pucking irresistible

  players legacy

  book one

  Nana Malone

  contents

  Chapter 1

  Lena

  Chapter 2

  Trace

  Chapter 3

  Trevor

  Chapter 4

  Trevor

  Chapter 5

  Lena

  Chapter 6

  Trace

  Chapter 7

  Lena

  Chapter 8

  Trace

  Chapter 9

  Trace

  Chapter 10

  Trace

  Chapter 11

  Lena

  Chapter 12

  Trace

  Chapter 13

  Lena

  Chapter 14

  Lena

  Chapter 15

  Lena

  Chapter 16

  Lena

  Chapter 17

  Trace

  Chapter 18

  Lena

  Chapter 19

  Lena

  Chapter 20

  Trace

  Chapter 21

  Trace

  Chapter 22

  Lena

  Chapter 23

  Trace

  Chapter 24

  Lena

  Chapter 25

  Lena

  Chapter 26

  Trace

  Trace Coulter wants to know if you can handle his stick

  chapter

  one

  Lena

  "Kimmy, I don't want to be here."

  "Oh, come on. It's a party, Lena."

  My roommate, Kimmy Banks, dragged me through the throngs of people, her fiery red curls, this week's hair transformation after last week's blue bob wig, bouncing between her shoulders as she marched me to the dance floor. The bass from the speakers vibrated through the floorboards, making the red Solo cups on nearby tables tremble with each beat. Kappa nu, the official, unofficial hockey house reeked of spilled beer, cheap cologne, and the unmistakable gut-punch of collegiate desperation.

  Every surface in this place had been claimed by hockey, sticks mounted like crossed swords over doorways, framed jerseys going back God knows how many years, and enough team photos to wallpaper a museum. Someone had strung LED lights along the banister in the school colors, blue and silver, which cast everything in a dim glow that made everyone look about twenty percent more attractive than they actually were. Clever. The brothers of Kappa Nu were clearly smarter than their GPAs suggested.

  "I just want to be in bed. Besides, I have an exam on Monday."

  You’re hiding. Call it what it is.

  "Oh my God, Lena." She clamped her hands on my shoulders. And considering she was a full four inches shorter than I was, it looked like I was being scolded by a teenager. Her green eyes, enhanced by expertly applied winged eyeliner, narrowed in determination. "You are a bad bitch. You've always known you were a bad bitch. One idiot boy tells you that he can do better than you, and you're going to sit in your room sulking and moping? No. You're going to do what bad bitches do. You're going to put on your hottest bad bitch outfit, which you have courtesy of me."

  "Might I just remind you that I am taller than you, so I'm sure I'm showing ass crack."

  "You're not. More's the pity. Also, you're in your bad bitch shoes, you've got your bad bitch hair. I wish my hair had the volume yours had. And the braids you are giving brandy nineties vibes. You look incredible."

  I tried to tug down the skirt slightly. It was an adorable leather pleated skirt. It was very hot. However, see above mention of ass crack.

  "And anyone who knows him is going to take a photo of you in that outfit and send it to him and he will be crying."

  "I do like the idea of him crying. But a party, it's so loud in here."

  She gave me her best Kimmy mom look. And considering she was all of five feet two, and blessed with a double dimple smile with the biggest green eyes you'd ever seen, she shouldn't be able to pull off that look. But, I was sufficiently terrified.

  "Listen to me. You're going to have fun. And you're going to make him jealous. And you're forgetting that you happen to know a few things about Matt. One, you were a massive step up for him. He was just freaked out and insecure. Two, he's a TA for an advanced statistics class. Which means, he doesn't get out much. And three, he's absolutely concerned with image. His mostly, which we don't care about. But, he wants the perfect kind of woman on his arm. That's you. Because not only do you look hot in a leather miniskirt, you are beautifully brilliant. I wish I was as smart as you are. So, pull up your thigh high boots, and get to strutting. In fact, if someone doesn't send him the picture, I'm going to post it on your close friends Instagram. He's going to be dying in no time."

  "Kimmy, don't."

  "It's too late. It's already in my head. Think of it as done."

  Kimmy was like that. Once she decided something, there was no stopping her. So God help anyone who tried. I envied that about her sometimes. The girl moved through the world like it owed her money and she was here to collect. Meanwhile, I couldn't pick a yogurt flavor without a pros and cons list.

  "Now, are you ready to have some fun?"

  She dragged me over to the makeshift bar in the corner next to some guy doing a keg stand while his friends chanted a countdown. He'd been upside-down for maybe four seconds and they were yelling "fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." Math was clearly not a priority at Kappa Nu.

  And when one of the guys tried to pour me a glass, she shook her head and pointed at the bottles. "We'll take those. Thanks."

  He shrugged and grabbed the bottles for us, uncapping them and handing them to us.

  When I had arrived on campus, Kimmy was my party MC. She'd been partying hard since she was a senior in high school. She knew all the tricks of the trade. She also knew how to protect you from the tricks of the trade. There was a part of me that really wanted to know why she always insisted on bottles and things she opened herself. And then there was a part of me that didn't want to know why.

  She held up a finger. "Rules. One, we stick together. Two, no mystery cups. Three—" she drew a finger across her throat like she was slitting it "—that means we leave. No discussion. Four, you have fun tonight or I take it personally."

  "How is that last one a rule?"

  "It's the most important one. Don't test me."

  We turned to survey the party, and the Kappa Nu house was raging. Bodies were everywhere. Some dancing, some just standing in clusters yelling into each other's ears, and a couple had plastered themselves against the far wall going at it like they'd either just met or were about to break up. Through the archway to the living room, a beer pong tournament was pulling a crowd three deep, and you'd think it was the damn Olympics from the cheering.

  The music had a thick bass hip hop beat to it but was laced with some electronica and a catchy tune I couldn't quite place, like the DJ had mixed something together, and it made me want to dance. My hips started moving of their own volition and Kimmy grinned at me. "See, there you are. Now what do you say we actually have some fun?"

  I rolled my eyes and laughed, taking a sip of the beer.

  I hated beer. I loathed it, but it would be the one that I nursed all night. That way when anyone wanted to get me another one, I would just hold it up and say that I wasn't done. Which I would never be because beer tasted like cold piss. Or at least how I imagined piss would taste.

  I let my roommate drag me through the crowd, to the middle of the dance floor and I closed my eyes, letting the beat infuse my veins and dance. The floor was sticky under my boots and the air was thick with too many bodies, not enough ventilation, the kind of heat that plastered your hair to the back of your neck. Because while Matt was adorable, he never went to parties and he always pouted when I went without him. He said they were full of noise, which always irritated me because sometimes I did want to go out. I just wanted to go out with my boyfriend and blow off steam. With my parents' divorce and Mom's illness, I'd been under a lot of pressure. I could use all the fun I could find.

  Kimmy and I danced through a couple of songs and she created this bubble around us, all hair and elbows and energy, that kept the worst of the crowd back. A guy in a backwards cap tried to squeeze between us and she hip-checked him so hard he stumbled into his friend's drink, and she didn't even break her stride.

  Several guys came up behind us, one placing his hands on my hips, trying to grind up on me. But the poor guy couldn't keep up with the beat; he was operating on an entirely different tempo, possibly from an entirely different song. I rolled my eyes as Kimmy took my hand and spun me around, the universal symbol for she's not dancing with you anymore.

  "Bless his heart," she said.

  "He was trying."

  "He was failing. There's a difference."

  The two of us laughed and sipped our beers and let the music take us places. Kimmy grabbed my hand and spun me, and I spun her back, and for a few minutes, I forgot. Forgot about Matt and his "I can do better" speech delivered over Thai food, chopsticks in hand, like he was commenting on the weather. Forgot about the specialist Mom needed. Forgot about the tennis scholarship I'd given up because someone had to be the responsible one, and Dad sure as hell wasn't volunteering. Not when he had w
ife number two and the kids I didn't know about.

  For those few minutes, with the bass thumping in my chest and Kimmy's ridiculous curls bouncing in my face and the whole room pulsing like one big sweaty heartbeat, I was just a girl at a party, and it felt really, really good.

  And then Kimmy suddenly took my hand and dragged me down to her level so she could whisper in my ear. "Don't look now. Mattie, 12 o'clock."

  The pit of my stomach bottomed out. Fuck. "What?"

  He never came to parties. He called them "breeding grounds for poor decision-making," which, fair, but also, live a little. What the fuck?

  But sure enough, I peeled an eye open and there he was in the corner, leaning against the wall with the kind of calculated casualness you practice in a mirror. And next to him, a very blonde, very beautiful sorority girl. I recognized her immediately. She was the president of Delta Gamma.

  Blonde, statuesque. Even taller than me and my five foot six. And well, she was pretty. The kind of pretty that came with a skincare routine and a gym membership I couldn't afford.

  Almost as if he could feel me watching him, his gaze darted to me and his eyes went wide. Before they scanned over me, the leather skirt, the boots, the braids, and narrowed just a bit. That narrowing looked a hell of a lot like a man recalculating, landing on a different number than the one he'd assigned when he dumped me.

  Recalculate away, asshole.

  I dragged my eyes away and focused on Kimmy. "I need to go."

  Running. Shocking.

  "Absolutely the fuck not. You are going to stay right here and dance. The next guy that puts his hands on you and dances, we'll just pray that he can dance. And then you're going to show everyone what you can do. Do you understand me?"

  The mom face again. I nodded blindly. "Yeah, okay got it."

  I tried not to pay attention to him. I tried to forget he was there. But it was impossible. I kept dancing, kept my eyes shut, kept moving my hips to the beat. But his words, "Honestly, I can do better," zinged around in my head. And the worst part wasn't even what he said. It was how he said it, calm and matter of fact, like my not being enough was just data.

  My fingers tightened around the neck of my beer bottle. I wanted to hit him. Mostly I wanted to hit myself because why was I letting his words get to me like that? I was a 3.9 GPA student carrying a full course load while managing my mother's healthcare from two states away. I could take apart a Faulkner novel and file an insurance appeal in the same afternoon. I was not the kind of woman someone "did better" than.

  And yet here you are, spiraling over a statistics TA. Get a grip.

  And in that moment, a set of hands grip my hips ever so gently, I didn't immediately feel a rubbing of a dick up against my ass, like with the last guy. But this guy was close. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his chest against my bare shoulders.

  And his scent.

  Oh God. There was a hint of sandalwood and mint. No beer, though. He hadn't been drinking. Just clean skin and something underneath that smelled annoyingly good, like, offensively good, and I wanted to lean back and just breathe him in.

  And, bonus of bonus, he could dance.

  I knew that scent. I couldn't place it, but my body sure could. Before my brain even got a vote, I was leaning back against him.

  You don’t even know his name. You don’t care, do you?

  The beat dropped again switching to a new song. This one with a grimier beat that required ass to crotch grinding. And Kimmy's eyes went wide as she grinned at me. I mouthed at her, "Who is it?"

  She just kept grinning and shook her head, not telling me, dimples popping, eyebrows up. Full Kimmy. Whatever she knew, she was enjoying the hell out of it.

  So all I could do was really lose myself to the dance, and dealing with someone who could really dance was amazing because I could just let go, ticking and whining and grinding and having a damn good time. The crowd pressed in around us but he carved out space like the dance floor belonged to him, and sweat prickled at my temples while the music was so loud I could feel the lyrics vibrating in my teeth.

  And the way that he placed his hands on the front of my hip bones, gently pressing me back to him, not in a gross, forceful way. But in the kind of way that said that he knew exactly where to put his hands during sex. He knew exactly where to push to make you feel every inch of him.

  His fingers were calloused, the unmistakable marks of someone who spent hours gripping a hockey stick. The realization sent a jolt through me, but I pushed the thought away because half the guys in here played hockey and it didn't mean anything.

  For a split second, something tugged at the back of my mind — a bleacher, a cold rink, a feeling I couldn’t name. I shoved it down before it surfaced.

  My gut tightened and I shivered, and he leaned into my neck, whispering against the shell of my ear. "Damn baby, the way you move gives me all kinds of ideas."

  It was a line. I knew it was a line. However, something pulsed low and deep inside and I was caught up. Yes, it was dancing. It's not like I was going home with the guy. So I let myself indulge.

  I could feel Matt watching. Good. Let him watch.

  We danced through another song, then another, and I lost track of time, which was the whole point. At some point Kimmy had drifted a few feet away to dance with some tall guy, but she kept glancing back at me with that grin.

  And then slowly he turned me around, with my eyes closed, feeling the beat and I looped my arms around him. My fingers found the back of his neck and I registered the details through touch, strong jaw, broad shoulders, hair a little longer on top. Even in my boots, I barely came up to his chin. Built lean and hard, the kind of body you got from actual sport, not a gym selfie routine. The muscle in his jaw flexed when I looked up at him, like he was holding something back.

  Then he released my hips. He didn't step away though. When I slowly lifted my lids, I froze. I'd been dancing with my mortal enemy.

  The son of Fox Coulter, NHL legend. The brother of Trevor Coulter, rising hockey star. The boy who'd once been my best friend before he destroyed everything. The boy who, for one crazy moment in high school, I'd thought might be something more.

  But most importantly, the boy who'd betrayed me, who'd schemed with his brother to break my heart. And who was now staring at me with those piercing blue eyes, looking just as shocked as I felt.

  I'd been grinding on Trace fucking Coulter.

  chapter

  two

  Trace

  Lena Fucking Hartwell.

  She'd turned around and the whole world had stopped. Same soul-searching dark eyes. Same full lips. Same dimple in her chin, same soft as sin coppery skin that I'd imagined beneath my fingertips more times than I cared to admit.

  The one girl on this campus who hated me. The one girl I shouldn't want. The one girl I'd never been able to stay far away from.

  My brother's ex-girlfriend.

  My secret obsession.

  Not in a creepy stalker way. More like in a dumb as shit she should be mine way. But I'd made that stupid no same girlfriends pact with my brother.

  For a beat, neither of us moved. We just stood there, inches apart on the dance floor, the bass thumping around us like a second heartbeat. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were wide. The blue and silver lights caught the gold hoops in her ears and the sheen of sweat on her collarbone and I could still feel the ghost of her body pressed against mine, the heat of her hips under my palms.

  My cock was still hard. That was the humiliating part. She was looking at me like I was something she'd scraped off her shoe and my body was still locked into the rhythm of her, still running the sense memory of her ass grinding against me, her spine arching into my chest, those little sounds she'd made that she probably didn't even know she was making. Three years of wanting this woman and thirty seconds of having her pressed against me had nearly made me come in my jeans.