Page 141 of Pucking Sweet

I consider her for a moment. Claribel is a vault. I can ask this without feeling judged or crazy or worry that it’ll spread through the rest of the team and haunt me until I die. Taking a deep breath, I let it out with a quick, “Have you ever had anal sex?”

Her mouth parts slightly. Then she grins. “Poppy St. James, are you propositioning me at work?”

“What—no,” I cry.

“You’re my superior. This is technically harassment—”

“Oh god, stop! Forget I asked. Seriously, just toss me out on the ice, and let the Zamboni run me over.”

I get up to leave and she pulls on my arm. “Hey, come on. Sit. I had to tease you a little. I did, and now I’m done.”

I sit back down, snatching up my coffee.

“You asked me a question,” she goes on.

“No, I didn’t.”

“And my answer is yes. I’ve had anal sex. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” I burn my lips on this hot coffee, but I don’t care. “So, home game. Tomorrow. You’re ready with our schedule of events—”

“Poppy, if you think I’m gonna talk to you about hockey right now, you’re dreaming. Ask me about anal sex. You’re considering it? You tried it but don’t like it? Or you want to be the one penetrating, and you’d like recommendations for pegs and straps?”

My eyes go wide as I stare at her. “We live very different lives.”

She snorts. “Thank god for that. Your life is entirely too pink for me.”

I glance down at my rose-pink Michael Kors wrap dress and mymatching Gianni Bini ankle strap heels. “I guess I just wanted to talk to someone about it,” I hedge. “You know, instead of searching on the internet…”

She nods. “Oh yeah, research anything too long and you’ll be convinced you’re dying.”

“Exactly,” I say, already feeling a little lighter.

She checks her phone. “Alright, I can give you twenty minutes before I’m due in the locker room. Ask me anything.”

An hour later, Claribel and I finally leave the practice rink. She takes the rest of my biscotti, and I take her list of recommendations for toys, lubes, and best positions for optimal comfort. I may be an anxious, overthinking mess, but you can’t deny that I’m well-organized. And I amalwaysprepared.

48

My microwave beeps, and I take out my steamer bag of green beans. When I’m home and cooking for myself, I eat, like, two of these bags a day. They serve one family of three, or one hockey player. Tonight, I’m eating them with two grilled chicken breasts and a loaded double-baked potato. I dump the green beans into a mixing bowl I have prepped with some salt and pepper and a chunk of butter. I’m swirling them with a fork when someone knocks on my door.

It can’t be Poppy. We had dinner plans she had to cancel when she was called in to deal with a PR crisis. A drunk rookie drove his car into a goddamn sand dune. I guess he thought he could driveoverthe dune to get to the beach. The trouble is that the dunes are all protected here in Florida. You face a major fine for damaging one. This is serious. We’re talking police presence, threats of jail time, and Poppy contacting lawyers.

Fucking rookies. Not only am I losing the chance to see my girl before I leave for another two days, but now I have to eat by myself.

Whoever it is knocks again with a heavy fist.

“I’m coming,” I shout.

Why do I already know who this is just based on the annoying sound of his knock?

“What?” I say at Lukas, swinging the door open.

It’s been a week since the bachelorette party, and things are going really well. Sharing a woman with this asshole has proved to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Granted, we’re in the middle of a messy set of home and away games that has us traveling or on the ice every other day, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to do any deep relationship-building.

But the sex is going great. They were both over here last night.We took turns fucking her on my couch before we both came on her chest. Then we watched TV and ate popcorn with her snuggled between us. I got to hold her and pet her hair while she fell asleep on me, her legs stretched out across Nov. It was pretty fucking perfect.

My eyes widen as I take in the two large suitcases at his feet. “Nov, what—”