I watch those perfect white teeth dig down into her pink lip and it makes me think of my teeth biting down into her. I mentally groan and banish the thought. Christ…I think I really need to get laid. It’s been a bit of a dry spell since finding out my wife cheated on me and getting sole custody of the girls. I’ve barely had time to sleep, much less find a woman to fuck.

Finally, she releases the hold her teeth have on her lip, taking a quick swipe at it with her tongue, and says, “I expect I won’t get support from those who are going to have a hard time meeting my metrics. And I expect those who will meet them will stay silent on the matter. Either way, I don’t care. I got this position because as the owner of this team, my father was ready to make some big moves.”

“I bet Frank Lessier had to just love this,” I muse out loud, not giving a fuck that the derision in my voice is aimed at one of the front office suits. Frank Lessier was the assistant general manager under Brian Brannon and you would think a natural replacement if Brannon wanted to step down. The fact that he is still the assistant general manager I bet is chapping his ass.

And it’s a pompous ass at that. I’ve never liked the dude, but fortunately, the players are pretty removed from the front office. He’s one of those guys who thinks only his opinion matters. He’s one of those guys who likes to stare at himself in any mirror he passes by, he’s that stuck on himself.

Gray grimaces and actually looks pained. “Yeah…pretty sure both me and my father are on Frank’s shit list.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say as I lean forward in my chair. “He’s going to naturally have a chip on his shoulder because you’re far prettier than he is.”

A tiny smirk surfaces—the corners of her mouth curving nicely upward. She tilts her chin down and fucking bats her lashes at me. In an overly dramatic, shy-flirty manner, she says, “You really think I’m pretty, Mr. Evans?”

More batting of her lashes.

I laugh and ease back into my chair. She said honesty with no repercussions, so I go ahead and lay it out. I’m not joking back when I say, “You’re a fucking knockout, Miss Brannon. And you don’t need a statistical model to prove that. Just take a look in any mirror.”

I hadn’t meant that to come out so bold.

So assured.

So…almost…challenging to her.

Gray’s eyes flare wide and her neck flushes red. I expect a fair-skinned woman with Irish ancestry blushes on the neck first rather than the cheeks. For some reason, it makes her even more attractive.

But only after showing me a few mere seconds of vulnerability, Gray gives a cough and then a genial laugh. She plays it off well. “No need to flatter, Brick. I have all the confidence in the world you’re going to exceed the goals I’m setting for you.”

And just like that, we are back to business.

Chapter 4

Gray

What in the hell was I thinking?

What in the hell?

I wasn’t.

That’s the answer.

It happens rarely, but I just wasn’t thinking. My IQ level dipped. Maybe I’m hormonal. A moon phase…that’s what it is. It’s the pull of the moon making me do stupid non-Gray-Brannon-like shit.

I pace back and forth outside the door to the yoga studio, nodding here and there with a strained smile at some of the other students making their way inside. It looks like I’ll have a full class today, which normally feeds me with excitable energy. It’s like a triple espresso shot to my system.

But right now I just want to head home and crawl back into bed, put my head under the pillow, and hide from the world. I want a “do-over” for the day, because I had no fucking business inviting Ryker Evans to this class. It crossed a professional line that I firmly put between me and the players, because my job as general manager is not to take a proprietary interest in their training and health.

It crossed a very, very personal line, because part of me made that invite as a woman. Simply put—I wanted to be around him more. There is an undeniable attraction, pull, chemical harmony…whatever, that I have with Ryker and I don’t like it. I don’t do hockey players, particularly ones that are in my employ.

So I ask again…what in the hell was I thinking when I made the invite?

I think back to my meeting with him day before yesterday, and yeah, okay…I get why I’m undeniably interested and fascinated by this man. Put his insanely gorgeous looks and Thor-like body aside, when it boils down to it, he ended up soothing my entire ego during that meeting.

He actually accepted my plans for the team.

He didn’t sneer, or look dumbstruck. He didn’t glance at my tits once. He immediately got my analysis of his stats, and the part that really satisfied my psyche was that he was actually impressed with what I was doing. Ryker didn’t question my abilities either as a woman or as a general manager.

He is the only one other than my dad so far who has decided to give me a fair shot.

And that ramps up my attraction.

It’s insane, and stupid, and irrational for me to ever get caught up in those types of feelings, but I did it just the same. At the end of our meeting, we talked about what it meant to be a goalie.

I started playing hockey when I was five years old and I didn’t quit until the last Olympics I played in nine years ago at the age of twenty-two. While I played many positions growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, by the time I was thirteen I’d settled into my permanent position as goalie because my reflexes were lightning fast and my focus was sharp. I wasn’t recruited by Princeton to play hockey there, as I went on a full academic scholarship after I graduated high school at sixteen, but I played there nonetheless. I actually had the credits to graduate high school much earlier, but my father held me back. He didn’t want me being too far away in age from my peers so that I could have a better social experience through college.