OneManAdvantage (20 page)
Authors: Kelly Jamieson
“I had the one-man advantage,” he said.
“Huh?” She gave him a bemused smile.
“
I
know what you really want.”
“Hmm. That is true. I guess that does give you a one-man
advantage.” She tipped her head. “I think you had me that night you took me
skating. You made me feel so good about myself. You always do. I never…”
“What?” He ran his hand over her head, down her hair.
“What you said about the bullying was true.”
He blinked, then remembered telling her about what his mom
had said. “Okay.”
“I thought it wasn’t the same because you said if I knew it
wasn’t true, it didn’t matter. But I
did
know it was true.”
“It wasn’t true, Nicole. You’ve never been a puck bunny.”
“I know. But it felt uncomfortably close to being true. But
the thing is, I grew up around hockey and hockey players. It’s not as if I just
hung around rinks looking to get lucky with hockey players. In fact, most of
the time, those hockey players never even saw me as a girl.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“It’s true. I was a tomboy. I played hockey myself. I was
friends with those guys. We had stuff in common. And then I dated a few hockey
players who actually saw me as a girl. So what? That doesn’t give anyone the
right to insult me.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“I guess I’ve never had tons of self-confidence,” she said
quietly. “Growing up with a superstar hockey player for a dad and a supermodel
mother, then my brother following in my dad’s footsteps…I was never going to be
as good as any of them. So it was really hurtful for someone to insult me like
that in front of the whole world.”
“You kept your chin up and you kept going,” he said. “And
you don’t have to be a superstar athlete or model to be as good as anyone else.
You’re amazing. The hockey club loves you, obviously. You do great things
there.”
“I was going to quit.”
His jaw slackened. “What?”
She nodded. “I talked to Breck today. I told him about us. I
told him I’m in love with you.” She lifted her chin. “I told him I’d quit so
there were no more brawls in the dressing room or embarrassing incidents. And
he told me…that Cody was gone.”
“Aw, Nicole.”
“He told me they don’t want me to quit.” Her eyes shone. “I
don’t feel like I’m all that important to the team, but they want me to stay. I
guess I do contribute in my own small way.”
“That’s what being part of a team is. Contributing in your
own way. We players get all the attention, but everyone behind the scenes is
important too, like Travis who sharpens our skates and looks after all our
equipment, like everyone who works in the office. Like you.”
She kissed him again, her eyes all shiny. “That’s why they
want you to be captain. They did the right thing trading for you.”
“Yeah. You know, it’s turned out pretty good.” He grinned
and stroked his hand down the curve of her bare back. “And more than just
meeting you. I was in a rut in California. I loved it there, but it wasn’t ’til
I got here and felt some pressure that I really felt that drive to push myself,
to make sure I did good.”
“I was worried about how much pressure it was going to be on
you, on one man. And look at you, captain of the team. Another one-man
advantage.”
He grinned and pulled her mouth back down to his.
Kelly Jamieson is the author of several sexy romance novels.
Her writing has been described as “blisteringly sexy” and “a spicy delicious
read”. If she can stop herself from reading or writing, she loves to cook. She
has shelves of cookbooks that she reads at length. She also enjoys gardening in
the summer, and in the winter she likes to read gardening magazines and seed
catalogues. She also loves shopping, especially for clothes and shoes.
But her family takes precedence over everything else (yes,
even writing). She has two teenage children who are the best kids in the world,
not that she’s biased, and a wonderful husband who does loads of laundry while
she plays on the computer writing stories. She loves hearing from readers.
Kelly welcomes comments from readers. You can find her
website and email addresses on her
author bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com
.
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