Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Even after I learn his dirty secret.
Jesse is cocky, charming, tattooed, and even more possessive off the ice.
…He’s also my friend’s younger brother—which I found out like a puck to the face.
He’s too young, too popular, and he knows he has my attention. He’s a college dreamboat, with frat bros riding his jock every day. My world’s different. I spend my days outside on my ranch riding horses, and my nights at the local saloon, looking for something or someone fun.
Jesse’s more than just fun, though. I’ve been a lonely, hot mess, but my first time with a hockey player lit a fire in me I haven’t felt in too long. I got a taste, and I don’t want to stop.
I’m addicted. To his lips, his mouth, his skin on mine.
He should be off-limits, but when he gets all possessive, telling me that I’m his?
Only one word comes out of my mouth.
Yours.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
MASON
First thing’s first: I didn’t know he was a hockey player.
The summer kickoff party started out perfectly innocently, or as innocent as I was capable of being, at least. I should have seen the red flags waving in the wind from a mile away, in the self-assured, confident way he sat there, sizing me up.
There was a lot I didn’t know about Jesse Sanocki yet.
Cocky ass motherfucker.
TNU’s hottest young hockey center was sitting right across from me. I didn’t know who he was yet, but he was about to witness me doing what I did best.
Making a terrible decision in front of a lot of people.
The bar was rowdy out here on the back patio. The sun had set, and the hot day had given way to the humid buzz of night. Never change, Tennessee summers.
I was up on the table, standing on my hands for a few seconds before a crowd started forming around me in a circle. Everything in my field of view was upside-down as I managed to hold myself in a handstand on the wooden outdoor table, pint glasses and pitchers of beer surrounding me, with two strangers holding each of my legs up for support.
“Is he really going to do it?” somebody said. Heads on the patio turned toward me, one by one.
“Another keg stand,” my friend Kane grumbled, making his rounds on the patio, picking up empty glasses.
“Well, I’m not doing it from a keg,” I said, trying to act like it was easy to talk upside-down. I watched Kane’s disapproving stare. “And I haven’t done one of these in months.”
“One keg stand a year would be too much,” Kane said. “You know what? Zero keg stands would be even better.”
Kane owned this bar. The Hard Spot was his baby. I wouldn’t dream of doing shit like this unless I knew that deep down, he got a kick out of it, too.
The bar was busier than usual. Music bumped with plenty of bass, and the early summer cicadas chittered in the night air surrounding the patio like they were cheering me on, too. Tonight was the summer kickoff party, otherwise known as the perfect time for me to chug a monster of a cocktail upside-down. You know how the Little Mermaid wanted to be where the people are? That was essentially me, other than a few small details like being a cock-thirsty cowboy instead of a mermaid with a pretty voice.
This was my happy place. Getting people to quit dwelling on whatever was shitty in their lives, let loose, and have a damn good night.
There was so much I was running from, too.
Let’s all forget together. I’ll raise my glass to that.
The brooding, dark-haired guy was still sitting across from me, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Why did he look determined to be alone, even sitting in a crowd?
Watch me change your mind.
“Keep him safe,” Kane warned the guys holding my legs before he went back inside the bar. I steadied my palms on the smooth wooden table beneath me. One of the guys had kindly poured my headbanger cocktail—rum, energy drink, whiskey, beer, and cider—into a big bottle for easy access, because if I was going to chug upside down, I sure as fuck didn’t want to do it from a glass.
Someone touched the cold rim of the bottle to my lips. I kept my hands steady on the patio table, my palms pressed against the smooth wood planks.
“Ready to roll?” the guy asked.
“Born ready,” I replied, my arms already starting to burn. “Let’s go.”
The crowd clapped and cheered. The whole outdoor patio was watching now. The guy tipped the bottle upward and the cold drink started to flow. I’d done a few keg stands in my day, but this cocktail was a level up from that, burning at my throat the moment I started to drink.
I chugged. And chugged. The liquor mixture burned at my throat and the inside of my nose, but I wasn’t going to stop for anything, even though I quickly realized what a bad idea this was. A bottle is a lot to drink at once in any situation, but when it’s pouring fast out of some stranger’s hand and you’re upside-down, too?
That shit feels like a goddamn firehose unloading right onto your tongue.
I kept my hands steady as my arms started to burn from the handstand. One of the guys holding my left leg swayed a little, and for a second I was worried I’d lose balance.
Don’t stop.
We keep going.
Push it. Feel the burn.
Right as I thought my arms couldn’t take it anymore, the end of the drink hit my mouth. Cold remnants dribbled down my cheek and neck, and the guy took the bottle away from my lips and bellowed out to the people watching.