Playing To Win

She’d just pulled the stall door shut and was about to navigate her way up onto the toilet—no easy feat since there was only a toilet seat and no lid—when an indecipherable noise made her stop. There was a beat of dead silence, and then, “Holly, I know you’re in there. I can see your shoes.”

Busted.

She unlatched the door and did her best to appear sheepish. “Luke. Hey. I didn’t hear you come in. You look nice. When did you get a chance to change? I thought you were filming puck tricks with Jay.”

The surge of adrenaline at getting caught morphed into a surge of something else as she took in the sight of Luke Maguire looking big and handsome and powerful in the most beautifully tailored charcoal suit she’d ever seen. His silk tie was a deep plum and his blue eyes were flashing. “We finished up a while ago. I’ve already changed and done a pregame interview. Things move fast on game day. That’s why I thought you were gone.” He put particular stress on the last word.

Geez. How long had she been staring in that mirror? No wonder Paige was always late.

“Now maybe you can explain what the hell you’re doing in here?”

She shot him a look that was all smart-ass. “It’s a bathroom, Luke. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

He frowned at the joke, and she resisted the sudden urge to smooth his brow. Why was he so serious all the time?

“You need to get out of here, right now. Only the team can use the bathroom on game day.” If she wasn’t mistaken, he looked a little embarrassed when he explained. “It’s a good luck thing.”

“It’s a stupid thing,” she countered. “I’ll never understand why elite athletes aren’t more enlightened than medieval man.”

“Well, you don’t have to understand it. You just have to respect it. And keep your voice down! Guys are in and out of the dressing room this close to game time.” He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Jesus. Not even the cleaners are allowed in today. We’ve got to get you out of here before someone sees you. Come on.” He reached out to cup her elbow, an old-fashioned gesture that took her by surprise. Holly was dismayed at the way her skin thrilled at the warmth of his fingers, even through the sleeve of her blazer.

She shrugged her arm from his grasp, an act of self-preservation.

Luke sighed, obviously interpreting it as an act of defiance.

“Holly, you remember all that stupid stuff you asked me earlier? I gave you the benefit of the doubt and I answered all your dumb questions because you were just doing your job. Now I’m trying to do mine, and part of me doing my job is making sure my guys are ready to play. Focused. And if maintaining a stupid superstition is what it takes to ensure we bring our A game tonight, then that’s what I have to do. So do me a solid, okay? Even though it’s silly, and inconvenient and probably makes no difference at all, please let’s get out of here before anyone sees you?”

Holly had to look up at him, despite her four-inch heels and his lack of skates. When had he gotten so close? God, he was handsome, all tall and stubbly, his ocean-blue eyes pleading.

“Fine. Let’s—”

“Shit. Someone’s coming!”

Holly wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, but suddenly she was chest to chest with Luke inside the tiny bathroom stall, made positively miniscule by his large frame. She heard the telltale footsteps a moment later.

Luke scooped her into his arms, one hand around her back, his other forearm under her knees. He’d literally swept her off her feet, and the suddenness of it stole her breath. Her arms flew around his neck in self-preservation, and she was vividly aware of every inch of her body, especially the parts of her that were plastered against his broad chest.

She could feel his muscles beneath his suit jacket, enough to tell that they were barely straining under her weight. She shot him her best “what the hell?” glare through the onslaught of yum, and he gestured with his chin in the direction of her feet.

“Your shoes. That’s how I knew you were in here.”

He breathed the words quietly, his mouth so close that she could feel the exhalation against the sensitive skin beneath her ear. It tickled, and she turned her head to protect her neck. Suddenly there was nothing but a fraction of an inch’s worth of air separating their lips.

His muscles flexed then, pulling her tighter to his chest and her breath came fast and shallow. Heat prickled over her skin and pooled in her belly. Her fingers clenched against the soft material of his jacket.

Holly had never experienced lust at first sight before, but man, Luke Maguire made her lust. She ran her hand up his chest, and he shifted his stance, but before their lips met, he banged his elbow against the stall. The thump reverberated through the bathroom, snapping them back into the present, and they froze, eyes wide.

They both cocked their heads toward the sink side of the stall, listening intently for any sign that they’d blown their cover.

After another moment of silence, Luke set her carefully on her feet. The lust hangover made Holly a little wobbly on her heels. He stepped forward and lifted onto his toes so he could see over the edge of the stall. “He’s gone,” he said, the words tinged with relief. They hadn’t even heard him retreat.

Holly unlatched the door, and with a covert glance to assure herself they were, in fact, alone, took some tentative steps toward the sink. She paused for a moment, but the piece of paper wasn’t on the floor, nor had it been kicked under the sink.

“No time for sightseeing, Evans.” Luke’s hand at the small of her back was warm and insistent. “Let’s get out of here before you get caught.”

They snuck back out to the dressing room, Holly letting Luke precede her so he could make sure the coast was clear. She wasn’t four steps out of the bathroom before several members of the team strutted into the dressing room, bedecked in expensive suits and pregame gravitas. Luke sent her a “See? You really lucked out,” kind of look.

Ass.

Then the “Charge” anthem sounded to her right. Holly’s spine snapped straight as she watched Luke fish his iPhone out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

He glanced at the caller ID and that serious expression of his descended over his handsome face like a shutter. Holly decided she might prefer his pompous expression after all.

“I gotta take this,” he said. She watched with interest as he turned away from her, shielding the call with his broad shoulders. “Why are you calling again? Seriously? Hold on.” Was it her imagination, or did Luke glance in her direction. “Let me get somewhere I can talk.”

The “Charge” fanfare? Why are you calling again? Pieces were falling into place and she didn’t particularly like the picture they were forming.

Had it been Luke in the bathroom earlier? She’d just assumed that whoever had inadvertently held the two of them hostage had come back for his list. But now that she thought about it, Luke had definitely had enough time to pick up the wayward paper before he’d gone all foot fetishist on her and blown her hiding place. That could be the reason he’d even noticed her shoes under the stall in the first place—he was bending over to pick up the list.

Holly strained to hear more of his conversation, but he pointedly disappeared back into the bathroom. To her dismay, there were too many team members in the swanky locker room now for her to follow. Still, the reporter buzz—that’s what her mother used to call it—was zinging around her gut. She was on to something. Obviously Luke’s regular deep baritone had sounded nothing like the whispered panic she’d heard earlier, but that ringtone was an indisputable clue, and one that she had to follow up on.

* * *

LUKE WALKED OVER to stand by the sinks, hating that his gaze went immediately to the stall he and Holly had hidden out in only moments ago.

But he couldn’t afford to be distracted by sex right now. Harding Lowe was the kind of law firm that charged in the triple digits for phone calls like these, and with money as tight as it was, Luke had to pay close attention and cut to the chase. “What’s so important?”

“I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, but I’m worried it might hit the papers and I didn’t want you to find out like that,” Craig Harding informed him.

Luke’s blood turned to ice. It was never good when someone started a phone call that way, but when it was your lawyer? Infinitely worse.

“What?” The word was flat, more demand than question.

“Brad Timmons is filing for bankruptcy.”

Luke’s face went numb. The asshole who’d put Ethan in a wheelchair, put his parents in debt, strained his family to the emotional breaking point time after time over the last three years, was going to screw them over again.

“Fuck.”

The word echoed hollowly in the vast expanse of shiny white tile and empty navy stalls.

Luke wanted to punch something, but it wasn’t worth the fine the Storm would levy against him if he did.

Jesus Christ, how had things come to this? He made almost two million dollars a year with his new contract and still it was all he could do to keep himself and the people he loved financially afloat.

Loans, renovations, lawyers, specialists, physio—it had all added up after the accident. His paycheck was all but spent before it got deposited. He was grateful he had the means to keep his family living a comfortably middle-class life despite their exorbitant bills, but the idea that the coward who’d put his little brother in a wheelchair wasn’t going to have to contribute a dime to Ethan’s recovery made Luke nauseous.

Timmons had already lucked out with his criminal charges. He’d been convicted of assault with a weapon for the crosscheck, but ended up with an eighteen-month conditional discharge, which meant he hadn’t served any jail time and he wouldn’t have a criminal record once his probation was complete. Now he’d found a way to punk out on financial restitution, too.