicked their patent heels over the tiled flooring and sauntered across to the cooler. Then the heel did a little double tap and I sighed.

Janelle. It had to be. The office manager had always wanted to be on team WAG. She’d dropped a lot of weight recently and she’d been flirting up a storm with the team captain at every opportunity, too. Even I couldn’t ignore that.

Right on cue the captain’s deep voice filled the office alongside Janelle’s giggle.

It looked like the chattering, sashaying WAGS ranks were about to swell with one more member.

Not that I’d ever want to be one, thank you very much.

My glasses slid down my nose a fraction as I studied the blurring words on the pages before me. I shuffled the papers and blinked rapidly, but the new view didn't change anything. I’d been staring at the proofs for way too freaking long, and I needed a break. But getting up in front of the team was premeditated social, as well as personal suicide, and I liked my life.

Kind of. Mostly.

Liar, liar, marketing proofs on fire.

That was me. Hallie Newman, marketing pleb for the best ice hockey team in the south.

Only, it might have been a better idea fangirling from afar than actually working side by side with some of the team. Or all of them. Because so much of that glam-fangirl-glitter wore off so fast that I couldn't keep up four months into a job I loved or hated, depending on the minute. This was definitely a mood career.

“You know you’re sexier than all of them put together.”

I blinked at my papers and reshuffled them, trying to figure out where the voice came from. A shadow obscured my light—a really big freaking shadow. I stared right up into a pair of dark eyes the entire country knew belonged to Solace Hunter, the Chimera’s defender. Goalie. Whatever.

Loyal to his team, unmoveable to a fault. And vicious to anyone who got on his other side.

Because I saw that when he belted the crap out of a guy who decided to key his captain’s car the first night I worked late and locked up, thinking I was still alone in the building.

Thank God he didn’t see me , because who knows what he would have done to the witness when he dragged the guy’s unconscious form to the back of his sports car, threw him in the trunk, and drove away.

I never mentioned the incident afterward. Some long dormant survival instinct kicked in. The next day the captain's car was fixed, and the guy’s existence just never came up.

I managed to stay well away from Solace Hunter, Chimera defender after that…until right now. Coal dark eyes stared down at me, not a flicker of amusement or flirtation in sight.

Because Solace didn’t flirt.

Like the rest of his actions, everything was done with a potent degree of determination. He was often the first Chimera in the gym working out in the mornings and the last to leave at night, checking the building when he thought no one remained.

I knew, because those quiet hours were when I got my best work done. When no one bothered me. The empty building left me quiet time to deal with the chatter my desk screamed at me that I couldn't deal with during the day in an overpopulated, over sensory office. Plus, knowing Solace was around offered a kind of safety.

I mean, who would screw with a guy like that?

No one. Certainly not this girl.

Lost in my head, I stared up at him and managed to swallow on a dry throat. “Huh?”

Cute, Hallie. Real smart, right there.

Solace smirked, though something impossibly dark flickered behind his eyes as he leaned in closer. “You really don’t pay attention to the bullshit out there, do you?” he murmured, sweeping a hand almost triple the size of mine out to encompass the rest of the room where I still refused to look.

I didn’t want to see the faces that wouldn’t look down at me, anyway. Or worse, gawk back at the shitshow that was about to go down.

Heat climbed my throat, heading for my cheeks. I didn’t want to know where it originated, especially when this man had been the centre of too many late night fantasies that should never have been a part of my spank bank repertoire.

Because Solace Hunter was so far out of my league it wasn’t funny. We shouldn’t share the same building, let alone the same breathing space. My fingers shook the tiniest fraction as I pushed my glasses back up my nose where they drooped.

“I don't really fit in over there.” I matched his soft tone, unwilling to bring more attention my way, and doubly unsure why I bothered to engage him.

This conversation wouldn't end well. For me, at least.

For Solace…I was just another girl he’d shrug off. He must have puck bunnies flying out every orifice on a daily basis. Those shoulders could lift a small planet, and he had abs to support everything above that, plus all the accompanying pucking bits…I should know. I got to stare at all the promo shots on a daily basis and make sure everyone’s other bits—titles, names, and stats—were presented correctly.

If perving was a perk, I would rank out in the next employee satisfaction survey on that topic alone. Hell, I probably knew their numbers better than half the players did themselves.

“You’re right.” He didn’t straighten, still invading my space and continued this Godforsaken conversation that headed exactly nowhere. “You don’t fit in there.”

“Exactly. So. Work.” I let out a controlled breath and dropped my gaze back to my desk, shuffling my proofs—yet again—out of order to give myself something to do because what did a fangirl do when a hulking behemoth mountain of hockey sex god leaned over one’s desk?

Answer: shuffle the proofs like a Vegas card counter, and pray for absolution.

“Like I said, you’re sexier than all of them. Any one of them.” He refused to budge.

I bit my lip, squeezing my eyes shut. “I know you get whoever you want, Solace. I know you have loads of time in the middle of the day between training sessions, and I know you work your ass off. Maybe you could, you know…let me do some of that last right now, too?” I bit back the please that teetered on the tip of my tongue, because begging with this man seemed wrong. Dangerous, even.

His breath huffed against the back of my neck when he laughed softly. “This is what makes you sexy, Hallie. Unlike them, you understand what a work ethic is. It’s fucking beautiful.” His fingers trailed lightly along my spine to my nape beneath my shoulder length dark hair and rested there, the touch hidden from sight to anyone else. Intimate. “Like you. This brain is the prettiest damn thing in here.”

I swallowed hard and pushed my chair back, but his bulk blocked me in. “Let me up,” I breathed, my heart hammering in my chest as the room shrank on me. “We— I’m just the marketing pleb. I can’t do this. I’ll lose my job.”

“You can’t be told you’re beautiful?” He massaged my neck in gentle circles. The callouses and strength in his massive fingers belied by the sweetness of his touch.

My body ached for that touch. Craved it. I hadn’t had contact with another person, anyone actually, apart from my cat, since?—

Nope. Not going there.

“I have an aversion to puck bunnies.” That’s what fell out of my mouth as one of the WAGS headed in our direction. One without a flashy diamond ring on her finger, which, in my limited experience, was the most dangerous sort.

A black Chimera branded coffee mug stamped with her name that I forgot the moment I read it slammed down on my desk along with a few loose strands of bleached, split hair. “Coffee, honey. Black. Nothing in it. Just give me the dregs today. It’s all in the effort of…you know.” She shimmied at my desk while I tried not to look at her.

My chin dipped down in an effort to hide. My camouflage. It’s how I’d survived in the months since I started. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t make eye contact. Pretend you’re not one of them. Because I wasn’t. I made that mistake in my first week on the job, starting out friendly. Hell, did I get an education in all the things I was not in those first five working days that made me question my sanity, my entire career plan and my life choices. But I returned the following Monday with a new plan, and I’d stuck to it ever since.

Hence, my survival in my role as not-a-WAG and bottom-line marketing pleb. I sighed, pushed my proofs into an incomprehensible pile that would take half an hour after they all departed to sort back out, and grabbed the Chimeras mug presented to me.

“Sure, Cindy.”

The WAG flared mid-shimmy. “My name is–”

“She doesn’t care what your goddamn name is, Mindy,” Solace snapped, corded arms straining beneath his shirt as he braced his fists knuckle first on my desk and towered over both of us.

Now that is a sexy sight.

I mentally added to my spank bank as Cindy-Mindy preened while I cowered. If I played dead, he’d forget I existed, right?

Nope. One inked hand returned to its place on the back of my neck. The fingers tightened when Cindy-Mindy didn’t move from her place before my desk. I stared at the mug, willing everyone to leave. Well, maybe not quite everyone . Tension emanated from the Chimera who held me pinned to my desk chair and drew me out of my camouflage-slump.

“Don’t you dare get up,” he growled at me darkly when I trembled like a freaking victim.

No sound came out of my mouth when it fell open, because what else could I be beneath hands that size?

He switched his attention forward, his tone hardening. “She’s not your fucking doormat. Go back and play with things at your own level,” he snapped at the WAG throwing her tits in his face.

I didn’t think she was attached to him, but then I never paid attention to the revolving door of the Chimera WAG squad anyway.

“Okay,” I breathed, unsure who I answered.

Cindy-Mindy huffed and flounced off, snatching her mug back from my fluttering hands. Her razored talons in the same lurid fuchsia—at least they aren’t gold—that lit her name in neon on the mug grazed my fingers hard enough to draw twin lines of red along my fingers.

“Sit up,” Solace ordered.

I squiggled about in my seat, craning back at an uncomfortable angle to find his face. “You’re ridiculously tall,” I informed him.

The hard lines around his mouth eased a fraction. “And you’re tiny.”

I laughed at him, loud enough to turn heads, but then who hadn’t just heard that little office level domestic? The rumor mill would be in full swing after that, anyway. I discarded my brand of camouflage and did something different for once.

Solace brought out a part of me I’d kept hidden, apparently. He made me feel…reckless.

“I’m so far from tiny it’s not funny,” I giggled, taking off my glasses to swipe at the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, and gestured at my curved tummy. That one curved out, not in. No concave bits on this girl.

“Stop,” he ordered again.

I froze and looked up at him curiously. “Do people always do what you say because you say it?” I asked politely.

His mouth twitched. “Yes. But not you, apparently.” He caught my wrist and liberated my glasses, cleaning them absently on the hem of his numbered shirt. His eyes roamed over my face, then he placed them gently back on the bridge of my nose. Fingers traced my hair, flicking it out from behind my ear. He nodded decisively. “Nah. So much better on.”

I wasn’t sure if my stomach was in freefall, or if he just offered me a backhanded compliment. “Thanks?” I opted for a dry tone.

The small smile was back. He leaned in until his lips grazed my ear and my temperature spiked.

“Sexy as fuck, Hallie.”

Then the Jericho Chimeras behemoth of a defender straightened, his face clean of emotion. Solace Hunter wandered away like nothing just happened between us at all.