Page 112 of Pucking the Team

“We promise.” Ben touched the split in his skin. “No more fighting.”

A tumble of emotions were spinning through me. “And Gina? She knows I’m seeing you all.”

“So?” Eduardo shrugged. “She can keep a secret.”

“And when the rest of the team guess, which won’t be long…” My attention went from Eduardo to Dylan. “I heard what they were saying when they pulled you all apart. They’re not dumb hockey players, they’re smart, they can see what’s happening under their noses.”

“The team is a family,” Dylan said. “What happens in the team and with our women and kids, stays that way, in the team.”

I nodded slowly and found myself leaning against Theo again, needing his strength.

“Don’t go,” Ben said. “It would make us all so sad.”

Eduardo’s lips were as downturned as I’d ever seen them. He reached for my hand and squeezed, keeping his eye contact firmly on mine.

“Stay,” Dylan said gruffly. “And we’ll love you, and protect you, and make sure you’re the most satisfied woman in the USA.”

“Love me?”

“Yeah, love you.” Dylan’s heated gaze bored into me.

Ben set a gentle kiss on my cheek. “Because that’s the way this is going, for us all…love.”

Love. It had been a long time since I’d heard that word said to me romantically. Steven, I now realized, had only said it once, and that had been when he’d proposed. And had he meant it then, or was it just part of a business deal to send his celebrity status stratospheric?

“Love is hard for me,” I admitted.

“We know.” Eduardo was close now. He filled my vision. “How could it not be after such losses? After such deceit.”

My lower eyelids prickled, and I blinked the moisture away.

“So stay,” Theo said, turning me to face him. “And let us show you with actions how fucking good love can be when it’s done right.”

I hitched in a breath. “As long as there is no more fighting. I hated that.” Was I really going to stay? Unpack my case and put my feet back under the table?

I guess I was. They were damn good at laying out a convincing argument to a girl.

“No more fighting over you,” Theo said, “we can agree to that.”

“Over me?”

“We can’t agree to no more fighting, it kinda comes with our job description.”

“Does it? I mean—”

He didn’t give me a chance to finish because his lips came down on mine, a gentle, genuinely affectionate kiss that had my knees weakening.

I gripped his sweater and let my tongue dance with his.

But then the kiss was broken and Eduardo cupped my face. For a moment he stared into my eyes then his soft lips were on mine.

I sighed and reached for his shoulders. His tenderness was healing to my fractured nerves.

“We want you,” he said. “And we want you to be happy.”

“Pip.” Dylan slid me into his arms, even though Eduardo’s and Theo’s were still around me. “Don’t run from us, please, never do that again.”

“Don’t do something to make me run.”