“You be quiet,” he said, still not letting her go as he ran kisses across her jaw line.

“Hey, Elli!” Elli looked over to Phillip, who was grinning ear to ear at her, “When you are done with that, let me know. I’ll show you how us forwards take care of our women.”

“And how’s that?” Elli asked, even though Shea was turning red with anger.

Phillip had been flirting with Elli all night and Shea was not happy about it. It didn’t bother Elli at all, though. Phillip was 18! Yes, he was positively gorgeous with his bright blue eyes and long blonde hair, but he was a baby!

“It’s simply, really. Defensemen take care of the back, while us forwards take good, lovely care of the front,” he said with a cocky grin, causing everyone to hoot and holler while Shea just burned with angry.

“Shut your mouth, Anderson, you won’t even know what to do when you finally get a woman naked,” Shea bit out.

“Oh, I’ve had my fair share of women, captain, oh my captain, and when I get yours, I’ll take my sweet time.”

Everyone got real quiet, while Phillip stood there just grinning as his eyes went up and down Elli’s body. Elli felt so bad for him because Shea was going to kill him. It took all of three seconds before Shea was chasing a laughing Phillip out of the bar. Elli leaned against the pool table giggling while Alex just shook his head.

“Oo wee, he’s got it bad for you.”

Elli looked over at him, “Everyone probably thinks Shea’s joking around, but I’m pretty sure that kid’s going to get a talking to. Shea’s pissed.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

That made Elli giddy for some reason.

Elli placed her beer on the table and restarted the game with Alex. They were well into the game when she finally noticed that Shea was back in the bar. She watched as he leaned against the bar, laughing with the two women from earlier. Well, two ice bunnies. He had two beers in his hand, but had put them back on the bar when one of the girls asked him to sign her size toddler jersey. When he picked the beer back up, the other girl wrapped her arms around his arm, and he smiled down at her. Then the other one did it, and it took everything Elli had to not go over there and make a fool of herself. They were fans. They wanted to talk to their favorite hockey player. Elli wouldn’t get jealous, it was okay. Shea loved her. He wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t do anything dumb, especially with her in the damn bar.

But then one of the girls leaned up and placed a kiss on his cheek, and he just smiled, which was fine. Everyone wanted to kiss their favorite hockey player. No big deal. The other one said something, and he looked over at her and their lips just met. Elli doubted Shea even saw it coming, because she sure didn’t. But then Elli found herself getting pissed because kissing on the lips was not okay. She took in a sharp intake of breath as the girl moved her hand up to Shea’s cheek.

Not able to control her breathing, Elli stormed towards the door, because Shea didn’t pull back.

The damn girl had Shea’s mouth sucked into hers, something that had never happened to him before. It took some force and when he finally was able to pull back, he felt like the chick had taken his lips with her.

“Excuse me,” he bit out as he wiped his mouth, “Jesus, lady.”

He then saw Elli out the corner of his eye, heading for the door.

“Elli!” he yelled, moving away from the women, knocking the beer off the bar as he went to go after her, but one of the girls grabbed onto him again.

“Sergei, stop her!”

As Shea tried to detangle his self from the crazy starfish women, he watched as Sergei stepped out in front of Elli. She said something and he let her right by.

When he finally got the starfish off of him, he ran towards the door. “Thanks a lot, Sergei!”

“She said she would trade me!” Sergei yelled back as Shea took off running out of the bar towards the elevators. He went inside one, pressing the suite level button and waited as the elevator went up. He didn’t understand why he even stayed and talked to the girls! One of them said something about their brother playing back in Boston, and that roped him in. He should have known better. He had been playing with ice bunnies his whole life. He knew their tricks; he had fallen to them many times before. When the doors opened, he ran down to the room number Elli had given him and started pounding on the door, but Elli never opened it. Bryan did, though.

“Adler, what the hell?”

“I need to talk to Elli,” he said, turning his back to Bryan before pounding on Elli’s door.

“She’s in the shower, and it’s too late for visitors. You’ll see her tomorrow.”

Shea looked over at Bryan, who stood with his arms crossed, glaring over at Shea,

“It’s late, Shea. Go to bed.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You can see her tomorrow. Bye, Shea.”

Shea shook his head, he couldn’t leave. But if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to fix things with Elli, he would be off the team before the beginning of the next week. Shea looked at Elli’s door one last time and then walked away, making what he thought was the biggest mistake of his life. Because when he came back the next morning, Elli was gone.

Chapter 24

The Assassins won the game that night without the help of Shea. He was playing like shit, and knew it, but the guys still came through and won. Which was great. But Shea was hurting, Elli wouldn’t answer any of his calls. He was freaking out that she had given up on him and wasn’t going to let him explain.