This guy has no clue who he is messing with.

Smiling to throw him off, I deke left, but to my surprise he is on to me and follows. So I grin harder, falling back a bit to put some space between us. He’s making it hard to concentrate, and I don’t like that. I don’t want him to have an advantage on me, but for the first time, I feel like I have an actual competitor on my hands. Usually guys are cocky and think they can beat me, but they can’t. This guy, though… He has the advantage to beat me with those naughty green eyes, and for some reason, that makes me hot as hell. And I think he knows that. I like a man who can play some good hockey, but most of all, I like when they don’t care that I’m a girl. Usually I get babied until they figure I can hold my own. Then they are just plain mean, taking shots and being dicks, but this guy, no, he wants to beat me fair and square.

But he won’t.

I go left again, and when he follows like I wanted him to, I throw the puck to the right, going around him fast. But he’s on me, following, and he poke checks the puck from me. But it doesn’t get far out of my reach, so I take it and spin around once more to go to his right, but when I do, I come down on my knee. I hear the little audience gasp, but I don’t even feel the pain. Jayden doesn’t seem to care one bit because he steals the puck, rushing it back to the goal, looking at me with determination but maybe a bit of concern too.

Laughing, I skate toward him. If he were smart, he would have rushed the goal and tried to score while I was down, but I respect that he wanted to wait for me to be on my feet.

“Oh, so a fair player, eh?”

He laughs, his eyes trained on mine but at the same time on the puck. I can see that he is calculating his next move, and I have no clue why I am turned on by that, but I am. “Canadian, are you? Is that why you think you’re good?”

Shaking my head, I square up in front of him. “Nope, my dad is. Kind of a habit to say ‘eh,’ and I’m good because I was born to do this.”

He nods. “So you’re finally dropping the ‘play a bit’ act?”

I shrug. “I think you knew from the beginning that it was an act.”

He gives me a knowing grin, one that has my belly fluttering. What a stupid feeling, but it’s happening to me at that second and I refuse to allow it to get me off my game.

“The socks gave you away. No girl takes stinky socks.”

I actually giggle, which is pathetic, but I can’t help it. I like this asshole.

“I’m not like other girls,” I say, and he looks up at me, giving me his full attention.

“I can tell, but I hope you don’t cry when I beat you. I don’t like when girls cry.”

“You’re in luck ’cause I don’t cry,” I say, and I take the opening, poking the puck out between his legs, and rushing around him for the puck. Once I have it under my control, I haul ass toward the goal, but like I knew he would be, he’s on me, trying to push it away. But I’m quicker, pressing my hip into his stomach as I inch my way to the goal. Somehow, he’s behind me, almost holding my stick as he tries to push the puck away. My ass is in his groin and I swear he is hard, but I have to ignore that! I have to score.

With the puck, of course.

As I press my elbow into his gut, he lets out an oomph and I take that opening, turning and shooting. I miss though, to my dismay. Cursing, I rush with him at my side toward the puck. We reach it at the same time, both throwing elbows and hips, trying to get away from each other.

“Damn, Jay! Take it easy,” one of his brothers says when his elbow connects with my ribs, but I doubt he hears them. Hell, I hardly hear them until he comes up with the puck, skating toward the pink line.

Looking at me, he grins. “You okay there, Moore?”

“Just dandy, Sinclair. You can’t hurt me.”

Well, he could, but I wouldn’t allow him.

“Good to know, because I don’t see you as a hot, innocent girl in short shorts and a sexy tank that shows the sides of her tits when she skates hard.”

A grin comes over my face as it heats to color. “So what you’re saying is, if I wasn’t about to kick your ass, then you’d see me that way?”

Skating backward, he moves the puck back and forth as he holds my gaze. “Maybe.”

I chuckle a bit. “So instead, what do you see me as?”

“My competitor.”

Yup, I like him a lot.

“Dude, calm your tits, she’s a chick,” one of them calls.

“Don’t say that. She’s a dude in a chick’s body. She’s kinda mean,” Delanie says and I grin harder.

“I am,” I say with a wink.

“I’m not scared,” he says, holding my gaze. “Not one bit.”

“Then stop babysitting the fucking puck and try to score,” I challenge and he nods.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and then to my surprise at his size, he cuts left. When I go with him, he goes the other way, getting around me like I’m a fucking rookie and I’m left chasing him. When he goes to shoot, though, I lift his stick, hip checking him, trying to put my weight into him to throw him off, but he hip checks me instead, pain going up my side. Somehow though, I end up with the puck, and when I shoot, this time it clinks on the side of the pipe.

Since my dad isn’t here, I throw my arms up and grin. “Booyah!”

“Booyah? What are you, ten?” he asks, getting the puck and skating toward the line.

“Aw, are you upset? Did I dent your ego?”

“Baby, you have no effect on me.”

I laugh at that. “Please, I can see how bad you want to beat me.”

That has him laughing. “Yeah, I do, but then I want to fuck you too. Can you tell that too?”

I gasp, my eyes going wide as his bore into mine. His statement has me a little taken aback; he’s so damn blunt and fucking hot! When he flashes me a sexy little grin, I think it was his plan to distract me, because then he’s off to the races, and before I can even try to block him, he shoots, hitting it off the pipe.

Throwing his hands up, he points his stick at me and says, “Booyah.”

“Asshole,” I say, taking the puck to the line. “I’m pretty sure you said that to distract me.”

He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. You’ll never know.”

Shit, why do I want to know? He means nothing to me. Damn it.