Page 5 of The Pucking Date (Defenders Diaries #3)

“You need to stop staring,” I manage, or at least I think I do, my voice barely scraping past my throat. I shift behind the spray, trying to use the water like a curtain, wishing I’d picked literally any other time to rinse off the damn beach.

But he doesn’t move .

“I will,” he says, voice low and even, like he’s talking to a wild animal he doesn’t want to scare. “But it’d be a lot easier if you weren’t standing there like a fever dream.”

He lets that hang for a second, then adds, softer now:

“Just grab a towel, Novak. Or I’m gonna forget how good intentions work.”

Right. The towel. The one I left hanging on the hook, not having foreseen that my dirty fantasy starring a shirtless Finn O’Reilly would actually show up tonight and ruin me in real time.

He follows my gaze, then takes a step closer. My heart stops. “I’ll hand it to you,” he says, lifting his hands, trying not to spook me. “No funny business.”

“I swear to God, if you?—”

But he’s already reaching for it. Before I can object, he’s in front of me, turning off the water. Then he wraps the towel around my shoulders, his fingers brushing against bare, wet skin as he pulls the edges closed at my chest.

My heart stutters. My breath stops. It’s not creepy. It’s not pushy. It’s…tender. And somehow, that makes me want him even more.

“There,” he murmurs, voice low and rough. “You’re decent.”

But I’m not. Not even close. Not in my head. Not in my body. Not with the way his eyes are blazing, fire simmering beneath the surface as he drinks me in, knowing exactly how I taste.

“This is so far beyond inappropriate,” I mutter weakly, clutching the towel, the only shield I have right now.

Finn raises both hands in surrender, but there’s a flicker in his eyes—amused, knowing, hungry.

“Want my shirt?” he offers, lifting it from his waistband. “It’s clean. You can use the towel for your hair.” A pause. Then his voice drops into that slow Southern drawl that always gets under my skin. “I just wanna see you in it, darlin’.”

I should roll my eyes. Try to snap something sarcastic. Instead, I say, “Turn around.”

He lifts a brow but obeys, unhurried, having no problem with letting me think I’m in control. I wrap the towel around my hair and pull on the shirt—soft, worn, still warm from his skin, smelling of salt and comfort and him . “You can look now.”

He turns. And when his eyes land on me—bare legs, damp hair, his shirt on me—he stops. Just stands there, like someone knocked the breath clean out of him.

His gaze drags over me, blazing and desperate. His jaw tightens. His nostrils flare. His hands curl into fists at his sides. Then he lets out a breath—harsh, wrecked, guttural. “Fuck,” he mutters, voice wrecked. “That’s not helping.”

For one reckless second, I want to close the distance. See what would happen if I didn’t keep pretending that night didn’t ruin me. But guys like Finn, they get in deep. Under your skin. Into your head. Make you believe you’re the only thing they see. Until they change their mind and move on.

So I do what I’ve gotten good at. I swallow the want. I straighten my spine. And I fix a tight smile on my lips. Armor I haven’t taken off in years. “Say one more word,” I bite out, “and I’ll have your next sponsorship deal pulled so fast you’ll be modeling protein powder in your mom’s basement.”

He huffs a laugh, totally unfazed. “Is that your way of saying I look good shirtless?”

I glare. He winks. “Don’t push your luck, O’Reilly,” I shoot back, grabbing my stuff. The snark is my armor, but it feels thin .

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His voice is easy, but there’s that glint in his eyes again, familiar and maddening. “Though technically…you are wearing my shirt. Which, if I’m being honest, is further than I thought I’d get this weekend.”

I roll my eyes so hard it’s a miracle I stay upright. “In your dreams.”

“Constantly.” He smirks without missing a beat.

I shoulder past him. Careful, not letting any part of me brush against him. “Shower’s all yours,” I toss over my shoulder. “Try not to scar anyone else tonight.”

His laugh follows me out the door.

I make it back to my room without running into anyone, some small mercy in an otherwise spectacularly mortifying evening. I shut the door, lean against it, and try to remember how to breathe.

This is fine. Totally fine. I just flash-reenacted a one-night stand with my wet dream…while wearing his shirt.

No big deal. Just another day in the downward spiral formerly known as my post-Chad rebound era.

I catch my reflection in the mirror and groan. Wet hair. Flushed cheeks. Finn’s worn T-shirt hanging off one shoulder like I’m playing dress-up in my imaginary boyfriend’s clothes.

I flop onto the bed, face-first into a pillow that doesn’t smell like him, which is both a relief and a crushing disappointment.

Four months ago, I was the polished, composed girlfriend of Chad Vanderbilt. Empowered PR director. A woman with her life together.

The bastard wined and dined me like we were already on the cover of Town & Country.

Five-star dinners, tickets to black-tie benefits, sleek little gifts that showed up at my apartment without warning.

A bottle of perfume from Paris. A first edition of The Unbearable Lightness of Being —my favorite book, a subtle nod to my Czech heritage and, ironically, the complicated weightlessness of our relationship.

A necklace I was too nervous to wear outside my house.

We took weekend getaways to Montauk, and then, just when I thought it was too good to be real, he flew me to Italy. Venice, Florence, Milan. Another holiday weekend we stayed at his family’s villa in St. Marteen, all white linen and staff who called me “Miss Novak.”

It was the kind of swoony, fairytale setup you don’t say no to, especially when you’ve spent your whole life shrink-wrapped in overprotective-dad energy, with every guy who so much as glanced your way catching a death stare in return.

Even my father seemed to approve for once, or at least he didn’t openly disapprove, which was basically the same thing. I’m pretty sure my mother had something to do with that, probably reminding him I was twenty-eight and legally allowed to date without a chaperone.

Chad checked all the boxes. Polished, respectable, and well-connected through his family’s financial firm, a company managing millions for professional hockey players.

He knew the league inside and out, advising athletes on investments, contracts, and more importantly, whispering in the ears of sponsors about which players were worth betting on.

He fit seamlessly into our world. Maybe a little too seamlessly now that I think about it. And for a while, I persuaded myself it was real.

Then, over brunch at some obscenely pretentious club where they served oysters on an actual ice sculpture, Chad reached across the table, took my hand, and gave me that soft, tragic look rich boys learn right after polo and before private equity.

“This has been incredible,” he said. “Truly. But…” I blinked, waiting for the punchline. “My life’s about to…shift,” he continued, with the gravitas of someone announcing a stock split. “I’ve just gotten engaged.”

I stared at him. “Come again?”

“I’m engaged,” he repeated, with the practiced calm of a man who’d already spun this story in the mirror. “To Allegra van Alst.”

He said it like her name came with a coat of arms and a title. Like I should be impressed. Or offer congratulations. Instead, I laughed.

“So just to clarify, Chad, you were romancing your future wife while simultaneously dicking down the help?”

He winced, just slightly. “No need to be vulgar, babe.”

So I just sat there, blinking in disbelief, too shocked for a comeback. I only managed to raise my eyebrows. He had the audacity to wave me off like I was noise pollution. “I have…obligations. You wouldn’t understand. Allegra comes from a very connected family.”

Translation: old money, old rules. Daddy golfed with senators and probably owned half of Connecticut.

“And you…” He gave me this soft, almost pitying smile, the kind you save for someone with toilet paper stuck to their shoe. “You’re just…not from our world.”

Our world.

Like he and Allegra had already merged into some smug, country-club monolith. Like they were legacy stock I hadn’t been born into.

It was polite code for “you didn’t go to the right prep school, your family tree doesn’t have a Latin motto, and your mother knows how to cook her own rice. ”

Not from his world? Please.

I’ve spent my whole life navigating rooms filled with men twice as arrogant and half as useful as Chad Vanderbilt.

I can hold my own at a press conference, in a boardroom, or during a post-game bloodbath.

But apparently, because I didn’t descend from colonial stock or summer in Nantucket, I didn’t make the cut.

And the kicker? Turns out my younger brother Adam does have a Latin motto. Tattooed on his butt.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat —fortune favors the bold—in thick, elegant script.

Got it in Vegas after the Defenders clinched a playoff spot and he lost a bet to Nate and Finn.

Now it’s immortalized just above his left cheek like some Ivy League frat house crest…

if that crest were mooning you in a hot tub.

So technically? We do have a family motto.

As if being the daughter of first-generation immigrants was something to be ashamed of.

Yes, my father’s parents came from Czechoslovakia.

Yes, my mother’s parents emigrated from China.

And yes, they built careers, raised a family, and gave me every damn tool I needed to walk into any room and hold my own.

It’s the fucking American dream.

But apparently, that wasn’t enough for Chad Vanderbilt. So good riddance to him and his oysters and his ice sculptures. And to his world. Because I’m not interested in begging for a seat at someone else’s table. Especially not when I’m busy building my own.

So there you have it, folks. The Chad Experiment was a failure.

And that’s when Finn O’Reilly found me in Montreal. All the rules I’d built to protect myself didn’t just bend in Montreal, they shattered. Because he didn’t just look at me like he couldn’t walk away .

He looked at me like he saw me.

And somehow, he got close enough to catch me.

I can tell he’s waiting me out. Biding his time until I come to my senses. But I need that night to mean nothing. It’s the only way I stay whole.

Now I’m in a guest room, wearing his shirt, replaying the way his eyes darkened when he saw me in it, like I was still his and he didn’t appreciate the time off.

Tomorrow, I’ll pretend this never happened. I’ll be Jessica Novak again—controlled, untouchable, safe.

But tonight, wearing his shirt like a confession I’m not ready to make, I know I’m lying to myself. Because the way he looked at me? Like I was his biggest mistake and his deepest want rolled into one? That look is going to haunt me until I either run again or stop running altogether.