The way her heels dangle from her toes as she sits on the high stool, like they’re hurting her and she can’t bear to leave them on.

  Her mossy green eyes when she turned around to look at me.

  Her.

  Bars are not my scene. Ever. As a single dad to a ten-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter and an offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Renegades, I have too much on my plate to be the guy who picks up girls in bars. Or ever. But once a month for as long as I can remember, my mom has booked me a night in a hotel, practically shoving me out of my house and taking control of my kids for the evening.

  For relaxation, she says.

  And usually, that’s exactly what I do. I read. I sleep. I watch a million episodes of whatever show looks interesting. But tonight, none of that appealed. Tonight, I was restless. Tonight, I wandered out of my downtown hotel and straight into this bar. In almost ten years of once-monthly hotel stays courtesy of my mom, I have never done anything like this, and as I watch the redhead, it seems almost like fate, if I believed in things like that.

  Except she’s leaving.

  But as I watch, the brunette she’s with puts a hand on her shoulder to push her back into her seat and tosses a glance over to me, giving me a subtle wink and a nod that have a smile spreading over my face.

  Looks like I’ve got myself a wing woman.

  Taking the last sip of my beer, I push up from my chair and cross the bar, coming up next to the redhead.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  I wince internally at my opening, and by the roll of the brunette’s eyes, I know it was exactly as bad as it sounded.

  I really need to get out more.

  “I am,” she says, picking up her bag from the table. “But my friend here isn’t quite ready to leave yet. Maybe you could keep her company while she has another drink?”

  The redhead looks up, and my heart kicks up at the way her eyes track over me, studying me like I’m the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. The way she seems to catalogue every feature of my face. I would think it was a disinterested perusal but for the flutter of her pulse in her throat. The way her pupils dilate when our eyes lock.

  Yeah, she’s interested, and that thought has need rushing through me, hot and fierce.

  “Looks like you’re in good hands,” the brunette says, wrapping an arm around her friend’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “Take care of my girl,” she says to me, before sailing out of the bar with one final wave over her shoulder.

  The redhead blows out a breath, dropping her head back in what seems like exasperation. “Sorry about that. I love her but she’s…a lot. I’m going to head out too. It was nice to meet you. Kind of.”

  She starts to stand, but I lay my hand over hers, stopping her. The crackle of electricity where our skin touches has her eyes snapping to mine, and oh yeah, there’s something here. No way am I letting this woman walk away. “Sorry, I can’t let you do that. Your friend told me to take care of you, and I never break a promise.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “I didn’t hear you make a promise.”

  I lay my hand on my heart. “You may not have heard it out loud, but in here, it was the most sacred promise I’ve ever made.”

  She laughs, and the uninhibited sound makes me grin. “Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you talked to a woman?”

  I chuckle, running a finger over the back of her hand, loving the way she shivers. “Why? Am I bad at it?”

  She laughs again, reaching into her purse and taking out a bag of peanut butter M&M’s, tearing it open and offering it to me before tossing a handful into her mouth. “You really, really are.”

  “Sorry,” I say a little sheepishly, grabbing a couple of M&M’s. “It’s just that you’re really pretty, and I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of you since I walked into the bar, and you just pulled my favorite candy out of your purse, and now I think maybe I need to ask you to be mine forever.”

  She grins, her eyes sparkling. “I don’t know about the forever thing, but you can share my candy with me. There’s more where that came from.”

  She lifts open her purse, and I laugh when I see at least ten snack-sized bags of different flavors of M&M’s. “So…you have a little bit of an obsession is what you’re saying?”

  She smiles, grabbing a couple more candies from the open bag. “Something like that. My mom was the one with the original obsession, so I grew up with M&M’s everywhere.” She shrugs, tossing a few pieces into her mouth. “The habit kind of stuck, and now I can’t live without them.”

  Before I can answer, a server comes over and sets down a margarita and a bottle of the beer I was drinking earlier. “From your friend,” she says with a smile before sliding a couple of napkins onto the table and walking away.

  “Jesus Christ, Maya,” she mutters.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, studying her, lifting the beer and taking a sip.

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s fine. It’s just my friend Maya being…Maya. We’ve been best friends since we were kids, but we are opposites in literally every way. Like, I told her I wanted to have one drink and go home since I have kind of a big day tomorrow and she…”

  “Left you alone at a bar, asked a strange man to take care of you, and sent you more drinks just in case the ones you already had weren’t enough?”

  She laughs and bypasses her own drink, lifting my beer and taking a sip. My eyes are glued to the smooth column of her throat as she swallows, and the whole thing is so devastatingly sexy that my cock twitches in my pants. “Basically that. And by the way, when she told you to take care of me, she didn’t mean, like, make sure I get to my car safely. She meant more like fuck me into your mattress. Or potentially against the bar bathroom door. You know, if that’s the kind of thing you want.”

  I choke out a laugh, my cock going rock hard at the visual she painted. Sliding my chair over just enough that our thighs press together, I lean in so I can speak into her ear. She smells like vanilla and lavender, and I have to hold myself back from pressing a kiss to the bare skin of her neck. “And what do you want?” I ask quietly, my lips just brushing her skin.

  She turns her head so our faces are inches apart. All I would have to do is lean in one single inch to feel her full, pink lips against mine. To taste our shared beer and the chocolate we’ve been eating, and I want it so badly I practically hold my breath waiting for her response. I watch her eyes bounce between mine, shades of uncertainty in the deep green that tell me this isn’t something she does often. Maybe ever.

  Me either. Ever. But I want this.

  I hope she does too.

  I wait, our breaths mingling between us as her eyes change from uncertainty to heat. To determination.

  “I want you to kiss me,” she says, her voice practically a whisper.

  Fuck yes.

  I inch closer. Her chin tips up, and I press my lips to hers.

  The first touch of her mouth to mine is electric, stealing the breath from my lungs as I wrap a hand around her neck, tangling my fingers in her fiery strands. My heart races as I pull her closer to me, my legs bracketing hers as I cup her face with my free hand and coax her mouth open, sweeping my tongue inside to tangle with hers. She lets out a sexy little moan and presses her hands to my chest, curling her fingers into my shirt, tugging me closer until there’s no space between us at all.

  I drop the hand around her waist lower, my fingers gliding along the curve of her ass as I take the kiss even deeper, wondering idly how it’s possible that kissing a woman whose name I don’t even know feels more right than anything else has in a decade.

  Easing back, I lock eyes with her. Our chests rise and fall in tandem, and her pupils are blown wide, her lips a little swollen from my kisses, her cheeks flushed under the freckles scattered over her face. Unable to help myself, I lean back in, taking her lips with mine in a kiss that’s softer, sweeter, but no less potent before dragging my lips over her freckles, tasting every single one.

  “Come home with me,” I murmur.

  “Where is home?” she asks quietly.

  I think of my actual home, the entry way littered with my younger son Ethan’s hockey equipment and my thirteen-year-old daughter Riley’s flair for the dramatic that often manifests in her throwing herself across whatever piece of furniture is closest and wailing about someone or something that has wronged her, and send up a little prayer of thanks to my mom for her insistence on this once-monthly night of solitude.

  “I’m staying at the Fairmont down the street. Be with me tonight, Wildcat, and for a while we can both forget about tomorrow.”

  “Wildcat?” she asks, quirking a brow, her eyes narrowing.

  I trail my thumb along the inside of her wrist, over the tiny image of a wildcat standing on a hockey puck tattooed on the delicate skin. I recognize the wildcat as the logo of Michigan’s big state school and wonder if she played hockey or just loves the sport or whether the tattoo means something else. I want to know everything there is to know about this beautiful stranger.

  “Your tattoo. And also, wild is the way this feels. The way I’m drawn to you.” I lean in and finally taste the skin of her neck. “The way it feels so good to kiss you.” I kiss one cheek, then the other. “So right.” I take her mouth again, long and slow. “It’s wild and crazy, and right now, it’s all I want.”

  “I want it too,” she gasps, gripping my upper arms as I trail my lips down her jaw.

  Her words activate me and I stand immediately, tossing a couple bills on the table and grabbing her purse, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her up from her chair.

  She laughs, leaning into me. “You seem eager.”

  I spin her around, covering her mouth with mine. “To get my hands on you behind my hotel room door?” I murmur against her lips. “You better fucking believe it.”

  She sets her hands on my hips, squeezing a little and pressing into me enough that she can feel exactly what this kiss is doing to me. “Then you better get me alone quick. I think I’d like my hands all over you too.”

  As the rest of the blood in my body drains right to my dick, I wrap my arm around her waist and lead her straight out of the bar, into the night that awaits us both.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MADDY

  “Oh, holy hell,” I mutter, glancing in the rearview mirror. Stopped at a red light, I look again to make sure I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing and yep. A reddish-purple mark, right on the spot where my neck meets my shoulder.

  A hickey. I have a damn hickey like I’m in high school again. Granted, I never had any hickeys while I was actually in high school because when you play ice hockey, the guys see you as one of them, instead of as someone they want to give a hickey to. But if I was the kind of girl who got hickeys in high school, they probably would have looked exactly like this.

  I run a finger over the bruise, shivering involuntarily as I’m suddenly assaulted by the image of the mystery man from the bar sucking on this exact spot last night while he slammed into me from behind, one arm wrapped around my waist and his other hand around my throat, his big, hard body curled over me where I was bent over the back of his hotel room couch.

  I shift in my seat, my clit throbbing at the memory.

  “Get your shit together, Maddy,” I order myself as the light turns green. I turn up the volume so “Where Does My Heart Beat Now” blares out of the car speakers and reach for the iced coffee in my cupholder, taking a long sip and letting the music and the caffeine jolt soothe me. There’s a reason I crept out of that hotel room at four this morning while the mystery man was asleep, and it’s so this exact thing didn’t happen.

  The thing being me getting attached to a nameless guy on account of some sex and a few orgasms.

  The best sex of my life.

  So many orgasms I probably would have needed all my fingers and at least half my toes to count them.

  He was really good at sex. A sex savant. The orgasm king. The perfect blend of sweet and demanding. Growly, in the really, really sexy way. He played my body like it was a damn Stradivarius, and I lost count of the number of times I begged for more.

  Me.

  I begged.

  I probably whimpered too, Jesus Christ.

  My only saving grace on the express train straight to embarrassment city is that he whimpered too, and let me tell you, you haven’t lived until a six-foot two wall of muscle whimpers into your ear as he comes inside you.

  For the third time in two hours.

  I shake my head, trying to erase this entire line of thinking. If no names or phone numbers were exchanged, it means that there’s no reason for me to obsess over last night or whether he’ll call. And he had a hotel room, which means he’s not from here, which means I’ll never see him again, so problem solved. I’m thirty years old and about to start the job of my dreams. For sure I can have a night of fuck-hot sex and be totally casual and cool about the whole thing.

  I mean, I’ve never been casual or cool one single day in my entire life, but today seems like as good a day as any to start.

  My stomach shimmers with nerves as I park in front of the sports complex that houses the Renegades’ front office and practice facilities. Opening my emergency makeup bag, I flip down the visor and dab concealer on the hickey, before touching up the pound I already have spackled under my eyes on account of my four a.m. hotel room escape.

  I could have slept for an hour once I got home, but my brain wouldn’t shut off, so instead, I used my contraband key to get into the hockey team’s practice arena and skated for an hour with my girl power playlist blasting in my ears before I got ready for work in the locker room.

  It's one of my favorite ways to start the day, but it also means I’m operating on almost no sleep, and that’s a tall order for a concealer stick I bought on sale at Sephora.

  Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, I see it’s just before seven. I don’t actually need to be here for another hour, but I’m getting an early start in hopes that I can avoid any errant family members who might get a wild hair to show up for my first day.

  I grab my bag and my coffee and jingle the tiny disco balls hanging from my rearview mirror for luck before hopping out of the car, straightening the short black jacket I’m wearing over jeans and a plain white T-shirt—I love Maya, but no way in hell was I wearing a dress to walk the halls of a professional football facility. I click the fob to lock the doors and then pat the hood of my beloved cherry-red Jeep Wrangler. “Wish me luck, Celine.”

  All the cool kids name their cars after nineties pop stars.

  Straightening my shoulders, I stride to the entrance, doing my best cosplay of Dr. Maddy Wright, sports psychologist who absolutely knows what she’s doing and definitely has her shit together.

  “There she is.”

  The second I open the door to the complex, I groan internally. With a grin on his face, my uncle Brian stands in the middle of the lobby, watching as I walk across the wide stone floor.

  I should have known better than to think I could get all the way to my office unseen. Meddling is practically an art form in my family. And also, I don’t know where my office is, so that’s a whole thing.

  “Jesus, Uncle Bry,” I mutter. “Doesn’t the general manager of a whole entire football team have something better to do than hang around the office lobby?”

  “In fact, I had nothing at all better to do than this,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “When it’s my niece’s first day working for my football team, you better believe I’ll be hanging out in the lobby. You’re lucky it’s just me. I had to talk your dad, Asher, Gabe, and Ben out of showing up too. Jordan was even making noise about coming in from Boston and bringing his brothers. He and Cooper said they wanted to visit Sarah and Emmy, but I could see straight through that ruse.”

  I roll my eyes at his mention of my dad and their other best friends who act less like men in their fifties and more like overgrown frat guys half the time. “Thanks for that. I think they may have forgotten that I’m thirty years old, and starting a new job isn’t that big of a deal.”

  In fact, starting this particular new job is a major deal, and now that I’m here, my entire body is jittery like I downed six espresso shots instead of half a cup of iced coffee. But I’ll be damned if I let anyone see it.

  Dr. Maddy Wright is the kind of woman who tells nerves to fuck right off. Or, I wish I was that woman. I’m trying to be that woman, but I fear that, instead, I’m the kind of woman who shoves those nerves as deep into my gut as I can and covers them in caffeine, chocolate, and quirky charm. But today could also be the day I change all of that, so I toss my hair back and straighten my shoulders, my body language giving bring it on, instead of what I really feel, which is terrified as all fuck.

  “Give them a break, Mads. You’re their first kid. You’ll always be their baby. That’s just the way parenthood works.”

  I eye him. “That’s not the way you are with your kids.”

  “Oh, it definitely is. Ask him how he feels about Jake starting his senior year of high school next week. He’s having feelings about it.”

  Grinning, I look up at Brian’s wife, Olivia, who is striding through the lobby in a summer dress, her hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brian’s eyes light up. Even after almost two decades together, and raising two kids, he still looks at her like she’s the center of his whole entire universe. I wonder, not for the first time, what it would be like to have someone look at me that way.

  Without warning, my traitorous brain serves me up another image of last night—and the sex god with the bright blue eyes who looked at me exactly that way. My entire body tightens in response, but I shove the memory away before it can take hold again.

  That was wild, fuck-the-consequences Maddy.

  Today I’m professional, cares-about-all-the-consequences Maddy who is starting her dream job and definitely does not have hot, dirty sex with nameless men she meets in bars.